South Dakota and my final destination.

Well, The Roaming Bee is off again! I’ll be in South Dakota for five days.

Stop laughing.

It will be a great trip. You’re making the Presidents cry.

No, really, stop laughing.

You’ll miss me when I’m gone.

See you all if you don’t have a side-ache on Sunday. See if I send you a postcard.

To Seattle and back

All stories aside, the trip to Seattle turned out to be a great ride. Enjoyed mostly every minute of it. MOSTLY. But, pictures apparently talk lower than words, so here are pictures:

Apparently I don’t know how to use a camera.

We stayed in the Holiday Inn Express one night, and the pillows talk! Rather than give you a pillow menu (totally not making that up, they have those!) they give you two pillows. Totally should have taken these awesome covers that tell you what kind of pillow you’re sleeping on.

Then I got n*ked. O!

We stopped at the Columbia River Gorge. And tooka picture with our eyes closed.

We had some sushi on conveyor belts. This is the best kind because you can pick and choose what you want to eat. YUM.

And that’s about it. Our trip was as fast as these pictures were.

Discussions with a 20 year old.

On my recent boondoggle to Seattle with my mother and brother, the subject of age came up. I don’t remember the context, nor do I remember the content. Except that my brother takes joy in making me feel old. Not the ‘wrinkles, you have gray hairs old, but the ‘remember when’ old.

Age has never really been a factor with my mom. Getting older never really seemed to bother her. I never thought of my mom as old when I was a kid, nor do I now. As I recall, even though her sisters, 8 and 13 years older than her, were barely graying and my mom was covering her pepper-colored hair with chesnut brown hair color, she never really seemed bothered by it. Which is good news for me.

However, 25 is looking grim. It’s totally silly, I know. This is where my brother comes in super handy. He loves to say stuff all John Tesh-like:

Did you know…Titanic came out 10 years ago??

Did you know…The Santa Claus came out 12 years ago??

Did you know…so and so died 50 years ago TODAY??

Another thing that happened to me just a year ago, which I only thought happened to people like my dad who loves old movies and old celebrities: I was having a conversation about escaping odd situations with HubbyBee’s cousin who is 16. I said, “Ooooh, we’d have to pull a Maguyver move to escape.” And she looked at me and said, “Who’s Maguyver?” WOW. I’m actually that old where things from my past escape the younger people. Crap.

Which really eases my turning 25 mind. I know…it’s just cruel and unusual punishment. Soon enough BigBrotherBee will know what it’s like to have to worry about turning old. Or, more like having your ‘childhood memories’ treated as if they are priceless antiques that can only be found in the back of my moth-covered mind. Well, maybe I’m not that old. Yet.

P.S. Thanks to Steph for letting me ramble on her topic for today.

Back from the land of Sushi

I survived my trip! Now, if only I employed myself, I’d be able to upload all of the brillant pics from this weekend, and then proceed to fire myself for using my computer during work time for non-work stuff. Wait. That would be silly. So, no pictures right now. I’ll have them online tonight.

We had a great trip! Of course, Eastern Washington leaves something to be desired. If you’ve ever been there, and are not from Texas, then you’ll understand. It’s a wide expanse of…nothing. And I mean nothing. Not, North Dakota nothing, but definitely vacant. So much so, that I was like, you know, they really should put trivia questions or something on billboards along here. OR! Chunks of pictures where you have to guess what the picture is. OR Math problems. Whatever. it doesn’t really matter, and so is it isn’t so DAMN boring.

Now, I must backtrack here. Not to offend the Texans. It’s not that YOU’RE boring. It’s just that you might find this a lot like home and therefore not understand why it is so boring to me. I’ve spend a lot of time in Pennsylvania and Kentucky where things are pretty and green, and even my own state is green. This is just brown. Save for the gorge, there’s not a lot there. So, I apologize to all you Lone Stars. It’s nothing personal.

After dropping BigBrotherBee off at his apartment…still can’t believe he’s paying $1200 for rent. WOW. Well, he splits it between three people, but WHAT A RIP OFF! I’m telling you, it’s ludacris what they make college students pay for rent. Ok, total tangent. MomBee and I drove to Seattle for some sleepy and some SUSHI! YAY.

And now I get to the point. How awesome are those conveyor belt sushi places?? It’s so cool to sit there and pick whatever sushi you want, paying only $1 or$2 for sushi, and then getting to move on. It appeases my indecisive mind to pick and choose. And it’s so inexpensive! It was great. YUMMM. If only I could eat sushi every day for dinner.

