The object is to click on the number from least to greatest. My best score was 20.

Be prepared to accomplish nothing for the rest of the day and feel free to share your highest, or in this case, lowest score.

That is exactly why I didn’t mention in the article that I cried and got all snotty-nosed when I found out the little old lady has to leave the farm she’s lived on for 53 years and enter a nursing home. And that’s why I didn’t mention that the 89 year old gentleman, who already lives in a nursing home, hugged me three times and made his daughter take photos of me with them because he was so happy to have an audience for 3.5 hours. Or that we are now pen pals and I’m going to bring him lutefisk at Christmas because THAT’S how much I loved this old man.

Instead I’ll be sappy here because no one pays a subscription which gives me the right to be as sappy as I please.

I’ve discovered that energy drinks are conducive to run-on sentences. Interesting!

Having said all that, I can now confess that I’ve become a chronic liar to one of the sweetest women I’ve ever met.

Jeff and Charli, from the famous View From the Cloud blog, are good friends of mine. I’ve made mention in the past how back in 2006, we met up with Jeff as his band was playing in St. Cloud, MN. Because that’s what bloggers do.

Jeff’s parents, Bill and Lois, have become very dear to me, so when I heard that Bill was turning 81 on August 1st, I wanted to have a little celebration for him at our home. But I really wanted it to be a surprise so I casually invited them to our home so that the kids could “finally meet the people who leave nice comments on my blog.”

So Jeff, Charli and I schemed, plotted and sent email back and forth with subject lines like “The Plot Thickens” in an attempt to have the party be a surprise.

I was talking with Lois on the phone one day and she asked “This get-together has nothing to do with Bill’s birthday, does it?”

“Oh. Wow. I didn’t even know it was Bill’s birthday!” I lied.

Jeff lied, too, and told his parents that they were looking at colleges for their oldest son, Brandon, on Sunday and couldn’t make it to the little get together.

I left comments on Jeff’s blog saying “Gosh, really wish you could have made it out here. Woulda been fun.”, etc…

But I guess turning 81 doesn’t mean that you can’t spot bullshit from a mile away.

Bill said “You overplayed your hand. Too many people were denying that Jeff and Charli would be here.”

And so went the surprise part of the surprise party.

And yet I was able to spend a Sunday afternoon with some of my favorite people in the world!

Charlie, Jeff’s totally gracious wife

Jeff, aka Harmonica Man, who secretly wanted to steal my dog.

Austin, Jeff’s son- future Olympic Skateboardian

Roseanna, who can fling a water balloon like you wouldn’t believe!

Brandon, computer AND cake genius

Rick, Jeff’s brother and blog lurker with great skills in keeping Bill in line.

What a great family to spend a day with! And Charli, do you remember when you wrapped that last piece of lasagna and stuck it in the fridge? All day long the kids were BEGGING me for it and I kept saying “Nope, it’s for Dad.”

Well, I lied again.

Your lasagna was SO good that I kept it for myself and ate it when the kids went to bed. Because once you start lying, it apparently gets easier.

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I cannot fail to mention that Bill showered my kids with gifts, including a fan, which will prevent future fan farting (for which I will forever be grateful) radios, notebooks and THE most prepared preparedness kit I have ever seen!
Thank you guys.
And Bill?
Happy Birthday!

Jeff’s account of the day can be read here but I must warn you. He accuses me of stealing his jar of pickles which is so not true. However, I will give them back next year when we surprise Bill on his 82nd birthday.

**Due to the sensitive nature of this post, names have been changes in order to protect the guilty**

We are fortunate to have central air conditioning in our home despite the fact that the unit which came with our house when we purchased it is just a little too small to cool properly on the really hot days.

Kyle and Cartman’s room tends to be the warmest in the house so they have a large fan in their room to help keep things tolerable in the heat of the summer evening.

Unfortunately, the fan has become a great source of contention between the brothers. They both want to fall asleep with the fan blowing directly on them because then they are the winner.

Tonight the fighting and arguing was in rare form. I ignored the ever-increasing volume of debate because I was too tired to care about something so trivial. All I wanted for the remaining hours of my evening was to sprawl, bra-less, on my couch with a spoon and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream. I fantasized about it all day long.

“Mommmm! Tell Cartman to turn the fan on meeeee. He’s had it on him for the last two nightsssssssss,” pleaded Kyle in the tone of voice that makes me say really bad words in my head.

