It's been great having the Brother here, even if he does routinely whip my ass at any competition as well as open a beer and belch in a way that I could never pull off because of its sheer coolness.

He also belches better than the Girl (like no one I know can) and tickles her mercilessly, which keeps her on her toes.

The best part about hanging out with him, the Girl, and the Mom is reminiscing about the days when the Mom didn't have money to feed us and he and I fought constantly.

Ahh� good times.

He admits now that it was less "fighting" than it was "he would tease quiet, demure, li'l ol' me until I would whine and cry, thereby bothering the Mom into a screaming fury."

There are some good stories that come out though and I thought I'd share one that speaks volumes about the kind of person the Mom is.

The Mom didn't necessarily try her absolute best to be the cutesy li'l Doctor's wifey in TinyTown, Montana. My 5'4", 110-lb, shy, unassuming, then-closeted-lesbian mother from the 'burbs of Santa Clara, would go out and do anything that she thought sounded cool and rarely turned down an opportunity to enjoy any of her new home state's array of outdoor activities.

The grizzled, old men in town took this as a challenge, apparently, as they took her out hunting, fishing, and backpacking as often as they could. I'm still not convinced that this wasn't a subversive attempt to "take 'er down a peg or two," but she held her own. Shit, she did better than hold her own, she fuckin' rocked.

4-day elk-hunting pack trip in 10-degree weather while 8.5 months preggers with Yours Truly?

No problem. She just needed a little help getting on and off her horse. And she shot a 5-point.

14 straight hours of calf wrangling, branding, and bourbon?

Hell, slap iron to that hairy buggers ass and hand her the bottle. After a calf kicked the fella that was cutting their nuts off (I would've done the same), and his knife sliced a 4-inch groove in his hand, she even stiched him up with dental floss and a sewing needle. After sterilizing it with the bourbon, of course.

She was all those ol' boys, as well as me and my brother, could handle.

When an old, rough-and-tumble, ranch boss, who bore a striking resemblance to Lee Marvin in the Big Red One, asked her to go antelope hunting, she agreed, of course, having never hunted antelope before, and still unwilling to turn anything down.

The fact that it wasn't antelope season (see: poaching) and that she'd never shot a rifle bigger than a "rodent gun" didn't deter her in the least.

Lee loads her up in his truck with his two teenage boys, my older brother (about 6 or 7 at the time) and some very big guns.

They drove out onto Lee's land, spotted a fair-sized herd of antelope, and proceeded to shatter the brisk, post-dawn air with the enthusiastic gunning of the truck's engine.

You see, in rural Montana, when hunting antelope out of season, you don't sneak up on them being all quiet and stealth-like. You take your truck and go bombing straight at them. Antelope won't jump fences and are, justifiably, terrified of being run down by a giant machine, so they run. They run and run and run and run. Until they get to a fence. Then� they turn� and run and run and run and run and run.

Pretty soon they'll slow down enough for you to stop the truck, jump out, take aim, and blast one of them straight into your meat locker. Not very sporting, sure, but meat is meat, and good meat for free is not much more than any rancher will ask for.

Lee is driving the truck like a freakin' madman (antelope are quite swift when terrified) and is intermittently reaching over the cab, opening the glove box, pulling out a bottle of Black Velvet, taking a large swallow, and throwing the bottle back in the glove box.

The whisky has Mom still undeterred as her excitement at shooting an antelope is at a fever-pitch.

Twice Lee has stomped on the brakes, and barked at one of his sons to "get the hell out and shoot that fucker," and twice they have done so, unleashing enough lead from their hand-held cannons to decimate the entire herd. Each boy has now "bagged" an antelope and their speed and skill at gutting, skinning and loading these animals is boggling to the Mom. Until she remembers that what they're doing is very illegal, that is.

Now, Lee is zigging and zagging in the truck, bouncing across the landscape, and is reaching for his bottle with blood-smeared hands. The bottle, having started the day clean and full, is now half-empty and coated in dark blood and hair. This is when he finally offers her a sip.

The Mom, being THE MOM, takes a drink, winces, coughs, and hands the bottle back to a now-smiling Lee. He then informs her that the "next fucker" is hers to shoot and instructs one of his boys to hand her is shoulder-mounted howitzer.

This is when the realization that she's only handled "small" rifles before fully hits her. The only rifle she's shot probably wouldn't kill an antelope unless one had the barrel directly behind the antelope's ear and was firing straight into its brain. The rifle in her hands now has a muzzle so big she can fit her pinkie inside it (she's taken "Hunter's Safety," so naturally she doesn't try this).

After a few more minutes of the monstrous truck violently descending upon them, the herd slows again. Lee tells Mom to ready herself, so she checks the rifle's safety, grips the stock, and pops the door handle, expecting Lee to simply lock up the brakes as he's done twice before.

This turns out to be a mistake as Lee, ever the gentleman, decides, at the last second, to skid the vehicle into place, at an angle, in order to give Mom a better shot.

He guns the truck and cranks the wheel sharply, sending the truck into a sideways skid.

And sending the Mom directly out the door straight into some cactus.

She gets up, believing herself to be unhurt, wipes her hand off on her jeans (I say "hand" because the other hand still has the rifle in it as she never let go of it), crouches and gets her antelope in her sights.

The Brother loves this part as he distinctly remembers the Mom slowly crouching onto one knee before jerking upwards and saying a quiet, "OW� not going to do that again."

Apparently, when she knelt down, the heel of her boot hit some of the cactus needles that were firmly embedded in her ASS.

She re-situated herself, without shoving the little prickers further in (THAT ought to net me some googlings), took aim, and squeezed the trigger.

After she got up from being knocked flat on her back, she found, much to her delight, that Lee and his boys were excitedly carving up her first antelope.

She'd shot it right through the heart.

When she was done helping the boys dress her first kill, one of them was kind enough to take the pliers out of his belt holster and yank the mass of cactus needles, one by one, out of her butt.

This, very deservedly, merited another long pull from the bottle and Lee's undying respect for the Mom.

Years after the Mom had left my father, the high-and-mighty town Doctor, for another woman, immersing the family in scandal, good ol' Lee (I knew him as the asshole at the diner that never liked the way I made eggs) still asked about her. He died while I was still in High School, from liver failure (too much Black Velvet, maybe), but rarely missed an opportunity to, very sincerely, wish the Mom his best.

She no longer swigs cheap whisky while slaughtering petrified wildlife, but she still has her fans back in that rinky-dink town.

Indeed, she's quite a woman.