But no, I had to return to reality. That only took 14 hours. I’m so sleep deprived right now.

Thanks, Mom, for a great trip!

Embrace your inner geekiness

me: wow, have you seen those Olympic legos? on digg? yes. I was on digg today.

Hubby Bee: no I haven’t, and wow are you turning into a nerd?

me: maybe. i was bored. am bored.

Yes, honey, I’m joining your side of the vortex and becoming a nerd. What do they say about couple eventually looking like each other?

courtesy of lifeonwax.com

Meet Me in Seattle

I haven’t seen my mom for a month. Which is a long time to me. I talk to her at least 3 times a day, and I yell at her work voicemail if it keeps picking up instead of her. No, her voice saying, “You’ve reached FarBeehive Press…blahblahblah” does nothing to console me. So, I keep calling and calling and calling, until one of her co-workers picks up and says, “Hello?” And I’m all, “Yes, this is Queen Bee, MomBee’s daughter.” They can barely wait to interrupt me and tell me that they knew it was me but of course, your mother is not here.

I’m not really whiny. It’s just another story for another day about how my mother and I were mortal enemies during my Teen Angst years, but now we’re closer than ever and I crave talking to her.

So, to resolve this not seeing her (mainly because of the Italy trip) I have decided to Boondoggle with her and BigBrother Bee to Seattle. I’m so excited! I haven’t seen Big Brother Bee outside of Facebook for 7 months because his Beehive is in Bellingham, WA and he doesn’t come home for menial holidays like Thanksgiving and Easter. When we was at home last, I was in Europe.

I’ve been to Seattle many times, and because we’re driving we’ll only have about 15 hours actually in Seattle. We’re leaving tonight and coming back Sunday. It’s sure to be a trip worth blogging about…maybe without the Walk Like an Egyptian episode. My cousin does make a killer martini, though. I’ll have to partake in one of those.

I leave in less than 3 hours!

Being left out on a family vacation. Again.

Sucks. It really does. My family finally returned from a two week stint in ITALY on Monday! A hiking in the Dolomites, museum-going in Venice, coffee-sipping in Corvara vacation in Italy. All four of them. My mother, my father, Big Brother Bee and Brother Bee. They all went. Without me.

I guess…not that I can blame them. It’s not the first time they’ve done this to me. Last time it was Vegas though. And this happened:

That’s Brother Bee on the left, Big Brother Bee on the right. Clearly he’s insane. Then, this happened:

That’s my Imo-to chan (Japanese sister) and Big Brother Bee. Mind you neither of them are old enough to drink. They’re just weird. And SUPER fun! What happens in Vegas, ends up in your sister’s blog, especially when you go without her.

Needless to say, I was totally jealous when my parents informed me that they were all going Italy. I couldn’t go because Brother Bee and I recently took our own European vacation to Germany. You can read about our adventure at Roaming Bee in Germany. And I had spent my portion of the trip money on the down payment on my house last July. Stupid house.

But, apparently they had a good time. They sent me messages like:

“we are alive. no need to worry. typing on this computer is hard. hope you are well!”

and

“hi !we’re still alive!!!!!!!!!! We’re having a great time. I think it’s Saturday and we’re in a town called Corvara. It’s so beautiful here. Wait til you see the pictures! We only have a little time on the computer so I’ll tell you lots more when we get home.

love you lots !mom”

Apparently being alive in Italy is a HUGE accomplishment. I have this view of their vacation being a little like the Griswald’s European Vacation. That’s the impression they give off.

Here’s one lasting image for you all to feast your eyes on:

I don’t even know what the hell this is, besides a picture of my dad. He likey whipped cream. Jealous much?

Because you can’t eat anything fresh anymore.

I was on Steph’s blog, and I found this website entitled ‘Digital Ramble’ which really didn’t mean anything to me until I had the following conversation, classified it as ramble, digitally, thus…digital ramble. So, here’s the conversation that just went down over Google chat between me and Hubby Bee, regarding this article on CNN:

Hubby Bee: good lord, why have there been so many salmonella outbreaks

me: there’s another one?

Hubby Bee: ya

jalapenos this time

me: because the FDA is not doing their job, and they’re letting shotty farmers farming shotty foods.

Hubby Bee: apparently

me: because our food productivity is actually very disgusting, and no one has bothered to make any fuss about it because we’re Americans and are under the false pretext that all of our food is fine because we’re the biggest/best country in the world.

