The Right Height

Paris--Kenya--Spain, part four.

I totally got it when Mitt Romney went to Michigan and proclaimed "the trees are the right height." As an northeasterner transplanted in the intermountain west, I appreciated what he meant. I generally feel more at home when things are the right height.

And now, after 30 years in Utah, I've discovered that I feel at home here. As I traveled through Kenya and Spain, I kept thinking that lots of things felt the right height: mountains, trees, shrubs, grasses. Of course, they were all different. But the same, too.

Here's Kenya, heading south from Nairobi across the Great Rift Valley:

Here's Utah at the northwest end of our valley:

Here's our tented camp in Kenya:

Here's a view from the car somewhere in Spain (wow, we saw a lot of olive trees!):

And here's a view in our Utah town:

Maybe the pictures don't quite capture it, but over and over I was reminded of my Utah home. All three regions were so similar in terms of color and scale, yet so different in terms of flora and fauna.

No matter how much southern Kenya reminded me of Utah, I'm pretty sure I'll never run into these guys at home.

And no matter how much southern Spain reminded me of Utah, I'm pretty sure I won't get to have breakfast under orange trees like these at home.

The Trade

Paris--Kenya--Spain, part three.

Before we headed out on our trip, I mentioned to Maryann that I wanted to be sure we visited Shakespeare and Company, an infamous English bookshop on the left bank in Paris, just across from Notre Dame, and the subject of documentary entitled Portrait of a Bookstore as an Old Man.

Maryann found out from the shop's website that one of her favorite authors, Lydia Davis, would be giving a reading while we were there. So we attended. And reveled. And bought books.

We also went to the Village Voice Bookshop in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés area of Paris. It's an English language bookshop that opened 30 years ago, around the time I was on study abroad. Sadly, it is closing this summer, so this visit was both my first and last. I had a nice chat with one of the shop owners and, of course, bought a couple of books.

I also wished I could move right in. 

Later on in the trip, after we toured the Alhambra in Grenada, Spain, we spent a little time browsing the gift shop. Earlier in the day, I'd seen the UPS driver deliver a stack of boxes to the shop with a hand truck, including this Baker & Taylor box. It reminded me of the old days at our bookstore, when our UPS driver delivered stacks of boxes with a hand truck, including Baker & Taylor boxes. Baker & Taylor was one of our primarily distributors. I had no idea it was an international company, but of course why not?

I bought a copy of Washington Irving's Tales of the Alhambra there and started reading it straightaway, especially enjoying his description at the beginning of traveling from Seville to Granada. We ended up going the opposite direction that afternoon, but for us crossing the Sierra Nevada mountains was fraught with far less hardship and danger. We didn't run into any contrabandistas or bandoleros along the way. In fact we didn't run into any trouble like that during our entire trip. Not even a pickpocket. 

On the Hunt

Paris--Kenya--Spain, part two.

After a bit of searching, we found my favorite crêperie in the Latin Quarter in Paris. At least I think it was the same place. It felt like it was in the same place. And whether it was the same place or not, the crêpes were très délicieux.

Despite a slightly disappointing visit to the Rodin museum (things were not very well displayed, but perhaps they are in transition), we did manage to locate one of the sculptures that remained censored and unseen in a crate while the art museum at BYU hosted a touring Rodin exhibition about 15 years ago.

On the first day of our Masai Mara safari, one of our group dropped her camera out of the van into the tall grass while we were hanging out with some elephants. Luckily we (and by we, I mean the people who looked for it while I stayed in the van and took a picture of them) found it. Can you see the elephant in the background there? It looks further away than it was in real life.

Once one of the groups on safari spotted this lioness guarding her pride's kill (a formerly massive buffalo), it wasn't hard for our driver to track her down. She wasn't going anywhere.

Unlike the lioness, it took a while to track down this cheetah with her four cubs. We kept hearing reports of sightings over the radio, but descriptions like "she's by some rocks and a tree" weren't specific enough even for James, our seasoned driver. As soon as we found her, though, a dozen other safari vans showed up. We could tell she was getting a bit concerned, wanting to protect her cubs. It was amazing to see her, but we started to feel bad about putting her in such a spot.

