"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
"Home is not where you live, but where they understand you." - Christion Morgenstern
"There are some things you can't share without ending up liking each other, and knocking out a twelve-foot mountain troll is one of them." -J.K. Rowling

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

There isn't anyone quite like us

"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though they know that you are slightly cracked." - Bernard Meltzer

For some odd reason I’ve been thinking a lot about this little family, we are truly unique. No matter what happens, and there have been some moments, we all still love each other. Lucky for us we still only judge on Tuesdays. I don’t think I’ll ever understand everything they have done for me; these are the kind of people worth fighting for, because there isn’t another group of people in this world that are so willing to accept me with all of my imperfections and insecurities. For that I will never be able to thank them enough.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

In response to our theme song...

"True friends are two people who are comfortable sharing silence together"—Ralph Waldo Emerson.

Old School -our theme song- is a very evocative song for me. Whenever I hear it, it brings me back to summer days of being crammed into Denton's backseat, surrounded by friends, heading off to our next adventure.
Back then, things were so easy. No school, no outstanding obligations to worry us.
Just us.
Looking back, I now fully realize that I had it pretty good.

And although people, lives, and circumstances change, we'll always have perfect regard for how cavalier with beautiful insanity we used to be, and when everything is different and we forget who we are, we'll always have our old reckless ways to reflect back upon and realize that we made each other who we are.


Moments like these can't be taken for granted.

Theme Song

With how close our family is, we share a lot of things - even if we all have completely different opinions about pretty much everything. We share souls, thoughts, and emotions more deeply than with anyone else. It is an interesting thing to try and explain but I think these two, obviously unnamed quotes say it best:
1) “It is only that which cannot be expressed otherwise that is worth expressing in music.”
2)“Music expresses that which cannot be said and on which it is impossible to be silent.”
Since a lot of what happens in our family is uncommunicated, it is hard to get across how attached we really are. Thus the choice of Hedley's Old School as our theme song. We're all still extremely close, but we've got some interesting things in store. Lyrics:
Don't believe everything happiness says
Nothing feels better than hiding these days
We bury our fears in the drinks, in these tears
For the days we believed we could fly

Call up your brothers and sisters and friends
We'll go back to the place where the night never ends
We'll remember the fires, the burning car tires
Boy how in the hell did we get here?

So why don't you meet me, down behind the old school
We'll waste away the weekend, with perfect regard for how
Cavalier we used to be, that beautiful insanity
The apathy's surrounding me
Don't close your eyes or we'll fade away

Over and over and over again
We sat down for a minute, grew up into men
Now we're putting out fires and changing car tires
Man how in hell did we get here?

So why don't you meet me, down behind the old school
We'll waste away the weekend, with perfect regard for how
Cavalier we used to be, that beautiful insanity
The apathy's surrounding me
Don't close your eyes or we'll fade away this time

And we'll never get back what we
Gave away, when we still have that fire in our eyes
Don't believe everything happiness says
Nothings as real as our old reckless ways
When we drink by the fires
The burning car tires
Bad girls and good liars
The dreams we'd conspire
The days we went crazy
The nights wild and hazy
Man how in the hell did we get here?

So why don't you meet me, down behind the old school
We'll waste away the weekend, with perfect regard for how
Cavalier we used to be, that beautiful insanity
The apathy's surrounding me
Don't close your eyes or we'll fade away

Why don't you meet me, down behind the old school
We'll waste away the weekend, with perfect regard for how
Cavalier we used to be, that beautiful insanity
The apathy's surrounding me
Don't close your eyes or we'll fade away

I couldn't find the official music video, this link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9AXKkJF1sM&feature=related) is just the songs with pictures of the band. This song has been played during every one of these stories with out fail. No matter where we end up, the different ways that we go, the different people we meet, or the fights we might have, this song will never fail to bring a smile to any of our faces because this song IS the Moments Like These.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

I just learned that Ryan Ditty is imaginary, and Tanner Cutler won't stop crying.