“Cartman!” I responded from the couch in the living room, “It’s Kyle’s turn to have the fan on him tonight and if you say one word about it, the fan is coming out of your room!”

I used the voice that tells the kids I mean business. It’s the voice where all words are connected together and sound a lot like a machine gun being fired into the air by a member of the Medellín Cartel.

It was effective for about five minutes before Kyle made one last battle cry:

“MOMMMMM! CARTMAN KEEPS FARTING INTO THE FAN FOR NO REASON AND IT’S BLOWING RIGHT INTO MY FACE AND HE HAD BEAN WITH BACON SOUP FOR SUPPER!!!!”

And so one wind ruined the other.

Each time a child caught a fish, no matter the size, all the other children immediately beat a path to the exact location of the catch, as if all the fish in the lake were located in that one spot. I’m convinced it wasn’t an act of malice but more of an innate reaction common to all anglers.

This reaction, while humorous to observe, resulted in crossed lines, tangled bobbers and many, many verbal outbursts.

While it appears to be a mere minnow purchased from a bait store, Nathanael actually caught this fish with a common night crawler:

“Isn’t it cute?” he said as I snapped the photo.

Cute, for sure, but nothing for anyone to covet. Nothing that should have resulted in shoving or declarations of squatter’s rights. Yet the moment he caught this wee little fish, the rest of the kids cast their lines at the exact spot where Nathanael pulled it from the water. Because size doesn’t matter.

And poor Darren. He was the one who spent time untangling the messes over and over again while trying to explain that there are many fish in the lake and “Why not try over there? No one has fished there yet!”

His suggestions fell on 12 deaf ears. (Kait was tuning the whole scene out with her iPod.)

You can imagine what happened when Kevin caught this:

The resulting chaos prompted a conversation between Darren and me on whether or not to abandon the children on the shore of this remote lake.

“They can live on wild blueberries.” I offered.

“But where will they sleep?” he asked.

“I’m pretty sure someone will find the PERFECT spot and then all the others will stack themselves like cord wood on top of each other because no other spot will do.”

“What will the headlines read when we are found out?”

“Seven Children Last Seen In One 12-Inch Spot on the Shore of Lake Wobegon, Parents Enjoying the Solitude of Being in Custody”

“We could say that we left them on White Pine.”

“Oh, you are BRILLIANT! The authorities would fall for it hook, line and sinker.”

Last night my family participated in the Relay for Life with team “News Crew for a Cure”.

Relay For Life is the American Cancer Society’s signature activity. It offers everyone in a community an opportunity to participate in the fight against cancer. Teams of people camp out at a local high school, park, or fairground and take turns walking or running around a track or path. Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event. Relays are an overnight event, up to 24 hours in length.

It was my first time attending this event and I was completely unprepared for the emotion of seeing all the people wearing the purple shirts indicating that they have been touched directly by cancer. The back of the shirts said “Had it. Fought it. Survived it.”

There were far too many purple shirts in the crowd but it helped me know who to pray for, encourage and congratulate.

As we walked the track in the pre-dawn hours, I was thinking about how much easier it would be if all people wore shirts identifying the most pressing issue in their lives:

“Up all night with my newborn baby”

“Losing my home to foreclosure”

“My back is killing me”

“My father died and I miss him so much”

“Just lost my job”

“Feeling unlovable”

Most of us would interact so differently if we were made aware of each other’s needs.

When’s the last time you were cut off on the freeway and gave “the idiot” a dirty look or honked your horn at someone sitting too long at a green light? Have you ever been irritated by a slow cashier or the crying baby on a plane? Would your response to them be different if you could easily identify the irritating behavior by simply reading a shirt and understanding the reason behind it?

We walked all night. We raised some money for cancer research. We had fun serving together as a family. But more important than money raised last night is the fact that those purple Survivor shirts inspired us to consider the needs and experiences of people we pass by on any given day.

Shirts are everywhere if only you have the eyes to see.

Well, not the whole family.

This year we brought Bingley the Nervous Wreck with us.Bingley has never before ridden in a car and yet we decided to take a 520 mile trip with him because we apparently enjoy torturing small animals. Every large billboard we passed and every bridge we drove under caused Bingley to duck in fear of imminent decapitation. Tunnels caused instant seizures and excessive drooling. 

