My brother and sister-in-law took my father, mother, and me out to dinner and revealed that they were expecting.  Their child is due in August meaning my sister-in-law has been with child for a few months and my parents and I took to learning this differently:

Mom: I thought you had a bit of a glow about you.
Dad: I knew something was up when you said you’d stopped drinking.
Me: I noticed no changes in you that suggested that you were pregnant.
Sister-in-Law: Thank you, Terry.

My day was dedicated to cleaning out the rec room of our house which hadn’t received a really thorough cleaning in at least five years and hadn’t had the carpets cleaned in over a decade.  Armed with the Bissell CarpetViolator 2000, this room would know fear.  I thought my plans were ruined when I got a call from my brother to pick up his wife from a local brewfest and bring her home, but this turned into an unexpected opportunity.

BRA HA HA HA.  Under the logic that she was my brother’s wife thus everything he owned was hers too, I felt no compunction about using her permission to throw out things my brother hadn’t gotten around to moving out.

Me: Think he wants slightly mess up Clapton tapes?
Her: Nah, he listens to bad music now.
Me: Does that mean we keep the Kris Kross tape?
Her: I think it’s just better we throw out everything that has mouse poop on it.

And knowing my house, with one pen stroke I got all the permission I needed to help my brother finally move out.

My brother turns 30 in a few days and he’s not 30 yet in my mind having “just” landed a reasonable job (really 3 years) and “just” getting married (really 5 years) of which neither matters as the calendar is unapologetic in keeping track of time.  I talked to him a few times over the evening, mostly about photography, as he and I have little to talk about besides our parents and sometimes computers.  I brought up something that’d popped up recently:

Me: A friend asked me to be the photographer at his wedding.  What do you think I should charge?
Him: Run.  Get as far from that shit as you can and then keep running.  Unless he’s blind, say no.
Me: Why?  He seems to like my pictures and his standards will probably be forgiving.
Him: If my best friend was the photographer at my wedding and screwed them up, I would remove his balls with my bare hands.  I have been in 1 fight in my life and while i like guns I’m not violent.  But the man who fucks up my wedding photos should use the money I paid him to buy a life insurance policy because he would be a dead man.
Me: Maybe I’ll decline and just offer to do some portraits.
Him: Now you’re thinking.

Maybe my brother’s wiser than I thought.

My brother’s moving out soonish and will migrate from my fat fiber pipe to “borrowing”  his neighbor’s DSL connection through flaws in WEP encryption.  He’s been torrenting like crazy so my daily ritual has been: come home, feed animals, turn on computer, play TF2, die because I have a ping of 300, turn off brother’s pr()n downloads, die because I suck despite having a ping of 47.  I decided to peek at what I was turning off.  Was it Dirty Nurses 17 or San Fernando Jones and the Temple of Poon? No.  Adobe Creative Suite 4? No.  Victory at Sea for my dad?  No.  It was the special features from the Thundercats DVD.  Really?  He’s officially gone from  “I should be safe and download all the optional updates for Windows XP” to “I must save Internet so man may have it after Ragnarok”.

If he starts downloading either back seasons of Doctor Who or Norton Internet Security 2007, I think I could get a Cease and Desist order for him abusing the Internet when coupled with his unabashed usage of Opera.

I was sent home yesterday by one of the camp’s august medical experts after having shat in multiples of 5 for the last few days.  All was well, I thought, until I returned to camp, had a sandwich whereas a four hour count-down began to colonic destruction.

Normally, I wouldn’t mind being sent home, except for I have no bed (it’s at camp), no air conditioning (we’re cheap), and no amazing computer (it’s at camp).  I arrived at home, scared the shit out of my brothe’s friend in the garage, and was promptly visited by my mother who didn’t otherwise know I was home.  At this point, I was sweating over a bowl of hot soup, using my laptop, while my mother kept talking about her damn new house.  I really wanted to go back to camp.

