When life gives you lemons, go make lemonade 644 miles away

So Sunday night I was feeling somewhat lonely, missing my wife and daughter who had taken the roadie down to Disneyland with wife’s family. Knowing that I had slept much of Sunday and thus wasn’t going to be sleeping much if at all that night, I decided around 9:30 p.m. to take a spontaneous middle-of-the-night jaunt down to the O.C. In a classic example of the phenomena some in the academic world have come to refer to as “Jamshid’s Hustle,” tires hit pavement at 1:12 a.m.

(An observation about weird intra-family dynamic of my in-laws: I’m convinced that my wife Erin leads a secret double life. When she’s not busy being my personal assistant/life coach, she is one of two de facto wives to her older sister. Erin has two sisters, one older and one younger. The older sister is single, in her early 30s and a traveling nurse. An objective observer would note that the older sister is smart, talented, not unattractive…but that she’s totally scarred by her parents’ divorce and father’s six subsequent marriages. So when Erin’s family gets together like they do for their annual Disneyland trek, the older sister seizes control of the situation and acts out the role of patriarch, bossing around the mom and the two married sisters and their combined three children. Needless to say, when these occasions arise I stay the hell away because I am no match for my wife’s older sister and de facto second husband.)

After in-car naps in a Vegas hotel parking lot and gas stations in Baker and Ontario, I rolled into the 949 approximately 13 hours after departure. Erin and our daughter stayed with me while the rest of her family drove back to Utah on Monday night. We had a good time, thawing out and relaxing beneath the beautiful azure Calif. sky on my parent’s dime. I especially enjoyed watching the 1991 classic “Not Without My Daughter” starring Sally Field with my Persian Dad b/c he was able to translate from Farsi to English the dialogue that was on the periphery of the movie (which basically amounted to all the crazy Iranians shouting at each other to stop shouting at each other). Good times.

We rolled into Utah County this morning at 7 a.m. Except for the speeding ticket I got outside of Barstow for going between 88 and 90 mph, it was a smooth ride home. (Seriously, I think the cop was about to detain me for driving my Utah-registered car while having a Calif. driver’s license despite not having lived in Calif. for four years. I don’t know if it was my uncombed hair, two-week beard, wrinkled pajamas, or overall disheveled appearance, but when I tried to explain the registration/license discrepancy to him by saying that I had been attending law school in Utah, he gave me one of those “yeah, and I’m Donald Rumsfeld” looks). Here is an excerpt from my dialogue with Officer Nelson:
OFFICER: Have you been to traffic school in the last 18 months?
SHEED: Um, I don’t think so. (brief, pregnant pause) No, I definitely haven’t.
OFFICER: Then you’ll be able to go to traffic school so the point doesn’t go on your record. You can even do it online if you want.
SHEED: (nodding, speaking in subdued tone so Officer Nelson doesn’t think I’m being sarcastic with him) Great, that’s great that I can do it online.
OFFICER: (smiling) Yeah, it’s really cool the way they have it set up now online.
SHEED: (nodding abruptly stops and blank looks spreads over face at Officer Nelson’s use of the words “really cool” in reference to any kind of traffic school)

Bonus note: I got into a discussion with my family about the current state of “Saturday Night Live,” with me advocating the position that, like an anteater with a punctured snout, it sucks rather badly. To refute my assertion, my brother directed me to watch the “Dick in a Box” skit with Justin Timberlake that aired on SNL in December. Suffice to say, I was reduced to tears of laughter. Seriously, if you haven’t seen it yet, go to YouTube or the NBC website and watch the “Dick in a Box” skit.

Useless but interesting information: Last month my brother won Winter Formal King for Mission Viejo High School. The Queen was the daughter of Bill Bavasi, general manager of the Seattle Mariners.

Useless but interesting information, Part 2: My brother’s girlfriend was on the Winter Formal court too, but when she didn’t win and my brother subsequently had to dance with the Bavasi girl, brother’s girlfriend danced with a chiseled African-American football player who like her was an also-ran on the Winter Formal court. In looking at pictures of the dance with my brother, he was less-than-happy when I pointed out to him what a good time his girlfriend appeared to be having while dancing with the muscular black fellow.

One final note to leave y’all with this Thursday morn: no matter what so-called “experts” tell you, it is not a good idea to lock your cat in the bathroom for three-plus days. Yes, that’s right, prior to departure late Sunday/early Monday, I put Wilson the Cat in a bathroom along with his litter box, food dish and a night light. When we got home this morning, he was meowing like crazy and, since subsequently being released from his confinement, has been acting really nervous, kind of like he’s tweaking on meth – you know, unable to sit down for more than two seconds at a time and wandering the house in a daze like he’d just gotten interrogated/tortured by Special Agent Jack Bauer on an episode of “24.”