Burning, Ice Dragons, and Jam Bands

Today in church, everyone was going around doing the standard, "Prayers and Praises of the People," and one guy stood up and told this little ditty. "I woke up this morning and went outside to let the pooches out and I realized that there was no wind, mild weather, and no rain.  Then I looked over at the giant pile of brush and lumber my wife and I had been saving for the last year.  I went in and called to my wife, 'Well, we can either burn today or go to church.'  We obviously decided to come here instead of burn."  I'm not in Washington anymore, am I?

So, the fam and I (my only friends until today) went to Cripple Creek yesterday for the ice sculpture festival.  Cripple Creek is an old mining town turned ghetto casino-ville.  It's blocks are filled with casinos and really old people.  It was fun to see the sculptures folks were carving with chain-saws.  We gambled a little and---did you know, if you gamble (even the penny slots) you can have all you can drink booze?--I had plenty of strawberry daiquiris.  We didn't win any jack-pots but we sure did have fun except for the creepers who stand in the gutters of the street smoking and looking around all wooly gooly.  It's a rough crowd up in Cripple Creek.  It's like all the people who go to Wal-Mart in Canon at 11 pm at night.  Of course, I would have to be like those people because that would mean I have been to Wal-Mart at 11 pm.  

In other news, I made a girl-friend today at church who is younger than I am but in my age range.  We're going to get together and do something.  Also, I was asked to join a jam-band at my church with my banjo!  I'm not good but they don't seem to care.  Look-out bluegrass land, here comes Christy Fisher and her banjo Millie!

Jesus was the Matt Damon of his time?

I had the middle school kids I work with fill out a short survey for me at our last youth group to find out what they know about the bible, Jesus, faith, etc and why they go to church or don't go to church.  One of my favorite answers to my question, "Who is Jesus?" was, "He was the Matt Damon of his time."  Was the kid mocking my question?  Probably, but who cares.  I'm lucky I got the group to fill out the questionaires to begin with.  I don't know that I have ever experienced such a rowdy crowd.  I have worked with some really 'urban' kids but these rurban (my new word for a place that is both urban and rural, a word fusion you could say) kids are something else.  I had the kids introduce themselves to me again and tell me one important thing for me to know about them.  One tiny girl (6th grade) replied, "Lady, I got a short fuse.  You mess with this, you'll get an explosion you won't want to reckon with."  

So, there you go.  I feel like this is the christian version of "Adventures in Baby-sitting."  So, we'll see how it goes.

My dad and I went ATV/4-wheeling on Friday to a place called Oil-Well Flats.  It's right across the street from another area called Dinosaur Flats.  One place apparently produced oil and the other, dinosaur bones.  Oooo, yay!  I have included pictures of that affair.  My parents purchased a 2 person ATV and helmets with skulls and flames to boot.  It's pretty fun and I have to laugh.  I feel like I'm living a strange existence these days.  

Cactus Butt!

I have been in Canon City for 9 days now.  That is nearly two weeks.  You all may be very interested in what I do with my time.  Well, I have our first official middle school youth group this evening.  There is something like 15 boys and 3 girls.  I'm not going to lie, I get middle school girls but middle school boys are like aliens from Mars.  I'm going to make my group fill out an evaluation about who they think Jesus is and why they don't come to church.  Although, I'm not sure why I'm going to bother asking that latter question.  I went to church last Sunday and as far as I could tell, I was sitting with a bunch of dinosaurs.  

This youth group should be interesting.  We ACTUALLY have diversity.  There are a couple black kids and a couple of latinos.  The latest news on the street is that the high school and middle school allow kids to call the black kids niggers.  Great.  Welcome to the capital of the KKK in Colorado.  Oh, did I forget to mention that?  Not only did the Grand Dragon of the KKK live in Canon, we have the most prisons per capita than most cities in the U.S.  Neat, huh?  In fact, the minimum security prison was built right into the ridge of mountains as you enter out town.  We have a little thing called, "Skyline Drive," -- a drive that goes on the skyline so you can see the city and what lies behind.  If you time it right in the summer, you can either drive or walk up to the top and watch the inmates playing baseball.  Or watch the people who park on the top make-out.  Sweet, huh?  Another bonus are the Stegosaurus foot prints on the way to the top.  Ooooo and don't forget the Hogbacks on the other side.  Golly, don't you all want to come visit me.

