Westmoreland Asays

We Drove All Night We spent a week in Utah visiting a seemingly countless stream of  friends and family (most of whom are Oregon ex-pats). I always thought Meg's desire to drive to Utah during the night was crazy. But after experiencing it twice now, I have changed my opinion. The kids slept most of the way, it was cooler out, there was much less noise and traffic, and losing a day of sleep isn't that bad. Except for stops to expel our bladders (Eddie didn't go once) and re-fill the van's gas tank, we drove straight-thru, finally stopping at the Tremonton McDonald's for breakfast (I skipped, of course). Boy, did we make that place look classy. Emmeline, the chicken poet Jesus made the chickens healthy so we'd be happy. Upon arrival Monday morning at my brother's house in the Sugar House neighborhood of Salt Lake City, Meg immediately retreated to the basement to take a nap. But the rest of us took some time to get to know the 14 chickens that li...

"You have to stop and pick up some cherries for us. They're only a buck a bucket, and the buckets are huuuuuuge. It's on the corner of Commercial and 22nd. We were following someone so we couldn't stop and pick some up ourselves." So went the edict from one of the traveling caravan's passengers that I received on Meg's cell phone as we approached Anacortes. We had just embarked on a four-day, three-night car-camping adventure to San Juan Island, and we were minutes away from arriving at the ferry terminal. I honestly didn't want to stop for something so trivial (but which was professed to be of such profound importance), but we did anyway. The owner of the fruit stand, however, employed deceitful tactics to lure in wary out-of-towners: the purported "huge" buckets, which went for $7, easily dwarfed the advertised $1 buckets, which held about 10 cherries. (Meg gave the woman the finger on our return to Portland--suck my pit, fruit demoness)...

"Are you the lady from Lincoln City? You actually drove from Lincoln City just to get happy meals for your kids?" So said the assistant manager at the McMinnville McDonald's drive-thru to Meg, who had escalated her displeasure that they no longer had any Pokemon-themed happy meals, which had just been released today. I continued staring out the window, embarrassed, but listening intently to see how the drama would play out. The two women vigorously traded banter until some other underling discovered that he had found more of the Pokemon toys--but to Meg's disdain, she would have to park the van and go inside to place her order. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing that I wouldn't have to witness any more of this first-hand. I coached the kids to be over-complimentary when they received their food, and they responded perfectly when Meg returned a few minutes later with Pokemon-themed happy meals. I failed to observe any change in her outward appearance. Had her ange...