Tanner always comes over on Sunday’s, sometimes he stays for church and others he just pushes me in the gutter in an effort to smash a poor misunderstood dead leaf and goes to his ward. Today happened to be one of the Sunday’s where he found himself, along with Maddy –The Little Samurai-, watching me scramble to finish getting ready for church. Finally the three of us were off, as to be expected we got a couple looks from the people in my ward, most of which are completely convinced I’m totally antisocial because to be honest I have never had any real connection to any of the youth with one exception, Donavan –The Italian- who is currently getting ready to serve a mission and is now in a different ward anyway, because when our Stake so lovingly decided to split our ward they cut him out of mine.
When the three of us found a place to sit we were mistakenly in the eye of the Bishopric, which will become important later. Maddy leaned over to me and whispered, “I feel like a neon sign at midnight!” she gestured to her shirt that looked so out of place on her. Dark sapphire and glittering with sequins Maddy looked like a lost child in a department store, not that I would ever say that. My dear Little Mumzi sat next us and the Sacrament Service began. It started with some random hymn that none of us had ever heard, Maddy kept laughing at how everyone in the congregation sounded lost, including us.
After the Sacrament Tanner leaned over to us and started playing with the cards in his wallet, Maddy started laughing about the Starbucks card and taking hers to the Temple. We began fighting over all of the picture ID’s because of how much Tanner’s work ID looks like a different person. I looked up as Tanner was holding my hands to contain them from getting to his drivers license just to see the entire Bishopric staring straight at us, laughing I pointed this out to Tanner; who quickly let go of my hands and enthusiastically waved! In horror I grabbed his hand and began holding it to stop him from embarrassing me in front of my new Bishopric.
A few nerve-wracking minutes later after continuing to contain Tanner and trying my hardest to laugh at Maddy’s discomfort caused be the ridiculous shirt. We looked over to see Little Mumzi playing with erasers! Green and yellow snakes, red, blue, yellow, and green turtles, Mumzi sat role-playing with each of the erasers. Of course Tanner and I did the only thing that could be done, we gave each of our friends an eraser character! Paige became the green turtle, Maddy the red turtle, Tanner the blue turtle, I became the yellow turtle, Alex –The Scottish Ninja- the yellow snake, and Ryan the green snake. Suddenly to our surprise Paige was replaced by a green snail!
Fear shrouded each of us as we wondered who would be replaced next; suddenly Maddy was gone, only to be reinstated by a red snail. “NO” the Little Samurai’s pain permeated the quiet meeting hall, disgust radiated from the omnipresent Bishopric. But the horror wasn’t to an end, Maddy’s face contorted as she pointed down to Little Mumzi. A scene that should’ve never been beheld met my eyes followed by Tanner’s. “Um who is kissing?” Tanner stated concern coating every syllable. Little Mumzi was making the snakes kiss!
“Tanner,” a laugh dripping in my voice, “the snakes are Ryan and Alex.” The outbreak of muffled laughter that couldn’t be contained erupted and refused to desist for at least the next 15 minutes, every time we looked back at our misshapen eraser family Alex and Ryan hadn’t finished kissing! The Bishopric continued to stare as we cried tears of blatant shock and irony. Containing ourselves in that moment became harder than ever as we felt their eyes glued to our crippled forms.
