right. right. turn off the lights. there’s a smell in the air. that cold sigh is coming in from the north. the mountains breathe away your warmth, the lakes fall silent, everything sits still for silence and waits. like breathing quietly anticipating the storm. we know it’s coming..

mow your lawn, rake your leaves, run for the thunder, hide from the hail. raise your glass!

good luck with your tomato plants, I’m counting days.

life goes on in this little town under the vast big sky. we reel into one day from another. summer is ticking along amidst tubing adventure, mountain bike rides, road rides, rafting trips, week-night social hours… in essence, life in montana has settled back into it’s gears and the last of the summer seems to be flying by. it’s hard to imagine that schools are getting back into session next week! we barely just got started..

my cousin came to visit this weekend. while I appreciate him taking an interest in coming to visit in montana, I was still slightly baffled as to why he was coming here. as it was, due to our age difference, I left finland for good when he was only 11, so I barely know him.

when he arrived I was quite torn between feeling the need to take him out and entertain him to what is he interested in doing and not having a great desire to spend money from my currently strained bank account. so the options are: be an asshole and not take him anywhere, or be an asshole and go do the stuff I would do and leave him home, or just take him around downtown bozeman, or just ignore that he is visiting all together and go about my business as I would if he wasn’t here at all. or, try to show him what montana is like in a few days. so, of course I felt obligated to take some kind of care of my quest.

SO; I cleaned the house entirely since he is allergic, i bought groceries, cooked for him and fed him for while he was here. drove him 250 miles, toured the yellowstone park, took him camping, bought gas, cooked, made sure he was comfortable at all times, took him rafting, tipped the rafting guides, bought him beer, bought him lunch, smoked him out, took him tubing, bought more gas and delivered him back to the airport. as a thanks, he bought a 12 pack of beer after I pressured him to do so.

so, what should I have done? I know he hadn’t asked to be taken all over the place, but what the hell was I supposed to do with him? all the things I would have gone to do, had he NOT been here, would not in anyway involve him. he does not have the gear, experience or even any desire to do so. so was I supposed to just leave him home and take off? so what the hell? what is this bullshit expectation than to just to show up, eat, drink, party and not offer to pitch in even a little? i didn’t ask for him to come here. in fact I had to donate one of my weekends, pay money to do so and accommodate him, since he butted himself here. what makes it even more awesome is the fact that it seemed he would prefer sleeping and was quite disinterested in anything we were trying to show him. at least try to be polite for fucks sake!!

there. I ranted.