Seeing as how I am about to have major surgery, one of the main things that is on the brain is, frankly, death.
I know that statistically speaking and based on my surgeon's death rate, my chances of dying are very, very, very slim. But, it is something that cannot be ruled out because the death rate for humans? Yeah, it's hovering right there at 100%. You're gonnna go some time, it's just a matter of when.
So, as I'm looking back at my life and the things I've done, there's a lot that I can be proud of, some that I can wince at, and only (thankfully) a little bit to be ashamed of and a little bit to be regretful of. And it's one of the things that I'm regretful about that I want to talk a little bit about today.
I am regretful that I haven't been able to spread more of the Good News around. Because it's a secret that needs to be told, and to be lived and breathed and rejoiced in.
Now, before my athiest readers (and I know you're out there! Hi!) click away to some other page, I would like to ask for a little bit of patience here. I know that y'all are tired of being bludgeoned with the religion stick. Frankly, I am too.
So, today I am officially coming out of my religion closet. I do NOT believe in the "traditional" Christianity that is being preached from the pulpits of hundreds of churches every Sunday. I no longer adhere to the tenets of my childhood in the Catholic Church. And thank the Lord above that I am able to rejoice in that.
You see, everything I believe can be boiled down to one single statement. God is going to do what He told us He would do. And what is that thing He told us, you might ask? That He was going to save the world through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
Now, some of you may be saying, "Well, duh! That's what Christianity is about!" Well, not exactly.
Modern Christianity believes that you have to accept Jesus as your personal Savior, otherwise when you die, you go to hell. And don't forget that little prayer you have to say to "ask Him into your heart" because if you don't, well, then, He's not your Savior, now is he? So, how much of that is actually Biblically true? Not much, actually.
See, if some people don't accept Christ, then how can the world be saved? The world either gets saved or it doesn't. Because if only some people get saved, then how is that the "world?" Either God is a notorious liar, or we down here on Earth lost something in the translation.
So, basically I believe that everyone in the whole entire world will be saved. That THIS is the Good News we are instructed to shout from the rooftops. That every single one of us will be delivered from this life full of pain, misery and discontent. That Jesus really and truly is the Great Physician who is here to heal our ills and came to reconcile mankind back to the Father. And that it doesn't matter if you understand or even believe this in this lifetime or not.
Guess what? This makes me a heretic! Whoo-hoo! Ooh, and I'm even part of a "cult" according to the mainstream. Believing in Universal Reconciliation is tantamount to cavorting with the devil in some circles - even worse than athiesm and Satanism! Dang, I never knew it would be so fun to be a subversive. :::grin::: Nevermind that this viewpoint was the one that was dominant back in the first century - the closest to when Jesus actually walked the Earth. Three out of five great centers of Christian teaching specifically advocated the salvation of all. The fourth taught annihilation similar to what the Jehovah's Witnesses believe, and the fifth taught Eternal Torment - which is what our modern-day version of Christianity is based from.
Anyway, I could ramble on and on and on about this for a very long time. And you're probably going to think of me as some kind of a kook no matter what. I don't pretend to have all the answers. I'm still in a huge discovery mode with all of this. All I know is that about four years ago, everything that I knew and understood to be true was turned upside down. And the shocking thing was was that it was all right there in front of my eyes if I cared to look and truly search for it. It's not for nothing that my favorite verse is "It is the Glory of God to hid a thing, and the honor of kings to seek out such a thing."
For those who believe in the Bible, here are a few verses that will begin to show you what I am talking about. This was originally posted by Craig on the Tentmaker forums (link below).
First, Paul says ".....work OUT your salvation with fear and trembling:" (Phil 2:12)
Now this does not say we are working FOR our salvation (i.e. that we have to make a choice to accept Christ in this life or that we have to do good works to qualify - Sarah), but rather we are working it OUT.
"It is God who is at work IN you, both to will and to work for His good pleasure." (Phil 2:13)
Now from what I can see here is, Salvation is already IN us and we are bring it out of us.
"For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work IN you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus." (Phil 1:6)
This alone proves to me solidily that Paul taught Universal Reconciliation of all mankind.
