Standing Outside with My Mouth Open Wide.

Pink eye is among the less manly-sounded diseases I've heard about. It's right up there with the butterfly plague or the rainbow flu. Either of which sounds markedly more interesting. My eye's itchiness is none of your business, thank you kindly, but since you asked so politely, yes, it itches something fierce.

I played Mafia last night with Dear Little Sister and the gang. Not a real gang, mind you. A close-knit group of friends forged in years past through common experience to become almost like a family. Like I said, Mafia. Then we played Rook. It was basically the Sunday game night's greatest hits album last night. Just throw in Bang and we'd have it sown up.

So the Gospel. Just want to say, I loved church yesterday. Went to a different ward so we could stay late and say good-bye to the family yesterday morning, but as usual I loved it. Church is always so inspiring.

Well my assignments and such aren't going to finish themselves, you know? Would that they would. Oh what a rain that would be.

Oh, What's in a Blog?

When I was in elementary school, my teacher read us a book where some kid was eating worms every day for some reason. Like you do. One day he forgot, or was tricked into forgetting, so in the middle of the night before the day was technically over he took a megaphone and announced to the neighborhood that he was about to do it so he wouldn't break his streak. Anyway. Writing in my blog every day is slightly more rewarding than eating worms. I imagine if I missed a day I would just let it go.

Yesterday we went to a space camp with my family. We signed up and this place assigned us roles on a spaceship adapted from a surprisingly spaceship-like room. I wasn't fooled, it was just a room, but that didn't make it any less incredible. I actually went to pretend space yesterday afternoon. Better believe it.

I tell you what, Mormon Messages? These YouTube videos we watch in Sunday School sometimes? A genuine blessing heaven-sent for teachers and classes both. Multimedia is the way to go.

I woke up this morning to three of my nephews jumping on me, throwing pillows on me, and generally making merry in the direction of my person. It was working to get me up, until I bought some time by letting them play games on my iPod while I came to and licked my wounds. Your move, little kids. Your move.

So, guys. What's up? Life good? Family treating you well? Glad to hear it. Nothing else to say, as far as I can think of. Or maybe you and I are in a fight. In which case I don't want to tell you anything else right now. I'm currently feasting on Korean candy, and it's incredible. As such, I've got to go.

These Creaky Bones.

This is something like the dozenth year we've had these official family reunions on this side of the family. I just love them. Before that I really didn't know many of my cousins or aunts and uncles, but now I'm good friends with a lot of them. (To coin: the term "iblings" to refer to aunts and uncles. And this blog should be renamed The Mint for all the coinage I'm responsible for. Rimshot.)

Last night we united our board game collections, accrued over years and years of research and extensive field testing, and played a couple until late into the night. I tell you, my arthritis is due to start manifesting soon enough, because I was over-ready to go to bed by eleven. My ten-years-ago self would be ashamed; my ten-years-ago parents would be elated.

Weakness can't halt the forward arrow of tradition, though. We ended a couple of hours after that, when none of us were truly self-aware any more. We have genuinely begun these game sessions in years past at the same time we were cleaning up last night. Our stubbornness kept us all from yielding altogether to fatigue, though, like the Black Night's "flesh wound" from The Holy Grail.

Board games at family reunions: proof that the human achievement is destined to exceed the impossible. Just kidding, functioning cold fusion systems would do that. The parallel I've heard most often about rallying my family members to a single cause is "herding cats." That's unfair to cats, from a family whose motto is "I'm the boss of my own self." As documented on the T-shirts a few years back.

One dear cousin in high school reminded me of the time I had a hip-hop hit in my head a couple of months ago, which upon my stuck-in-the-head performance she said, "Isn't that song from, like, ten years ago?" Mockery ensued. That song is current, hip, happening, fresh, now, I said. For a high schooler I was astonished by her slippery grasp of pop culture. Well that's what Wikipedia is for, team: she looked it up and showed me it was genuinely exactly ten years old. Okay, then. Mockery ensued. I tell you, I need to either get with the times or get out of the temporal kitchen.

A Little Less Celebration, a Little More Action.

I always thought (until how recently I decline to say) that the positions of attorney general and surgeon general were military distinctions, sort of a way to let all the different generals stand out. Turns out that is not the case.

So there was a little festival going on yesterday to celebrate Pioneer Day, which I attended with some folks I know. The problem was, we got there in the afternoon apparently right when it was all closing down. It wasn't all at once, though: pretty much every single activity or exhibit or whatever waited to shut down until we walked by it or, if we were trying to take part, we were next up in line. It was like a malevolent series of Pioneer Day anti-miracles, as they were out to get us instead of helping us celebrate. Pioneer Day 2013 ruined. The magic is gone for me; next year I'm going to need to learn a valuable Pioneer Day lesson to offset this year's mild inconvenience.

I've got a family reunion that's going to start tonight, and I'm really excited about that. Dear Little Sister will be there, so I'll have to pretend to be excited about that. (I kid, I kid! Or do I? You be the judge.) We always stay up late playing board games and do fun things with the niblings. (Fun fact of the day: "niblings" is a real word that encompasses nieces and nephews. You're welcome.) It'll be nice to see everybody.

Okay, okay, I'm not so jaded that I don't believe in Pioneer Day any more. Obviously I'm a huge fan of having work and school off all day. It should be a weeklong celebration, I say.

I'm going to have a fun contest. Whoever memorizes every word published on this blog will get a dollar. Go.

Wut Up Chat. I Said Wut Up.

I meant to celebrate my blog's one-week-of-posts anniversary yesterday by actually telling somebody about my blog? But I forgot.

Speaking of... particular dates that are significant because of the time that's passed since something began? My dear little sis (henceforth and hereafter "DLS" on this blog; so shall it be, forever and ever) gets home from her mission (for the LDS Church) today.

There are so many different things I could say, but instead I'll highlight them in that one sentence with varying emphasis. She gets home from her mission today. She gets home from her mission today. She gets home from her mission today. She gets home from her mission today. She gets home from her mission today.

Maybe you're confused. Perhaps you misunderstand. I grant that I may have been unclear. Let me try again: she gets home from her mission today. Got that? We're good? All clear?

Very excited. Won't see her for a little while yet since she's actually moving farther away from me geographically, but thanks to our horses' hooves being counted like flint and our wheels like the whirlwind I'll be seeing her on Skype soon enough. Which is good, in case I have to turn her off. Which I'm kidding about. Or am I? You be the judge.

Weird. Missions are long, weird, time-manipulating creatures. Can't believe it's been a year and a half.