Hedgy

A couple years ago my friend Anna got Duncan a little stuffed animal hedgehog. She called it "Hedgy" and this quickly became Duncan's very favorite toy. My little man was obsessed with Hedgy. He would carry him everywhere he went. One time Sky and I were out of town and Anna was watching him; she sent us a picture of Duncan and Hedgy sitting on the front porch looking off into the distance together.

When that first Hedgy started looking worse for the wear, not at all helped by the fact that some of Duncan's friends got ahold of him and ripped his guts out, Anna got Duncan a replacement Hedgy. We tried to get rid of the first Hedgy carcass, but Duncan flipped out when we attempted to take it away from him. He would go stand in front of the garbage can, somehow aware that that's where we had thrown it, and cry. He loved the new Hedgy, but he loved the old raggedy one, too. 

Sand Dunes

Skylar finished his test a week ago yesterday and listeners, I now have a husband with too much time on his hands.

Remember last week when I wrote to you and I was like "I'm an ignored housewife who can't get her man's attention" and you all felt really sad for me and you sent me presents that haven't arrived yet but I'm sure they're on their way because you aren't the kind of people who don't send presents at a time like this?

Well, now Skylar Westerdahl is spending his days following me around the house asking me on a never-ending loop "now what are you doing" and when I don't answer him right away he follows it up with "why aren't you talking to me?" and look. I love attention. But apparently I have my limits because sometimes I pretend to go to the bathroom to poop now just to have a minute to myself. AND I HAVEN'T POOPED SINCE 2012.

I asked Skylar if he had any hobbies he might turn to since he now has like three weeks off, which in COVID 2020 time is the same as eleventy millennia, and he said his only one is "being a good husband and loving you" which is so annoying but also I'm obviously not going to try to talk him out of that as a hobby.

He really is getting more manipulative now that he's in his 30s.

Photos of People Having an Authentic Time at my Wedding

I'm going to give you a bunch of details about the wedding with some actual wedding photos, etc. in the coming days. But for now, I want to leave you with this gem.

In the chaos of the morning and the photos with family and friends, someone took my phone. I think it was in my pocket and it was suggested I remove it for the pictures. I don't remember, really. It was all a whirlwind.

At the end of the wedding, my friend Caitlin handed my phone to me, saying she had it for a few hours and "don't worry. I took lots of pictures of people having a very authentic time."

I thanked her for her thoughtfulness and took the phone. On the drive back to the house I started looking through the photos she captured and discovered, well . . .

Camping: The Ground Got Harder

(In case you missed it, we announced our next really fun Strangerville Live show. Check out this link for info and tickets; as always, tickets are first come/first serve and there is some limited seating.)

Two years ago I decided that I needed to occasionally force myself to do what the kids are calling "commune with nature." To do so, I told myself that I was going to make it a priority to go camping one time a year.

The reason for this, and I swear to you I'm not joking, is to get myself to be more grateful for shelter.

It's not because I think camping will be fun. It's not to prove anything to myself. It's because I love the inside so much and I wanted to find a way to love it even more so I decided that if I slept outside once a year, the pure contrast would make my couch and temperature-controlled home so much sweeter.

Look. I've basically said this before. Camping is an insult to our ancestors who invented electricity and the internet and Netflix so that we would never have to go outside under any circumstances whatsoever. Going camping is basically nothing more than squandering an inheritance. Except it's miserable instead of fun to do.

But despite my respect for all the McCanns and Whittlebottoms who have come before me, including the ones who were polygamists, I have committed myself to this once-a-year camping vow.

Chocolate Cake: Another Attempt

Please check out today's episode of Strangerville, above (and at the bottom of this post, because we're persistent like that), featuring a story about what happens when pen pals don't end up murdering each other.

Also, don't forget that our Strangerville Live show is NEXT WEEK (March 30). Please get tickets at this link if you haven't already.

***** 

You may recall that a little while ago TV lied to me and made me think that it was sufficient education for baking. I spent basically two full days trying to make a mirror-glaze cake from a British recipe that may as well have been written in another language.

Whatever I ended up with was definitely not mirror-glaze and it probably wasn't even technically a cake, and after that experience I decided that I would never bake anything ever again.

Then last week happened.

Delicate Arch

Check out our latest Strangerville episode above (or at the bottom of this post)!

I've been working a million hours the last couple of months and it has been stressful. I can tell when I'm reaching a breaking point because the day-to-day work I do starts to affect me emotionally. Two Sundays ago I was dealing with a bunch of really depressing child abuse situations all day. I was tired. And then I got a pretty run-of-the-mill phone call that sent me over the edge and suddenly I was eating ice cream out of a container with a fork, choking back tears, and searching the internet for poodle mixes.

So I decided I needed a break.

The problem is, this is a really hard time of year for me to take a vacation because for some reason everyone laws all of their laws from January through March, so working a million hours is sort of the norm for me during these months.

The Worst Movie Ever Made

So last night Anna, Emily, Skylar, and I decided that since it was one of the final "good" weekends of the year in Salt Lake City, we would take advantage of the weather. 