Ok, I realize I was a little harsh and maybe a little blunt…BUT SERIOUSLY, how long is this going to go on?? Thank god I’m about to receive a tomato plant, so I can grow my own tomatoes. I’m just worried that soon we’re going to be salmonella cases eating Mrs. Stouffer’s Lasagna with high cholesterol.

Enough of the rambling, going back to work, my boss is going to fire me.

Nature! It’s all around me!

My camping experience this weekend left me with some stories, some memories, and some black holes. I want to write about it, even if I can’t “thank my mother” for this experience. Oh no, she’s off on a holiday in Italy with the rest of my family.

However, it does relate to a camping story and my love for the wilderness, for which I can thank my mother. In fact, she realized she was pregnant with me while hiking the Grand Canyon. More on that later.

I must divulge into this camping trip. The purpose was Hubby Bee’s birthday. The site was amazing (pictures coming soon)! We were stationed right off the bank of the river. This river is only 2 feet deep-perfect for wading, but also for floating. If you haven’t done this, it’s amazing! You get a tube/ raft/tire and jump in at the put-in and float down the river for as long as your heart desires. It’s very fun. Until you hit your ass on the sand bar. This is how I ended up with the gigantic green track across my shorts by the end of the float. From the seaweed on the sand bar. And my HUGE ass scraping across the bottom. Quite excellent in front of my husband’s friends.

When we arrived, it was sprinkling rain. Hubby Bee and I climbed out of our car with all of our necessities that had been jam-packed, along with MBee, into our car tumbling out around us. Setting up the tent was interesting as the rain began to fall harder, followed by hail and us running to our car while the rain fly wasn’t on the tent, and watching our tent getting drenched. Sweet. Who knew that setting up our bohemith tent would be such a project. MBee of course had a quaint little two-man tent that was up in 45 seconds. 20 minutes later, Hubby Bee and I were finally blowing up our pads inside the tent.

As the other friends arrived, the bar was set up in the back of LBee’s car. Que the black out part. Drinking, fire and friends…what a great combo. Add a little 80’s music and you’ve got yourself a PAR-TAY in the woods. All I can say is whoever made those camping chairs is KICK-ASS in my book. Hopefully that guy is sitting in his mansion somewhere with a dining room surrounded by camping chairs. A shrine for himself.

After some amount of drinks (was it the banana martini that did it?), I ended up running around the campfire to “Walk Like an Egyptian,” signing at the top of my lungs…and walking like an egyptian. This is about the time I blacked out. No recollection of this at all, until someone reminded me the next morning. Also a mystery is my marshmallow episode. All I remember about this is having a gigantic roasting stick, putting marshmallows on and waiting until someone yelled, “FIRE! FIRE!” to realize that they were done. I’d blow them out, eat them, and repeat.

What was that? Of course I was drunk! I know, but there are spiders, and you have to crap in the woods. Nevermind HOVERING! You have to take your mind of the feeling that little black things are crawling up your legs.

Anyway…the evening and the trip worked out to be a fabulous weekend of soaking up sun, cooling off in the river, avoiding giardia, and spending some quality time out in wilderness. It does the body good to spend time sitting around, reading a good book and swatting big horse flies off of your newly sunscreened legs.

Camping with the guys…boys?

So, as much as I want to stay and play by the pool with the lovely ladies of BlogHerNot 2008, I am forced to go spend the evening under the stars with a snoring Hubby Bee next to me, and two of his closest male friends in a fabric dome in close proximity to us. In the woods. With bugs.

Yes, I know…you will miss my awesomeness lack of posting, now that some of you know who I am! Which, I adore, but I assure you, finishing out the weekend with the Girls of BHN ‘08 will be much more fun. Don’t get me wrong, I love camping. Alone. With my husband. And lots of bug spray.

But this weekend is gearing up to be one hell of a time with me as the sole double-Xer, along with 4 boys. Not to mention it’s railing, they’re bringing PBR AND I have to don a swimsuit tomorrow night at the near-by Hot Springs. Excellent. Thank god one-piece suits are finally back in style.

Someone save me from my lot in life! I shall return, if the bugs don’t eat me alive, on Monday to catch up on the Clooney-sleeping-around, and the rest of Mommypie’s most excellent conference.

Update: While I’ve spent 10 minutes writing this, the rain has gone from “really raining” to “torrential downpour.” My cup floweth over.

Bon Voyage!