A note was suddenly shoved under my tear stained red face asking us to teach Little Mumzi’s primary class, she was feeling a tad under the weather. I wrote back saying that my stray friends and I would be overjoyed to tackle a couple eight-year-olds for the afternoon.
We scuttled our way to room 113, which was much more like a broom closet than a classroom, glad to be out of the gaze of the Bishopric. We started teaching our lesson as any good teacher team of three teenagers who had just been oh so reverent in Sacrament Meeting would, “Now everyone be reverent like you should be in Sacrament Meeting.” Maddy and Tanner snorted as I struggled to keep a straight face, the image of the kissing Ryan and Alex was at the forefront of my mind. Suddenly a little boy in the class punched Tanner, but disregarding this minor issue I proceeded to teach the lesson. As the lesson progressed Tanner continued to be abused by the small boy, finally Tanner got up and left.
Maddy and I pulled out the erasers just then and told them that if they were reverent and stopped hitting Tanner they would get one. “Tanner is a VERY sensitive person and is probably out there crying right now.” Maddy said to the class at large.
The little abusive boy’s eyes grew huge, “should I go make sure that he isn’t out in the hall crying” Maddy nodded smiling. The little boy scampered out of the room and returned with the news that Tanner was indeed not in the hall crying and he couldn’t find him.
A few minutes later, Tanner wandered back to our humble broom closet. The abusive boy stared up at him and in a small voice inquired, “Were you crying out there?”
Confusion glared off of Tanner as he looked at Maddy and I, “what have you been telling them?”
“You’re a very sensitive person, and they need to stop hitting you.” Tanner’s face went red with contained laughter as tears began flooding his eyes; he buried his face in the sleeve of his jacket.
The little boy patted him saying, “I didn’t even touch him that time and he is still crying!” At this Tanner cried harder.
Finally we got to the point in the lesson where the erasers became important, we pulled out a board game at the back of the teachers manual that Little Mumzi lovingly book marked ‘’game’’, each child laid their erasers down and began to play, the object of the game was to do righteous things so you could find your way to the Celestial Kingdom. There were some spaces that you had to go back on for not doing Christ Like actions. During the intense fighting of each child trying their absolute hardest to go the Celestial Kingdom first Tanner slipped in that he hated me, right as he said it one kid chimed in, “we don’t say the ‘hate’ word!”
“That’s right Tanner,” Maddy scolded, “go back two spaces!” Tanners face fell and he began crying again from laughter, however none of the kids could see that he was laughing, they could only see he was crying. As the game progressed we found ourselves bugging Tanner about Ryan for one reason or another.
At this one child asked, “who is Ryan?”
“Now Tanner, don’t cry.” I said carefully, “Ryan is his imaginary friend who never loved him!” At this Tanner started ‘’crying’’ again! Lucky for us this concluded class and we headed into the primary room. While we were waiting for primary to start the primary president scampered up to me and handed me a plastic bag that contained two Hershey’s treasures and a note. On the back of the note I wrote, “Sorry there were only two pieces of candy, please don’t cry <3/ Katie and Maddy.” And handed it to Tanner.

