Five Ways in Which Our Cats Are Opposite

I am taking inspiration from my friend Shelley's blog, in which she outlines several ways her nearly six-month old twin girls are opposite (I'd link to her post, but it's a private blog). While Shelley has been getting to know her two little ones, we've been getting to know our two little kittens: Fluffy on the right, Doublestuff on the left (Jack, by the way, is in the middle. We've known him for years.)

Here's how the kittens differ:

• Fluffy is female and Doublestuff is male. It took a surprisingly long time (and multiple consultations with neighbors, an internet search and ultimately confirmation from the vet) for us to actually figure that out. Who knew it was so tough to identify a kitten's gender?
  
• Fluffy has a light colored coat and blue eyes. She takes after the alleged father, who is Siamese. Doublestuff has a mostly black coat and green eyes. He takes after his mother, who is completely black.
  
• Doublestuff is the one who is constantly underfoot. I have kicked the poor guy in the head and stepped on his tail more times than I can count. It's downright dangerous descending the stairs with an armful of laundry.
• Fluffy is the one who runs to the food first and will eat anything. This may be due to the fact that she was the runt of the litter.
• Doublestuff thinks he's the tough one, but Fluffy is actually tougher. Doublestuff is always the aggressor in their kitten battles, but Fluffy completely holds her own and often wins. Doublestuff is a good climber when he wants to sneak onto the kitchen counter (so against the rules and he knows it!) or when he's terrified of a dog at the vet and tries to get to safety on top of my head. Fluffy is the one who climbs for sheer adventure. My bedroom curtains have the scars to prove it.

Tagged! Seven Random Things About Me

1. If left to my own devices, I stay up later and later every night.
2. I feel better if I breathe in ocean air at least once a year.
3. In another life I’d be a songwriter or an architect. Or maybe it’s not too late?
4. I love going barefoot.
5. I dream about going to Spain.
6. The idea of getting a dog for Jack in the fall is growing on me.
7. My favorite reading genre: memoirs.

I tag Shelley W., Luann H. and Ann C. (who I think check my blog from time to time and who have blogs of their own).

Missing the Exit but (Hopefully) Making the Point

Yesterday Jack and I drove about 30 minutes north on I-15 to pick up a good friend of his for a day of fun. There are several exits we can take to get to her house. 

I missed all of them.

Jack and I were too busy having a serious conversation about civil disobedience. The subject came up because he's been watching Whale Wars on the Animal Planet channel, in which the crew of the Sea Shepherd tries to thwart the efforts of whalers. Sometimes their techniques put people in danger.

While I tried to help him understand the fine line between fighting for something worth dying for and failing to use good judgment, I was walking a fine line myself--teaching Jack to understand the consequences of our actions without squelching the budding passions of a boy who will one day be a man who believes in something worth dying for.

So I balanced my "lecture" that maybe throwing stink bombs onto the deck of a Japanese whaling ship could be misconstrued and result in the firing of deadly weapons ("But the captain didn't actually die," said Jack) with stories of my grandmother, who went to Nicaragua on a peace mission the year she turned 80, and my sister Maryann, who once took a class on how to handle being arrested at demonstrations.

And we laughed at the irony that the exit where we made our u-turn was the exit for the state prison.

I hope it was worth being late for Jack's friend.

Who Am I? Part Two

So months and months ago I posted the first in what was to be a series of blog posts pondering the question of who I am (click here for the first post). 

I'm finally getting around to exploring another answer to the question: birth order. According to Wikipedia, "birth order is often believed to have a profound and lasting effect on psychological development."

Technically I'm the second of four children. 

But here's the thing: I believe I have played the role of oldest, middle and youngest child in my family. And if there is any credibility to the birth order theory, it's no wonder I'm a little screwy sometimes!

I am nearly three years younger than my brother, the oldest child. He was a bit of a societal dropout. I was the first one to get a driver's license, the first to get a job, the first to graduate from high school, the first to leave home. I have a distinct memory of hearing my mother--in an effort to expand his self-sufficiency--offer to pay him a dollar if he'd break an egg into a pan. It was hard for me to understand why I couldn't have a dollar because I already knew how to do that. (He eventually did get a license, left home and learned how to break an egg.)

I am nearly nine years older than my next younger sister. Which meant that I was the baby of the family for all of my formative years and beyond. I didn't have to be a responsible older sibling. I didn't have anyone getting into my stuff. I didn't have to compete for attention with someone cuter than me.

But as soon as my sister was born I became a middle child. With an older brother in the throes of puberty and a needy infant, I felt an unspoken responsibility to lay low and not cause any additional stress in the family (not that I was always successful!). 

Then to top it all off, my youngest sister was born when I was fourteen and I became a second mother! I'm not complaining--we had a lot of fun together! But I do remember lots of diaper changes and babysitting.

A possible explanation for thinking I need to be all things to all people? The kind of thinking that can make a person crazy?

Five Things I Can See

from where I'm sitting in our family room:

• Muddy handprints on the door to the backyard.
• A dining room table covered with Lego creations.
• A coffee table covered with folded paper boats made from blue, pink and yellow scratch paper full of long division problems from fourth grade math class.
• A toy chest overflowing with light sabers, foam swords, Jedi robes and Indiana Jones hats.
• A ten-year-old boy at the computer desk in the kitchen. Can you believe he's ten?! We're sure glad he's part of our family. Happy (belated) birthday, Jack!

Five Things I Can See

from where I'm sitting in our living room:

• The red leather couch that Roger and I bought on a whim one Valentine's Day from one of our favorite furniture stores, Copenhagen West. It was marked several hundred dollars off, which made the whim much easier to rationalize.
• A small beautiful quilt that my friend Linda made in commemoration of a trip we took to San Francisco to see an exhibit of Gees Bend quilts. We keep it slung over the back of the rocking chair we used to feed Jack in the middle of the night when he was a baby. Linda put so much thought into the fabric selection and design, trying to capture her sense of who I am in pattern and color. It's a treasure on many levels.
• Glass jars of rocks and shells gathered during various family trips, the most recent a collection of smooth speckled rocks from our trip to Carlsbad and the beach last weekend. (Disclaimer: we stole this idea from our good friends Brad and Virlie.)
• A shelf full of books written by friends and family including a limited edition book written, illustrated, letterpress printed and hand bound by my friend Sally called True Turkey and Cat Stories. Warning: Some of the stories might turn your stomach. But the presentation is excellent.
• A series of three black and white photographs taken by Roger, our resident and fabulous photographer, at Lake Geneva: Dad sailing the MC, Jack climbing up on the raft, and Dad's cousins Jean and Jody--two of the matriarchs of the family--chatting on the pier.

Five Fun Things about Our Neighborhood

Here's a list of five fun things to celebrate a beautiful day in the neighborhood. All of these are within easy walking distance of our house.

• Diamond's Green House - a nursery two blocks away. Sometimes we walk there with our red wagon and fill it up with fun things to plant in pots on our front porch.
• Otis and his friends - Otis is an ornery donkey who lives in a pasture by the greenhouse with a bunch of mules. The other day Jack and I biked over to feed Otis and his friends five pounds of carrots. Sometimes Otis brays loud and long in the middle of the night. We sit up in bed thinking someone might be getting murdered, and then we remember Otis.
• Cul-de-sac of Fire - we live just next to a cul-de-sac where for many years neighbors gathered on the Fourth of July to pool fireworks. The past few years city ordinances haven't allowed us to set off fireworks in our neighborhood (drought). But we're hopeful we can do it again one day. In the meantime, we drag our lawn chairs down to the cul-de-sac for a perfect view of the firework display the city puts on every June for Art City Days.
• The Arts Park - just down the hill from us there is a city park with an open air stage. The city hosts all sorts of events there throughout the summer. Our favorite so far? A They Might Be Giants concert. How cool is that! A Little Birdhouse in Your Soul and Particle Man practically in our yard!
• A couple of blocks away we can pick up the bike trail that heads up Hobble Creek Canyon (which is just over a mile away). After church last Sunday, we drove up to see how fast the river is flowing with spring run-off (fast!) and how full the catch basin is (full!). I ended up walking home. Perfect.

