War & Peace: Smith's & VISA

 

Things were fine. Birds nested in trees and the sun glistened off of The Great Salt Lake. The valley was peaceful. Almost too peaceful. And then one day a sign was hung.

“As of March 1, 2019, Smith’s will no longer accept VISA Credit Cards.”

Saved By The Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas

Here's my recap, completely from memory, of the 1994 made-for-tv cinematic masterpiece, “Saved By The Bell: Wedding in Las Vegas.” Proof of qualifications: a very worn out VHS tape on which I taped the film and wrote “IMPORTANT” on the label so my family wouldn't record over it.

The gang of Bayside High graduated and Zack and Kelly have finally decided tie the knot. One problem though—Zack’s dad doesn’t understand and won’t support the wedding OH BOY we’re in for some tension.

Zack tells Kelly about his father’s unreasonable obstinance and Kelly is all like “my parents are cool with this but they can’t support the wedding financially” which is consistent with the larger cannon of SBTB as we recall from when Kelly couldn’t buy a prom dress so Zack took her to parking lot prom.

Fortunately Zack’s mom gives him vouchers to stay at the Stardust hotel in Vegas and Zack has $1200 so the crew decides to road trip to the strip for some unexpected SHENANIGANS.

HR

I haven't talked about her for a while, but rest assured, Herminda is still around. I know she's still around because she saw me naked today. Twice.

For those unfamiliar, a few years ago I "hired" someone to come clean my house every other week. I put "hired" in quotes because I'm not exactly sure if that's what I did. Herminda is a good friend of my uncle and for years he would pay her to come do some basic cleaning so she could make some extra money. We're not talking hard labor here--Herminda is in her 60s, and while she's very healthy and would probably vacuum my roof without problem if I asked her to, we generally avoid letting her do anything that makes her bend over.

My uncle moved to California and Herminda asked him if he knew anyone else who needed help. He told her she should just retire and he would pay her "pension" but she rolled her eyes at that and told him she wants to keep doing actual work as long as she's able. So that's when he called me.

I felt like a snob even considering it, but at the time I was working eleventy thousand hours a week and was frankly eager to pay someone to come do my laundry since no one else was doing it anymore and it had piled up so high that I had to buy a second house just to store it.

After one Herminda visit I was completely sold on the whole arrangement and thereafter started speaking in a British accent and asked my friends to call me Lord McCann from then on.

Real Houswives of Salt Lake City

Yesterday news broke that The Real Housewives of Salt Lake City is going to be a thing and my town is losing its mind over it.

Well, good news: I found the episode synopses for the season:

Episode 1: The Real Housewives have beach day on the gorgeous banks of The Great Salt Lake.

Episode 2: Kassaddee throws a glass of horchata at Braxleee inside a Cafe Rio just after General Conference.

Episode 3: Girls' trip to Zionsss!

Episode 4: Things heat up when Makinly starts stealing customers from Erynn after finding personal empowerment at the most recent Young Living convention at The Salt Palace.

Episode 5: Jinnifer puts on a birthday party for her son Baxtee at Classic.

Episode 6: Wheeler Farm.

Episode 7: The ladies try to navigate City Creek Mall during Comic Con.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

Apparently Bozo the Clown died. Matt just told me and then scolded me for asking who that is. Which reminds me, I called Skylar "the ol' battleaxe" last weekend and he said he had never heard that term before and didn't know what it meant. I think this means I married a child? The thing is, I didn't even know this was an old phrase.

This is almost as bad as when, a mere five days after our wedding, I referenced "the original Parent Trap" and he responded "the one with Lindsay Lohan?"

I'm telling you. Nearly got divorced that day.

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

Happy Birthday

Yesterday was Duncan's birthday. Well, I don't actually know whether that's true. He didn't come with papers or any helpful information, like a warning label that said "YOU WILL NOT SLEEP FOR THE NEXT THREE MONTHS."

The vet looked at his teeth and assumed he was born in early to mid November 2016. That made Duncan about 12 weeks old at the time, and the absolute perfect size to fit into a baby onesie.

Return to Palau

I returned to the United States of God Bless America from Palau just over six years ago WHAT HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE.

I've been thinking about Palau a lot lately because I'm going back there next month. I think I forgot to tell you that. Sorry. You deserved to know.

For anyone new to Stranger since 2013, I used to live in a county called Palau for work. It's a tropical island nation in the equatorial Pacific and the specific island I lived on was one-square-mile. Also Stranger used to be a Satanic cult and like half the people who were reading this site are in prison now because of things I got them to do through subliminal messaging, like post hundreds of comments on TMZ about how I was dating Britney Spears. So it's probably good you missed some of that. Our current cult is much more docile.

I haven't been back to Palau since 2013. I actually had not planned to go back anytime soon. I thought maybe once Sky was done with medical school and we had finished raising our children and retired and had dementia and I couldn't remember what it was like to live there, maybe we would head back to see some sea turtles.

But one of Skylar's closest friends from college grew up in a place called Saipan, which is "near" Palau (nothing is near Palau) and she's getting married there next month. Sky wanted to try to go to this wedding even though it's 19 light years away.

Winter is COMING

[psttt. Strangerville Live is this Friday in SLC at 8:00 at Kiln. Get tickets here if you haven't already. We only have a handful left.]

The other day I was sitting with Skylar, knitting, having a lovely time, when he said "you know there are machines that can do that."

I think he was joking, but I'm not totally sure.

The next thing I knew I was having a complete internal meltdown.

"What the hell am I doing?"

"There are machines that can do this."

"There are machines that can do the painstaking labor I often perform through blood, sweat, and tears over the course of several months. But the machines can do it in like, what, an hour?"

Maybe they're even faster. I don't know. I don't know where these machines are. But I assume there are machines that can knit and I assume they can knit much faster than my little old grandma hands. And I assume these machines do it without "mistakes that I'm sure no one will notice but me," which is the official name of every project I complete.

And I know. I KNOW. Sometimes it's just about the journey.

Mr. Hooper

First of all, come to Strangerville Live THIS FRIDAY. (November 8 at 8:00 PM in Salt Lake City)

Look at these hot people who will be telling stories:

And I'm hosting. While the above people are hot, I'm exceptionally hot. 

You guys are going to die when you see how hot everything is. 

Get tickets HERE.