Moments Like These.

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

"OH! Sorry to disturb you. . . "

It has long since been made known that Tanner and I can be just a tad flirtatious at times, sadly some of these moments have turned really embarrassing! My favorite from the plethora of times deals with the white couch in my basement, it was a Sunday afternoon. Tanner had got off from IMAX -The eater of Tanners summer- early; as was customary he was at my house for the afternoon and evening.

My dear Mumzi's side of the family was also paying us a visit that day. Tanner and I decided to take our conversation to a more private setting, so we headed down stairs to the white couch. I was sprawled out as usual on one end under a blanket, Tanner was on the other end sitting up. For a reason only Heaven knows he decided to lunge across the couch! Before I had the time to react my blanket was halfway across the basement and Tanner was on top of me tickling my very soul from me!

Just as he landed on me, my uncle Carlisle -Mumzi's dear younger brother- entered the room. I was screaming, Tanner was on top of me, which was all that Carlisle -Mumzi's dear younger brother- had to see.

"OH!" the shock in his voice permeated the room, "I'm sorry to disturb you. . . " he edged awkwardly out of the room and scuttled his way back up the stairs. Tanner and I stopped dead in our efforts, his to tickle me, and mine to shove him off of me. We looked at each other and died laughing.

Moments Like These.

Monday, November 15, 2010

The Pagan Series: Part Two

In the olden days, when Ryan was still Birdie-less, I - the Driver - ended up driving him, and everyone else, everywhere. I never had any problem with it, it was kind of fun actually - the experiences have added many a story to the history of Denton the Dented.
One of these days, Katie and I pulled up to Ryan's house to pick him up for something and found that he was not yet home. So, being Katie and I, we ended up taking a walk around his neighborhood. We headed down the street, not really realizing that we were, in fact, headed directly toward the Pagan House. As you have read, in Part One of this surreptitious series, the Pagan's house frightens us greatly. However, that statement doesn't even begin to cover the way we feel about the people that call that haunted house home.
Unbeknownst to Katie and I, these demented dwellers had ventured out into the unkempt jungle that was their lawn - and we were much too close to the boundary line. I glanced up and experienced a thrill that left my heart beating in my throat when I realized the Pagans were out and about.
"Uh, Kate?" I asked, nodding discreetly in their direction.
Her face went white and she looked away determined not to make eye contact with any of them.
"Geez, I didn't know that Pagans could come out in the sun," I muttered. "They're not even steaming or anything."
Katie had to hide her laughter until we made it around the corner so as not to bring the attention of these nocturnal neighbors to us. As soon as were out of ear shot her cackle echoed across the skies as I pulled out my phone to text Ryan: Woah! Apparently Pagan's can come out in the sunlight!
When Ryan finally ended up at his house he demanded an explanation and, naturally, Katie and I were more than ready to fill him in on the latest of our encounters with the paranormal.
Moments Like These

From Vampires to Three-Somes

“Mandi!” (-The Gothic Manager) I whined over the radio.  “Can Katie and I leave since there’s no movie playing?”  It was the second day after the midnight shows for Twilight: Eclipse, and we were sitting over at the dinosaur museum three hours early, and we wanted to go home. Now.

“Tanner, you stay for a couple more minutes, Katie, you can leave now. Just make sure you’re back in two hours.” she replied. Katie cheered, and I suggested that we go to Zupas to have lunch during this two-hour “break”.

“YEAH! Let’s bring Ryan along too!” Katie exclaimed (Paige was working at that time). Katie asked if she could take my car to pick up Ryan, and after a little lecture on the proper care of my car, I (hesitantly) agreed, and off she went with my keys.

-Ten minutes later-

“Okay, where’s my car?” I asked. Katie just snickered, I knew I was in for something. Katie then pointed out the back door toward my car. I looked out to see my car parked out beyond Canada, Russia, and Narnia. I turned to her, glared, called her a whore, and lead the trek out to my car.

Finally, Ryan, Katie and myself were all sitting down in Zupas talking, eating, and just enjoying life. Suddenly, me and Katie got into a tickling war (something very common with us) and she kicked me out of the booth onto the floor. It must have looked like I fell off, because an employee, shocked, ran over to my aid. “Are you okay, sir?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” I was able to squeeze out between fits of laughter. She asked again if I was okay, so I reassured her that I was alright. She continued to ask if I was alright, and finally I convinced her that I was just fine. I stood up, sat back in the booth, and bust up laughing again.

“Are you okay?” Katie mocked. We all laughed and continued eating (after I tickled Katie a couple more times for revenge). After we had got over the fact that I fell off the bench, Katie said “Haven’t you guys noticed that we always seem to go on these little ‘dates’?”

“Yeah,” Ryan and I agreed. “It’s almost like a three-some,” I said in a joking manner. Katie and Ryan laughed (if you haven’t noticed, we laugh a lot), and it seemed that it was true. We always did go on dates with each other. But, despite that fact, nothing could have prepared us (by ‘us’ I mean Katie and myself) for what was about to happen next.

“Wait, so you’re also dating him?” Katie yelled at Ryan, pointing her angry finger at me.

“We’re having a three-some, I though you were okay with this!” Ryan almost screamed. After half a second of silence, Katie and myself started crying from how hard her and I were both laughing. Never, in a million years, did Katie or I expect to hear anything like that, especially from Ryan. All three of us could not stop laughing for quite a few minutes (it hurt). Whenever the laughter started to die, one of us would just repeat “We’re having a three-some,” just to make us start laughing again.