I'm not kidding you about my town right now. It is unbelievably gorgeous. Not to get all basic white girl on you, but I love me some Autumn. I'm like totes pumpkin spice lol rofl leggings warm fire hot cocoa about it and I like totes pumpkin spice don't care.

But this year is extra beautiful. I think it's because we had such a wet winter season last year and that led to a greener spring and summer, which means a more colorful fall. 

Check it out. This is from my run up Emigration Canyon with some friends.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

You guys! Look! I Pictured and Distracted! I almost forgot how to do this! The last time we had one of these posts they hadn't even invented electricity yet.

But in even more important news, I have our Snuggie winners. Thank you so much to all of you who shared your kind words about Stranger and your fun memories of this community over the last week. I will cherish the comments section of the ten-year anniversary post for many years to come.

And now dddddrrdrerdrdrdrdrdrdrdrdrdr (that's supposed to be a drum roll. I don't know how to type it out) our winners of their very own Snuggies and a lifetime supply of meatballs (I'm kidding about the meatballs. Don't try to cash in on that. I only have enough meatballs to supply you for like 12 years) are dddddrerdrdrdrdrdrdrdrdrdxddrrdrdrdrjkdrjdrdrdrdrkittydrdrddrdrdrdrdrdrdrdrd

Jayne, Jake, and Gretchen

Congrats! So all you guys need to do is go to the store and buy a Snuggie. 

I'M KIDDING CALM DOWN THIS ISN'T A SCAM.

Jayne, Jake, and Gretchen, please shoot me an email and tell me where I can send your Snuggie. I may also slip in some dirty laundry for you to wash and send back. I haven't done it in like 5 years.

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

Guess Who Happened To Be On My Flight Home

My body is jet-lagged and I'm not sure anymore what day or time it is, but I'm told by a thing that the kids are calling "the calendar" that Strangerville Live is happening THIS WEEK.

THIS WEEK, Y'ALL.

I decided that for this show I would finally tell a story I've alluded to on Stranger many times over the years, but one which I've abstained from sharing because I wasn't sure whether all 1,200 relevant statutes of limitations had passed yet. 

Does this count as a teaser? Do you feel teased?

Hungary Might Actually be a Magic Land

Skylar and I took a train a few days ago back to Budapest to gather a vehicle for more adventuring, but this time not by getting tuberculosis on trains.

In their usual fashion, the Eastern European car rental company handed us a car that only barely survived World War II after informing us in no uncertain terms that we would be charged astronomical fees if we returned it with so much as a dead bug on the windshield.

We pointed the car south to a place called "Lake Balaton," which has so many vineyard surrounding it that you are all drunk for having just read this sentence.

We've discovered that Airbnb is supremely unreliable in the blessed nation of Hungary. Exactly 100% of the 17 times we have attempted to book a place here, the host has canceled the booking and sent us some variation of "WHO IS THIS HOW DID YOU GET THIS NUMBER." But in much more broken English.

So we gave up on that, and instead decided to try to book a place the old-fashioned way: by using what the grandparents are calling "the telephones."

Hungarian Toilet Water

After a day or two in Bratislava, we took a train to Vienna where a very angry Uber driver yelled at us in several languages we could not identify before dumping us out onto the street in front an airbnb apartment we had booked.

Skylar, who decided to come late to the party flew into Vienna later that night, just in time to force us to go to a symphony that was so boring that if you took my pulse at any point during the performance you would have discovered that I actually had a negative heartbeat, which means that the symphony was not just taking time out of my present. It was somehow taking life away that I had already lived.

I posted about this on Instagram and somebody excitedly asked what the orchestra played, to which I responded "EXACTLY." This person is a conductor or music chief or whatever the hell the person is called so I probably now have one less Instagram friend.

Vienna was lovely and without much drama, until the last night when we decided it was time to try to book an airbnb for our next city, Budapest.

Castles

In the last 24 hours I have ended up very naked in a castle and shaken down by angry Slovakian authorities. Yes, these were two separate incidences. Yes, knowing something about my travel history, you had good reason to ask.

Let me step back and explain.

We left that slaughterhouse in the country after noticing that the vast majority of the dishes in the kitchen had lipstick stains in places I never in my life considered areas on which someone might put a mouth.

We climbed into our car and pointed it west toward the Slovakian central mountains.

Every twenty minutes or so, the trees would clear and a GIANT castle on top of a mountain would come into view. And when I say "giant," I mean like "we thought the castle was the just the top half of the mountain until we got close enough and realized that what we thought was God's doing was actually the doing of some very sad people who probably had terrible backs but Jane Fonda level buns of steel from having to haul eleventy million rocks up to the top."

Slovakian Ramblings

I took a flight from Salt Lake City on Thursday night. A flight to another flight to another flight to another flight to maybe a portal of some kind and then I think to a horse and buggy followed by that one car from Back to the Future, and after eleven hundred hours of being on moving things and not sleeping and being coughed on by strangers, I ended up in Krakow Poland.

My friends, Anna and Emily, joined me on the journey. They had never seen Krakow before and I would be lying if I told you that 78% of the reason we went was not so I could take them to this underground restaurant I found several years ago called Babci Malina's where this old lady screams at you and then gives you more comfort food than any human should ever try to consume.