We opted out of renting a GPS with our car in Spain, which was basically fine until we hit the oldest section of Seville where our pension was. Streets, nearly all one way and rarely marked, curved this way and that, often dwindling down into pedestrian paths. Maryann was a great navigator, but it was just too crazy! At one point, I spied an open parking space and pulled our little black Peugeot in so we could get out and search on foot. Turns out our pension was a mere 50 feet away and we couldn't have gotten a better parking space if we tried.

Even on foot, it was nearly impossible to find a bar the woman at the pension recommended to see a more folksy--not touristy and overproduced--flamenco show. She vaguely circled the area on our map, which turned out to be fairly unhelpful. Then everyone we asked gave us different directions. After searching and searching, we were finally rewarded with a quirky venue, extremely talented musicians, and a very stern flamenco dancer. She scared me a little bit. Loved her red shoes though.

On our last morning together in Barcelona, my sister and I headed to Park Güell, a neighborhood designed by Gaudi but never fully developed. After misreading the map and ending up at Palau Güell, which was closed because it was Monday, we figured out where we really needed to be and that we should take the metro. When we emerged from the station, there were no signs directing us to the park. I think we looked confused, because a very nice gentleman stopped to tell us how to get there. We sort of understood what he said. The long hike up the steep hill without knowing exactly where we were headed or how far it was or what we would find was absolutely worth it. See?

Water

I crossed the Atlantic three weeks ago for the first time in about 25 years, and my thirsty soul drank it all up (um, and by "it" I don't literally mean the Atlantic)! In my next few posts I get to write about the new memories I made, but instead of a chronological account, I'm going to mix it up a bit. Today? It's all about water.

First of all, our reasoning went, we have to fly through Europe to get to Kenya, which was our primary destination. How sad would it be to fly through an airport in, say, Paris, and not get out to have a look around? Too sad. So when my sister Maryann, who flew from Boston, and I, who flew from Salt Lake City, met in the airport in Paris, we went out for a few days to have a look around,

It was a bit rainy that first afternoon. But we found shelter where we could. In cafés with tasty French things to eat.

Under umbrellas.

On the giant ferris wheel in the Tuileries, with glass encased gondolas. In case you can't quite make it out, this was our view of the Eiffel Tower.

Luckily the sun came out the next day.

After a few days in Paris, we flew to Kenya. According to the flight magazine, we were supposed to fly over Libya. But I guess they don't do that anymore. Lucky for us, that meant we flew directly down the coast of Italy and across southern Greece. I enjoyed views like this for hours! We also crossed the Nile in Egypt at least twice.

While we were in Kenya, we went on a three-day safari to Masai Mara National Park. On one of our game drives we drove all the way to the river that separates Kenya and Tanzania. This is who we found there.

It wasn't particularly warm in Nairobi, but after one especially long day, this pool at the place we stayed was exactly what I needed. While Maryann and I swam, the lifeguard sat at the edge of the pool in long pants and a sweatshirt. He probably thought we were nuts.

From Nairobi, we flew overnight to Spain, then drove south. We had a late lunch in Valencia (a memorable paella con verduras) and just enough time to dip our feet in the Mediterranean before we had to hit the road again.

The next day we made it Grenada, where we basked in the lush gardens of the Alhambra, made possible by ingenious irrigation systems like this. 

On my second to last day, we finally made it to the beach in Barcelona for a swim. Here I am heading toward a full, satisfying dip in the sea! 

We also swam in the roof top pools of two of our hotels in Spain, but I forgot to take pictures of them.

On my flight home to Salt Lake City, it took an entire hour just to fly across the Hudson Bay. That was a long, long, long flight.

Hiatus

I'm off soon to make some new memories. I'm meeting my sister in Paris, then we're taking some of my brother's ashes to Nairobi--where he lived before he died and where he wanted to live forever--then we're stopping in Spain on the way home.