This has become one of the most well known inside jokes within our group, and still, do this day, you can see Katie, Ryan, and me laughing at the most memorable quote from our experience working during the Twilight movies.

Moments Like These...

Friday, November 12, 2010

Cows

Katie said that if there was any mention of a cow on the blog, it would have been from me.


Haha Katie. Haha.


Thursday, November 11, 2010

Tanner and I - The Chronicles

Tanner and I (me, being Ryan-The Comic Relief) have had many an adventure together. Usually these adventures include us driving around in Tanner's car into the wee hours of the morning.(okay, not really, I always get home by curfew, but that sounds way more exciting). Anyways. In this post I am going tell about two of our adventures: the longest, and the most cathartic.

Number one:
During the summer and into the start of the school year, Tanner and I, with our lives being so busy, hardly got to see each other. We would always see each other fleetingly, when I would come over to Katie's house to cram in some English or math homework, but we hadn't really had a good, long, hang-out in a long time. So we planned it out: on a Saturday that we both were free, we decided we would spend the day together and see where fate would take us. So as you can imagine, Tanner came and picked me up from my house and we just started driving around without any particular destination in mind.
So there we are, driving aimlessly around, (by this point we are out in Eagle Mountain) when we come upon a sign that has an arrow going left--pointing to civilization, and an arrow going right--pointing out into the middle of nowhere (otherwise known as Tooele). Tanner looks at me, sees the skeptic look on my face, and cackles as he takes the turn right, leading me out into the middle of nowhere.
We drove for a long time, taking the extremely scenic route that Tanner chose for us. We drove up through Tooele, and are coming up on the freeway, when Tanner suddenly sees a road sign, gasps, and yells "I CAN TAKE YOU TO SALTAIR!!!" I smiled inside, and agreed, of course. (in case you didn't know, Tanner has quite the obsession for saltair). So we drove alllllllll the way up to Magna, and went to this abandoned old building with tons of graffiti inside, which was pretty cool, but then we had to leave pretty quickly, because we were pretty sure a drug deal was going down, and we didn't want to be there when the 5-0 came and busted the crack party up.
This adventure makes it into The Chronicles because we must have spent at least 6-7 hours in the car together that day. It was pretty cool.

Number Two
This day started out as another scheduled hang out time with Tanner (the only kind we ever have). We started out by having lunch at Tanner's favorite restaurant - Blue Lemon. I thought it wasn't that good and overpriced, another tribute to how different me and Tanner are, but it made him happy, and that was the objective. While at lunch, Tanner and I started talking, specifically about his past. To summarize, Tanner didn't have the best group of friends before he met us, and we were discussing how he had found a bunch of stuff that had reminded him of them. Wanting Tanner to forget about them, we decided that we would put our inhibitions aside and purge his life of those mementos, by destroying them. So of course, our method of destruction was what any two people of the male gender would decide upon in collaboration; fire. We left Blue Lemon, filled up his trunk with the various items to be destroyed, and left for my house to get matches and accelerant. We made two quick stops on the way, one for a round of Killer Bunnies - The Game- and for ice cream - The Delicious - at Cold Stone, but then continued on our way. We ran into my house, and Tanner tried not to sound too conspicuous as he chatted with my mother, while I changed my clothes, because I didn't want to sully my good clothes with smoke. I snuck the matches in my pocket, went to the garage and grabbed a can of brake cleaner, and then Tanner and I departed for Willow Park down in Lehi to commence our burning. We parked the car, got out, crouched by the fire pit, threw everything inside, and then he dropped a match in while I sprayed the items with brake cleaner, which sent tongues of flame exploding from the center of the pit, engulfing everything that we were trying to forget. I suggested tribal dancing and chanting, but the flames were almost extinguished, which disappointed me. We stood up, ready to leave, but realized that there were still embers glowing in fire pit, and being the good boy scouts that we are we couldn't just leave and not extinguish these. I looked at Tanner and said, "Do you have anything in your car we could use to put this out?" He looked at me, smirked, and said, "I have soup." I cracked up, but he was serious. We walked to his car, pulled out two cans of soup, and extinguished the final embers with a little chicken noodle.
Now that we had finished that up, I suggested we celebrate, and of course, me being me, I came up with the most random way possible. Go to walmart, buy champagne glasses and some apple bubbly and usher in the new phase in his life with a toast. I let Tanner pick the location, and soon enough, after a little more driving, we were parked in front of the Oquirrh Mountain Temple. (when we stepped out of the car, I realized that we had no bottle opener to open the bottle, so after rummaging through Tanner's trunk I found a pair of safety scissors inside his first aid kit that I resourcefully used to pry open the lid). I poured some into the glasses, and we clinked glasses and then drank. In that moment as we overlooked the temple, change was even more tangible in the air then it had been during the burning. We finished off the whole bottle, and then started for home, driving by the Draper Temple and going over Suncrest, which definitely was less fun with Tanner because he actually drove the speed limit.