Anyway, I won't bludgeon you with my religion bat anymore. But I just had to get it out somewhere. I have yet to fully "come out" in my real life. I imagine it's almost as tough as having to come out that you are gay to your family when they believe that being gay is an abomination. The risk of rejection and pain is just as high - as well as their attempts to "convert" you back to the "right" side. I know I'm going to have to do it one of these days. I tried once to convey my thoughts on this to The Husband, and the rage he went into was something I won't ever forget. People get very angry when their status quo is threatened. :::sigh::: It's the one area of my marriage that I would change if I could - for him to be understanding and supportive of the path I truly believe God has sent me on, even if he never believes it to be true.
*****
If you want to learn more about Universal Reconciliation and the idea that all will be saved, there's a few web sites out there that you can peruse.
www.bibletruths.com - This was the site that I first stumbled across that made me re-think everything I knew about being a Christian. If you can handle Ray's writing style, which is very acerbic and sarcastic and a little bit rambling, then you can glean a whole lot of information from it. He has an excellent diatribe against the doctrine some televangelists spew. And don't EVEN mention tithing to the man. He begins to froth at the mouth at how un-Biblical this is.
www.tentmaker.org - This is a more mellow site, and is probably a better one to go to first. Gary Siegler and company have some compelling articles and Biblical proofs.
www.sonplace.com - This site has a book linked to it called SonPlacing, and goes on to explore the Sonship principals which explores more of what it means to be part of this universal reconciliation process.
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Monday, July 10, 2006
I guess it's time for these - the "Before" shots
But I really, really don't want to see them.
:::sigh:::
Please be gentle with me. I really don't see myself this way when I look in the mirror. But a photo? Oh God in Heaven. I can't stand the photos.
:::sigh:::
I guess it really shows how much I need the surgery to get this problem under control. And I'm wearing a dress that everybody says looks so good on me! I mean, really, WTF? How could I possibly look "good" in something that makes me look, well, look like this? Maybe it looks better in person? Gaahhh!
At least I've got a really good before picture to compare the new, svelte me to, right? Right?
Guess I need to post more to get this further down the page. Blech.
:::sigh:::
Please be gentle with me. I really don't see myself this way when I look in the mirror. But a photo? Oh God in Heaven. I can't stand the photos.
:::sigh:::
I guess it really shows how much I need the surgery to get this problem under control. And I'm wearing a dress that everybody says looks so good on me! I mean, really, WTF? How could I possibly look "good" in something that makes me look, well, look like this? Maybe it looks better in person? Gaahhh!
At least I've got a really good before picture to compare the new, svelte me to, right? Right?
Guess I need to post more to get this further down the page. Blech.
Nine days and counting
Why is my life a deadline now? I mean, it couldn't be that I'm doing something life-altering, now could it? :::gasp:::
I've never really been one much for the countdown. When I got married, we hadn't even set a date so there was obviously no count-down. We just ran off and got ourselves hitched and only after that told my parents. Yeah, we had a reception, but that's no biggie. We were already married. Anticipation over!
When pregnant with Thing One, while I was given a due-date, I didn't pay attention to it. I didn't believe in due dates because babies come when babies come. I had a rough time frame to go by, but I had about a month that I had sketched out as the time "when the baby would come." It was all good. I was on her schedule. Then she ended up being born on her due date. D'oh! Served me right.
With Thing Two, it was a whole other story. In a nutshell, I had no clue I was pregnant. For nine months. Yes, you're reading that right. And neither did the four different doctors that I saw during the full YEAR prior to her birth when I was being treated for severe gastro-intestinal problems that felt like someone was throwing a bowling ball around my insides. In fact, I had my annual pap smear a month and a half before she was born and the nurse practicioner didn't even catch it. "Here's your uterus, my dear, it's a bit tipped but it's normal, and here's your ovaries." Yeah, right. In the meantime, she strips my membranes while getting her scrape for the pap smear. Most painful thing I had ever experienced during my yearly exam. Yeow! And then she hands me the refill for my prescription of birth control pills. Yup. Birth control pills. The ones that I had been taking continuously since the birth of Thing One. It's a wonder that child didn't come out some sort of a mutant!
So for both marriage and birth - two of the most important and life-altering times in a woman's life - I haven't had a real clock ticking in the background. But now, with this surgery, I do. And it's making very loud noises in my head that I can't drown out! Gah! It's even echoing!
And there's sooo much to get done before my time comes. I have to get my short-term disability paperwork in, and make my official notice to my boss about my time that I'm gone, and clean off my desk, and hand over my work to my co-workers, and make sure that my mother knows how to find Delano and not get lost, and make sure the girls are properly packed, and to make sure that I pack the right kind of clothes and the right kind of hygene things and the protein powders and my pillow and, and, and . . . .