In honor of Mother's Day, here's a They Might Be Giants video from last Mother's Day. It includes one of my favorite songs, The Alphabet of Nations. Because, really, I like to think the whole world is my neighborhood!

A Different Time

I've starting reading parts of my grandmother's memoir to Jack at night before bed. Grandma Jan had a most unusual childhood as the daughter of a Presbyterian missionary and his wife in Mexico.  

The memoir starts out with the story of how her parents met. Her father Will spent a month as a visiting minister at her mother Mary's congregation in Minnesota before leaving for Mexico. Mary had long dreamed of being a missionary herself. Will went off to Mexico, and Mary prepared for her missionary work in China. She got all the way to San Francisco and was ready to get on the boat to China when she got a telegram from Will asking her to come to Mexico and marry her instead.

I love the stories that made Jack laugh out loud. Like the story of Will and Mary's first breakfast together. Mary put bread in to toast while Will said grace, and Will thanked the Lord for so many things that the toast caught fire. Years later Will, dressed as Santa, leaned too close to the Christmas tree and his beard caught fire on a candle. My Grandma Jan, five years old at the time, remembers her mother shrieking, "Will! Your Beard!" as she yanked it off, revealing her father, not Santa. Grandma was sick with disappointment. 

(Apparently stories that end with things catching on fire are especially funny to a nine-year-old boy.)

We also laughed at the story of Mary waking up really early one morning while she and Will were traveling to take a bath in the lake before anyone else was awake. "How lovely to slip in the water stark naked, soap thoroughly, and then float on her back watching the sun come up over the hills! When she turned to swim ashore, there, in silent rows, were all of the people of the village watching her with intense curiosity."

Will actually followed in the footsteps of his father, who was a missionary in Colombia. When Will was in Minnesota, he shared Sunday dinners with Mary's family, and while they ate he shared stories about his family's adventures. Here's one of our favorites, which is, despite reflecting a conflict we continue to struggle with in our world today, definitely from a different time!

"Once, when we were resting overnight at the coffee plantation of a Colombian, the foreman came in to tell us that guerrillas were in the neighborhood and might try to steal some horses and food."

"What were they fighting about?" asked Mary's mother, who had steeped herself in the stories of the clan fights of her Scottish forebears, but knew nothing of South America's guerrillas.

"Oh, the same thing they've been fighting about for over the last forty years. The government and the Catholic Church are conservative, rich, and powerful and against any political reform movements that might upset the status quo. The Liberal Party is trying to get control in order to reform the whole system in the interest of the voiceless poor, to spread the wealth and power more evenly amongst all Colombians. No one ever wants to give up his privileges or wealth voluntarily, so the fighting grows fiercer and fiercer. Thousands have been killed over the years."

"Did the guerrillas attack you?" asked Sid [Mary's brother], not really interested in the politics of it all.

"Yes. At one of our plantation stops, they swept in on horseback, stole horses from the stable and food from the kitchen, but strangely returned our horses and baggage, very courteously begging our pardon, saying they had not known we were extranjeros (foreigners). We were not their political enemies. We were guests in their country, to be treated with customary hospitality."

Go figure! A civil war that was actually conducted with some measure of civility!

Before I Get Too Deep

Bear with me. There's a bright spot at the end of this blog entry.

My blog title, which comes from an Edie Brickell song, has turned out to reflect my relationship with my blog in a far deeper way than I realized. Subconscious rules!

The full line from the song is "Shove me in the shallow water before I get to deep." Every once in a while I feel compelled to write about more serious topics that I've been thinking about - you know, there's a lot going on in the world these days! - but when I do, I feel a bit uncomfortable and can't wait to get back into shallow water.

I haven't been blogging a lot lately because I've spent too much time wallowing in serious things, to the point of not being very healthy (read: must stop paying attention to comments people make in response to newspaper articles online, especially local papers). I'm sure I'll lighten up now that spring is here!

In the meantime . . .

I'm so frustrated with the divisive for-or-against, either-or spin so much of our media treats us to. Case in point: the ridiculous coverage of the tea parties by both the left and the right. People have legitimate concerns and a constitutionally guaranteed right to express those concerns. And they get laughed at relentlessly? Like that's going to move us forward? On the other hand, tea party organizers need to own the fact that while their tea parties turned out many thoughtful people who wanted to voice their concerns about government spending, they also turned out many people who just wanted to hate on Obama. Really, really hate.

Honestly, I think the way we reduce the complexity of the world to meaningless oversimplifications ("no matter what Obama does it's wrong and even if it isn't wrong we're going to spin it to make it look wrong" - and feel free to substitute Bush in that statement this time last year) is so counterproductive. It does not remotely resemble the healthy, productive debate we need to actually dig ourselves out of all of the holes we are in.

People keep shouting out their opinions (yes, I really must stop reading online comments) without having the full picture. Though in their defense, it's not so easy to get the full picture with all of the spin going on!

In honor of earth day, here's another example of an oversimplified, politically charged and over spun issue: oil. I think we citizens are actually all pretty much in agreement that we want the U.S. to be energy independent. Where we differ is how to get there, and, with very few exceptions, we all have oversimplified ideas about that. How many of us really understand the energy economy? Especially in relation to the free market economy that we also universally value (to varying regulatory degrees)? Contrast, for example, cries for new drilling with the market reality that people are losing jobs because oil companies have been cutting back existing operations (between August and February, rig count in Utah dropped 50%!).

My contribution to combatting all of the sound bite ideology these past months has been made in the classroom. I teach writing. Sure we talk about comma placement, but more importantly we talk about critical thinking. Even if we know everything about sentence construction and spelling, we can't be good writers if we don't have anything to say (a result of superficial thinking). My mantra in class is to dig deeper, to work on understanding the complexity of issues before crafting theses.

Today it paid off. My students each spent a few minutes in class today sharing something interesting they discovered in their research process for their final paper.

The very last student shared this (in so many words): "Starting out I had very strong opinions about gun control. But I realized that I couldn't actually carry on a discussion about it because I really didn't know anything. Through my research I educated myself on the topic. And I realized that if more people were educated on the topic we wouldn't have people reacting so dramatically to unsubstantiated hearsay. We might even be able to come up with solutions that work."

Can't think of a better message as I send my students on their way.

A New Season

I took the background snow showers off my blog thinking that may be the reason we've continued to have snow here in Springville. And now the sun is shining here. Ah, it feels good to have so much power!

The birth of a new season.

Time to crawl out from under all of the bad habits I've cultivated over the winter. Back to getting outdoors and exercising! Back to eating more healthfully! Time to stop hunkering down and look outward again! Time to stop wearing tights and shave my legs!

Good for a Laugh

This is the kind of skit I fast forward through SNL for. Hang in through the ad at the start (consider it your contribution to helping the economy). Dwayne Johnson (aka "The Rock") does a great job!

Coming Out

Ha! Couldn't resist the title after my last post. 

But really, I'm just changing my blog name from Mel (my initials) to Margy, my real first name (pronounced with a hard "g" in case you don't know me personally). 

