Rose colored glasses and childish wonder

I have always worn, as my mother would say, rose colored glasses, when viewing the world. To this day, as jaded as I would like to think I am, I still wear these glasses. For those of you who haven't heard the term, it's a figurative phrase that means your perception of things are excessively optimistic, in my case, often a delusional optimism that results in me seeing things not as they are, but as I want them to be in my world. I much prefer my world, than to yours!

(Here I am as a kid, I'm not wearing rose colored glasses, but rather a blind fold.... same thing essentially)

My brother grew up in the same house as me, but I think we lived in different worlds. Where I have rose colored glasses on, my brother never lost his childish wonder of the world. This too has it's charm. I believe we can blame, or rather thank, my mother for both of these characteristics we maintain.

(This is an image of my mother winning at a arcade game a few years ago, my brother laughing in the background)

I love my brother, and I think there isn't a soul in this world like his. He once had me drive hours out of my way to check out this hole in the wall jerky place. He said it was 'out of this world' cool, so my father and I, who were on our way home from a road trip vacation, took my brother's advise. Once we got there, after driving down a one lane dirt rode for over an hour in an area that looked like a scene from The Hill's Have Eye's, we came across a place that only my brother would think was worth driving this far out of our way for. It was a neat little place, but my brother was particularly tickled by the car out front that had a life sized alien in the driver seat. This is a story that perfectly depicts my brother, he is the biggest ball of twine guy, he wants to see the little things along the way that make life more interesting, and this is one of the reasons I love him.

(Image taken from http://www.weirdca.com/index.php?type=35)

(I couldn't help myself, I had to throw this gem in. I found this looking through old photos. Gotta love my dad's Tom selleck mustache)

My brother is a long haul trucker now so he knows all the little wonders in the corners of the United States that you might not have heard about like Alien Fresh Jerky. If you ever want to know about places in the United States to see that aren't on some tourist map, ask a long haul trucker! I don't hear from my brother as often as I'd like, but when I do hear from him it's usually when he sends me lovely pictures like this one, showing me he found a new favorite spot in Uranus MO...

And wouldn't you know, they pack fudge in Uranus....

Poop and fart jokes, of any kind are pretty much how and when we communicate. I often get too busy to contact my brother too, but when I see things that would only interest him I send them to him. It's like the universe's way of telling me to call or text him. This is a recent picture I sent him..

When I do see him, despite being in our mid thirties, he still treats me like a brother. If you have a brother you might know what I mean by that, or maybe we have a special relationship, but when we see each other he makes up for lost time and uses the time we have together to, for lack of a better word, pester me. He farts next to me, he calls me Jenni-far (which for whatever reason used to drive me nuts as a kid and still does the trick as an adult), he stands uncomfortably close to me and tells me he's not touching me; when he is around I am suddenly a kid again, and so is he, although I don't think in his day to day life he ever stops being a kid, hence my previous statement that he hasn't lost his childish wonder. I hope he passes this trait on to his kids, I hope they never grow up, figuratively and literally!

This week it snowed in my corner of the world, and for whatever reason it made me think about my brother all week, probably because snow makes me feel like a kid again, just like my brother does. Despite being upset that the snow messed up my work schedule, looking up at the snowflakes falling suddenly made me have a sense of childish wonder. When my brother's fiance said she has been reading my blogs to him, I figured I would take this opportunity to tell him I miss him!