Thus ends the first and second account of The Chronicles of Tanner and I. There have been more long drives that Tanner and I have taken, but none were as awesome as these two, and I'm pretty sure that more will be added in the future.

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Me + Kaite + 3 in the morning = . . .

"A real friend is someone who would feel loss if you jumped on a train, or in front of one. ~Author Unknown
"It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them." ~Ralph Waldo Emerson
"We're gonna wake up and all we're gonna remember is peeing on ashes and trains!" ~ Katie
"-put that box in another box, then I'll mail it to myself, and THEN I'll smash it with a hammer!" "BAMBI!!" ~ Katie and Paige
"Great, now you're the Bambi whisperer now." ~ Paige
Let's just say that there is a reason only a few quotes ended up on this blog :D

Monday, November 1, 2010

The Tale of the Killer Bunnies

With all of the intense things we've done as a family, you'd think we'd get some down time every now and then. Sorry to sound like a broken reccord, but HAHA no. We have yet to disclose another adventure just as dangerous and a million times more terrifying than anything we've ever done. As you can see on the side bar, our number one favorite game is The Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot. We would play it day in and day out if we only had the time.
The point of the game, you see, is to get a hold of the Magic Carrot - the only problem with that is that you don't know which carrot (of 20) is the Magic Carrot until the end of the game, so it is mostly a game of chance - unless you're one of us. We all have our own strategies - which, admitedly, revolve around making each other's lives as miserable as we possibly can.
See, to get your hand on the Magic Carrot, you've got to have a bunny - and you obviously want as many carrots as you can get, so you don't want anyone else to posess a bunny. Hence the 'Killer' part of the title. We spend the game scrambling for carrots while dismembering any bunny but your own with weapons that range from a sling shot to plutonium radiation.
It's rather exciting.
Katie, a.k.a. satan, is the most competitive member of our family. When playing a game with her, your soul is ripped from your body and laid on the table before you so you can watch it writhe in pain. Seriously, she is the soul reason that you won't ever find Tanner, Ryan, or I ever even entertaining the thought of playing Monopoly. The only reason we're all still in love with this game is because we've practically dedicated our lives to it.
We've spent hours on end in Denton - The Car - searching for each of the eleven expansion packs. Well over 100 dollars later, we've got one full set and one set that is only two packs away from being completed. If you ever need a suggestion on a good game store, feel free to ask, because we visited every game store in Utah - we went to the ends of the earth and then the internet, for these cards. All and all, we've got 715 cards and 11 instruction manuals - each filled with details on specific cards and procedures you've got to know to be able to play this game. If that doesn't explain the complexities of this noble game, then the fact that it took me SIX hours to read the instruction manuals should. It was well worth my time though.
If you ever get the chance, I would highly reccomend this game - though I would clear the area of sharp or potentially harmful objects.
Moments Like These