I took all the ads down from my blog. I’m conducting a scientific experiment called “will I be able to actually start blogging again if there isn’t anything monetary tied to it?” Time will tell.

I was going to apply for a grant to conduct this experiment, but then I saw this:

And they need a grant way more. My friend Kevin‘s daughter suffers from this autoimmune disorder, as do a lot of kids. A lot of kids suffer and die from it. See, here. Today is the last day to submit a vote to Pepsi Refresh on behalf of Kevin, his daughter, his family and community for a $250K grant to help find a cure. Really, you don’t have to do jack, just click vote or text 100850 to 73774.

Today’s the last day to vote. You know you want to.

First:

Somewhere in the uncharted backwaters of a city in Delaware, a woman sits, most likely playing Tetris on the internet. The woman, herself, is of very little importance to this story. Inside that woman is a little pink sack, a pocket if you will, and on the wall of that sack, carved in sharpened bits of umbilical cord, reads the following words:

Mr Lady. Out. 3.20.75.

Directly above that, if you were to look, you’d also see this:

E.C. was here. Born to raise hell 7.8.73

No, Eric Clapton is not my brother. This clown is. We’ll call him Gnilleps, okay?

First-born child to the nightmarish debacle that was the reproductive team of Mr Lady’s parents, my brother is 20 months my senior, stands about a foot taller than I do, has red hair, play video games, has attended more college than he ever did public school, and is a big fat copy-cat.

I have 3 kids. Guess who also has 3 kids? My husband is 35. Guess who just had to go and turn 35 today? Whatever, hosehead.

Sometimes when my kids achieve ludicrous speed, The Donor will ask me, “Where do they get that from? YOU? Gnilleps?” And I honestly don’t know. I don’t remember much about him growing up. We kind of lived in, well, a warzone? It was every man for himself. Sibling bonds were not forged. I do remember than when we weren’t pitted against each other in a battle to the death, I totally looked up to him. Even when he:

• Duct taped us to the bed while we slept, and duct taped out mouths shut so no one would hear us scream
• Rolled us up in blankets and then shoved us down the wooden staircase
• Hid Playboys in the attic, and laced the entrance to the attic with Sudafed, knowing we’d find them and think they were Red Hot Candies and eat them all
• Tried to build a bomb practice chemistry in the kitchen
• Dropped our brother on his head so hard he had seizures for a few years after (honestly, I did the same thing to our sister. Eveies.)
• Attempted to talk me into jumping out of the 2nd story bedroom window
• Shattered my 4 year old right arm in the process
• Convinced me to take the wrap for drinking all the cherry juice, which doesn’t sound like a big deal to you, but I know and he knows….

You know, normal older brother stuff. Here’s the deal; my older brother is the smartest human, by far, I have ever met and he was, as a child, a lot like The Brain. Guess who was his Pinky? He was seriously less than challenged growing up and he just made the best of it.

My favorite memory of my brother, one of my only memories of him actually, is one night when he was in his room, and I mine, and we realized that the phone jack in the wall in between our rooms had never been wired, and that once we took the jack cover off we could totally talk to each other all super-secret-like through that hole in the wall. We sat up all night gabbing through it. I couldn’t fathom a guess as to what we talked about, but I remember that we did it. I had never felt so special in my whole life.

That’s the thing with my brother. He’s a clown. He’s outrageous. He dyes his hair pink occasionally. But, when he wants to, he can make you feel like One Million Bucks. He’s genuine, he’s unique, he is unabashedly unafraid, and he is true to who he his.

We never had that relationship where we say I love you and I miss you and stuff. We never really had any relationship, truth be told, but that wasn’t our fault and now that I am all grown up and I can choose for myself? Yeah, I choose him to be my big brother. I love that guy, man. He’s an amazing uncle, a bang up husband, a fabulous dad. He’s smart and funny and I am so proud of him, watching him grow from a fucked up little kid into a man you’d want to will your children to. He rose above, yo. Better than I could have ever hoped to, for sure.

So, Gnilleps, happy 35th birthday, you old fuck. Your bottle of Geritol and your Bing Crosby albums are in the post. Because I love you.