I suppose I originally came up with Mel to have just the slightest bit of anonymity. But then I call my husband, son and other people by their first names on my blog, so how fair is that?

Even though I've been blogging under the name Mel for several years, it's never really grown on me.

So hi, my name is Margy!

Digging Deep

[Cartoon by Pat Bagley of the Salt Lake Tribune. Buttars is one of our infamous state senators who has been thrust into the national spotlight more than once. Side note: I've been a Pat Bagley fan for many years. He also illustrates children's books and we included one of his pieces in the Springville Museum of Art exhibition I put together last fall.] 

I'm trying something new this semester in the Utah Valley University writing class I teach. We've selected a group topic that we will dig into as we explore various aspects of doing research, evaluating rhetoric, etc. 

My students came up with a dozen or so topics and ultimately voted on the separation of church and state. Gay marriage was a very close second, so from time to time we've gotten into the areas where the two topics overlap. 

This past Friday I had my students summarize and respond to an editorial in the New York Times proposing a possible compromise on the issue of same sex marriage that would address the key issues of civil rights for same sex couples on the one hand and protection of religious conscience and practice on the other. It's an intriguing idea that could buy us some time to dig deeper into the issue of "redefining" marriage.

It's been painfully interesting to be here in Utah and to be a member of the LDS church with all of the fallout from California's Proposition 8 and, most recently, with the limelight on Senator Buttars and his comments about gays being a bigger threat to the U.S. than Muslim terrorists.

I know where I personally stand on the issue of same sex marriage as a matter of public policy and civil law. I also know that at the end of the day my church leaders (at least the ones at the top) would support me and my conscience. 

The painful part for me lies in the tangled web of misunderstanding, hurt, anger and fear and knowing that people I dearly love fall at opposite ends of the political spectrum on this issue. Ironically, I'm at risk of being labeled both a heretic and a mindless sheep, but in my mind I am neither. It's a surreal place to exist. Especially when my opinions are rooted in the ideas of freedom and love for my fellow beings, something that paradoxically we pretty much all value.

Seeing the issue through the lens of a college writing class has equipped me with some tools to at least begin to sort through the mess. For example, a few weeks ago we talked about the importance of understanding the assumptions we bring to the table. 

Here's just one example:

One of the assumptions many proponents of Prop 8 made was that same sex couples in California already have all of the rights and protections that married heterosexual couples have. This idea was reinforced by a widely circulated youtube video. Just over two minutes in the narrator says, "if this isn't about rights and equality, what is it about?"

But opponents of Prop 8 were pretty clear in their understanding that at best same sex couples only have some of the rights, protections and benefits afforded married couples, and that they have to jump through multiple legal hoops to ensure them. They were pretty clear that the debate was all about rights and equality.

If we fail to dig deep and see the complexity in issues like this, we are bound to reduce our views to sound bites like "hate" and "tyranny of the minority."

And what good does that do? We just end up digging ourselves into a hole.

Something New to Dream About

A cycle would be fun, but what I'm going to dream about tonight is the slider I ate for lunch today at Marley's, the restaurant at the new(ish) Harley-Davidson dealer just off I-15 in Lindon. Oh man, a burger with grilled onions, cheese and buffalo sauce on the most amazing bun ever.

It's a cool place to visit--not only because it's the biggest Harley-Davidson dealer in the world, but because the building is made from all sorts of cool metal work salvaged from Geneva Steel.

And my personal brush with fame: Guy Francis, the artist who created the image of Marley, was one of the artists in the children's book illustration exhibition last fall.

Happy Valentine's Day

Remember how fun Valentine's Day always was in elementary school? Making post boxes, making valentines, distributing them to classmates? 

Roger and Jack cooked up this fabulous post box for Jack to take to school tomorrow.

Want a hug?

25 Random Things

I got tagged on facebook to write 25 random things about myself. I thought I'd post it here to, since Mom and Dad don't have facebook pages.

1. Dark chocolate, hands down.
2. I used to dream that I could swim underwater without needing to come up for air. I wish I still had that dream.
3. One of my biggest regrets is not going out for the high school swim team.
4. One thing I will never regret is taking a typing class in high school.
5. I love to travel! I am very happy when I have an airline ticket and am anticipating a trip.
   
6. I want to live in another country and immerse myself enough to really learn another language.
   
7. I am not a morning person. But I so wish I was.
   
8. Seeing the ocean at least once a year is a need, not a want. Seriously. It's a soul thing.
   
9. I wish our house had a substantial, welcoming front porch.
   
10. The summer after my freshmen year of college I walked the banks of the Seine in Paris, heartbroken because I missed my boyfriend who I wouldn't see for more than a year. Too bad my angst did not produce anything profound.
11. After Roger finished his first grad program, I quit my computer industry job and we ran away from home for a year. In our little red Jeep Wrangler, we drove all over the country, up into Canada to Alaska and down into Mexico.
12. I really, really, really miss our bookstore, which seemed to give me a hug every time I walked through the front door. It enabled us to meet so many interesting people and contribute to our community in so many fun ways . . . 
    
13.  . . . Like hosting live music! We had more than a hundred concerts at our store and one of my favorite projects was producing a CD of some of the performances. 
    
14. I was very relieved when Jack showed signs of developing a good sense of humor at an early age.
    
15. I started reading novels to Jack when he was three (The Mouse and the Motorcyle), and we've read almost every single night since then. One of the best decisions I ever made!
    
16. I took up yoga once and it did amazing things for me. So why don't I practice yoga these days?
    
17. It never fails that when the movie Joe vs. the Volcano comes on tv, I get sucked in--even though we own the DVD and we can watch it any time.
    
18. I love teaching my college class, but I don't love grading papers.
    
19. Once I got a professional pedicure and I thought, "I actually have nice toes!" I need to get another pedicure one day.
    
20. I play too much spider solitaire. But only when I'm listening to informative, thought-provoking podcasts.
21. I have an irrational dislike of Indian food. I think it may somehow be connected to bad behavior in a previous life.
22. I love seeing inside people's houses as I drive by at night. I don't want to see the people, but I do want to see their houses. I'm an architecture and design junky.
    
23. One of my favorite times of day is when Roger, Jack and I are all hanging out in bed together in the evening--reading, talking, laughing, and surfing the internet. It's nice. I love those guys!
    
24. Roger is watching a Flight of the Conchords video as I type this. They make me laugh.
    
25. I have had so much fun connecting with old and new friends and far flung relatives on facebook!
    

This One Always Makes Me Cry Just a Little Bit (In a Good Way)

This video has been around for a while, but for those of you who haven't seen it, it's so worth watching. Every once in a while, I watch it just to make me happy.

Believe

When we owned our bookstore, we thought it would be fun for the store to be in a movie. Loki, a musician who played several times at our store, wrote and directed a mockumentary called Believe (click here for more info). Lucky for us, he needed to shoot a scene in a bookstore. 

Loki and his crew were there for six or seven hours one evening to get the glorious eleven seconds that appears in this clip (spoiler alert!).

Five Interesting Conversations

I've had lots of conversations with people over the holidays, getting together with family and friends, working at the museum, etc. But I've chosen the five most unusual ones for this post.

• I met a bookseller and his wife visiting from Norway. We had a fine time talking about finding treasures in the book world. I told them I was convinced of genetic memory when I went to Norway and felt completely, utterly connected to the land, the people, the aesthetics, the whole feeling there.
  
• I met an elementary school art teacher who also teaches art classes at Utah Valley University. I told him about the new writing assignment sequence for English 1010 there (the course I've been teaching), and how it is designed primarily to develop critical thinking skills. One of the goals is to break students of the habit of deciding their thesis before doing any research and then simply finding quotes to support it. In fact, they don't write a full blown research paper. Instead their final paper is an exploratory research paper in which they write about their experience engaging with the content of their research. I was excited about it. He was excited about it. He even gave me his email address so I can send him more information (which I still need to do). Kindred geeks.
  