In and out. In and out. Deep breaths. Time creeps forth in its petty pace, and nothing I can do will either speed it up or slow it down. Hopefully I'll be able to deal with that and not go insane before next Wednesday.
I've never really been one much for the countdown. When I got married, we hadn't even set a date so there was obviously no count-down. We just ran off and got ourselves hitched and only after that told my parents. Yeah, we had a reception, but that's no biggie. We were already married. Anticipation over!
When pregnant with Thing One, while I was given a due-date, I didn't pay attention to it. I didn't believe in due dates because babies come when babies come. I had a rough time frame to go by, but I had about a month that I had sketched out as the time "when the baby would come." It was all good. I was on her schedule. Then she ended up being born on her due date. D'oh! Served me right.
With Thing Two, it was a whole other story. In a nutshell, I had no clue I was pregnant. For nine months. Yes, you're reading that right. And neither did the four different doctors that I saw during the full YEAR prior to her birth when I was being treated for severe gastro-intestinal problems that felt like someone was throwing a bowling ball around my insides. In fact, I had my annual pap smear a month and a half before she was born and the nurse practicioner didn't even catch it. "Here's your uterus, my dear, it's a bit tipped but it's normal, and here's your ovaries." Yeah, right. In the meantime, she strips my membranes while getting her scrape for the pap smear. Most painful thing I had ever experienced during my yearly exam. Yeow! And then she hands me the refill for my prescription of birth control pills. Yup. Birth control pills. The ones that I had been taking continuously since the birth of Thing One. It's a wonder that child didn't come out some sort of a mutant!
So for both marriage and birth - two of the most important and life-altering times in a woman's life - I haven't had a real clock ticking in the background. But now, with this surgery, I do. And it's making very loud noises in my head that I can't drown out! Gah! It's even echoing!
And there's sooo much to get done before my time comes. I have to get my short-term disability paperwork in, and make my official notice to my boss about my time that I'm gone, and clean off my desk, and hand over my work to my co-workers, and make sure that my mother knows how to find Delano and not get lost, and make sure the girls are properly packed, and to make sure that I pack the right kind of clothes and the right kind of hygene things and the protein powders and my pillow and, and, and . . . .
In and out. In and out. Deep breaths. Time creeps forth in its petty pace, and nothing I can do will either speed it up or slow it down. Hopefully I'll be able to deal with that and not go insane before next Wednesday.
Friday, July 07, 2006
When it rains, it pours
Aaargh! It figures that I'm in the process of tidying up one area of my life when another area explodes. Isn't that Murphy's law?
So Thing One and Thing Two's childcare provider just told us last night that she didn't want to watch the girls anymore once my surgery is over and done with. It seems she can't deal with their antics, constant rambunctiousness and overall disobedient attitude any longer. :::sigh:::
On the one hand, I can't blame her. My children can be very headstrong and seem to have a propensity for doing what they want, no matter how much guidance you try to give them to go in the opposite direction. They need and crave attention, and when they don't get it, or how they want it, they do things that get them negative attention - i.e. punishment.
On the other hand, if she would have actually paid attention to them, they probably wouldn't act out as much as they do. They have to be sent off on different paths, so that the temptation to torment the other isn't present. But if they are given focused and specific tasks and are appropriately paid attention to in those tasks, then they are golden angels! In other words, get off the couch, stop having them watch Oprah and Dr. Phil with you, and actually, um, I don't know, EARN the money I pay you to watch my kids while I'm at work!
Don't get me wrong. Our childcare provider is a loving person who really cares for my girls. They wouldn't have been with her as long as they have been if she wasn't. I think the problem lies in that she has only one child of her own and has never really had to deal with sibling rivalry as a parent. It's a tough job when you're dealing with two girls that are like oil and water with each other.
I know that I have contributed to the problem they present because I have a large tendancy to tune them out because I just can't deal with the constant sniping at each other. I have been too exhausted from having two jobs and being this obese for far too long, and unfortunately that kind of parenting just doesn't fly. And, to be fair to me, The Husband has been an absent parent for a long time as well - hiding out in the garage and leaving all of the evening stuff in my hands. But we have realized this problem and are working on it together. We're going to have to change some of the routines we have fallen into, and while it may take some time, and we'll have to give up some personal space, we need to do it.
