Two things: I've started smoking, and I think Rod Stewart is sexy. (In his song, he called me sugar, and told me just to let him know.)

So, last Thursday night, round about 7, we ate a roasted chicken for dinner; at 7:30, I tossed her picked over carcass into a pot with some onions and carrots and water (we were out of celery), and then I climbed into bed, where I soon became catatonic, slipped into an Office coma, and then fell asleep. (In my defense, Will Farrell was on).

I began to have vivid dreams full of horrible stenches of all sorts: swamp gas, burning hair, medieval open sewers chock full of cholera. But I did not wake up until nearly 6 a.m., when the chicken was fully cremated (rest in peace, little bird), and every nook and cranny of my entire house was full of smoke.

So I spent the day ventilating, ionizing, febrezing, boiling vinegar on stove (don't recommend), and placing bowls of baking soda in all the bedrooms. My friend Hallie from 5th grade and California came in around 4 o'clock (by way of Albuquerque). She didn't say it, but I'll bet what she was thinking was: I never suspected my Mormon friend's house would smell so much like an airport lounge in the disco era. But what I was thinking, and actually did say, was: it smells like that bus ride I took from London to Edinburgh in 1994, on which everyone chained smoked a variety of tobacky, including cigars, Marlboros, and what I later learned were Turkish cigarettes, with all the windows tightly sealed against the frigid July night (it was Scotland). Only, at my house, we didn't have the perhaps 30 stops, where all the BYU Study Abroaders would lunge out into the clean, sheep-scented night air, and then hurry into the rural petrol stations, which all contained mountains of Cadbury chocolate (gained 20 pounds in two months), and aisle end caps full of Hoff paraphernalia. (Baywatch was in full swing, and the former Knight Rider was an INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTAR!) Also, my house smelled less like body odor than the bus, and more like hot vinegar. Which makes me hungry for chips.

So anyway, Hallie brought pie with her from some small Arizona hamlet (but not Pietown, which she did not have time to peruse, because we were on a tight schedule), which made me feel much better, because pie does that for you, in much the same way as a Cadbury Flake might.

So then we showered and picked up my brother Ryan, because TONIGHT'S (was) THE NIGHT, and we were gonna take a DOWNTOWN TRAIN, but the light rail takes a long time, so we ended up in the minivan. And we got to the Arena just in time to get our hot dogs and seats and listen to Stevie Nicks flap her arms about dreamily and start in with Rhiannon. Stevie was okay, but I wouldn't pay to see her again. She played a lot of solo stuff that I didn't know, because really, if you've been in Fleetwood Mac, you might as well give up, because you've peaked. (Don't tell this to Paul McCartney.) She looked and sounded okay, except Hallie pointed out that perhaps she was wearing a circa-1850-style bustle under her drapey, glittery black dress?

Jake, Ryan, Kelly

Ryan, Hallie

But let's talk about Rod Stewart, okay? Because Rod blew my mind. I sort of knew he was a ladies man, and that he'd been busy fathering all sorts of children with models and other lovely young things for the past 50 or so years, but I never really understood what the big deal was. Well, I am here to tell you that Rod Stewart has got it. I know, I know, you're wondering, how can he be so old and so sexy at the same time? I don't know. Because it is a mystery. But when he came out in his skinny black pants, patent shoes, and shiny yellow dinner jacket, looking like some sort of crazy-haired 1950s dreamboat, I nearly swooned. Some of the more mature females around us (nearly everyone but us and some well-dressed boys in pairs were card carrying AARP members) were purring like cats. Meowing, I say. And he put on quite a show, complete with other suit-wearing band members, and back-up singers/dancers that looked all 80s in that Price-is-Right-model sort of way. They were so talented they could have put on their own show. But you couldn't look away from Rod for long, because you didn't want to miss him loosen his tie and starting doing lunges (the quads of a 20-year-old, I say!), or kick soccer balls into the stands, or change into the blue shiny jacket, or then into the full purple suit, in which he sang his encore of "Do ya think I'm Sexy?," which had us all on our feet screaming, because yes, Rod, I do think you are sexy. How sexy do I find you? So sexy that I bought this $45 dollar tee shirt to remember our night together:

Afterward, Jake chatted up this back-up singer by the tour buses,

then we went home to our reeking pool-hall-of-a-house,
and then on Monday I went to GATE camp with Sam,

and Jake stayed home and fed the kids fresh fruits and vegetables and such:

then I came home and my house still smells funny one week post chicken-incineration, but more like an ancient Denny's now, which is better, and today is my Dad's birthday and the only idea I've got for a present is to give him some squash, which seems like a lame gift even if it is from the garden.

So that's it. Smoking, Rod Stewart. Squash.

Have you ever had a horrible kitchen accident? Know any old, hot guys? Have idea for my Dad's birthday present?

P.S. I am genius. I needed to get my Dad's present while driving carpool with seven kids in the car, which limited my options. So I went on a drive-thru frozen Custard tour of the east valley, getting him quarts of Culver's, Freddy's, and Neilson's Custard, so he can have himself a taste test. We've been taste testing ice cream since he went to work at Carnation Co. more than 30 years ago.