• I went with five friends to see Doubt, a movie about a nun (Meryl Streep, amazing) who believes a priest is abusing boys in her school. We had an energetic conversation all the way home. How can you really be certain about anything? And yet we are. I felt bad that they dropped me off first. 
  
• A sales rep at a store we visited recently shared wildly personal information with us. It started with a comment he made about his fifth grandchild being born, and when we expressed disbelief that he could have five at his age, he confessed that he became a grandfather at 36 because he became a father at 18. He then regaled us with stories of subsequent marriages to women and partnerships with men, some of whom had various troubles with various licit and illicit substances. But he seemed nice enough. We'd have bought something from him if we could have rationalized it.
  
• The last one isn't technically a conversation, but I thought it was an interesting encounter. And talking was involved. Whenever I stop by the art museum, I'm never quite sure what I might end up doing. The other day Roger and I stopped by to check on a couple of things and the director turned up with a huge bronze moose statue on a cart. He needed our help getting it off the cart and onto a pedestal. Crazy!

Out with the Old

I am totally overwhelmed by how much "stuff" we have and how disorganized it all is. We are hardly big shoppers, but we haven't dealt with everything that came home with us when we closed the bookstore. And the other two members of my family are collectors (and I sure love them!).

My new year's resolution is to get rid of at least one thing every day (throw away, give away, return to proper owner, or sell). I promised Roger and Jack that I wouldn't get rid of anything they own (at least not without their permission).

So far I'm on track! Of course, we're only four days in . . .

Five Quirks

Our Jack is a blessed addition to our family. And we sure love his quirks.

• He always has to have a toy in his pocket. This has been true since he was very, very young.
• We ask him if he's hungry and he says "no." Then not two minutes later, when he's done working on whatever project he's been focused on he says, "I'm hungry."
• He lives his life with a soundtrack. Literally. If he doesn't have music on (usually the Star Wars soundtrack), he makes his own. At this very moment I hear him playing Legos in the other room with a friend and loudly humming The Twelve Days of Christmas.
• He often falls asleep just as the plane is landing.
• He often falls asleep when we've got just two pages of the novel left. (This just happened last night. We'll be finishing Island of the Blue Dolphins tonight.)

A Brookside Christmas

Last Friday Roger and I enjoyed the PTA Christmas program at Brookside Elementary. Yep, we happily live in a school district that allows that sort of thing (purely secular though--Santa, reindeer, front teeth and all that). More than 700 kids, teachers and lots of parents packed into the gym. Jack is right in the middle in the green striped shirt. 

My very favorite part of the program is when the 12 Days of Christmas are divvied up among the grades (Jack and the other fourth graders sang four French hens and ten lords a-leaping). The kids sing faster and louder on each verse until they're practically shouting on top of each other by the end. Sort of like watching an ice hockey game. Good times.

It's Not in My Head (But It Is)

My doctor called with the results from my ct scan this morning. The past couple of months of dragging through my days may soon be over! Apparently there are multiple, highly evident problems with my sinuses. 

Not that this is something to brag about (and have I done something wrong to cause this mess?). But it means there's an actual problem that I can work on fixing (and that the $75 copayment I made for the ct scan this morning wasn't for naught). It's not all in my head. 

Here's hoping extra strong antibiotics will cure me and I won't have to have surgery.

Five Things I Am Thankful For

• I am thankful for a husband who loves me and supports me despite my often selfish and erratic ways. And I love him.
• I am thankful that I get to be Jack's mom. What a funny, smart, creative, tenderhearted boy he is! I sure don't want him to grow up too fast, but I am so curious about the man he will become.
• I am thankful to know so many amazing people--family and friends--who teach me so much. I am so often truly inspired by you all!
• I am thankful that the challenges in my life are rooted in abundance rather than scarcity. My prayer is to turn the temptation to eat too much, to revel too much in the comforts of my life and to feel overwhelmed by all of the stuff we own into fuel to feed a generous, giving spirit.
• I am thankful that my parents set me on a spiritual path that keeps me committed to wrestling with faith, hope and charity.

What Would a Sick Day Be Like without Star Wars?

So this is what we've been watching at our house today. Jack came home school early with a cold, no friends allowed. We had to fight a bit of boredom. I also had him build a space ship out of a pile of Legos and he had to use every piece. He had a two hour deadline, but completed it in just over an hour. Then he spent the rest of the afternoon embellishing it. We've got a long evening ahead of us.

Who Am I? Part One

Since blogging is substantially a narcissistic activity, I thought I'd indulge in a bit of self exploration. The reason? I never quite know how I fit into this world. 

I'm an easterner in the west. I'm the mother of an only child in community of larger than average families. I'm pretty sure I'm the only woman in my neighborhood who has never given birth. I'm a moderately left of center gal in one of the reddest counties in one of the reddest states in the union. I was one of the only Mormons in my school growing up. There are no Mormons in my extended family, but I married into a family with pioneer stock on both sides. I could go on.

Why do I always feel different? Is it just the human condition? Or is there something special about my situation?

Today's explanation: I am generation-less.

The baby boomer generation consists of people born between approximately 1945 and 1960. Generation X consists of people born between approximately 1965 and 1980. I was born in 1963.

What on earth does that make me?

Country First

A part of me longs to be in a place where people are celebrating Obama's election. It would be so much easier and so much more fun. But a deeper part of me senses that I need to be here in this place at this time.

I feel blessed that my first impression of Obama was his commitment to listening, thinking and finding common ground. I have viewed him for years through that lens. Of course he's not perfect and I don't agree with everything he says and does. But I think it's tragic that the first impression of Obama many people have had is that he is suspiciously foreign and possibly anti-American. Viewing him through that lens distorts him beyond my recognition.

In the past three days I have had conversations and heard comments that have absolutely dripped with anger and fear and all sorts of misconceptions. "I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that can only compare to 11 September 2001." "My mother says that Obama is the anti-Christ," "If Obama gets elected he's going to start killing all of the two year old children." "I'm going to move to Canada because Obama is a socialist and a Marxist [I had to laugh at the irony of that comment!]" "It's all over now." "I hope some nutcase assassinates him."

It makes my heart hurt.

But it also drives me to open my mouth. I can't sit idly by.

Today I was eating lunch with some of the faculty at Springville High. Like me they've been worried about all of the hateful and fearful remarks. I imagine most if not all of them voted for McCain and are disappointed he lost. But they are working hard to help the students understand the genius behind the way our government is set up--checks and balances, frequent elections, etc. They said they've been telling students that we've survived bad presidents before, that we can endure for four years, that there will be a mid-term election that will give us a chance to shift the balance in Congress.

I finally spoke up and said, "And we can tell them that Obama may just be a good president!"

For the sake of our nation, don't we need to give him that chance?

I call on all of my dear friends and family who supported McCain, who are devastated that he lost and who may actually fear an Obama presidency. If you truly believed in McCain's campaign for presidency, please continue to embrace his campaign mantra "Country First."

You may want Obama to fail mightily, but his failure would be our failure, and in these difficult times we can't afford that.

We can and should work together to make the next four years a success.

Of course we must all be vigilant in fighting for policies and political principles we believe in. Every president should be held accountable and should be watched and pushed to do what we feel is right. 

But when he is sworn in, please honor the presidency and remember that Obama is our democratically elected leader. 

I am full of hope. I believe all of us can be. Yes we can.

