In true bonding experience this evening, my dad and I went dumpster-diving together. Okay, so my dad did most of the diving and I just laughed at him, completely convinced he'd get stuck. There's nothing quite as satisfying as trespassing with my old man, stealing plywood and making a quick getaway. I carried the goods out of the dump because I really wanted to feel like an outlaw.

Bad to the bone, baby. Bad to the bone.

So that's it, huh? Summer's over? Well shit, THAT certainly sped on by.

Tonight was my last night working at the store for the summer and I still can't get over the fact that summer is over. As in coming to an abrupt end at the beginning of next week. No longer. Then I have to go back to school and attend class. Yick.

I've got two days left working in Embarrass, then Darren the Darling will be visiting on Wednesday and Thursday. Friday it's back to Duluth to drop my shit off and head to the Cities for a weekend of state fair fun with the family only to return back to Duluth on Monday. I know I'd have fun if I stayed in Duluth for the weekend, but the state fair doesn't happen every weekend and I need to get on that while it's available to be gotten on.

In other news, I accidentally told a 9-year-old girl that I wanted to "get on" her brother, which apparently isn't the proper language to use around kids.

Yesterday I was talking to my mom about drinking, and we agreed that every once in a while it's nice to get just shit-tanked. Then I told her it's good to go to the bars too, because then you're supporting local businesses. Only after I said it did I realize what an absolutely stupid thing it was to say. It sounds like an alcoholic's excuse... and I'm proud to say that I am NOT to that point yet.

Aren't the dog days of summer supposed to be here about now? Aren't we supposed to be so hot we're praying for snow? I think part of the reason summer can't possibly be over is because it's been 60 degrees all damn summer.

I don't mind it, really - I love cool weather - but my fingers and toes have been frozen every night when I go to bed. Ahh, Minnesota, how I love thee. I bet we'll have an 80-degree winter to make up for the unsummerlike summer.

The weekend has passed and I think the fuzzy inbetweenish state of was-that-reality-or-a-dream-and-dear-God-tell-me-I-just-thought-that-and-didn't-actually-say-it has passed along with it. However, little tidbits of Friday and Saturday nights are coming back to me from various sources and it turns out there's quite a bit that has slipped my mind. For example: how did I end up sleeping face-down on the basement couch Friday night, fully clothed, contacts in, and my feet on the pillow rather than the other way around?

Since Mike and my sister-in-law (I have a sister-in-law!) are off honeymooning, we're left taking care of their mutt. That means for the rest of the week I will have a lovely canine alarm clock that "goes off" (whining and licking) at around six every morning - later if I'm lucky, earlier if I'm not. Pray for my luck, I beg you.

I've got five rolls of film in processing from the wedding, mostly the reception. I don't remember taking half of them, so they should be interesting to see. My dad also bought 20 disposable cameras to put on the tables so there are going to be obscene numbers of drunken wedding people pictures floating around the house in the next few weeks.

I think I forgot to mention my dad doing the macarena. Anyone who has met my old man knows this is kind of a big thing. At the time I was too incoherent to realize it, but I really hope there are pictures.

And last but not least...I totally forgot. Maybe the alcohol hasn't stopped wreaking havoc on my system yet after all.

In the past two evenings I've consumed enough beer to kill a rhino. But boy have I had a good time!

My brother got married yesterday. Little Mikey is all growed up and now I have a sister-in-law with the same name as myself. I was sad to have to go to the wedding dateless since the lovely Darren had to work this weekend, but I had a great time nonetheless. I got to see the "southern Morleys" who live - sort of, at least - in Orlando. I hadn't seen Tom, my cousin, for ten years. He's a chopper pilot in the army now and he just returned from Korea. Some free advice from Tommy - if anyone ever offers you a free ticket to Korea, burn it. And then punch that lousy individual in the nose.

I also got to see Romain and Emilie, Tom's siblings. As of a couple of weeks ago, Romain is an Army Ranger. He disappeared last night for a while and everyone was worried. He was later found puking in an alley, but we couldn't help but chuckle that we were worried about the kid who just finished the army's (arguably) most grueling training wandering drunk around Tower. And Emilie! She is absolutely gorgeous. There is no doubt in my mind this girl could be a model.

I was drunk enough to dance. I danced a lot. Dancing in public is bad news. Yikes.