Today, Cooper and I took a five minute drive to one of my favorite places in the world -- Red Canyon Park.  You may be wondering, where is the snow?  Well, I happen to live on the banana belt of Colorado.  No, we don't grow bananas but we get both snow and 70 degree weather in the winter.  It's a good balance for folks who get tired of one season.  Cooper had his first run-in with a cactus and I had a reunion with one.  In middle school my nick-name was Cactus Butt because on a field trip I fell down the side of a hill and got cactus in my rear.  The nurse had to remove it for me because it was so aggressively in my behind.  

Well, that's all for now.  I miss you all tons.  My only companion is still Cooper.  I mean, I thought about befriending the Cherry Peddler Guy but he's just too creepy.

Rocky Mountain High!

The photo below is Fisher Mountain!

The Cherry Juice Peddler

The small town I grew up in is now my current place of residence again.  I never imagined I would revert back to my small town of Canon (said like 'Canyon' because there should be a tilde (sp?) over that middle n).  Oh well, life has a funny way of taking us places we never expected to arrive again to, right?  Now that I am back to my humble beginnings, I get the opportunity to run errands for my parents.  I do errands, they get me a subscription to the New York Times.  It's my only taste of the liberal world here where Rush Limbaugh is god.  My parents subscribe to two local newspapers.  The Daily Record (I've nicknamed it the 'Daily Disappointment'), which is the daily paper for my home town and another pathetic excuse for news, the Pueblo Chieftain.  In order to maintain what my dad lovingly refers to as $40,000 a year for me to become a flaming liberal, I have struck a deal with the devil and now I do errands.  It's a decent trade, I guess.

That brings me to the title of my blog today, "The Cherry Juice Peddler."  The other evening my mom diagnosed herself with gout.  Now, I didn't know what gout was until I Googled it today.  It sounds like some sort of disease my mother contracted from a goat, right?  Well, apparently, gout is caused by the build-up of uric acid (I don't know what it is) but it's like getting arthritis in your feet.  My mom is a nurse, so I guess she has some room to come up with a diagnosis for the reason she can't wear her 20 different pairs of different colored Danskos.  Her friend said the best cure for gout is pure cherry juice.  And of course, who better to go fetch it for her than me.  There is only one place in town that creates and sells pure cherry juice.  It's this sketchy little store called Dinardos.  

I have never been to this place until now because it looks so dirty and creepy.  From the outside, the store has a lot of glass windows which look like they are covered in about 2 inches of dust.  There is all sorts of nick-knackary on the outside.  You know, chain-saw bears, crappy looking furniture for your patio, and black, wooden cut-outs of cowboys that you can put in your yard to add a little touch of pizazz.  When I entered the store (I think there were only three lanes) a small old man came up behind me and put his arm around me, welcoming me to his shop.  There are two types of cherry juice that he peddles -- cherry cider and pure cherry juice delight.  I asked which was best for gout.  The man hugged me and told me the cherry delight would be best and then tried to sell me some patron saint that would cure me in a moment.  I tried to tell him I didn't have gout but he was so hard of hearing he couldn't hear me argue with him.  I asked him 8 times if he took debit cards and by the time I finally brought out the plastic, he realized what I was asking for and said he took it.  As I left the store, he told me to come back and gave me a sweet little love tap on my bum.  Is that sexual harassment?

Well, I survived the peddler and Coop and I decided to have an adventure up at our cabin.  I have posted the photos of the fun times.  I had to shovel a drift of 3 feet of snow to get to our cabin (I have a blister on my hand to prove it) and then Coop and I went snow shoeing.  On our travels, we stole a sled from an unsuspecting house and went sledding.  Cooper is having more success in making friends than I am.  He met a new dog friend, Jessy, and they played for an hour while I shoveled.  The pictures are from my family's cabin, the bridge my parents got married on, and some other fun ones!  

I don't break the law...

I don't text while I drive, I just take photos while I drive.  Totally not against the law.  These are from the middle of nowhere Utah and Colorado.  Cooper thought Colorado was too bright compared to Washington, so he asked to borrow my sunglasses.

The Trip of Cooper's Discontent...

I made Coop wear a harness the whole time so in case we were in a wreck he wouldn't fly through the window.  This was the face he made most of the time.

Provo, Utah...snow, snow, and more snow.

I had to sneak Coop into the hotels we stayed in.  Cooper slept in his own bed every night.  Must be tough.