Will report back on July 15th.

Obsession

After our event at the Springville library tonight, we went to a wedding reception at a hillside home in Provo. Perfect weather, spectacular views and, sigh, an infinity pool.

I obsessed about having a swimming pool when I was growing up. Sometimes I filled up our aluminum canoe with freezing cold water from the hose and swam laps under the thwarts. I was serious.

My parents swore they would never put in a pool. Turned out that "never" meant "until you grow up and leave home."

Getting in Touch with Nature

Tonight we celebrated the Summer Solstice with friends and neighbors, toasting marshmallows over the burning embers of our Christmas tree. We were spirited, but not skyclad. We are only the fringiest of pagans.

So I may not be inclined to dance around a fire without anything on (especially in a suburban back yard), but swimming that way? Count me in. Many happy memories of that over the years.

(No photos available.)

When I was a summer camp counselor in Maine, we used to organize skinny dips on really hot, hot days. The girls would line up along the shoreline and run in together, dropping their towels into the water at the very last minute.

They could also go skinny dipping on their own early in the morning before breakfast as long as they woke up one of the lifeguards to go with them. It was usually me because I was in the cabin closest to the water front. 

The girls were required to wear a white swimming cap in the lake so that if they sunk to the bottom we'd be able to see them to fish them out. But when they were skinny dipping, the swim cap rule was suspended.

Hypnotized

I studied French in high school and college, but never really learned to speak it fluently. It comes back, though, when I try to study Spanish. Funny how our minds work.

One year in high school I took a psychology class, and was selected to be one of the participants when a hypnotist came to do an assembly. I remember being on stage, pretty aware of everything, and--at least as far as I know--the hypnotist didn't single me out for anything. I'm not sure I was actually hypnotized.

But I was definitely very, very relaxed.

Right after the assembly, I had French class and was scheduled for an oral exam. Because I was so relaxed, the French just rolled right up into my consciousness and off of my tongue.

Incroyable, mais vrais!

M

Jack and I are reading Harriet the Spy. I had forgotten that Harriet's full name is Harriet M. Welsch.

When Jack was born, we decided to give him the middle initial M. It doesn't stand for an actual name, but it is in honor of his birth mom, whose name begins with M.

On Not Being Pedantic

Roger and I finally watched Midnight in Paris tonight (sometimes these things take me a while), and all of the protagonist's interactions with writers, artists, and musicians in Paris in the 1920s reminded me of a class I took in high school on 20th century drama.

Over the course of a semester, we read nearly two dozen plays by a wide variety of playwrights, including Thornton Wilder, Henrik Ibsen, Edward Albee, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O'Neill, Arthur Miller, Harold Pinter, and Samuel Beckett. The teacher loved every minute and his passion was contagious.

For one of the exams, he had us write a play of our own: a dialogue among three of the playwrights we studied arguing about the purpose of theater. Is it to reflect life? To examine life? To shape life? To distract us from life?

He staged a reading of his favorite, a brilliant and funny exchange written by one of my classmates that not only captured the playwrights' ideas, but their personalities as well.

It was the first time I remember realizing that making a serious study of something did not mean we had to suck the soul out of it.

Dated

I tracked down a pair of the inexpensive sunglasses I always wear to have as backup this summer. They were described as "80's Style Vintage Wayfarer Style Sunglasses."

80's? Vintage? But I've only been wearing them since college.

Oh.

In the City of Love

I got caught up in reading my scrapbook from my first visit to Paris when I was 17 tonight. It's interesting what I remember, what I've completely forgotten, and what I remember incorrectly. 

Here's an excerpt:

I headed towards Notre Dame and on the way I somehow picked up a puppy dog named Karim. I passed him and he smiled at me. The next thing I know he's following me. I went inside the cathedral and sat down, figuring that if I "studied the architecture" long enough he'd get bored and leave. He stayed. One nice thing was that he took me up in the towers of Notre Dame at his own expense. The view was beautiful and worth every step up. We all stood under the bell and the guide hit it with a metal bar. It didn't take much to create a loud, resounding ring. Karim made me take a picture of him on the very top of the cathedral. So I took one . . .