In the short term, losing our child care isn't a totally bad thing. The girls are going to be with my mom during the first week after my surgery, so that at least is taken care of. And then I'll be off of work at least another three weeks after that, so that puts us into the middle of August before I have to have somebody or a center lined up to take care of them.
The problem is, and always has been, is that we need somebody that is capable of taking them to school and picking them up because there is no bus service to private schools. Especially not a school as small as the one they go to. I have to be to work at 7 a.m. and school doesn't start until 8:20 for them. Maybe I'll be able to re-arrange my work so that I can drop the girls off at 8 when the teachers arrive and then find somebody for the afternoons. That might work the best in the end, but it will make for long days for me. There's absolutely no way The Husband can drop the kids off, because he has to be at work by 6 a.m. - there's just no getting around that at all. At least he can pick them up at a normal time, though.
Is it bad that I just want to push the fast-forward button on Thing One so that she can be 16 and able to drive to and from school? No? I can't do that? Well, damn. And a whole lot of other four-letter explitives.
We'll make it through this, and it was probably time for a change anyway insofar as the girls are concerned. I know The Husband has been wanting a change for a while. Maybe this is the nudge we needed to get us out of a very deep rut. Only time will tell, right?
So Thing One and Thing Two's childcare provider just told us last night that she didn't want to watch the girls anymore once my surgery is over and done with. It seems she can't deal with their antics, constant rambunctiousness and overall disobedient attitude any longer. :::sigh:::
On the one hand, I can't blame her. My children can be very headstrong and seem to have a propensity for doing what they want, no matter how much guidance you try to give them to go in the opposite direction. They need and crave attention, and when they don't get it, or how they want it, they do things that get them negative attention - i.e. punishment.
On the other hand, if she would have actually paid attention to them, they probably wouldn't act out as much as they do. They have to be sent off on different paths, so that the temptation to torment the other isn't present. But if they are given focused and specific tasks and are appropriately paid attention to in those tasks, then they are golden angels! In other words, get off the couch, stop having them watch Oprah and Dr. Phil with you, and actually, um, I don't know, EARN the money I pay you to watch my kids while I'm at work!
Don't get me wrong. Our childcare provider is a loving person who really cares for my girls. They wouldn't have been with her as long as they have been if she wasn't. I think the problem lies in that she has only one child of her own and has never really had to deal with sibling rivalry as a parent. It's a tough job when you're dealing with two girls that are like oil and water with each other.
I know that I have contributed to the problem they present because I have a large tendancy to tune them out because I just can't deal with the constant sniping at each other. I have been too exhausted from having two jobs and being this obese for far too long, and unfortunately that kind of parenting just doesn't fly. And, to be fair to me, The Husband has been an absent parent for a long time as well - hiding out in the garage and leaving all of the evening stuff in my hands. But we have realized this problem and are working on it together. We're going to have to change some of the routines we have fallen into, and while it may take some time, and we'll have to give up some personal space, we need to do it.
In the short term, losing our child care isn't a totally bad thing. The girls are going to be with my mom during the first week after my surgery, so that at least is taken care of. And then I'll be off of work at least another three weeks after that, so that puts us into the middle of August before I have to have somebody or a center lined up to take care of them.
The problem is, and always has been, is that we need somebody that is capable of taking them to school and picking them up because there is no bus service to private schools. Especially not a school as small as the one they go to. I have to be to work at 7 a.m. and school doesn't start until 8:20 for them. Maybe I'll be able to re-arrange my work so that I can drop the girls off at 8 when the teachers arrive and then find somebody for the afternoons. That might work the best in the end, but it will make for long days for me. There's absolutely no way The Husband can drop the kids off, because he has to be at work by 6 a.m. - there's just no getting around that at all. At least he can pick them up at a normal time, though.
Is it bad that I just want to push the fast-forward button on Thing One so that she can be 16 and able to drive to and from school? No? I can't do that? Well, damn. And a whole lot of other four-letter explitives.
We'll make it through this, and it was probably time for a change anyway insofar as the girls are concerned. I know The Husband has been wanting a change for a while. Maybe this is the nudge we needed to get us out of a very deep rut. Only time will tell, right?
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
If a tree falls in the forest . . .
And nobody is around to hear it, did the tree really make noise? Well, at least that's what The Husband is hoping.