Life Is Good

I'm feeling so much better after being under the weather for weeks. Monday morning I woke up without a fever, and I've got my brain back! I'm pacing myself, but I'm feeling optimistic.

Somehow we made it though Halloween without taking a single photograph of Jack dressed up as Indiana Jones! Above is a photo of Jack taken earlier this year (thus the green leaves on the trees and the roof off the jeep), wearing one (!) of his Indiana Jones hats and the shirt we custom tore for him. He is sans the questy map case with the leather strap that he wears across his chest, but you might be able to see the whip he's holding in his right hand.

I am so happy to report that I only have a handful of essays in my "to be graded" folder for my UVU classes (I'll be making quick work of those after I'm done posting here).

I am so happy to report that Jack woke up on his own for the past two days. And with the newly fallen snow on the ground, I didn't have to ask him twice to get dressed. He was out the door to check out the snow before the school bus came, so I didn't even have to drive him to school!

I am so happy to report that the bond election for a new library in Springville passed with flying colors. This will be so good for our community on so many levels!

Oh, and Obama will be the 44th president of the United States. I'm still pinching myself.

Access to Information For All

Here's the letter I sent to the paper this weekend:

Dear Editor,

I believe the economic downturn is actually a reason for—not an obstacle to—pulling together as a community to vote for a new library.

There is no question that we need to use our resources wisely, and making do with what we have is a practice we desperately need to return to as a society. My concern, though, is that we’ve been making do with an inadequate library facility for at least the fourteen years I’ve lived here, probably longer.

While not everyone uses the library, we all benefit from living in a literate society. A library is an important resource for people of all ages and from all walks of life, including people who are struggling financially and who look to libraries to help them get back on their feet. I’ve known people who have depended on library services to launch their businesses or to get information and training that have enabled them to transition to new, often better, jobs after being laid off.

Libraries empower us! A strong community is one that truly values literacy and access to information for all. But despite the best efforts of an amazing and creative library staff, our library is simply too small to provide services to everyone who seeks them—a problem that will only get worse if our economy continues to crumble.

I can’t think of a more important time than now to invest in our future and to foster a genuine sense of hope as we navigate the tough road that lies ahead. I will be voting for the library on November fourth. Please join me.

Margy Layton

Amen

From the mouth of a (Republican) man I so would have voted for had he run in 2000:

Five Sources

Before I get to my list, I just have to confess that I'm on a tuna salad sandwich jag. On squishy white bread. The tuna is a fine choice, but I've got to get back on the whole wheat wagon soon!

So, I've been talking a lot with my UVU students about understanding and evaluating sources, especially understanding a writer's point of view, expertise and agenda. Because I tend to lean left in a community where most people lean to the right, people may think that I'm just a victim of the liberal media.

Well, I don't believe I am. 

I try very hard to find news sources that present balanced views (of both fact and interpretation of fact). Of course, because I lean left, I have a higher tolerance for left leaning media (we all like to hear what we want to hear, don't we?), but I make a conscious choice not to swallow it whole. In fact, I actively counterbalance my tendencies by tuning in to Fox News from time to time.

So, here is my list of my five favorite regular news sources for national and international news (which, as you'll notice, does not include entertainment personalities posing as serious editorialists at either end of the political spectrum):

• BBC News (both updates on the radio after I drop Jack off at school and as I drive home from UVU and a daily check of the website). It's especially interesting to get a less US-centric take on international news. 
• Diane Rehm's weekly news roundup, one hour of in-depth discussion of national news followed by an hour of international. It is broadcast on Fridays, but I usually end up listening to the show as a podcast over the weekend. The whole show is a panel discussion format with guests with a range of political views. They often disagree with one another but they engage in civilized, meaningful discourse. Her other shows during the week are also very interesting and informative (and she regularly hosts authors of books!).
• This Week with George Stephanopoulos on Sunday mornings. He'll push political guests from both parties, and the round table discussions include panelists with a broad range of views, including regular George Will, a classic conservative. Again, disagreements expressed, but the discourse is civil. (Note: I'm not sure why I started watching this Sunday morning pundit show regularly as opposed to any of the others, but I did. And was even happier that I did when I found out that George is married to one of my favorite funny people, Ali Wentworth.)
• The New York Times online. I know, I know. Some think it has a liberal slant. But I love reading the editorial page, which presents a wide range of perspectives, including the opinions of several regular columnists who are quite conservative. Plus I've become addicted to reading the op-ed comments! Usually online media comments are completely inane, but NYT readers are particularly thoughtful and they express their ideas really articulately. Not surprisingly, the comments are more often on the liberal side, but I have read countless well considered conservative comments. 
• The quick news update on Good Morning America or the Today Show every weekday at 8:00 a.m. No in-depth coverage, but at least I'm up on the major headlines. This is a habit I've had ever since 9-11. It's been years, though, since I held my breath before turning the television on. I pray that never changes.

Swim Down

If there is ever a time we need to pull together, this is it. But instead it feels like we're spinning apart in mistrust and hate and fear and panic. 

I keep playing a scene from Finding Nemo in my head. Dory is caught in a fishing net, and Nemo saves her by telling all of the fish in the net to swim down together. They join forces and are able to pull the net free from the fishing boat, saving themselves as well as Dory.

Nemo for president!

Five Random Thoughts (or are they?)

• I'm sitting here in my class at UVU while my students work on an in-class essay about fall. And by fall I mean autumn. Word choice is critical in this assignment--I've asked them to write in a very specific tone/style of their choosing and give it a great title that reflects where they're heading in their essay. I was inspired to have them write about this topic on a run up the canyon this morning. I'm still not ready to let go of the weather as we head into winter. I think I would title my essay "Living in Denial." For example, I'm going to wear sandals as late into the fall as I can bear it.
• We have now officially joined the ranks of U.S. citizens who are personally affected by a fallen financial giant. Actually, I don't think it's going to make that much difference to us, but our mortgage was held by Washington Mutual and I assume it is now held by JPMorgan Chase. Just for the record, we pay our mortgage in full every month. But clearly that was not enough to save WaMu.
• Twice in one day earlier this week in two completely separate conversations, two different friends brought up the book As I Lay Dying. Should I be concerned about that?
• I've got to renew my UVU parking pass this afternoon. It expires on September 30. Why would they give me a pass that expires September 30? Should I be concerned about that?
• Roger, if for some reason I'm not around on October 1 (like if I end up dying in the hospital because I'm not dressing warmly enough for the weather), will you be sure to make our mortgage payment? Though I'm not sure who we're supposed to pay now.

Five Things That Have Made Me Very Happy in the Past Week

• Spending time outside, especially running up the canyon and walking across campus, in this amazing fall weather. I wish we could have this weather forever.
  
• Bowls of Archers Farm capellini with broccoli and parmesan cheese and bowls of Archers Farm muesli cereal. (Archers Farm brand is from Target, and we're going there tonight after a friend's piano recital to stock up on more!)
  
• Scale readings that have been heading down despite my bowls of food (I do try to watch my portion sizes!).
  
• Getting invited to a neighborhood girl's night out (dinner and a movie) next week.
  
• Listening to Jack report that he got full credit for a poem recitation at school (10 points for memorization, 5 points for standing up straight and tall, 5 points for a loud and clear voice, total of 20 out of 20).
  

Biggest Loser

Note: This is not a political blog post despite what the title might lead you to believe. I'm taking a break from expressing my opinion for a while. 

I should be at the city council meeting supporting the library bond, or grading papers, or cleaning the house, or reading House of Mirth for book club tomorrow night, but what am I doing instead? I'm watching the season premiere of the Biggest Loser.

