picnics should not kick your ass and need a cooling off period where you lay on the couch sans pants hovering between awake and asleep. but this picnic, it kicked my ass. i think it was the combination of the hour plus drive, 90 plus degree, and the helping plus of potato salad.

it was a pretty good time, you know for having to hang out in canada. as soon as sister #4 and i got out of the short bus, i announced that we had passed some Canadian Mounties on the road into the park and everyone better behave, because you can’t even say bitch in front of Canadians.

other than that, it was a pretty typical chromey v. chromey gathering. lots of kids, lots of food, lots of ripping on each other in the most loving manner, and laughing our heads off. good times, good times.

i had to bail early though, because they were all heading over to my cousin Patty’s house to watch Big Brother, the thought of which made me want to gnaw off my leg at the ankle. so i journeyed home with sister #3, tony, and the naughtiest boys in the whole land (one instance of naughtiness involved Nolan climbing onto a cooler with a spoon, diggingi into a bowl of chip dip, and eating it like soup). on the journey back, tony and i discussed the weird cultural difference between the northern and southern suburbs.

tony is in agreement with me that once you get north of 394, it’s like you’re in a different country. the notherners are red-neckier, white-trashier, something different than us-ier. though it’s hard to exactly pinpoint what that is. i think someone should do a study about the difference between the north/south suburban difference.