Anyway, it's been a busy, busy time since the last time I updated around here. Getting the house appraised for a re-finance, going up into the mountains to visit some friends who have a brand new baby, getting stuck on a logging trail with our truck and a trailer full of quads (very temporarily), having hot sex with The Husband bent over my quad in the middle of the forest near the top of a very tall mountain, pulling trees out of our way with the manly-man quad, tempting death with the motorhome and its wheel that spectacularily managed to have its brake drum completely disintegrate on us before coming back down the mountain, and then spending the Fourth of July (what remained of it after the brake drum incident) soaking in our bathtub-like swimming pool for a while and then crashing exhausted into bed. Whew! What a spectacular few days, indeed!
Yeah, so, to get away from the oppressive heat of the High Desert, we went into the High Country up in Kennedy Meadows to meet with our friends N & V and their three children who live there in a gorgeous A-frame house with a spectacular view of the valley they are in. Instant temperature change of approximately 25 degrees. We went from 107 with nasty humidity to 80 in the space of 45 minutes. Ahhhhh! Bliss!
Now of that 45 minutes, about 30 of them were spent traveling up a stretch of road called "Nine-Mile." Nine miles of torturous weaving your way up the side of a mountain in a barely two-lane road (sections of which you pray that there is nobody else coming around the corner coming the other way because you don't want to fall off the side of the cliff, thankyouverymuch!). The Husband in the big Dodge diesel truck pulling our fifth-wheel and me in the Ford truck pulling a trailer full of our quads - one for each of us. Yeah, so it was slow going even with the powerful trucks. Gotta be safe! But it's still killer on the brakes. So much so that just as we were about to pull into N & V's place, I noticed that the left rear of the fifth-wheel was smoking. I let The Husband know once he got parked, and he examined it all looked fine, just a bit hot and obviously it would have plenty of time to cool down before we were going to go back down Nine-Mile.
We procede to have a good time with our friends that we don't get to see very often, and much tequila (Cabo Wabo - very smooth, very dangerous) was consumed between the four adults. I got my baby fix as V had a baby girl six weeks previous. She's still so very tiny and precious. I love that little age, when they can't crawl away from you, can't push away from you, and they just love falling asleep on your shoulder. I'd almost have more spawn of my own but for the fact that they have this bad tendancy to grow out of being babies and eventually become children and then "pre-people." And then adolescents. :::shudder::: Anyway . . .
As we always do, we went on a quad run with them. Nick wanted to take us to Beach Meadow which is up higher than they are in the mountains. So we loaded up four adults and five children and headed out, trailering our quads, the food and the fire pit. We finally reach Beach Meadow, and discover that people with horse trailers are already there. Drat. Can't spook the horses with the quads. Not very friendly, right? So, we decide to head for Lion Meadow, which is up even further.
For some reason, it was decided that the people (read: The Husband and myself) who had never been to Lion Meadow should lead. Umm, not a good move. And Nand his truck had trouble with a curve and were delayed a bit, which meant that we were a good deal in front of them. And then there was the road that we were on. Eventually, there were no more signs directing us to the meadow that we wanted, so we just kept going on the more-traveled roads. Until there was a huge freaking log in front of us. Blocking the entire road. And there's nowhere to turn around. Oh my!
After a few moments of panic, The Husband decides that he'll back down the road. Not a bad idea considering how good he is at it. Seriously, I have never seen a better backer-upper in my entire life when you have a trailer or something of that nature behind you. It's magical, I swear!
So, we're backing down the road, and then a really hairy turn comes up and we have to stop. About this time, N, who safely parked where there was a place to turn around, comes hauling ass up the road on his quad with his oldest son (age 4) riding with him. We assess the situation, and decide that we need to offload quads, and then use The Husband's big Grizzly to tow the trailer back to where V, the baby and their other son (age 2) were waiting. The girls and I gear up, as does Nick's son, the guys unhook the trailer and turn it around, hook it to the Grizzly, and we all head off, me on the Grizzly and The Husband backing the truck down slowly behind us. The quads reach V, but then N pulls up behind me and has to unhook the trailer so that he can take the Grizzly back up to help The Husband out. Seems he sunk the front end into very soft dirt trying to turn around and now can't get out. Feh! Thank God that The Husband bought a winch for that quad of his. It's going to be a lifesaver!
