My Family As A Sitcom

So my Auntie Robin (my parents good friend, our babysitter, and one of our very favorite people) came to visit a couple of weeks ago. We all came over for family dinner (once a month 2nd Sunday tradition) and started just talking about stuff since we had seen her. Told some fun jokes, talked about funny stuff we remember from childhood. She looked at us and just started laughing. She said "you can't make stuff like this up! This is like some TV family show". This comment came after several remarks about my father's finger. For anyone who doesn't know my father these make interesting tales. Due to an accident (he cut his hand with a skill saw) his finger was amputated just before my 16th birthday. He kept it in a jar in the freezer for a while. At first he would ask us to go scratch it for him. Um...no. Love ya, but no. On my first date he took it out of the freezer to show it to the guy -- "This is what happened to the last guy who brought her home late." You know that AT&T commercial where the dad is going around knocking on cars and he tells the camera - "Sorry dear - now come Monday you are going to be the girl with the crazy father no one wants to date"? Yes- that was me. Except I was already weird so having a crazy father didn't much surprise anybody.

Then he took it to the Natural History Museum and they freeze dried it for him. So he put it on a necklace with all of his teeth on the string. Yes, his teeth. (yes he wears dentures and does not put the necklace in his mouth. I know you didn't ask but it had to have crossed your mind.) We have some great pics of the kids picking their noses it I will have to find. We have a lot of moments like this. Kind of like -- Mom where is the ice cream? Mom says, in the downstairs freezer under the badger." Now to us this makes perfect sense but to others -- maybe not so much. So I started thinking about my family, and thought -- she's right! We are a pretty strange bunch. We talk in movie quotes, dad tans his own leather, he has a tipi, we have body parts on strings, can jerry rig anything! Sometime we spontaneously burst into song and everyone knows all the words. We toss around phrases like - "you should have seen his face as we snuck around the deer at the bottom of the stairs" and have the deer not actually be part of the punchline. And you know, that makes me feel pretty cool.

(This is all of us with our boo-boos we got in one month. Trying to be cute with the hear no evil see no evil thing. I think we were actually saying see no ouchies, hear no ouchies etc etc. The ER just started reserving us a bed)

For my science project in 6th grade I decided to do a report on how to brain tan leather.(And for those who don't know - it is work!! Lots of time consuming work! How did those women do it with all those buffalo??) I thought it was a pretty cool one and I could gurantee no one else would be doing it (unlike the baking soda volcano). So we had the hide, stretched it out and boiled the brain. As a side note - deer brain smells like turkey when you boil it. It does NOT taste like turkey though. Just FYI. I took it to school explaining the whole process and everything you have to do after you brain it and brought samples of the one we did. I also brought a new hide with a boiled brain so people could smear some on if they wanted. What was funny was how many girls did it while the guys looked like they would pass out. I got an A. And a note never to do anything like that again. But I got an A.
( Yes the snake is real. Dead and stuffed with wires but real.)

And the time we had a new neighboor move in next door. A nice sweet little old lady. A day after she gets settled she wanders into her back yard. We just so happen to have the tipi up with our horse tail scalp hanging off the top, a couple skins stretched out and were boiling some buffalo skulls to get all the tissue off and bleach them white. Now to us that was normal. She almost had a heart attack -- what devil worshipping monsters had she moved next to???

Lots of fun moments. The kids playing dad's teeth. A picture of everyone squeezing in a four seater out house. (Because who doesn't want someone next to them in the outhouse??) Me catching a fish with my feet. My dad with a fish hook in his nose trying to catch the damn fish that jumped off the hook that is now in his nose. My cousin Kristy and I getting stuck climbing up Pig Pen, then getting bored of waiting for someone to rescue us so we found a way to climb down. Christmas time with all 80+ of us Sqeezing into my Uncle Clem's house so we can listen to my totally awesome Papa talk. (and of course presents. Some normal, some not so much. Who doesn't want their own fish pillow made with personlized fabric huh? Everyone needs those googly eyes staring at them on their beds.)

Ahhhh family. The more other family's I know the more grateful I am for mine. No offense to my friends or in-laws, they are all good people. But I wouldn't trade my crazy fam for anything in the world. Love ya guys!!