Vacations

Vacations are like ice cream cones. Oh they look great as you are putting them together, taking that sugar cone in hand and adding one, two, or even three of your favorite scoops of ice cream. Often the planning of the cone is as much fun as the thought of eating it. Then the reality of eating comes to the fore.

The top scoop goes down pretty easy, still staying relatively congealed and cold to the palate. As one works themselves into the core of the cone, the ambiance begins to have its effect on the wonder of all the planning. Everything starts to melt. That which was so glorious seconds before, has now turned into a dripping mess of ever increasing proportions. The flavor of choice becomes a sticky glove covering the hand. The once sweet container of bliss turns into a soft, gooey, object which has lost its ability to retain its contents. It is now not even able to act as a good funnel (one of the many joys of an able cone).

Vacations are just like this. The planning is a lot of fun, pulling out maps and travel guides, thoughtfully scouring the web for neat places to go and things to see. Reading reviews of hotels and restaurants in search of the greatest trip known to man only whets the appetite. Is it four stars or five stars? How many reviews does that hotel have? How close to the beach, to the mall, to the movie theater, to the tourist attraction? Do they allow pets? With everything planned, one sets out and thus begins the meltdown.

I would rather not go over the many facets of "cone destruction" on vacation, but suffice it to say, nothing ever turns out as it was planned. The plane may arrive late, the baggage too! The hotel may say 4 stars, but they meant you can see 4 at night from the postage stamp window in your bathroom that over looks the European ventilation shaft that runs from a center courtyard in the hotel measuring 5 feet by 5 feet (which is the direction of your room with a view facing the other bathroom windows). Not to mention the occasional viewing opportunity into your fellow guests' vacation bathroom that are unplanned and truly unwanted. Did I say I wouldn't go over these things?

Then there is the food ("this hamburger doesn't taste like meat mommy"). When you do get to a restroom, if you do in time, it may not be a pretty scene. It reminds me of a time when the diapers ran out after a difficult, winding road where the back end had caught up with the front end and there was no end to the mess.

All I am trying to say is that vacations might be better experienced in the mind, where moth and dust corrupteth not and the joy of returning to one's own bed can be had every night with one's own sweetly tender pillow (not those rocks they give you in every hotel known to man). That's right, the place where kids behave because they know the belt can come out at any time (because we are not performing for the other tourists). The place where meals are known, food is cheap, people love you and you love them, and where the prayers of the saints are spoken to God after a bath in a tub that fits or a shower that has the shampoo that works on your hair. The place called home, where the yard needs to be mowed, and the trash taken out, and the garage swept, and the grass watered, and the dog feed, and the beds made, and the clothes washed, and the dishes put away, and the floors vacuumed, and the furniture dusted, and the toilets cleaned, and the bills paid and where we get to go to work 5 days a week...

How about them ice cream cones?

Yards

The grass always grows greener in the other yard. Not mine! I have a yard with the potential to be historic, Homeric, exemplary, yea verily pretty good. But I have a debility. I generally hate yard work.

I drive through my neighborhood watching the poor slaves to the shovels, rakes and manure, fast at work sweating their lives into their yards and I "tsk-ulate." You know what I mean, I "tsk, tsk" in my mind feeling sorry for my fellows (and perhaps look down on the poor indentured slobs). I am free to do that, since I am the unknown traveler through our borough.

However, I do love my wife. That may seem strange to offer at this point in my not so subtle diatribe against yards and their incumbent tasks. She loves yards. I am afraid she not only loves yards, but also loves yard work. I am conflicted...love wife, hate yards; wife loves yards, husband is trapped.

I have decided to love my wife through the yard and all its implied travail. She is worth it, really! It does, however, not change the truth that yard work sucks! I love my wife, and I will love the yard. God made the garden, by the way, so He loves yards also. Man, I really am trapped. Love God, love yards...

So I have furthered my decision to love my wife and God by doing the yard. I will rake, mow, seed, trim, clip, plant, and water. God would have me do these things for loving Him more and proving myself to my earthly beloved. Yards, I sometimes think God did cast the first couple out of the garden...I am only praying that He will do a miracle and give me love for the yard.

Water

Desert living is different living. At least it is different from my growing up years in San Diego and my travels as a missionary in Central America and South America. I now live in a desert, but the problem is it doesn't feel like a desert.

The air in Utah is very dry. In fact, one of the greatest transitions that our family had to make in moving to Utah was the lack of humidity. Really, it snows a ton here, rains copiously (like it has been for the last few months) and yet, this is the dry skin capital of the universe. God graced me with a wonderful skin composition which has never felt dry to me until I arrived at this place. I didn't even know what lotion was until I moved here. Whilst the snow is flying, I am itching myself to death (self-inflicted road rash) and trying to find a manly smelling lotion that actually works (BTW, there are very few skin lotions on the market that don't smell like some girl perfume). How can these things be? Well, we live in a desert.

The other thing that is weird about living here in this seemingly non-desert desert is because it looks so lush and green and mountainous and humid and lush and green (did I say that already?), you don't feel like you need to drink water. Unlike the song from the Sons of the Pioneers, this place dupes you into not drinking water. I have gone all day without drinking a drop of the old H2O. Recently the chorus of that Sons of the Pioneers song has been ringing in my ears, "Keep a-movin' Dan don't ya listen to him Dan," is talking about the devil beguiling us with mirages. Well that's where I've been, not even looking for the most necessary component for our lives on the earth, water. It's been a reverse mirage. Everything looks great, why drink any water? Remember, I live in a desert.

The next thing that is weird is we have a lot of water. Our mountains are right now holding a flood that is going to baptize the valley in which I live with so much snow runoff that it is probably going to beat all the records. Yet, we are preparing to give our water away to more thirsty climes, such as Southern California. Well, we do live in a desert. Maybe we are just trying to keep abreast of our regional environmental geography. You know, we are in a desert, so a desert we must remain. For those who don't know, desert (noun) a region so arid because of little rainfall that it supports only sparse and widely spaced vegetation or no vegetation at all. And that's the problem. We have water, but we are trying our best to give it away. Desert (with the voice of Jack Sparrow).

Finally, the frustration of itching while feeling dizzy from lack of water has got me all goof-a-lated (I know this isn't a word). I have been so spaced out lately that I can only attribute it to the combination of this year's attack of the pollen and my lack of drinking minimal water quantities. Who will save me from this body of death? Well I know Jesus is really going to do that part, but in the mean time, I got to drink water more regularly.

So, I hoist my water bottle into the air and encourage you to drink your water daily, even though you may live in a beautifully vegetated desert like I do. Cheers and bottoms up!