Second:

Today is also the birthday of someone else quite important to me, and I’m just not going into that, but I am going to tell you a joke the kids’ godfather once told me, and my willingness to repeating it , especially today, is quite possibly the reason I’m going to hell.

Jethro was walking home from workin’ all day in the coal-mines, and stopped into the local pub, just like he did every night on his way home. Dingy, dusty, he saddled up to the bar and ordered his drink, the same drink he ordered every day. And then he smiled a wide, dirty, toothless grin the likes of which the bartender had never seen on his face before. “My oh lordy, Jethro,” Clarabell said, “you sure do have a big ol’ grin on your face today! What’s got you so happy?”

Jethro sighed. “Clarabell, I doesn’t even know wheres to start. Last night, oh lordy, last night!” He took a deep breath and continued. “Last night I was walkin’ home from here, just like I does every night, and I crossed over the train tracks, just like I does every night, ’cause you know, I live just over there, on the other side of the tracks. But when I stepped over those tracks, I looked down and lord almighty, what did I see? I saw a girl. TIED to the tracks! You know, like in those movin’ pictures!”

Clarabell’s eyes grew wide. “What did you do, Jethro?”

“Well, what could I do? I untied her, of course! I brought her back to my shack with me, and I poured us both a drink. I was so nervous! I tried to talk to her, but, well, I just couldn’t helps myself, and…well…errr…long story short? We ended up DOING IT all night long! We did it on the couch, and on the kitchen counter, all over my shack! It was the most amazing night of my life!”

Clarabell smiled for her old friend. “Jethro,” she said, “that’s great! I is so happy for you! What is her name? Is she pretty?”

“I don’t know,” confessed Jethro, “I never did find her head.”

Last weekend, summer came to Vancouver. I mean that quite literally; summer lasted all of 3 days, and then took a jump straight into fall. I will seriously freak out if I talk about that anymore, so let’s move on, shall we?

Last weekend, we had 30 degree C temps (double it, add 30 Americans) and my 2nd born had his All Star Championship games. We sat in the roasting sun for 3 days straight, with the highest UV index Vancouver has seen in a long time, we burned through 50 SPF sunscreen, we melted like we’d just high-jacked the Lost Ark, and my kid lost. Miserably.

Wanna know why I love this kid so much, and his whole team for that matter? They could not have cared less. They had a freaking blast. They were the underdogs, by a lot, and they improved every stinking game they played. They never got down, they always were smiling, and they just played ball. It was a beautiful thing to behold.

And here’s the pictorial evidence:

He swung and swung and swung, with no luck, until…

Day two. Base hit. And they just kept coming after that.

Yeah, he’s so cute I could die.

Um, the sun was in his face? He was tired? Or maybe he’s just a goofball.

The rest of us had loads of fun, too. We ate the most hideous barbecue ever awesome ballpark fare, drank delicious, sugar free, low calorie healthy drinks,

Hung out on the playground,

I stared at my insanely hot husband…

And we were even graced with the presence of a local hostage-taking terrorist and her delicious children. We escaped to their house for lunch one day, where The Princess and 3of3 refined their Mad Heathers Skilz.

If I showed you The Princess’s face, I’d have to kill you. Just sayin’.

And when the whole thing was over, we returned to the park for Closing Ceremonies.

After that, we stayed for the final championship game, to decide 1st and 2nd place, and I have to tell you; if you’ve never sat through an 8-9 year old championship baseball game, you’re missing out. Professional Baseball ain’t got nothin’ on these kids. I think I held my breath for 99.63% of the game, and I don’t much like baseball.

And then we hit the beach, right on the Canadian border, which is very pretty, if not the slightest bit full of sawdust. Don’t ask; I couldn’t explain it if I wanted to.

We chose beautiful rocks,

And then lobbed them at the ocean like it had just said Jehovah or something.

We found some freaking stoner (pun soooo intended), who had apparently spent all day stacking rocks on top of each other. And thanks to him, I know have a house full of rocks and two boys with an amazingly inexpensive new hobby.

We smell worse than we look.

And then we headed home, drowned ourselves in aloe, and slept like the evil undead.

