Since moving to Utah from Southern California ten years ago, I have learned a lot about how landscaping and climate differences affect the way different cultures celebrate and enjoy Christmas. In Utah, Christmas is just more…hard core.

A few years ago, I learned that a Christmas tree is better if you drove up a snowy mountain for an hour, then hiked for an hour in thigh deep snow (and used a VERY public bathroom on that hike) and chopped it down, debugged it, and dragged it back to the truck yourself.

I have also learned that you can drive a mile up a canyon road to see a herd of Santa’s reindeer…which may actually happen in Southern California too but we define “canyon” a little differently.

This year, Elsa and I experienced (I witnessed, she experienced) a new Christmas time activity. Actually, this was a rather new concept all together, Christmas or not, and from what I understand, this can be done in a lake in the summer time too. I don’t know if it’s a Utah thing, a Delta Utah thing, or a Ryan’s family thing, but the general idea is that you take a sturdy inner tube, put people in it, then pull it over whatever terrain you can with what ever high powered machinery you have at your disposal.

The instructions seem to go like this:

1. Go outside while there is like six inches of that white, cold, icky stuff all over the ground. You know the stuff, it falls out of the sky in this gosh derned state.

I think it helps if the air is moving, unblocked by buildings or trees, and is so cold that it feels like you are being stabbed in the face with a dagger when it hits you. Be sure you are unbearably cold.

2. Bring out as many of the children from inside the house as you can catch. Wrap them up in every bit of material you have around the house for wrapping children up in—this will make them fuss less when you are out there, and also it give them less arm mobility so that they cannot so fight you as you perform step three.

3. Wedge all of the children tightly together in a sturdy inner tube; big ones go in back, little ones go in the front. Instruct the big ones to hang on to the little ones.

4. Tie one end of a rope to the back of a motor powered vehicle.

5. Tie the other end of the same rope to the inner tube full of children.

6. Drive.

Speed up as you hit bumps in the path, this will make the inner tube full of children scream louder.



Be aware that the driver is given extra points per head he can smack into hanging objects along the path.




7. When a child cries, “I don’t want to try that again” (this will probably not occur until after several rotations) remove the children from inner tube being careful not to pull them out of their boots (if a boot is inadvertently removed, you will be required to carry the child into the house yourself).

8. Give all of the children hot chocolate to thaw them out before they start begging to do that again.

Important Note: When you talk to the children, call this activity “sledding.”

Yeah, I know, I know, I know...even we naïve Californians know sledding is done on long boards with little tracks at the bottom and involves a natural slide down a hill and not an all terrain vehicle. Still, if your child is asked about their vacation, wouldn’t it be better if they said, “I went sledding” instead of “oh well Poppa tied us to a four wheeler, and then…”

There is an adult version of the activity, which I did not film because it’s performed in an open field where it is even COLDER. It’s about the same as described above, but with fewer people on the tube, and instead of trying to make them scream, the driver is trying to kill them.

Come to think of it, with my own family’s love of dirt bikes, ATVs, and risking life and limb for amusement, I am not entirely sure why we never thought of any variation of this ourselves. It couldn’t have been a safety concern, I mean they let us play in constructions sites and scorpion/rattlesnake enriched fields for Pete's sake.

Gee, Uncle Corky, you really let us down!

Gas from home to the mall:

$5

Food to keep every one from getting too cranky:

$20

Train ride around an 8 yard circle (5 times):

Three bucks! (yeah seriously, three entire dollars)

Two 5x7s with a lame border that make your kid look puffy and shiny:

$19.99 plus tax

Seeing your kid give Santa the stink eye?

Priceless!

Also, when he asked what she would like for Christmas, she refused to tell him. She did tell him the list was in the mail.

I love Christmas time, but I hate that it really has gotten to be stressful and commercialized. I hate having to think of 20,000 things to BUY people and give people to show that I like them. And then Elsa really just understands Christmas to be the day she gets a lot of presents. I think this may be so far one of my greater failings as a mother (so far, I am sure I will do worse sooner or later).

I am trying to correct this problem this year by immersing her in the ACTUAL Christmas story, and also focusing a lot on what we can give other people who really need things, and she has money set aside for the Salvation Army bell ringers.

I finished all my Christmas shopping this weekend and I forced myself to keep the shower of stuff for Elsa conservative and non-spoiling. It’s a start, right? She’ll thank me when she’s grown? Right…? Also, I did my time in the slammer I mentioned a couple weeks ago. (I still have like 45 days left to take donations though, in case anyone is dying to help buy physical therapy and wheel chairs for kids like this guy here.)