I could have sworn this happened when I returned the following year for study abroad, and I thought his name was Hamid. But Hamid was a different boy altogether. He worked at the hostel where we lived as students and wrote me sweet notes like this on the days I was sad because there wasn't a letter (especially from my boyfriend) in the mail for me.

I don't suppose when I go to Paris next week--my first visit since college--I'll get attention like this. And when I don't, I'll blame it on the fact that I have much shorter hair this time.

Homesick No More

I'm staying up too late working on organizing things for a trip to Europe and Africa with one of my sisters next week. At this point, my biggest challenge is figuring out how to fit everything I need into carryon luggage. I want to travel light because I'm going to be hauling my stuff all over the place.

Though I will definitely miss my boys as they hold down the fort at home, I can't express how much I am looking forward to this adventure!

Given that, it seems so funny to me now that when I was eight and nine, I used to freak out and call my parents in the middle of the night to come get me when I was sleeping over at a friend's house. Not every time. But it happened more than once.

It was awfully good of them to not only come get me, but to let me try again the next time I got an invitation.

Live

Tonight we went to a concert to root for a friend of mine who plays in a band that was competing with seven other bands to perform at the Stadium of Fire concert on July 4th. They did an excellent job, but the competition was fierce.

I am always so amazed by good musicians, and I love, love, love live performances.

For years at our bookstore we were lucky enough to have live music on Friday nights during the fall and winter, and during special events like our summer Harry Potter release parties. 

Over the years, we had so many fabulous singer/songwriters, bands (one a rock band with 20 amplifiers!), jam sessions with jazz musicians, open mic nights, Christmas concerts, and even a drum circle. Some of the most magical nights happened when several musicians were booked to share the same evening and ended up improvising with one another. We even collaborated with some of them to record their performances live, and we selected songs for a Live at the Read Leaf CD, a favorite treasure from that time in our lives.

I can't even begin to thank them all enough for helping us take our bookstore adventure to a whole new level. It was awesome!

Preservation

Me circa 1965

Remember these old orange life jackets? I couldn't wait to be old enough to shed mine as a matter of comfort and a matter of dignity. Going without was so much cooler on both counts.

Moms Love Stuff Like This

There is a near ten-year gap between Jack and his older cousins, all 18 of them. I love that they've always paid attention to him even though he was so much younger. Here are Ben and Jack doing a little bonding a few summers ago.

Thanks, cousins! You are awesome!

Rewriting the Rules

Today I finished reading the memoir Hole in My Life in anticipation of meeting author Jack Gantos at the BYU Books for Young Readers Symposium in July.

In the book, Gantos writes about his experience getting caught smuggling hashish into the U.S. and spending several years in a federal prison. It was there he was able to focus on actually becoming the writer he had imagined himself to be.

"My struggle as a writer was a lot like my life, I figured," he wrote. "I made up rules for myself and broke them and made others until I got it right."

Not that I've dabbled in drug smuggling or anything like that, but I related to Gantos' epiphany. I have tried to figure out how best to go after various aspirations and failed more times than I can remember.

Sometimes I write a to do list. Sometimes I keep it in my head. Sometimes I use a planner. Sometimes I use a calendar on the fridge. Sometimes I leave messages to remind myself on voice mail or send myself an email. Sometimes I ask Jack or Roger to remind me. Sometimes it just falls out of my brain.

Sometimes I get up early to get things done. Sometimes I stay up late. Sometimes I do specific things on specific days. Sometimes I do things in small increments. Sometimes I do things all in one day. Sometimes I don't do them at all.

Sometimes I get things done ahead of time. Sometimes I wait until something becomes an emergency. Sometimes I'm very disciplined even when I don't want to do it. Sometimes I wait until the mood strikes.

