Oh I wish that I was in the land of cotton...

We went to St. George, Utah, last weekend. The Pickett name has a lot of history there. For example, this bike/scooter shop is the house my old man grew up in. My grandpa built it, after making the bricks by hand. Yes, I said he made the bricks.
This is, of course, the Tabernacle. One great great someone made the stairs wrong and another made the doors. History abounds.

This is Brigham Young's winter home, when he got old and couldn't handle the SLC weather, he headed to St. George for the winter months, thus starting a migratory pattern for old-timers for generations to come.This park is next to the Tabernacle. It has a fountain, ball parks, a river-water-play-place for kids that my girls loved getting wet in, and it was just a generally cool place to hang.The St. George Temple, where my folks were hitched for time and all eternity. It's the whitest temple, I'm pretty sure. I nearly got my retinas burned off. This guitar statue was on the other side of the Tabernacle from the park. It was coo. Also, the block or two up from that was pretty great, too. That's where Dan and I would hang out if we lived in Utah's Dixie.
My dad took us to St. George a million times as a kid. We'd load up the station wagon, dad would take his hard boiled eggs and #10 can of peanuts and off we'd go! I really didn't love the trip, but I didn't mind St. George. I'm glad I got to take my kids and let them see and under appreciate a few things I saw and under appreciated as a kid.

Writer's Block

It was a dark and stormy night.
. . .
Call me Ishmael.
. . .
In the beginning,
. . .
crap

Shakespearian Tragedies and Toddlers

So, Elena often (like every 10 minutes) asks any adult within earshot to tell her a story. She's big into Smurf stories with her dad because he likes to do "share stories" with her, where they take turns telling the story. They spend hours playing this game and she eats it up.

I, on the other hand, am not so patient with her.

Shock.

When Elena asks me for stories, I have 2 choices: either (1) I make something up, or (2) I retell a famous story/book/song lyrics in a form that is more appropriate for a child.

Now, I'm pretty durned creative, so the stories I make up are pretty great, if I do say so myself. The problem with option 1 is that I have the memory capacity of a chipmunk or parakeet or housefly. Inevitably, Elena will love the story and ask me to retell it the next day, or the next week. I've even had the request to retell a story I'd forgotten I had told her at all, months later. Not good.

Therefore, I usually stick with option 2. We've made it through a lot of Harry Potter stories, some Oliver Twist, Legend of the Seeker stories, and other random stuff. Whatever I happen to have read or been thinking about.

Last week, my favorite CWW and I went to see Macbeth, so naturally I have been pondering on the social commentary the Bard was making. This morning, when Elena interrupted my newspaper-and-tea-time to ask for a story (breaking a house rule in the process), I started telling her about a man, his friend, and 3 sister witches. Soon, I noticed she had stopped drinking her milk mid-gulp and was spellbound by the story.

When I got to the part of the foretelling of Birnam Wood marching on the castle, I added, "Macbeth was happy, because, how could a whole forest move?"

Elena, who was deep in thought, yelled, "With wheels! If Macbeth is a bad man, the prince should get a big truck with big wheels and put the wheels on the trees so they can move the forest to the castle!"

Well, yeah, I guess that would work.

Who? Me? Sarcastic? Nooooooooo!

As you may know, I've a bit of a talent for sarcasm. I don't really want this particular talent. In fact, one of my life goal is to get rid of my sarcasm. I think it can be really hurtful and divisive, two traits I don't necessarily want associated with me.
The problem ends up being How do you get rid of sarcasm? I'm obviously not good at it, because it's been a goal of mine for several years. Sometimes I'll be better, more decent and kind, and then sarcasm rears its ugly head. Geez, die already, stupid bad habit!
So, open forum: How do I stop being sarcastic (while still being funny, because we all know I'm pretty funny)?

USU Homecoming

I went to Utah State's homecoming with Dan and ChrisWhite Woodbury, their kids and mine, and we had a great time. (my Dan was working, so he couldn't come)
I always have a good time at homecoming reunions. It's good to catch up with some friends, meet some new folk, and generally reminisce.
This time, my favorite part of the trip was a little picture-text message exchange I had with my niece, Alyssa, a junior at USU.

I sent her this picture of Leah in her new Aggie gear, since Aly was the one who told me my kids needed Utah State stuff.

The caption said "FUTURE AGGIE!"

Alyssa, having Pickett blood in her, after all, couldn't let it be. She sent this picture back with the caption

"CURRENT AGGIES."

Always wanting the last word, I gathered my friends from yesteryear and posed them, adding the caption

"ONCE AN AGGIE, ALWAYS AN AGGIE."

Show me a true blooded Aggie from Utah, who doesn't love the spot where the saaaagebruuuush grooooooows!
Yeay for Utah State. Yeay for friends who are friends for life. Yeay for smart-alec nieces and their way of reminding me how good stuff is. Yeay for the countless hours of work in college that keeps me in Aggie ice cream and gets me into homecoming games for cheap.

"As Papa Smurf Always Says..."

Ok, my kids are obsessed with the Smurfs. How, you ask? I may or may not have bought the first season for them on DVD a few months ago because I thought it would be cool to watch old episodes with them.
Those Smurfs are crazy. Seriously, Peyo was smoking something when he did those episodes. But all the black magic aside, there's one thing in particular that really bothers me.Mushroom houses.
We all know from Smurf lore (or maybe I'm the only nerd here) that a typical Smurf is 3 apples high. If an apple measures between 2 and 3 inches, that would make them between 6 and 9 inches tall. This would make their houses anywhere from 18 to 27 inches (approximately) tall! That is one big mushroom!
After a little research, I found that there are huge mushrooms that cover giant expanses, the largest known mushroom covers 2,200 acres or the same as 1,665 football pitches and is in America, in the Malheur national forest in Oregon. However, it's not very tall, so I doubt we could set up camp in it.
This bad boy, the Giant Stalked Puffball, can grow to be 2 feet tall, but obviously doesn't have the width for Papa Smurf's laboratory inside or Vanity's, well, vanity.
Perhaps what Peyo was suggesting was a hybrid, of sorts, of the honey mushroom with the giant stalked puffball. I truly doubt it. I think he ingested more mushrooms than anything else.
Tra la la la la la! Smurf a happy song! Just ignore the fungal inconsistencies.

Official Times

400 Meter Swim 00:13:52.989
Transition 1 00:02:51.514
9 mi Bike 00:41:33.509
Transition 2 00:00:58.407
5K Run 00:31:59.138

Grand Total: 01:31:15.5