I didn't start watching the show until last season. Then I watched all of the reruns of the previous seasons. I'm a total addict now. 

But one thing is different as I sit down to watch it this fall. I'm actually feeling pretty committed to exercising and eating healthfully these days. I may not keep up with the contestants this season, but I plan to head the same direction. I'm even ready to blog about it!

When Roger came home from work today, I went for a run on the canyon trail. I've eaten whole grain cereal and breads, and fruit and vegetables today. I drank lots of water. I'm on my way!

P.S. I am folding laundry while I watch the show. Just want you to know I'm not a total slacker!

Unbound Blog Launched

Blog happy me has just launched a new blog for the art exhibit. Click here to access it.

The Opening

Save for a few signs I still have to get up and few books I still have to track down for the bookshelf, we made it! The opening yesterday was a great success.

More than 15 of the illustrators attended the opening reception, and with five exhibitions opening in conjunction with Celebrate Your Museum Day, more than 800 people came to the museum! Despite the fact that there was a BYU football game in the afternoon!

We started off the morning with two story times.


Then we had the opening reception at noon, complete with a chocolate fountain (many, many, many thanks to the Priest family!) in the adjacent gallery.


Relaxing with some of the museum staff at the end of a long day.

You're All Invited

Everyone is inviting the opening of the exhibition I'm curating at the Springville Museum of Art (126 East 400 South, Springville, Utah) called Unbound: Original Picture Book Art by Utah Illustrators.

The reception will be held this Saturday, September 13 from noon to 3 p.m. Many of the 27 artists represented in the show will be attending. Hope to see you there!

I can't even begin to describe how exciting it's been to see the show come together. I've still got 48 hours that will be crammed full of things we need to do to pull it off, but it's nearly ready!

Bleeding Heart

A few random thoughts about the things that make my heart a bit heavy these days. And then I really have to get some sleep.

• Sometimes it feels like people equate freedom with being free from having anyone tell them what to do with their money (and, I suppose, being able to vote for people who won't tell them what to do with their money). Sometimes it feels like money is the end, not the means to an end. Sometimes it feels like money is what we care most about and that it drives most of our decisions. I worry about what we're overlooking.
• I don't really understand why the very loudest cries in our quest for energy independence aren't for conservation (which, incidently empowers everyone to work toward solutions). Of course we need to become more self-sufficient and develop energy sources (oil and all sorts of alternatives), but the loudest cries are "drill, drill, drill." It's like the plant in Little Shop of Horrors crying "feed me." Do we not hear how consumed we are with consuming?
• I think it's a very good thing that the U.S. is a strong world leader. It's not about apologizing for our strength, but about being gracious and wise in that strength. It's about being an example and using our powers for good. It's about lifting people up, not steamrolling them. Sadly armed conflict is sometimes a part of that, but it should only be when we see no other way.
• It worries me when people equate diplomacy with appeasement and, as a result, dismiss diplomacy. And that we barely blinked when we turned into a country that would initiate a preemptive strike.
• Don't we, as Americans, believe that our constitutional rights are fundamentally derived from our rights as human beings? If, for example, it is unconscionable for an American to be detained for months, even years, on end without being told why, shouldn't that hold true for other human beings as well?
• We absolutely need to be aware of threats and smart about how we handle them, but we seem to be operating from a place of fear, which makes us turn inward, and I think that will hurt us more in the long run than anything we're afraid of. We hold so tightly to the things we're afraid we're going to lose, that we risk losing them and so much more. Imagine how much more amazing our country would be if we were generous and open in spirit rather than fearful and protective. If we're smart about it, we wouldn't lose our way of life, we'd enlarge it.

P.S.

I finally got caught up on the parts of the Democratic National Convention that I had recorded this week, including Obama's acceptance speech. 

One of the big reasons I hope he is elected our next president is that he believes in personal responsibility and that we can all be a part of the solution (in improving the economy, in achieving energy independence, in improving education, etc.). He believes parents should parent, that employers should treat employees with dignity and respect, and that we all as individuals can contribute meaningfully to the fabric of our society.

And he has the ability to inspire people to rise to the call.

Five Fish(ish) Stories

1. The very first time Roger and I tried fishing (up Diamond Fork Canyon), we were caught off guard when we actually caught a fish. The hook was stuck. I ran frantically up the bank of the river to get a pair of pliers out of the truck while Roger held the fish in the water. It all worked out, but I was marked by trauma.
2. Last summer Jack and I were at Lake Geneva and we'd brought his fishing pole. I actually put worms on the hook for him (there is not another soul in this world I would do that for). He caught one fish. The hook stuck in its throat. The fish died. He caught a second fish. Same thing. Then I learned that you're just supposed to clip the line and throw the fish back and the hook will dissolve over time. Too late. I was marked by trauma again. This summer we did not fish.
   
   
3. About 12 years ago, Roger and I picked up my sister Maryann in Tucson and we headed to Baja, Mexico, in our Jeep. We stopped for a couple of nights in San Ignacio, thinking we'd go whale watching nearby. Instead, I got very sick the first night, held my stomach all day the next day and into the next night. I ultimately survived, and we went whale watching the day after that, but, wow, I can still remember how sick I felt. I'm pretty sure it was the fish I'd had for dinner.
   
4. When I was in college, my family took a trip to Akumal, Mexico. (Where, by the way, I ate fresh fish every single night without incident.) I took a scuba diving resort course and enjoyed several dives, including one to about 75 feet. It was on that dive that I suddenly found myself alone except for a huge sea turtle. I'm sure my diving buddy was just behind me, but I couldn't see a single human being. For a few seconds I swam behind it, but there was no way I could keep up with it. I was in awe.
5. Again in college, I had a bowl with two goldfish. One day I decided to clean the bowl. I scooped the fish out of the bowl with a big spoon to transfer them to another container. I didn't really think about the fact that I was transferring them over a sink full of soapy water until one of them flopped off the spoon and disappeared in the bubbles. I threw the spoon down to try to rescue the fish in the sink, not realizing that the other fish had landed on the kitchen floor and was gawping for air. I couldn't let the sink drain because of the garbage disposer. So I started scooping handfuls of bubbles out of the sink until I could see the fish and grab it. Then I grabbed the other fish off the floor, put them both in the bowl and watched them survive!
   

Five Reasons to Be Stressed

1. I'm starting a new job today at the Springville High School Library. I'm officially a "library technician." I'm not nervous about the work, but I am nervous about getting my hours in.
   
2. I'm starting a new job tomorrow teaching classes at Utah Valley University. Actually, I don't start teaching until next Wednesday, but I've got training from 8 to 3 tomorrow and I'm supposed to turn in my syllabus. I haven't finished putting it together yet. But I will!
3. I'm ordering several thousand dollars worth of point-of-sale system for the museum store with a donor's money, and they want me to order it fast. I keep building and rebuilding the system on the Dell website, trying to get all the features we need and still staying within the budget. Lucky for me I don't have the museum's credit card information yet, so I don't have to press enter on the order.
4. We're hanging the children's picture book exhibition at the museum on September 4th, and I'm still waiting to find out what some of the pieces will be. 
5. We got an offer on my brother's house. It is far below the asking price, but it is the only written offer we've ever gotten (including the year my brother had it on the market before I got involved in January). So over the next two days, I've got to get a counteroffer together, coordinating communications with a brother in Kenya and a real estate agent in Boston. But I can't have my cell phone on all the time because I'm starting two new jobs!

A Nine Year Old's Olympic Dreams

The summer I turned nine, I watched Mark Spitz win seven gold medals in the pool and Olga Korbut win multiple medals in gymnastics. I loved to swim and I loved doing gymnastics. So I was in awe watching the Olympics for the very first time I can remember.