And you can visit all of Lotus’ other Weekly Winners here. But I’d start here. Because she can take a picture of Cheeze-It’s that it so beautiful, it almost makes me believe in god again.

The main difference between living

in Canada and the US is that in Canada,

you get to listen to people bitch about the US less.

My husband accidentally took a week long vacation last week.

He had just pulled a marathon of sorts; 14 days straight, no break. His days are not your typical work days; he works a minimum of 10 hours a day, averages 12, once a week pulls a 14-hour-er. He gets 6 days off a month. We NEVER see him.

Since he worked a months’ worth of hours in two weeks, he took a few days off. And then we celebrated Canada Day. The day before Canada Day, he only had to go in for 5 hours. Voila! One whole week off.

I can’t remember the last time he had a whole week off. I was, honestly, afraid I might be forced to ram the heel of a green glitter plastic Princess high heel into his temple by the end of the week. We just never spend that much one-on-one time, you know?

I am happy to report, all the dress-up shoes are intact, and aside from a few muscles being sore due to overuse (you go right ahead and run with that one) no one is worse for the wear. In fact, I find myself wishing he had a normal-ish schedule. He left for work yesterday, and I missed him. Weird, I know.

There is a point, I promise. We did a lot of stuff over that week. I took a butt-load of pictures, and I have no clue where to start in showing them all to you. I am way behind in the internet loop, I haven’t had to cook dinner once for 7 days straight, and I feel the pressing need to keep the laundry up to date all of a sudden. Pictures, for once in my life, are a the bottom of my priority list.

(I am pretty sure I was stolen and replaced with an exact replica. A pretty decently laid replica. Just sayin’.)

Anyhoo, I think I’ll ease into some highlights of the past few weeks with these lovely shots of my pretend celebrity girlfriend, who I got to spend a ragin’ day with a few weeks ago. Remember how the Dragonboat races came to Vancouver a few weeks back? Yeah, we spent the whole day downtown, crutches be damned.

I’m cute. I’m almost a teen. I’m obnoxious.

We wandered around, ate some corn on the cob, watched a few races, had our picture taken with pop culture icons.

No, it’s not lost and no, we can’t keep it.

We got facepaints, because facepaints are the coolest.

If that isn’t the definitive picture of my sons, I don’t know what is.

And right there next to the facepaint tent, lo and behold, one of the Dragonboat teams. But not just any old team.

They were the only American team to make the top 8.

Recognize anyone? Look closely. Oh, it also helps if you occasionally read this guy’s blog. Right there, 2nd row, 3rd in from the right, that would be Auntie Mei. As in, Fury’s Auntie Mei, of BusyDad fame. Who is awesome. We stalked her up propa, shook hands, nibbled on my adorable baby, and then let her get back to racing.

Then we let the 2 little ones play on the playground, while 1of3 refined his mad Emo Teenager skilz.

I love this picture. Yes, I delight in my children’s misery.

We hung out until that poor boy’s foot couldn’t take it anymore, and then headed home. Before we did, we thought it would be a good idea to take advantage of the amazing culinary delights from around the world that Vancouver is so infamous for offering.

Discriminating tastes, that’s us.

And then we hoped on the SkyTrain and headed home, where my daughter who had been a perfect f’ing angel al day decided that right then was a fine time to exfoliate her sun-drentched skin with Blue Rasberry Bonnie Bell lipgloss. I didn’t even know she was doing it until I noticed a woman a few seats down staring at her, gaging a little.

It was way more horrifying than it looks.

Then i was forced to take the obligatory self-portrait, since Mr Rude Cactus is always telling me I’m not narcissistic enough, so here is it, brother.

This really terrible Bud’s for you.

Are you still here? Yeah, I barely am, too. Anyway, next day, downtown, coffeeshop, me and Auntie Mei and 3of3. We met, we wooed, we made exchange of cheesy camera phone pictures.

And that was it. We said goodbye, she hopped on a plane home, and I am happy to have made a new friend. We had a great time, for sure. Which was good, because right after this, Hell Week Little League Championship Week started.

But that’s a whole other story….

See the other Thursday Thirteen’s here.