A very short time later, The Husband and N arrive, all safe and sound. Whew! Turns out that the sign to Lion's Meadow was broken off and that's why we went off on a wild hare. Them's the breaks, right? So we figure that right here was a good place to base from and we'll just go on a caravan on the quads to the meadow later.
We start gathering wood for the fire, and N & V take off on their quads up the road to scout things out, as well as to get a mommy and daddy break. I happily take the baby, and our girls and their boys amuse themselves by playing in the trees, and all is happy and well. N & V get back, and tell us to head out on our quads. Sweet! So we go on our merry way. We go around the mountain and find a lovely small meadow. No other humans around. Nature at its best. The Husband motions to me to get off my quad. And, well . . .
Have you ever seen the movie Mallrats? And the scene where Brodie (Jason Lee) drags Rene (Shannon Doherty) into the elevator right under Shannon's (Ben Affleck) nose while TS (Jeremy London) distracts him? Yeah. That scene. Sort of like that. Complete with me doing the little happy song and dance Brodie does afterward, but without the "too little, too late" comment from The Husband. :::grin:::
Anyway, the rest of the afternoon was marvelous. We encountered another fallen tree in the road, but were able to move it with the help of The Husband's Grizzly. That thing has already more than paid for itself in my book. Wowzers. Eventually we pack it all up and head back for N & V's place, and then collapse into exhausted sleep.
The next day, we're going to head for home. Everything's packed and ready, the fifth-wheel is set to go. We pull out of N & V's driveway, and The Husband comes to an abrupt halt. It seems that the left rear wheel on the fifth-wheel is canted nearly 30 degrees to the left. Very bad, not good. So, we gingerly back it back onto N & V's property, and The Husband and N pull off the wheel and survey the damage. Ummm, not good. The entire brake has disintegrated, and pulling off the drum reveals a host of little tiny chunks of metal that aren't supposed to be there. Very bad, not good. So, we left it there, and the local shade tree mechanic of the area is going to look at it for us.
Hopefully it will be fixed in time for my surgery because we were going to use that to stay in during my immediate post-op period. But for now, I'm looking for a hotel instead.
So all in all, a good weekend, I would say. But definitely another adventure in the annals of The Husband and Sarah show.
Anyway, it's been a busy, busy time since the last time I updated around here. Getting the house appraised for a re-finance, going up into the mountains to visit some friends who have a brand new baby, getting stuck on a logging trail with our truck and a trailer full of quads (very temporarily), having hot sex with The Husband bent over my quad in the middle of the forest near the top of a very tall mountain, pulling trees out of our way with the manly-man quad, tempting death with the motorhome and its wheel that spectacularily managed to have its brake drum completely disintegrate on us before coming back down the mountain, and then spending the Fourth of July (what remained of it after the brake drum incident) soaking in our bathtub-like swimming pool for a while and then crashing exhausted into bed. Whew! What a spectacular few days, indeed!
Yeah, so, to get away from the oppressive heat of the High Desert, we went into the High Country up in Kennedy Meadows to meet with our friends N & V and their three children who live there in a gorgeous A-frame house with a spectacular view of the valley they are in. Instant temperature change of approximately 25 degrees. We went from 107 with nasty humidity to 80 in the space of 45 minutes. Ahhhhh! Bliss!
Now of that 45 minutes, about 30 of them were spent traveling up a stretch of road called "Nine-Mile." Nine miles of torturous weaving your way up the side of a mountain in a barely two-lane road (sections of which you pray that there is nobody else coming around the corner coming the other way because you don't want to fall off the side of the cliff, thankyouverymuch!). The Husband in the big Dodge diesel truck pulling our fifth-wheel and me in the Ford truck pulling a trailer full of our quads - one for each of us. Yeah, so it was slow going even with the powerful trucks. Gotta be safe! But it's still killer on the brakes. So much so that just as we were about to pull into N & V's place, I noticed that the left rear of the fifth-wheel was smoking. I let The Husband know once he got parked, and he examined it all looked fine, just a bit hot and obviously it would have plenty of time to cool down before we were going to go back down Nine-Mile.
We procede to have a good time with our friends that we don't get to see very often, and much tequila (Cabo Wabo - very smooth, very dangerous) was consumed between the four adults. I got my baby fix as V had a baby girl six weeks previous. She's still so very tiny and precious. I love that little age, when they can't crawl away from you, can't push away from you, and they just love falling asleep on your shoulder. I'd almost have more spawn of my own but for the fact that they have this bad tendancy to grow out of being babies and eventually become children and then "pre-people." And then adolescents. :::shudder::: Anyway . . .