At one point I turned to my Dad and said that I'd like to be in the Olympics someday. He crushed my nine-year-old dreams (and heart) when he replied without hesitation, "It's too late." What?!

Last night Jack and I were talking about Michael Phelps and his record eight gold medals. We thought it was cool that I was nine when Mark Spitz set the record and Jack was nine when Michael Phelps broke it.

Then Jack announced that he'd like to be in the Olympics some day. I asked him what sport he'd like to compete in and he said, "Swimming." I told him I'd be happy to support him in that goal.

After all, Michael Phelps didn't officially start working toward his Olympic dreams until he was at the ripe old age of 11.

Unbound

Now that I am fully in the throes of pulling together the exhibition, I didn't quite realize how complicated working with 27 artists would be, especially keeping track of all of the details. But I am so excited about every single artist I'm working with and am so thrilled that they are all excited about the show!

Unbound: Original Picture Book Art by Utah Illustrators

September 13, 2008 to December 28, 2008

Springville Museum of Art

The opening reception, which is open to the public, will be held on Saturday, September 13 from noon to 3:00. Please come if you can, and spread the word to anyone you think might be interested. Many of the artists in the exhibition will be at the reception.

Over the next few weeks, I'll be posting tidbits about each of the artists. I think you will agree that the show will knock some socks off. Maybe even Martha Moth's.

Five Things I Should Do Today

1. Call Gloria to thank her for the birthday card she left for me.
2. Make an appointment to meet with artist Will Terry, who will be helping me with a special part of the children's picture book exhibit at the Springville Museum of Art.
3. Do an extra good job flossing my teeth today because I have a dentist appointment tomorrow.
4. Figure out when we can have a bridal shower for my niece Megan.
5. Catch up on laundry.

Momentum

Back late last night (three and a half hours late due to mechanical problems with the plane) from two (mostly) glorious weeks at Lake Geneva, where my father's family has been summering for nearly a century.

I will post my micro diary entries within the next couple of days for anyone who would like to know whether the wind on any given day was good enough for a sail. Yeah, minutae.

But the one thing I want to write about here is hiking on the shore path everyday. While I was growing up, I had no idea how unique it is to have a public shore path around an entire lake, crossing the property of hundreds of private homes, including some owned by exceptionally wealthy people who try as they might can't get the courts to make the right of way go away. It's so satisfyingly egalitarian.

I've only gone completely around the lake (20+ miles) on the path once in my life, but in the past two weeks I figure I hiked about 40 miles on the stretch near our cottage. Usually I was on my own for a two or three-mile round trip, but sometimes I had company. Once I hiked down the shore about three miles and Dad picked me up with the sail boat. Just yesterday morning, my Dad's cousin and I hitched a motorboat ride with her son and he dropped us off three miles down the shore and we hiked back.

This morning we woke up early (7 am! Jack was eager to see his friends again). I decided I wanted to keep up the momentum of my daily hikes at the lake so I headed up to the Hobble Creek Parkway not far from our house, hiked a few miles and got my day off to a great start.

Any Ideas?

I finally hooked up with an acquaintance who manages a furniture store (part of a big chain, which shall remain nameless) to ask about the possibility of partnering to create a furnished reading area in the center of our picture book art exhibit in exchange for nearly four months of publicity. Wow, did he look dejected when he said the powers that be would never go for it. He didn't even want to try. Things are that bad. I think his soul has been sucked by corporate headquarters.

So . . . I've got to come up with a Plan B. I am putting a plea out there to any of you readers who may have contacts or ideas about how to do something really fun for the reading area. I'd so like to do something funky, comfortable and family friendly (no old plaid couches from rental apartments, please).

Do any of you know anyone who knows anyone in the furniture business? Or who has cool furniture they aren't using that they'd be willing to donate or to lend for a few months (art museum patrons shouldn't be too hard on it - especially because no food is allowed anywhere near it!). Or who has reupholstering experience so if we end up getting fun pieces that need a facelift we can call on their skills?

Anyone? Anyone?

4 a.m.

Every once in a while I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep. It doesn't happen very often, but when it does it is almost always at 4 a.m. It happened this morning and here I am, trying to clear my mind so I can go back to sleep.

Here's a funny ted.com video essay about 4 a.m. It made me laugh.

Tagged

Jack was tagged on my friend Teresa's blog and gave the following answers to these questions. Remember, he is a nine-year-old boy. But I'm pleased he instinctively knows how to develop a theme.

1. What is something mom always says to you? Hi Jack.
2. What makes mom happy? Me.
3. What makes mom sad? Me being gone.
4. How does mom make you laugh? When she bangs her head on the air conditioner on the way to SOS Drug. [An outside unit hanging at head level by one of the parking spaces in the back.]
5. What was mom like as a child? A child.
6. How old is your mom? 45, no 44.
   
7. How tall is your mom? 4 feet? 5 feet?
8. What is your mom's favorite thing to do? Drink Tab. [Then when prodded for something with more substance] Swim.
9. What does your mom do when you're not around? Stuff. How should I know?
10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for? Drinking Tab. Swimming.
11. What is your mom really good at? Drinking Tab. Swimming.
12. What is your mom not very good at? Jumping off cliffs.
13. What does your mom do for her job? Nothing yet. [I guess that's sort of true.]
14. What is your mom's favorite food? Tortellini. Ramen. [I think he's projecting his favorite foods that I eat when he eats them. But, yeah, pasta definitely rates.]
15. What makes you proud of your mom? She's funny and she works hard.
16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be? Edd. [Of Ed, Edd and Eddie. Apparently Edd is the one who always likes everything to be really organized. When a neighbor boy overheard us talking about it, he said "You let Jack watch that show?" Great.]
17. What do you and your mom do together? Stuff. Read.
18. How are you and your mom the same? We both eat ramen.
19. How are you and your mom different? She drinks Tab. I drink root beer.
20. How do you know your mom loves you? Because she likes me. If she didn't like me she wouldn't be with me.

I tag my sister Maryann (who I wish would blog more) and my friend Shelley (who I thought wasn't blogging anymore, but I just discovered she and her husband have a new blog). I know they aren't little kids, but they both have moms!

Five Paychecks

In honor of getting hired for the assistant librarian job at the high school (though tentatively pending school board approval per the letter) here is a list of five organizations that have put my name on a paycheck.

• Great Road Pharmacy, where I was a cashier (the closest I will ever come to working in the field of medicine!). I worked for Bob the pharmacist, who also owned the pharmacy. Small independent pharmacies are rare these days (in fact, the Great Road Pharmacy no longer exists), but we are lucky enough to have two here in Springville. We get all of our prescriptions from the one our old neighbors own, and we get ice cream at the other one, which still has an old-fashioned soda counter.
• Camp Arcadia in Casco, Maine, where I was a swimming counselor and a lifeguard. I believe there was only one paycheck at the end of the summer. Once, when the girls in my cabin were driving me crazy, I calculated how much I was earning per hour. If the girls went to sleep when they were supposed to and didn't get up early, I figured I made about ten cents an hour! But I had great job perks, including swimming in a pristine lake every day!
  