Sometimes I work in my office. Sometimes I work in the living room. Sometimes I work in bed. Sometimes I am organized and efficient. Sometimes I am scattered and creative.

Sometimes what I'm doing clicks and I actually achieve something I set out to do. Sometimes my ideas turn to dust and blow away. Often I accomplish something I didn't expect at all.

Full of Possibility

Jack and I are reveling in summer mode. No alarm, lots of unscheduled time. I can't say that we're using our time particularly wisely, but we are trying to have some productive moments. It's been nice to decompress.

One of the things I remember most about my own summer between seventh and eighth grades was walking to the Triple A shopping center on Route 2A, about a mile from home, with a friend of mine. We spent a lot of time in the stationary store where I nurtured my fantasy of having a store like that one day. Our bookstore helped scratch that itch because we sold things like notecards and blank books. 

I am a total sucker for blank books. So much space just waiting to be filled with, well, about anything. That's the same reason I love summer so much.

Anxious Engagement

We had a nice visit this evening with Roger's brother and his wife who are in town from Iowa and ended up swapping engagement stories.

Roger and I had a mostly on, sometimes off, relationship for several years before we got engaged. I wasn't sure it was really heading anywhere so I'd break it off. Then I couldn't resist him, and we'd end up back together again. That happened several times.

In 1990, I flew home for my sister Linda's high school graduation, determined to make some changes. While I was there, I finalized my plans. I'd sell everything I owned, including my house and car, turn in a letter of resignation at work, and head off to Denmark. My brother had contacts there and thought he could line up some freelance work for me.

When I got back to Salt Lake City, Roger met me at the airport. As we drove south toward home on I-15, I told him all about my plans.

"Before you turn in that letter of resignation, would you consider staying here and marrying me instead?" he asked. Twice. Apparently I was too busy talking or lost in my own thoughts to hear him the first time. I'm still working on that.

I looked out the car window. We were driving right past the state prison at the point of the mountain.

"Um, I have to think about that," I said. "Can I let you know in the morning?" My mind was so set on the plans I'd made, I had to unwind it. And I didn't actually know what it was like to be in a relationship with someone who had asked me to marry him. I had to wrap my brain around it.

Roger probably wasn't expecting that response.

By morning my mind was very clear. Of course I would consider staying and marrying him instead. And once we were engaged it seemed crazy that I had any question about it.

We got married exactly eight weeks later. 

The Dream

Last night I had a dream that I had been sucked back to work in the corporate world. A lucrative offer was too hard to resist, and I was intoxicated. I took it. Then little by little I realized each sacrifice I would be making, including giving up the far less lucrative but far more satisfying jobs I have now. Any sense of control I had over my life was sucked right out of me and the dream turned into a nightmare.

When I woke up, I remembered that I'd been skimming through one of my old journals last night, looking for things to write about. The journal covered about a five-year period from the time leading up to our wedding until shortly after we moved to the home we are in now. Getting married seriously hampered my journal writing, by the way. We got married at the end of July, and I didn't write about it until October!

One of the themes that ran through the entries was my desire to extricate myself from the computer industry. But when I figured out how to leave one job, I'd get sucked right back into another. Part of the struggle was that I couldn't put my finger on what else I wanted to or could do. And the salary and perks were enticing.

I think my dream last night worked out the last of any residual doubt I had about leaving the corporate world. I may not have the salary and the perks (thank you, Roger, for pulling that weight for our family!), but I've got freedom, flexibility, and the chance to make a real difference in the world every day. I'll take it.

Daze

Jack riding the dragon, June 2003

Art City Days have begun here in Springville! I can hear the some of the carnival rides through my open window. Maybe this year I'll get up early enough for the hot air balloon festival. Maybe.

Out of Time

An old friend has been on my mind today. I can't remember exactly when we became friends, but we went back at least as far as elementary school. I loved that I had a girl friend named Laurie because my dad's name is Laurie (after Laurie in Little Women).