As we always do, we went on a quad run with them. Nick wanted to take us to Beach Meadow which is up higher than they are in the mountains. So we loaded up four adults and five children and headed out, trailering our quads, the food and the fire pit. We finally reach Beach Meadow, and discover that people with horse trailers are already there. Drat. Can't spook the horses with the quads. Not very friendly, right? So, we decide to head for Lion Meadow, which is up even further.
For some reason, it was decided that the people (read: The Husband and myself) who had never been to Lion Meadow should lead. Umm, not a good move. And Nand his truck had trouble with a curve and were delayed a bit, which meant that we were a good deal in front of them. And then there was the road that we were on. Eventually, there were no more signs directing us to the meadow that we wanted, so we just kept going on the more-traveled roads. Until there was a huge freaking log in front of us. Blocking the entire road. And there's nowhere to turn around. Oh my!
After a few moments of panic, The Husband decides that he'll back down the road. Not a bad idea considering how good he is at it. Seriously, I have never seen a better backer-upper in my entire life when you have a trailer or something of that nature behind you. It's magical, I swear!
So, we're backing down the road, and then a really hairy turn comes up and we have to stop. About this time, N, who safely parked where there was a place to turn around, comes hauling ass up the road on his quad with his oldest son (age 4) riding with him. We assess the situation, and decide that we need to offload quads, and then use The Husband's big Grizzly to tow the trailer back to where V, the baby and their other son (age 2) were waiting. The girls and I gear up, as does Nick's son, the guys unhook the trailer and turn it around, hook it to the Grizzly, and we all head off, me on the Grizzly and The Husband backing the truck down slowly behind us. The quads reach V, but then N pulls up behind me and has to unhook the trailer so that he can take the Grizzly back up to help The Husband out. Seems he sunk the front end into very soft dirt trying to turn around and now can't get out. Feh! Thank God that The Husband bought a winch for that quad of his. It's going to be a lifesaver!
A very short time later, The Husband and N arrive, all safe and sound. Whew! Turns out that the sign to Lion's Meadow was broken off and that's why we went off on a wild hare. Them's the breaks, right? So we figure that right here was a good place to base from and we'll just go on a caravan on the quads to the meadow later.
We start gathering wood for the fire, and N & V take off on their quads up the road to scout things out, as well as to get a mommy and daddy break. I happily take the baby, and our girls and their boys amuse themselves by playing in the trees, and all is happy and well. N & V get back, and tell us to head out on our quads. Sweet! So we go on our merry way. We go around the mountain and find a lovely small meadow. No other humans around. Nature at its best. The Husband motions to me to get off my quad. And, well . . .
Have you ever seen the movie Mallrats? And the scene where Brodie (Jason Lee) drags Rene (Shannon Doherty) into the elevator right under Shannon's (Ben Affleck) nose while TS (Jeremy London) distracts him? Yeah. That scene. Sort of like that. Complete with me doing the little happy song and dance Brodie does afterward, but without the "too little, too late" comment from The Husband. :::grin:::
Anyway, the rest of the afternoon was marvelous. We encountered another fallen tree in the road, but were able to move it with the help of The Husband's Grizzly. That thing has already more than paid for itself in my book. Wowzers. Eventually we pack it all up and head back for N & V's place, and then collapse into exhausted sleep.
The next day, we're going to head for home. Everything's packed and ready, the fifth-wheel is set to go. We pull out of N & V's driveway, and The Husband comes to an abrupt halt. It seems that the left rear wheel on the fifth-wheel is canted nearly 30 degrees to the left. Very bad, not good. So, we gingerly back it back onto N & V's property, and The Husband and N pull off the wheel and survey the damage. Ummm, not good. The entire brake has disintegrated, and pulling off the drum reveals a host of little tiny chunks of metal that aren't supposed to be there. Very bad, not good. So, we left it there, and the local shade tree mechanic of the area is going to look at it for us.
Hopefully it will be fixed in time for my surgery because we were going to use that to stay in during my immediate post-op period. But for now, I'm looking for a hotel instead.
So all in all, a good weekend, I would say. But definitely another adventure in the annals of The Husband and Sarah show.
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