• Novell, Inc., where I was a managing editor and then a marketing manager. My last stint after about a decade working in the computer industry (where I always managed to have the least technical jobs in the least technical departments, so don't ask me too much about how computers work on the inside - I only know how to use them).
• Utah Valley State College, where I taught writing classes as an adjunct instructor. I loved, loved, loved being in the classroom. Hated, hated, hated the stacks of grading. But I think I've figured out a few ways to grade more efficiently and still give individual feedback, so I've decided to go back to teaching this fall. But this time (and officially as of the stroke of midnight tonight!), my paychecks will say Utah Valley University on them.
• The U.S. Treasury. Yes, I've actually received paychecks from the U.S. Treasury, not just tax refunds. Two summers in a row I filled in for two different secretaries on maternity leave, both at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., where I interned in college. I worked for the staff attorneys one summer, and then for Judge Helen Nies the next. That was an amazing experience, not the least of which because I got to live in one of my very favorite cities!
  

Why We Suffer

I listened to an interesting interview yesterday in the KRCL Radio Active archives* with Bart Ehrman who wrote God's Problem: How the Bible Fails to Answer Our Most Important Question, Why We Suffer.

He discussed all of the standard answers to the question and why they don't satisfy him. Because the radio program is produced in Salt Lake, I kept waiting to hear someone call in with one of the answers that I'd learned in church and that seems fairly clear in the scriptures.

Bart Ehrman asks: If God is all powerful and loving, why doesn't he prevent all this overwhelming suffering? How can the two character traits co-exist?

I think that God wants us to step up and do what we can to prevent or alleviate suffering (whether caused by mistakes or malicious choices, or natural disaster, or whatever). If we're here on earth to learn anything, it's how to serve others and lift their burdens. Love our neighbors.

So sure, we're tested in our own suffering, but if God is actually testing us by design, I believe it's primarily about what we're doing to help others, not ourselves. (And I personally need to get to work on that.)

No one ever did call in with that take on things. Maybe I'll write him a letter.

* Warning: Radio Active is pretty left of center, sometimes downright hyper progressive. The fact that it's produced here in Utah makes me smile.

Restless

For the past week or two I have had many moments of serious restlessness. My favorite diversions are no longer satisfying. I need to be engaged in something more substantial. I'm ready to be engaged in something.

I'm taking this as a good sign. For so many, many months after we closed our book store I was unable to muster up much emotional energy for any significant endeavor. In fact, the idea of engaging in anything that required any kind of commitment was emotional and overwhelming.

Because of that, I've procrastinated. A lot.

I've ignored old household projects that needed to be done and let new ones build up. I've put off getting fully involved in the details of the art exhibition I'm curating. I've put off eating healthfully and getting into shape. I've put off dentist and doctor appointments. I've put off stacks of filing in my office. I've put off getting more involved with the museum store. I've put off entering boxes and boxes of books online to get them sold. And so on and so on.

I've also had to wait and wait for other things to fall in place. It's a long process getting hired on and scheduled for classes at UVU (I started a year ago and still don't know when or what I'll be teaching this fall). It's a long process applying for and getting a job with the school district.

I am bored, bored, bored to the bones.

It's time to get things done.

Five People

Five random people who have taught me lasting lessons without even knowing it:

• The cute guy in my college skiing class (I don't even remember his name) who was on the swim team but who was a lousy, lousy skier. Everyone on the bus thought he was one of the instructors. He was a proven athlete who was confident enough to take a risk, putting himself out there to learn something he wanted to learn even if he looked funny doing it.
• My cousin Joe's wife, Tammi, who is an amazing mom. Years ago I watched her helping her kids do tricks on a trampoline, and she always made sure that they ended their turn doing something she knew they'd do successfully.
• My aunt Sigrid, who just takes care of business. I was baby sitting my younger cousins one night and when she came home, probably about midnight and probably pretty tired, she immediately set to work sewing on a button that had fallen off the coat she was wearing.
• Todd and Jonathan, two writers I worked with years ago on a documentation team at an educational software company. They spent hours passionately discussing style guide controversies, like whether or not we should use commas in a series. And I do mean hours. Technically I never earned a degree in English, but I sure feel like I have!

Our Collective Choices

I have long thought that we don't even begin to recognize how our individual choices taken collectively define our society for good or bad. Yay for this artist in his attempt to help us better understand what we do in the aggregate.

My Micro Diary

I used to be diligent about keeping a journal, but it's been a struggle to be consistent since I got married. Roger's not personally to blame - just his presence. I used to write at night before going to sleep, but that's when I slept alone.

Anyway, I've felt bad about losing track of the details of my life (and by extension the details of Jack's childhood).

So my latest scheme is to write a paragraph a day an post it in My Micro Diary. I'm hoping that doing it online will increase my sense of accountability so I'll actually follow through!

Snapshot

Time I usually go to bed: Quarter to twelve. Time I usually wake up: Quarter past eight. I have no idea why I seem to be so consistent with the quarter hours. But I sure love not having an alarm set now that Jack is out of school.

Current food jag: BLT sandwiches - the true taste of summer. Whole wheat toast, real mayonnaise, vine ripened tomatoes, crisp butter lettuce, two slices of bacon (the already cooked kind that you microwave for 20 seconds, and the package swears three slices are only 70 calories and a couple of grams of fat so it doesn't seem too sinful).

Last book I finished reading: Ambulance Girl by Jane Stern - A memoir about a woman in her fifties who suffers from depression and all sorts of phobias who becomes obsessed with becoming an EMT and actually does it!

The most important goal I really want to stick to this summer: Giving Jack a substantial job every day that will teach him something new and/or make a big difference around the house.

Favorite new blog: High Desert Home - a woman in Oregon who writes this and that about raising children, homemaking, being aware of how she moves in the world and creating a life that she loves living.

Last family party: Getting together at Roger's sister's house after hearing our nephew Eric speak at church. He just got home from a mission in Indiana.

Current favorite exercise: Biking around the neighborhood, especially with Jack and Roger. We do not have to go at little kid pace anymore. Jack is often out in front of us these days!

Plane tickets currently in my hot little hands: Roundtrip Salt Lake to Chicago for two fabulous weeks at Lake Geneva in Wisconsin.

Biggest thing hanging over my head: Trying to help my brother sell his house in Boston. He's been living in Kenya for more than two years and the market is crashing. No stress there!

What I'm going to do tonight soon after I finish writing this post: set the beach chairs out in front of the neighbor's house and watch the town fireworks (it's Art City Days here in Springville).

What I plan to do when I wake up in the morning: Read in bed until Jack wakes up.

Frozen in Grand Central Station

Trajectory

I like to think that every day could bring an unexpected twist or turn that will change the direction of something in my life. I like getting the mail, I like getting phone calls, I like running into people I known when I'm out and about. You never know what opportunities might come up.

A few months ago I had a couple of weeks in which doors seemed to be opening left and right. We'd like you to be on the library board. Okay. We'd like to you spruce up the museum store for an exhibit opening. Okay. We'd like you to think about managing the store on a long term basis. Okay. We'd like you to interview you about teaching writing classes at Utah Valley University. Okay. We'd like to you apply for a 10 hour a week job at the high school library. Okay.

Since then, I've been slowly putting all of the pieces together.

I'm now on the library board, a three-year term. I spruced up the museum store. I'm still working out the details for a longer term arrangement, but will definitely be involved through the end of the year because I need the store to support the picture book art exhibition I'm working on. I got hired on at UVU but am waiting to find out my class assignments. I applied at the school district for the library job, but am a bit worried because the posting indicated it would be a 20 hour a week job. That would be too much to juggle.

One minute I'm crazy busy, then I'm hurrying up to wait. Slowly but surely the trajectory of my life, at least for the next year, is taking shape.

Idol Worship

I confess. I got sucked into watching American Idol for the first time this season.

It was fun having a top two contestant from Utah, and I'd have been happy if David Archuleta won.

But honestly? Throughout the competition, I only ever rewound one song to listen to it again. A David Cook song.

Rock on!