We were eating said comfort food a few minutes after arriving in the city. And then we were off to go church-exploring, because every time I end up in Eastern Europe I think I'm catholic or Russian Orthodox.

There's this very old and very massive church in the middle of Old Town in Krakow. I had been in it before. The place has always confused me because it has a very large chapel, and then a series of long stone-walled corridors that lead to nowhere. But the corridors are usually blocked by various black gates.

A Special TV Surprise

It was Survivor night, so the usual crew gathered in my home. I flipped on the TV. There we were, minding our own business, like good Christians/Jews/Muslims/Americans/muggles/beliebers, when suddenly,

Anna: IS THAT MATT BROOME!!!!???!?

Eli: No. Matt Broome would tell us if he was on TV. Surely he wouldn't keep something like this a secret.

We rewound the commercial because these are the days of miracle and wonder and you can do that now. We watched it eleventy hundred times. And we had a major debate. Well, not so much of a debate. More of a "everyone telling Eli he's wrong."

Adam: That's Matt!

Eli: No.

Anna: Yes it is!

I. Went. Camping.

A couple of weeks ago I got to thinking about how much I hate camping and how I don't trust anyone who claims to like it because it's not possible to like it and if my Mormon pioneer ancestors knew they were crossing the plains so we could all be homeless a few times every summer and poop into holes in the ground they probably would have just stayed in Ireland where they wouldn't get skin cancer or have to learn how to make doilies.

But then I saw an REI commercial and I was like, "I would look cute in those clothes." And I wasn't wrong.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

Mr. Pants is sleeping over at my house right now because we love each other and we don't care who knows it. Last night I tried to take him outside to "do his potties." Right when I opened the door, he looked out and saw a cat in the Perfectss''s'ses' yard and BOLTED. I'm not kidding you when I say that he ran faster than I have ever seen an animal run. And I chased him all the freaking way down the street, screaming, barefoot, and in my underwear, until I finally caught him trying to go through a fence to murder a cat. Because Mr. Pants hates cats. And loves my anxiety disorder.

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

It was Matt's birthday. We made a mistake trying to take an ice cream cake hiking. 

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

How's my night going? Well after a very long day I was in the drive-through at Wendy's at 11:15 PM and I ran my car into the the back of the car in front of me and that guy stuck his head out of his window and asked me what happened and I actually "SHHHHHH'd" him because I was in the middle of ordering "extra large fries with that" and I was concerned that with this interruption the guy taking my order maybe wouldn't catch that last part and it was really important to me that he got that order. So that's how my day is going.

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

If this picture doesn't make you happy, then you probably don't even know what America is.

Pioneer Day Miracle

We gathered aboard the raft, the five of us, unaware of the trauma that awaited us. Bats flew overhead, and the sounds of water churning on the cliffs of rocks beckoned us forward, pulling us down the river.

The risk was inescapable. The moment we climbed aboard, we bid farewell to safety and any opportunity to turn back. The calm shore inveigled us into a sense of security that was quickly disposed when the first rabid rapid sucked us into the abyss, like an avaricious swarm of piranha drawn toward anything moving.

Our lack of experience served us what we deserved and betrayed our natural instincts for survival. Our screams echoed off of the canyon walls, the sounds' dissipation a testament to our seclusion that made more terrifying our situation.

Rapid after rapid threatened to do us in, twirling us deeper and deeper into profound disorientation until finally all we had left were our basic senses and each other.

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

I haven't laughed as hard as I have this week reading all of your interactions on Imzy since [insert a funny thing]. I got an email from the Imzy people today, telling me that our Community there is "by far the most vibrant one" on Imzy. And I'm super proud of us for going three full days so far without getting kicked out of the place, like I imagine will happen when we finally have our in-person family reunion in our Snuggies and matching June Snapple t-shirts.

You guys. They aren't kicking us out. THESE PEOPLE LOVE US! If we weren't hipsters now, we would be so excited about this popularity. But, like, we don't even care. We were popular before anyone even knew who we were.

And now, your Pictures & Distractions:

Teddy thinks he needs glasses but really he just needs a hair cut around his eyes. 

Pictures from my Phone & Weekly Distractions

[Please come to The Porch this Saturday night in SLC. Jolyn promises to give a 25-second hug to anyone who wants one. Find info here.]

I think I am the most tired any person could be. This long week is finally coming to the end for me after a few very intense and long meetings and one significant court appearance this afternoon for the sweet client who passed away earlier this year. There is a 92% chance I will fall asleep tonight and stay in bed until November 21st. I'm going to pass out a sign-up sheet for you each to take turns stopping by to feed me and switch out my bed pan. I'm handing it to The Suzzzzzzzzzzzz first and expect she'll proceed to pass it through all of the Strangers in order of height and age.

It is the very least you people could do. Don't make me have to lecture and guilt trip you. I have a very large picture of Jesus ready to show you if needs be.

And now, your Pictures and Distractions:

The crew at Arches, with Delicate Arch in the background.