Thanks SOOOOOOOOOO much to those of you who have so generously donated. Gosh I have some swell friends and co-workers!

Oh and the picture above… it’s not the most flattering, I am told, often…by my boss…every time he sees me…sometimes he comes over to my desk JUST to remind me…the other day he saw me about to consume a cookie and he reminded me how chubby I look in this thing.
Apparently vertical stripes are not slimming on me in a picture at all!

Eat Your Heart Out, David Bowie!!!

So, now there is this fellow some of you have heard me talk about. I know you are curious, so without further ado, this is Ryan.

We were figuring out the new digital camera. He let me test the video feature on him. He should have known better, his mistake.

What do you think? Can we take him to Disco night?

THE DOG

So as I mentioned, Elsa and I did, a bit early, accomplish our goal of acquiring a dog that we will keep forever and ever. This is Aldo, and he is pure evil:

Selecting a victim...

Making the kill!

Well, now that I am all divorced and single again, I have gotten to thinking, what are the qualities I want in the man that I find to spend eternity with? Here is my list:

· Inexplicably moody: To me, there is nothing hotter than when you meet a guy and he stares you down, gets totally pissed at you without you saying one word, storms of, refuses to be in the same room with you for a while and then suddenly becomes Mr. Friendly and social without any explanation. And then, as you get to know him, alters between warm and friendly and cold and distant at the drop of a hat. It really gets the heart pumping, am I right girls?

· Attracted to me instantly for physical qualities: I know a lot of chicks are in to that whole, “I think a relationship is more real if we start out as friends and slowly build up a mutual respect and attraction based on similar values, thought patterns, or interests” crap, but I think it’s very un-poetic, unexciting, and unromantic. Come on, real love is like, meant to be. It’s cosmic. And the second a guy sees me, if I am his soul mate, he will totally know me by some physical rise he gets the moment he spots me –like the scent of my blood- and regardless of my personality, likes, dislikes, age, world view, choices, or understanding, he will be obsessed with my based on that one physical thing alone. Now that is real love and all that other stuff is for people who just don’t get it.

· Fights an impulse to hurt me: The world is full of guys who don’t hurt their girlfriends, but they just…you know…don’t want to. Give me a guy who has it in his very chemistry to want to violently mutilate pretty much everyone he meets, but chooses not to. It’s one thing to be with your lover and have him be gentle cause he’s a gentle guy, but just think of the depth of a guys commitment, and adoration for you if every time he sees you he wants to mutilate you for pleasure and he chooses not to. I really don’t think it proves anything when a guy treats you nicely if he just is a nice guy, but if he treats you nicely even though he would prefer to kill you, well baby, you got that guy hooked.

· Can’t figure me out so watches my every move, even when I sleep: All guys love a challenge and a girl they can’t figure out twenty seconds in is going to peak their interests. A lot of guys would just chat and expect ME to let them get to know me slowly and on my own terms. But I am looking for the guy that would ignore my potential desire to have privacy in my own bedroom and sit outside of it, night after night, watching what I do when I think I am alone. That would be a guy who wants to get to know the real me. I would be so flattered when I found out he did that for me. Plus, then we could skip all that boring stuff people do, where they talk about likes, dislikes, ideas, feelings- you know, the unimportant things that just drag on and on.

· Protective: I want to be treated like a cross between and invaluable porcelain antique vase, and a two year old child. I want the guy to tell me what I can and cannot do, and if I stray from his advice, I want him to scold watch my every move. I want him to follow me, be there at the first sign of danger to rescue me, and then scold me for almost breaking his heart by being hurt. I sigh in desperation at the thought that I may never find a man who considers my personal safety his mission in life, even if I don’t ask him to, and who, even when he is with me, looks at me with fear that I may fall, or break in some other way. It would make me feel like his most valuable possession.

· Let’s me live on the edge when I am with him: Nothing impresses me like a guy who needs extreme thrills to survive. You know, like a guy who goes crazy going 80 because it’s just too slow, so he has to REALLY floor it. That’s hot, especially when he shows me how in control of my life and death he is by doing it with me in the car. It’s like, total proof that I do belong to him and he knows it. And he will protect me from myself, or any outside harm, and when I am at risk, it will be the risk he chooses to put me in. How much more proof could I possibly want that he is both the strongest protective force I have on this planet, and the most dangerous thing I am involved with. It’s what every woman is secretly dreaming of. It’s like he’s telling me that if someone kills me, he only wants it to be him.

For a man like that, I would leave my entire world behind, including my family, any friends who don’t approve, and I would change, even on a molecular level, who I am . Seriously, for a love like that, without a thought, I am so there.

