A Girl...

In Which I Return from Vacation and, In an Effort to Get Everything into One Entry, Am Disorganized with My Display of Photographs, Please Forgive Me

*

Ay carumba. I leave for a few days and all of a sudden I'm in charge of organizing the childless Internets to march on Washington and demand equal rights. Which is a great idea and all except, um, I think I'm probably the worst candidate, being that makin' babies is high on my list of priorities and I just got back from Utah, a state whose mascot is the nursing infant snuggled in a fashionable sling like a little fuzzy-headed possum.

Ahem.

So we're back from a weekend spent with the fam in 100 degree heat. Simon met my maternal grandparents and got a tour of the various closets and storage cabinets my cousins and I used to lock each other inside of at their house, and we also hung out with my dad's whole side of the family (ten adults and a baby) at a taco bar garden party. Simon of course got good marks all around. "That's one worth holding onto," my grandpa said after Simon tasted one of his home-grown and home-pickled beets, complimented him on their oustanding flavor, and then ate half a jar more. And then the next day, while at my paternal grandma's house checking out her outrageous doll collection (you have no idea), Simon commented on her lovely Victorian armchairs, and she said, "Do you want them? I'll will them to you," so I'm taking that as a sign that she likes him too.

In addition to getting a heavy dose of family, Simon also got a heavy dose of religion. It all started on Friday afternoon with this video (via Blurbomat), and then, on Saturday morning, within a half hour of being retrieved from Salt Lake City International Airport, we found ourselves standing on the route of the Days of '47 Youth Parade, which is essentially thousands of Mormon kids marching down the street being bright and shiny and Mormon in honor of their pioneer ancestors. We heckled quietly enough that the children couldn't hear us and get their tender Mormon feelings hurt, and I confined my rebellion against the dominant paradigm to wearing a very tiny skirt, which I changed into in the Blockbuster parking lot on the corner of 500 East and 400 South.

The education continued after a burrito and a nap with the episode of South Park that includes the extended musical enactment of how Joseph Smith founded the Mormon religion. Then, following dinner with my grandparents uptown near the fountain where Leta plays, we gathered together in front of the tv to watch the famous videotape of my third birthday--Little House on the Prairie theme--in which I do not get to be the cheese at my own party, can you stand the unjustice?! (Crappy photo of the tv screen. I'm third from the left in the bonnet with the brown braids.)

The next day was mostly spent preparing for the garden party taco bar at my aunt's house, so even though we didn't do much until the evening, it was time spent getting in some good family bonding. Simon and my mom went running along the Jordan River early in the morning while we of the sane contingent slept in, Simon and my genius baby brother swapped mash-ups involving NIN's song "Closer," and my dad passed down to Simon some choice NSFW photos that made him laugh and laugh and laugh. After a late breakfast on the patio, we listenend to Simon's band's demo CD, teased the cats, and took another nap. O blessed air conditioner: what would we do without you?

Garden party taco bar! These pretty much sum it up:

Monday morning, we woke early to take in the Days of '47 Parade (aka celebration of when the Mormon pioneers first entered the Salt Lake Valley), which people had been telling us all weekend was the fifth/fourth/third largest parade in the country/world/galaxy. True, a lot of people showed up for it, but come on, it's Utah; there's no way this parade compares to the Gay Pride Parade in San Francisco or the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade** in New York, not to mention other major events in other major cities like Chicago or Atlanta or Houston or LA. Still, maybe they're right, maybe it is the second-most-attended parade in the universe and it just doesn't feel that big since most of the audience is under three feet tall (although we sure could hear them on those godforsaken squeaky pastic trumpets, DIE DIE DIE).

Simon asked one of the hundreds of swarming missionaries if they had a spare Book of Mormon because, dang it, he left his at home.

I wore the pioneer bonnet my mom made me when I thought I was Laura Ingalls.

After the parade: Crown Burgers! (Simon had the "lube job.") Fry sauce! (I can't stand to even look at the stuff.) Shaved ice in Liberty Park! Five separate applications of 45 sunblock to my exposed areas! Simon also rounded out his religious fact-finding mission with a stop at a scientology booth ("Where's Suri?!" he harrassed the poor teenage girls working the table) and at the intertribal pow-wow (note the traditional garb and the modern take on it).

Then! A three-hour nap! And then! We opted to skip out on fireworks in favor of our third Mexican-food meal in as many days and an evening watching reality tv--my family's favorite pastime. We showered off the second skin of sunscreen before falling into a cool bed. The temperatures had been between 90 and 100 degrees all day and we were sunk.

This morning we woke up, breakfasted, posed stiffly for pictures out in the garden as if we were sixteen-year-olds headed to a school dance (sans corsage and boutonniere), and then we were off into the wide blue yonder, over the salt flats and the desert and the snow-capped sierra and Yosemite Valley to the ocean. Behold, the curved surface of the earth and I-80 through the Bonneville salt flats (also pictured here).

Since I moved away from Salt Lake in 2001, it's always been a little uncomfortable visiting the hometown I no longer belong to, but on the other side of the coin, it's inevitably bittersweet when I hug and kiss my family good-bye and wave at them one last time as I ride the escalator up to the Southwest terminal to fly back to California. This time, though--and for the first time in a very real and profound way--I, like the snail or turtle, who is never not at home, was traveling with everything I needed to feel safe and comfortable and settled. The subtext of all the above paragraphs, which read like a rambling laundry list of went-theres and did-thats is this: Thank goodness for Simon, who is home wherever we are, and thank goodness I don't have to carry him on my back because I'm just not that strong yet.

*All photos out the plane window were taken by my talented beau.

**NOT the Macy's Day Parade. There is no "Macy's Day."

Posted by Leah at July 25, 2006 04:47 PM