We were actually pretty unlikely friends. I was a teacher's pet kind of kid while Laurie was a bit of a wild child, always pushing the boundaries and seeing what she could get away with. She wasn't afraid of getting into trouble. I was both in awe of her and glad I wasn't her at the same time.

Laurie was the one the boys were drawn to. I was the one the boys would call to confess their crushes and to find out more about her. So she got the boyfriends, but I consoled myself with the fact that I got lots of practice learning how to be friends with boys. She was, though, directly responsible for my first kiss. One of her boyfriends set me up with a friend of his and we double dated.

I looked through my pictures of her tonight. In quite a few of them she had, on purpose, a goofball expression like this:

Or she was posed like this:

I didn't see much of Laurie after I went away to college. She left home, got married and had a baby. She sent me pictures and wrote that her spirited daughter might have been payback for all the grief she caused her own parents. The last time we talked, we arranged to meet up when I was passing through the town where she lived. That was five or six years ago, maybe even longer. She wasn't home when I got there. I figured we'd just gotten our wires crossed. We lost track of each other after that.

Her little brother found me recently, and I learned that Laurie took her own life four years ago. I don't know any more than that, and though I've been grappling with it, it's not my story to tell. I still haven't even quite grasped that she isn't in our world anymore.

I'm so glad she was such a part of my life growing up. And I'm so sorry that I thought we'd have plenty of time to reconnect again one day. I sure love you, Laurie, my friend.

Rubbing Shoulders

I just finalized my hosting assignment for the upcoming Books for Young Readers Symposium in July. It's a fabulous opportunity to mix it up with the always awesome faculty and introduce one of the speakers--a residual benefit of connections I made when I was a bookseller.

It's not hard to imagine that one of my favorite parts of that era was meeting so many interesting and talented people. Some of the highlights include:

Sitting right next to writer James Patterson at the Author Banquet for Literacy during a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Association trade show. I had a hard time reconciling the mind that came up with books like Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider with such a nice dinner companion. (But isn't that how the story always starts out?!)

Driving three-time Newbery honor book author Zilpha Keatley Snyder (The Egypt Game) to the airport after she spoke at a conference at Utah Valley State College (now University). She's led such a fascinating life, and I enjoyed talking with her immensely about all sorts of things. I just wish I could remember now what they were.

Meeting the voice of Blue from Blues Clues at BEA, the big national booksellers' trade show in New York City. And even better? I got to sit in the real thinking chair. Fans of the show will understand just exactly how cool that was.

I'll Have a Little Bit of Everything, Please

I've been re-reading The Worldly Philosophers by Robert L. Heilbroner lately, brushing up on various economic theories. The copy I have is the 5th edition, which I originally read when it was assigned in one of my college classes in the early 80s. I'm going to have to track down the chapter he added in the last edition (7th, 1999) when I'm done. It's very readable; not dry at all.

One of the key reasons I got degrees in international relations and political science was because they were the most inter-disciplinary majors I could find. I didn't realize then how resistant I was to the silo effect of academia. All I knew was that once I decided I wasn't going to major in psychology like I thought, I didn't want to have to narrow down my choices to one thing.

I took classes in economics, sociology, political science, history, geography, law, and even social work. Sure the world needs specialists, people who dig deep in their disciplines and push the boundaries of knowledge. But the world also needs people like me, people who want to figure out how it all works together.

(I also like ordering combo plates at restaurants.)

Imagination

Benny, Jack, and Johnny circa 2004 in the back offices of The Read Leaf bookstore

Growing up in a bookstore meant a fairly unlimited supply of cardboard boxes, bags, and packing tape. Add a gigantic $2.00 box of popsicle sticks from the craft store and a kid can create all sorts of reinforced weapons and shields. 

Literally years of fun for the boys.

Wunnerful, Wunnerful

Fondly remembering how much my Grandpa Charlie enjoyed watching Lawrence Welk. And how funny I thought it was that a girl I babysat for when I was a teenager loved it, too.

I used to wonder if she'd actually been someone my Grandpa's age who died and came back as the girl I babysat for. Reincarnation would explain all sorts of anachronistic behavior like that.

