Chaos: A state of complete disorder and confusion
That’s about where things are in the Casa Del Sank these days. We’re currently enjoying a period of complete lack of control not seen since the late 90’s when our daughter decided to arrive home from Korea eight weeks early and exactly one day after the rest of the family disembarked from a plane in California to visit family. On that trip we went from baggage to claim at SFO back up to the ticket counter to purchase a round trip ticket for two on the very next flight back to Minneapolis.
Contributing factors to this unrest and discombobulation; communication breakdown, summer sluggishness and teen brain damage coupled with a very vigorous and well developed sense of responsibility which comes with being the first born child. (that would be Mrs S BTW)
Every damn summer I think “THIS” summer will be the one that’s relaxed and fun and we’ll do cool things as a family and not be overextended and we can spend a week at the lake and we can go for bike rides and I’ll get more exercise and eat right and the kids will be well behaved and the Mrs S won’t plan a million things and my yard will look great with no effort and fairies will come into the house and clean the bathrooms and fishtank and everyone will be in a great mood all the time and teenagers will not sleep past noon and a new day will dawn and we’ll enter the age of Aquarius were all the attractive people will wear skimpy clothes and all the people like me will become attractive and and and and and and and and and..
I live in fu#king Minnesota, if I can dream about Summer what the hell am I going to dream about? So I tend to make what are termed “unreasonable” expectations about the season. So I won’t see a lot of skimpy clothes, except on hot Friday afternoons when a walk down Minneapolis’s pedestrian mall can induce serious neck disorders like whiplash and TOM syndrome.
This summer was actually turning into the summer of my dreams. My kids, for once, were not going to Europe or the Florida Keys or the Rocky Mountains or anywhere all that great. Mrs S was not going anywhere either other than her annual trip to scout camp. (Interesting this year as not one of our kids went to camp.. only her… ) The only fly in the ointment this whole summer was a family reunion for Mrs S’s family on her Mom’s side. Honestly, there not a bunch that I know all that well, and frankly have a bit angst about. To make it better, the reunion is in St. Louis Missouri in August. I’ve been to St. Louis twice in my life and have the following travel advice for the place. If you don’t need to got there for any reason, don’t bother. And if, for some reason, you MUST go there, two things; stay on the west side of the river. I made that mistake last time, getting lost in East St. Louis and it was rather uncomfortable. The other thing, don’t go there in the summer, if’s freaking uncomfortable.
But I don’t get pick these things, I only get to go along for the ride. And a long ride it is at about 9 hours in the car. We could fly, but I’m currently on a lifetime boycott of airlines that hopefully will keep me from flying anywhere, ever again, unless all the current carriers go out a business and we start this whole air travel industry all over again. That, and the fact that flights for five of us to St. Louis this summer would have cost 22% more than our fights to Hawai’i did, last summer. When it costs more to fly to St. Louis than Hawai’i, I’m not going.
So, you ask hows it work’n for ya? Well the dream trip to the lake was cut short by 4 days. Seems that we’d had enough “family” time for one summer and everyone wanted to go home. I would have stayed but the emotional cost of 4 other pouting Sankary’s was more that I wanted to deal with. The other thing was the cousin and we did want to see him off right since we’ll probably never see him again. I’m sort of an honest guy and I have the reputation at work and at home of telling it like it is. So when you ask me “When are you going to come to Israel for a visit” I have to answer with what I perceive to be the honest truth.. which is.. never. Sorry, I don’t see this crew of mine ever going to Israel, or Europe, or Asia or anywhere where we’re not visiting Mrs S’s parents or siblings.
So, St. Louis is in two weeks, we’re leaving a week from Saturday to drive down to the great state of Missouri. We leaving Saturday at about 5:00 PM, with an ETA of 2:00 AM. We’re leaving at 5:00 because our boys are going to be in Boundary Waters Wilderness area in Ely Minnesota until at least noon. The boys are going to be in the Boundary Waters until noon on the same day we’re leaving for St. Louis because I can’t use a calendar effectively. So, what this means is.. we get to drive up to Ely, which is about as far as you can go in Minnesota with out a passport. Call it 4 hours if we speed. Have a cup of coffee, hopefully see the boys come off the lake. Then drive the next 12 hours down to St. Louis, arriving at about 2:00 AM. We have to learn to plan better.
And Mrs S accuses me of being negative because I haven’t embraced al this stuff.
This weekend I’m going to be in Beautiful Montgomery Minnesota, selling pork burgers to Gentiles at the Masons food booth. Stop by for a nosh if you’re in the area. I mention this because Mrs S is already planning the next set of social engagements for when we get back. A trip to the race track with her scout friends, to start our next adult merit badge, Gaming and Probability. This follows Fermentation Science where we made beer, went to a wine tasting and did a scotch tasting that got completely out of hand, they were fishing the scouts out of the sewers for weeks.
Which leads back to Montgomery where we were planning to hangout except.. she doesn’t like socializing with Masons.. doesn’t really know them. I don’t like socializing with extended family but apparently that’s exactly how I’m going to spend my precious vacation time this summer. Doing just that. I don’t make her go to my family events. Hell I don’t make myself go to my families events. She complained that my family is hard to get long with. .we haven’t seen any of them except Mickey, who she likes, since our wedding in 1985 for F’s sake. Haven’t seen my parents since 2003, and before that it was 1995.. so what’s the complaint?
Bottom line, no one around here knows which way is up at the moment. And I’m not sure we’re going to for the balance of the summer.
1 Comment
July 22, 2008 at 11:52 pm
I hear ya, Brother. Two summers ago I was alone with kids while Aaron had already moved. Last Summer I was dealing in survival mode helping a friend and this summer…we’ve had a death in the family, been away more than we’ve been home, and had maybe 2 official “lazy days of summer”. Argh! I have got to stop thinking, “This will be the dream summer! I deserve it!”