Love, American Style

Time to get back to the real world.  After several weeks (yes, 3 weeks) of vacation this weekend marks the end of a work free period. How was it spent? One week spent on the ocean coast, a long drive up, a new (used, but new to me) Westfalia named Stella, a day spent crabbing in Waldport with friends, a trip to the worlds largest sea cave full of sea lions, a 14.5 hour drive home with only one stop due to overheating, a couple days in the woods, and a day at Sand Harbor, Lake Tahoe. Now I am roaring to get back to work.
Maybe not. Work is overrated.  While gone I apparently survived another round of layoffs (thank you FSM). I will let you know Monday first thing. If things go really bad, I will always have a van to live in.  Most likely park it down by the river.
Meet Stella.  The newest member of our family.  Isn’t she HOT.  That’s right, the A/C doesn’t work. 

I am thinking I might need a beer right about now and seeing as our fridge decided to die just as the vacation ended I have a cooler of beer sitting next to me so it will take zero effort.  I might have to make this a permanent edition to the living room (over Susanne’s dead body most likely). Anyone for a PBR?  Yeah, not my beer either, but as Eric “The Piano Mover Man” Holden never was able to complete the piano moving I managed to drink the 12 pack he never picked up. I have to say, it does make a nice summer beer.
Damn, I have been away from this laptop for so long, can you help me…is this thing on?
Am I rambling...is this thing on?
So if you are one of the 10 readers (not regular readers, but just one of the 10 people who read this blog) you noticed that our family took a vacation to the Oregon coast. We rented a house on the ocean (no, I won’t recommend it, the house, I highly recommend the ocean) of Seal Rock Oregon, just south of Newport or North of Waldport, depending on your sense of direction.  It was newly on the rental market because apparently the old lady who lived there just died.  Who’s kidding. Susanne likes to correct me every time I make that joke, but the chalk mark outline on the kitchen floor proved I was right.  They really should have cleaned up a bit first.  I mean, they lady’s slippers were still in the closet. True story.  I’m not making this stuff up. Maybe some of it, the house wasn’t RIGHT on the ocean.
So what was this blog about? Oh yeah, Love, American Style.  Well, there was no loving this vacation, I mean for Susanne and I.  Jake did sneak out a lot so who knows what he got into (so to speak) but the kids were sleeping in our room at the rental because the beds in the loft at 50 feet above sea level and 14 feet above the 2nd floor weren’t exactly child safe.  So, the kids “slept” in a mattress on our bedroom floor.  Sleeping being loosely used here of course.
Let me demonstrate.


Now I don’t want you thinking that our vacation was love free.  It was full of love.  My kids gave me lots of love.  My wife loved the ocean. I loved not being at work and best of all, I loved having my family together. Oh, and there was Wine love.
Additionally we had all sorts of interesting conversations regarding love.  My favorite one occurred on the trip up.  There we were heading up into Oregon. The kids watching “Swan Princess” (a story of true love) and Jacob texting his girlfriend in Washington (long distance love) when Susanne comes over a hill and smack dab in the middle of the road is a dead squirrel and another standing over it (lost love).
“Oh, that is so sad. That poor squirrel lost the love of his life!” she says.
“That’s one way to look at it,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“Maybe he was eating her?”