Mike showed up at the church for pictures before the wedding yesterday, leaned over and whispered, "I'm fucking loaded." By 12:30 in the afternoon, Mikey had consumed fifteen beers. I couldn't help being mildly impressed. He and the groomsmen drank through pictures...drank before the wedding...drank after the wedding. In fact I'm pretty sure the only time they weren't drinking is when Mike's mouth needed to be available to say his vows rather than chug cheap beer.

All in all, I think a good time was had by most, if not all. Oh yes, and Aurora? Pete was looking for you yesterday. Pete in a tux...boy did you ever miss out!

I got my hair cut and now I look like I'm seven. That's fine though, I don't mind looking outrageously young.

Alexis leaves soon and it saddens me, even though I've only seen her once this summer. It's one thing to not see her over the summer, but it'll be just plain weird not having her to cavort around Duluth with. I suppose it wouldn't be so hearbreaking if I knew I would be at school when she returned, but when she comes back, I'll be all done. Maybe I should go back for one last semester just so we can raise hell and hoola-hoop and unicycle and go to the bars and be merry.

I need to be strong in this, my time of Alexis loss. I know she'll have a great time and she'll learn tons and she'll meet a man to marry. She's such a brave gal to go to a country where they speak another language (as in not English - what the hell?!). If I understood Spanish, I would try to start a petition for all blogs from Venezuela to be written in Spanish. I bet she won't even remember how to speak English when it comes time to blog.

Ah, Alexis, my favorite little Latina.

Learn from my mistake: When the little tube says, "Avoid contact with eyes, lips and mouth," then, by all means, avoid contact with eyes, lips and mouth. That includes eyelids.

I woke up this morning, barely able to open my eyes to see the time. Once I got into the bathroom and caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror, I nearly shit myself. My eyelids look like two jet-puffed marshmallows - but purple marshmallows, not white. Apparently I had a bit of a - well - reaction with some facial cleanser I used last night.

I've spent the morning with mixed vegetables on my face but I still fully anticipate being tormented at work today worse than I've been tormented since grade school. (Did I ever mention that my brother used to call me Fatrocious?)

It feels like little house on the prairie up here in the north woods...only without the prairie and, well, with all the niceties of life in 2004 (internet included). The only thing we don't have is water. But do you even know what a big deal having running water (and flushing toilets) is?

Our water pump crapped out for whatever reason and now we are left without water to wash our hands, brush our teeth, bathe ourselves(that's a biggie), drink, cook, and flush our feces. And to think that people have the nerve to make fun of me when I brush my teeth at work. Aren't they going to be in for a surprise when they come in today and I'm trying to weasel my filthy, naked body into the laundry tub in the bathroom, hoping to wash off yesterday's ice cream grime.

On the plus side, I know I would never want to have someone with a lingering, gag-inducing stench to make me a malt or scoop me an ice cream cone. Maybe work won't be all that bad today. Well, it can't be all THAT bad, considering there's water there. I love you, SOS.

Grains of gold - that's what it was. Now I don't know all that much about gold, but I'm pretty sure it loses quite a bit of value once it hits granular form.

Which brings me to my next topic. Okay, so it doesn't bring me to my next topic, but I was groping for a transition there. I'm slightly befuddled at how to react to my old teachers when I see them these days. I mean, sure, I talk to them and all - like I would any normal person (normal as in not Huge Cone) - but I don't know how to address them. My kindegarten teacher snuck up behind me on her bike today when I was walking and yelled, "Hi Amanda!" when she went by. To which I lamely responded, "Hi." What the hell am I supposed to call her? I want to call her Mrs. Lamppa, but she was my teacher sixteen years ago. Having known her that long, am I allowed to call her by her first name?

I have this problem with several of my former teachers as many of them come into my store. Most of the time I leave out any nominal reference.

How does everyone else deal with this issue?

(This is where I ask all the people that read my blog to comment - so, Alexis, what do you think?)

How could I fail to mention that gold - GOLD! - was found in my piddly little community?! Gold, people. Right there in Soudan. Okay, so it was more like the state's highest concentration of traces of gold substitute in the ditches alongside Highway 169 or something, but we still made the news for it and I'm really quite excited.

I scooped 45 ice cream cones at work yesterday, which doesn't sound like much, but believe me...it is. For the second consecutive day I had a group of 15+ come in, demanding I risk frost bite just to satisfy their ice cram fix. I would call them heartless little buggers, but they were going to all get malts until they realized I was the only one working and it would have taken somewhere between nine and 14 hours to make that many malts.