I also used to wonder if I'd end up in a nursing home listening to Lawrence Welk when I got old. Then I realized that I'd be old with all sorts of people who grew up listening to Led Zeppelin. Well, and the Bee Gees.

Now the way things are headed, I wonder if I'll end up in a nursing home with a microchip in my head listening to whatever I darn well please.

Where Is He Now?

I have no idea why I thought of writing about this particular memory, but I thought about it as Jack and I drove home from Roger's parents' house tonight in the Wrangler, stick shift, no roof, perfect temperature. Bliss!

When Roger and I first got married, we moved to Highland, Utah, and were immediately asked to teach the 7-year-old Primary (Sunday School) class at church. When our new neighbors asked us what job we'd been assigned to, they shook their heads and said, "Oh, that class."

It was a pretty rowdy group. There were 14 of them. All but two were boys, though the girls held their own quite well. We soon learned that all of the head shaking was about one of the boys in particular.

He ended up being our hands-down favorite kid in the class. Sure, he wasn't very interested in settling down during Sunday School and that was a bit of a challenge. Okay, a huge challenge. But he was interesting. And funny. And his eyes sparkled. And he'd find amazing bugs and bring them to our house to show us.

We moved about three years later and lost track of him. I think his family moved to southern Utah soon after we left the neighborhood. I hope no one squashed the spirit out of that boy just for the sake of classroom management. And I hope his eyes still sparkle.

Uncomfortable

Something happened today that reminded me of an experience I had in the dorms when I was in college. The details were different, but the feeling it left me with was similar.

My roommate and I had boyfriends that year. We were both pretty serious about our relationships. Despite my mother's admonitions, I thought I might marry him, but didn't. She was serious enough to marry hers a few years later.

One day a group of girls in the dorm came to me and requested that I talk to her. She and her boyfriend had been involved in a fair amount of PDA as we called it. Public Displays of Affection. In the dorm lobby. It was making people feel very uncomfortable.

So I screwed up my courage and talked to her privately. "I know you guys care about each other, but it's making people feel a little uncomfortable," I said. Ugh. I don't know anyone who enjoys either end of a confrontation like that.

Soon after that I was saying goodnight to my boyfriend at the back door of the dormitory, definitely holding hands, likely a kiss was involved. My roommate brushed past us and hissed, "You are making me feel so uncomfortable."

I'm sure that I was. But I don't think it was because I was saying goodnight to my boyfriend. Yeah, I'm not a big fan of confronting people, especially when they aren't expecting it.

Photo Roulette

Picked a random picture from our photo archive tonight. Summer 2008, searching for trilobites at U-Dig Fossils an hour west of Delta, Utah.

We've got a jar full of them in our collection, which includes all sorts of jars full of rocks, shells, sand dollars, sea glass, salt crystals, sand, etc. from various adventures across the country. Fine souvenirs.

A Memorial Day Post

My personal experiences with the military have always been a bit peripheral. Ever present, but not an integral part of my life.

I remember an uncle being a member of the National Guard and sometimes I'd see him bringing his uniform home and hanging it in the closet. I knew another uncle had served on a Navy ship, but I didn't know much more than that.

I remember going to church with people stationed at Fort Devens. Once a girl there laughed at me because I didn't know what the PX was. It wasn't fair! Her father was in the army, so she knew about things like that. My father was a science teacher. I asked her if she knew what H20 was. She was stumped. It didn't really make me feel better.

Friends from Fort Devens often went overseas. When I was 17, I visited some of them in Belgium and Germany.

Then later I married Roger. His brother was named after an uncle who had died in the Korean War. And I always make a point of listening to his father tell stories about serving during World War II as a radio operator on a B-29.

After 9/11, I'd often meet customers at our bookstore who had served or who were closely related to people on active duty. I especially remember a man who came in looking for a book his wife wanted him to get for a friend of hers. He couldn't remember the title, and I asked if he wanted to call his wife. He said he couldn't; she was in Afghanistan. I looked at the baby in his arms, thinking about how his mama was really far away and wouldn't be able to hold him for nearly a year.