Once we pitched our tents in the campground, we walked Bingley down to Lake Superior where he soon realized that other dogs exist in the universe. To compensate for his small stature, Bingley pretended to be rabid when any other dog approached. Instead of smelling butts like normal dogs do, Bingley arched his back like a cat and hissed until the stranger passed. After the canine stranger walked by, in a complete bipolar episode, he barked, cried, and staged a mock attack. I made very little eye contact with anyone because of him.

We took Bingley fishing with us on the shore of a remote, pristine lake (it wasn’t White Pine). Notice his body language. If you crossed Napoleon Dynamite with Eeoyre, you’d get Bingley. If you added a little Steven Wright, you’d have Bingley vacationing on the North Shore.

Here Bingley was staring out into the wilderness, weighing his chances of making it across the lake on his solo journey home. 

In this photo, Bingley appears to be cooling himself in the lake on a hot summer day. It was actually a suicide attempt. 

In the end, despite Bingley’s personality disorder, we were all happy campers. I’m glad to be home again. The reality is…home IS a vacation compared to camping. Bingley agrees.

Back when my Grandma and Grandpa used to take us grand kids with them on vacation to the north shore of Minnesota, we’d often go fishing on remote lakes near the BWCA. Being an inquisitive youth, I’d always ask “Which lake are we going to fish on, Grandpa?” His reply was always the same.

“White Pine”

Since Grandpas don’t lie, I never questioned his answer until I was in my early teens. Even then, I was reluctant to verbalize my skepticism out of respect.

And fear.

But the older I became, the more I paid attention to which direction we were headed and which road we were traveling on.

As I began to put together the pieces of the Lake Liar puzzle, I was insulted with the discovery that I was deemed untrustworthy with Lake information.

Did Grandpa think I was going to go into town and announce to all his fishing competition that Grandpa caught his record walleye on 48° 5′ 6″ N Latitude, 90° 44′ 59″ W Longitude in the shallows of Lake Donttellasoul? Was he worried that I’d be kidnapped and forced to spill the secrets of his angling by way of tickle torture?

The icing on the Lake Liar cake happened when I went to the same vacation spot with my parents just last year. Darren had the kids at home which afforded me the opportunity to be on the lake in my parents boat rather than on the shoreline with seven active children.

As we were packing up to head out to fish, I asked the question.

“Hey Dad, which lake are we going to?”

He. Actually. Hesitated. Before answering as if to weigh the risk of sharing Lake Knowledge with someone who has never taken the blood oath of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”.  I guess he was contemplating the scenario of having his own daughter break the golden silence while in line at the Trading Post.

Tourist to me: “Hey, are you from around here? I’m trying to find a place to set my line and you look like someone who easily spills the beans.”

Me to tourist: “Why yes, I was just fishing with my father and grandfather and we hit the jackpot on Lake Donttellasoul. Would you like me to guide you to the spot because I’m the great-great-great-great grand daughter of Sacagawea and great-grand daughter of Deep Throat. Not only can I tell you my secrets but I can SHOW YOU!”

Yesterday Kevin came home from mom and dad’s house where they spent the day putting a hitch on our minivan and building a rack to attach to the hitch so that we have more room to bring necessities. Kevin was all excited.

“Mom! I’m buying a Trout Stamp. When we get up north, we’re going to pick up Great Grandpa and bring him fishing at…”

Kevin stopped midway through his sentence.

MY OWN SON HESITATED TO TELL ME WHICH LAKE!

“BRING HIM FISHING WHERE, KEVIN!” I demanded.

“Um… you know…that lake with the dock and all the huge trout.”

“If you say ‘White Pine’ you are grounded for LIFE.”

“Fine. I won’t say it.”

ARRRRGH!

For the record, when we return from our little camping trip, I’m going to post, for the world to see, the exact name of the lake with the great big monster walleye and the record-breaking trout.

That’s my way of luring you back.

We forgot one of our kids at the county fair.

But it was only for twenty minutes and we found him paging through a little New Testament Bible that he got from the Gideon stand in one of the buildings so clearly God was watching out for him despite our brain fart.

You see, Isaiah had just won first place in the Tractor Pedal Pull

and we were all celebrating his victory and the fact that he now gets to go to the state competition in September. We hopped in the van to go grab a burger before the parade started and it wasn’t until we were waiting for our food that we realized we were one fry short of a Happy Meal.

First time in twenty years of parenting that we didn’t do a head count in the van and wouldn’t you know!

So now if you see a family of nine walking down the street with harnesses attached to each other in one big line, doing a role call every ten minutes, you’ll know it’s us.

And Nathanael? Don’t ever scare Momma like that again.