Later, after my mother had asked me to see her tree fort (as I call her new house) two dozen times I went to play Team Fortress 2, thinking my brother’s computer would do.  22 inches on a dual core is nothing compared to 30 inches on a quad core.  I really wanted to go back to camp.  My dad arrived later, said hello, and I rolled my eyes when he proposed we have a quality family meal…. from Taco Bell.  I figured if I was going to shit like a firehose I should at least have an excuse.  He then asked me if I would be home for a day or so.  I said yes, and he told me to mow the lawn.  I really wanted to go back to camp.

I went to bed last night in my room that was covered in stuff that had been put there thinking I wouldn’t be back for a month or so, and cleared space for an air matress.  I did, and it leaked, from like four different spots.  I figure I’d try it and woke up 90 minutes later to a scene that looked like a bad rip off of “Death Bed, the Bed that Eats People” as I sink into the vinyl chasm.  I repeat the re-inflation/absorption cycle a 1/2 dozen times before my brother pokes in, says “the bed has a hole in it” and tells me to pick up a package for him in Langhorne.   I really want to go back to camp.

If I have to fake health with enough Imodium to constipate a sperm whale, by God, I will.

I was sent home yesterday by one of the camp’s august medical experts after having shat in multiples of 5 for the last few days.  All was well, I thought, until I returned to camp, had a sandwich whereas a four hour count-down began to colonic destruction.

Normally, I wouldn’t mind being sent home, except for I have no bed (it’s at camp), no air conditioning (we’re cheap), and no amazing computer (it’s at camp).  I arrived at home, scared the shit out of my brothe’s friend in the garage, and was promptly visited by my mother who didn’t otherwise know I was home.  At this point, I was sweating over a bowl of hot soup, using my laptop, while my mother kept talking about her damn new house.  I really wanted to go back to camp.

Later, after my mother had asked me to see her tree fort (as I call her new house) two dozen times I went to play Team Fortress 2, thinking my brother’s computer would do.  22 inches on a dual core is nothing compared to 30 inches on a quad core.  I really wanted to go back to camp.  My dad arrived later, said hello, and I rolled my eyes when he proposed we have a quality family meal…. from Taco Bell.  I figured if I was going to shit like a firehose I should at least have an excuse.  He then asked me if I would be home for a day or so.  I said yes, and he told me to mow the lawn.  I really wanted to go back to camp.

I went to bed last night in my room that was covered in stuff that had been put there thinking I wouldn’t be back for a month or so, and cleared space for an air matress.  I did, and it leaked, from like four different spots.  I figure I’d try it and woke up 90 minutes later to a scene that looked like a bad rip off of “Death Bed, the Bed that Eats People” as I sink into the vinyl chasm.  I repeat the re-inflation/absorption cycle a 1/2 dozen times before my brother pokes in, says “the bed has a hole in it” and tells me to pick up a package for him in Langhorne.   I really want to go back to camp.

If I have to fake health with enough Imodium to constipate a sperm whale, by God, I will.

I woke up this morning and could barely see straight. I wrote an email to my boss saying I wouldn’t be and nearly fell of my chair. This continued until about 45 minutes after my father returned from work. Apparently recovered I prepared dinner and during its course he asked if I hated the peach-scented aromatic diffusers my brother had installed as much as he did. I found one, sniffed it and immediately felt dizzy. Superman’s weakness is kryptonite, mine is a peach-scented Glade plug in knock off. Needless to say, the Robinson’s household garbage smells quite peachy. I look forward to return to work on Friday and trying to kill my brother in his sleep on Saturday.

I woke up this morning and could barely see straight. I wrote an email to my boss saying I wouldn’t be and nearly fell of my chair. This continued until about 45 minutes after my father returned from work. Apparently recovered I prepared dinner and during its course he asked if I hated the peach-scented aromatic diffusers my brother had installed as much as he did. I found one, sniffed it and immediately felt dizzy. Superman’s weakness is kryptonite, mine is a peach-scented Glade plug in knock off. Needless to say, the Robinson’s household garbage smells quite peachy. I look forward to return to work on Friday and trying to kill my brother in his sleep on Saturday.