A neighbor we'd watched grow up enlisted. One of our Merrell nephews enlisted. He was quoted once in a Washington Post article when he was on patrol in Baghdad.

Then I went back to teaching at UVU, and almost every semester I'd have students in my classes who had served in Iraq or Afghanistan. Or students who were thinking of enlisting. One of them wrote his research paper on whether the major US military actions in the last 30 years were justified. He desperately wanted them to be.

So grateful for everyone who has served. So hopeful that one day no one will ever have to serve in vain.

Tucked Away

My cousin, her family, and a couple of her geology field camp colleagues blew threw town last night for some emergency lodging. While their students were all taking break between field camp sessions in Salt Lake City, my cousin and her group had been camping in Moab. They spent Friday night in a crazy wind and sand storm getting very little sleep. Then Saturday, the wind took out a couple of their tents. We were happy to give them refuge.

I don't really remember much wind while I was growing up in Massachusetts. Most of my childhood memories of crazy wind were connected to one particularly wild sail on my uncle's boat on Long Island Sound and battening down the hatches when storms came up at Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. I loved the adrenaline surge, running around making sure boats were safe and that anything loose was stowed away.

But the winds here in Utah are something else! We often have strong canyon winds after the sun sets. If people want patio furniture around here, it has to be either heavy or put away at night. We can also have pretty intense wind storms. Over the years at various homes we've lost fencing, we've lost siding, and we've lost shingles.

I'd never heard of a microburst before living in Utah, but now I've experienced more than one. The most surreal memory I have of being in the middle of a microburst was watching a trampoline blow through the fields a block away, on its side and about 20 feet in the air. I was glad to be tucked away in our solid, brick house.

I think our house guests last night were glad for that, too. And the silver lining? Their student will be reunited with her pillow today.

Trauma

Warning: snake story. I appreciate it when I'm given fair warning. I'm still traumatized from the time I was flipping TV channels and inadvertently saw a snake coming up out of someone's toilet on the screen. It was years before I stopped jumping up at the slightest breeze, especially in the middle of the night.

Anyway, I can't remember how old I was when the following happened, but I was probably 10 or 12. My mother found a snake in the yard and decided that I needed some aversion therapy. I was up in my room when she called me. From the top of the stairs, I could see her at the bottom, holding up a two or three-foot snake by the neck, its body twisting and turning.

"Come down here and touch it," she said. "I want you to see that it's not slimy."

"Gah!" I cried. "Just take it outside!"

I either won and my mother took it outside, or my mother won, I touched the snake and then repressed the memory. I honestly can't remember anything beyond the image of my mother at the bottom of the stairs, holding that snake by the neck, its body twisting and turning, twisting and turning, twisting and turning.

Left Behind

For most of the past six years, my cousin Sarah, a geology professor at the University of South Florida, has brought a group of students to Utah for field research. We've become a bit of a base camp for them. Last night we had Sarah, two of her colleagues, and five of her students stay over. One of them left a pillow, which is going to make sleeping on the ground the next couple of weeks a little rough.

I lost a favorite pillow once. Left it in a motel room in Cortez, Colorado. I actually still miss the pillow case, which was a fun Marimekko one, part of a set of sheets my aunt and uncle gave me when I graduated from high school.

It was during the first few years we were married. Roger called from his job at WordPerfect on a Thursday morning and said, "Let's get out of town."

"Sure!"

We had no idea where we were going to end up, but we decided to head south to see Mesa Verde. Then we figured we might as well go to Durango, Colorado, because we were so close. Then Los Alamos seemed close. Then why not Santa Fe? And Albuquerque?

On Sunday, we had a long, long, long drive back home. And I missed my pillow. But it was totally worth it.

Getting Our Feet Wet

Five years ago this month, and Jack had just turned eight. We have so many happy memories of playing in the creek that runs down the canyon near our home.