Don't worry; no more blogs about that place for a while. I don't work there again until Friday.

I’ve encountered a lot of interesting people at work in the past couple of weeks, and I’m not just talking about the crazies. Some people really say the weirdest things. Things I would never, in my life, say to a clerk at a gas station.

Last week a four-year-old asked me if I wanted to see him punch himself in the balls. Amusing, yes, but not a scene I wanted to deal with at that point in time because, damn it, I had ice cream to scoop.

Then there is one crazy, Jeff, who likes to tell me his mental health history when he stops by for a pack of smokes. Did you know that Jeff thought he had adult ADD years ago and he told his counselor that, but he wasn’t put on medication because it would have complicated his schizophrenia medication and now he’s got this horrible ADD and he doesn’t know what to do!

A couple of foreign guys swung by last weekend looking for rice. I can’t even express to you the difficulty in telling people who don’t understand English what the difference is between Minute Rice and regular rice, then trying to explain where the grocery store is and how its hours of operation are different from that of my store’s.

Plus there are people with creepily good memories. One guy came in and said something about not having seen me for a year. I raised my eyebrow, giving him that perplexed look, and he said he only comes around to this area once a year. And he said, “Don’t you remember? You sold me a fishing license last year!” Riiight. Who even remembers clerks at every gas station they buy a bottle of pop from? I have dozens of people come in and say, “We saw you when we stopped by here last year.” Blimey. Maybe my memory just sucks.

The ex-mailman came in and couldn’t believe I’m not married. Is it really that abnormal to not be married at the age of 21? And it wasn’t just the mailman…several people have asked me if I’m married in the past month or two. What the fuck?

There was a young lady hanging out at the store yesterday that was obviously messed up on drugs that I never knew existed in this area. She was there for five or six hours in the morning, someone gave her a ride home, then she walked back to the store, mumbling about how she had to get to Tower to get her car. Eventually, after a couple of hours, someone did give her a ride to Tower, and I wonder if her car was actually there. It was scary though, seeing someone that screwed up.

But then there are the people that make me laugh so hard I could cry, like the 93-year-old who, I swear, had an entire comedy routine prepared to her trip to the Soudan Store. And there’s people that make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside, like little girl who told me I’m pretty. And every so often I get to see someone that I thought had disappeared forever, like Buck, a kid I went to high school with and hadn’t seen in three or four years.

I get to go back for another nine hours today and I hate to say I’m kind of looking forward to it. I may piss and moan about that place like none other, but there’s no denying that the entertainment value is high at the good ol’ SOS.

After two mostly successful weeks, I think it might be okay to talk about it without jinxing myself. I'm on a diet. I'm dead set on taking in 1000 calories or fewer a day and am limiting myself to ten grams of fat, tops, each day. Plus I'm not allowed to eat after eight in the evening, which is sensible enough. Did I mention I've been hungry for two weeks?

It wouldn't be so bad, really, if I were - say - in Duluth, where I can surround myself with food that won't kill me at the age of thirty. But as luck would have it, I work at the junk food capital of, like, the world. Not only is my little store known for its outstanding malts (the best of which are, of course, made by yours truly) and its excellent ice cream selection, we pride ourselves on providing children with as much candy that will rot their teeth and their insides as their fifty cents or lousy dollar can allow.

And not only that. There are doughnuts. Sweet Jesus, I would let a tiger gnaw all the toes off my left foot if I could only have one fucking doughnut. Then there's Little Debbie. I swear she will rot in hell. No way, NO WAY!, did Debbie stay little by eating the devilishly delicious snacks she provides. And the worst part is that they're so bloody cheap.

Chips are also a weak point, and are there ever chips! I salivate just thinking about licking the French onionness off French onion chips. I have problems walking past the chips. Then there's other stuff. Like everything in the store. I can't have any of it.

All I ever think about is eating and what I'm going to eat when I eat next and when I'm going to eat and how much I'm going to eat and how it is no way going to be as good as a doughnut. But I think I'm doing relatively well. I'm happy with myself and how I've been exercising my will, though the results aren't...there. I suppose two weeks isn't all that long, but one of these times I'm going to bury my face in the peanut butter instead of just smelling it.