Ever since I was 5, I was force fed this idea that I could be my own person, choose a career, date several guys and have lots of friends before choosing “the one.” I was told I ought to develop my OWN identity and then find someone who compliments it, instead of finding the man I want and doing whatever I need to do, and becoming whomever I need to be, to make him want me. And I just want to thank the general population of women ages 14-45 in this country for finally banning together and pouring out in THRONGS to support Edward and Bella’s love in one of the most meaningful and well written pieces of literature to be published this century. Apparently, this is our collective fantasy, to say “be dammed with free thinking! We want a brute from the Victorian age to rescue us! Pronto! And throw in an animal or two he can fight over us with, all the better!”

Ladies, I am not sure we even deserve the vote anymore.

Cry with me, Joss Whedon.

I am Going to Jail (and it's Julinne's Fault!)

https://www.joinmda.org/2008americanfork/Zaissa

Every week they put up a new quote on the wall at work. I really like this week’s:

“Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance.”

Problem (Sadly) Solved

I tried LostPaws this morning. They do take on injured animals but they are full right now. They suggested I call the Humane Society, but before I got that number looked up, the vet called to let me know the kitten had died. 

I guess, although I sorta wish I had spent less to just have it put down last night, but I guess atleast I didn't let it die alone in the freezing rain and maybe he spent a little less time in pain? I don't know. 

Thanks, Warrior, for your kind offer to help me save him. I guess in some of the important things, we do think alike. 

Benefactor Needed

Trauma tonight. To the tone of, so far, $80 bucks. Here's what happened:

I was cutting though the alley way in the back of a supermarket on the way to pick Els up from my grandmother's house when I spotted an itty bitty kitten in the road. He lifted his head as I rolled past and I swear he made eye contact and screamed, yes, screamed at me.

I stopped the car and hopped out. It was starting to rain, and I figured even if the little guy wasn't hurt, I couldn't just leave a baby kitty there in the middle of the road. I jumped out of my car and moved toward him. I could not see anything wrong, and I called him to me. He stood up, took one step, and fell over. I went to him, lifted him and saw he had blood everywhere on his back end and one of his legs was twisted so that the foot faced a different direction than the feet on all of his other legs. I panicked. I put him on my coat in the car and drove frantically to my Grandma's.

So what is the right thing to do here? I have already been told I am an idiot for the series of choices I made at this point, but really, what could I do? Leave a suffering animal in the road? Run him over the rest of the way? Uh hu, I know a few males might be nodding at that, but I wouldn't do that!

It was nearly 5pm so I knew animal shelters were out and I don't think they can do emergency medical care anyway, and my only thought was to get the little guy out of pain ASAP. He was panting hard and "mewing" in pain. I mean literally crying.

There is only one emergency vet clinic I could find in the area online at my grandma's, and it didn't open till 6. I could not think of making him suffer for another hour. So I called every imaginable vet (I had been on the phone talking to Paul about something...I should call him back maybe, and see if it was important, I can't remember at all what it was, anyway, he was on his phone searching for a vet at my request too) and found ONE clinic that still had a vet there.

I rushed to the vet, with Elsa in tow, and I explained the concept of "put to sleep" to her. She railed against this, and she did not accept my assurance that sometimes that was the very nicest thing to do for a hurt animal.

The vet looked the kitten over, with Elsa leaning over him asking every two minutes if we had to "kill him. Dr. Dave, as he told me to call him, well just Dave actually, said the leg looked broken (it was backward on his body, do you need to be a vet to figure out it's broken?) and other than that, because of the blood he said was coming from the anus, there could be internal bleeding, plus his temp was really low, which could mean bleeding or could be from shock. Anyway, he said he couldn't really say until he had treated him for shock and then tomorrow could evaluate better.

So my options were laid out. Put the cat to sleep, that may well belong to someone else, although I don't know how to find that someone. Or, pay to get the cat some pain meds, and meds for shock, and for the vet to watch him for the night.

I went with option B.

Here is the problem. If the stinkin cat is messed up internally, I am out the $80 from tonight plus I am responsible for the process of putting him down. If he's not messed up internally, then his leg needs pins. Appearantly kittens with broken legs need pins. And this cost...he didn't quote price...alot.

I can't have a cat. Especially not one recovering from surgery. I have a small apartment and a dog (to whom I will be getting in another post. STUPID DOG!) so I don't have room for a cat, I am not allowed to have a cat, I don't want a cat, if I were to get a cat it would be Lolita anyway, and anyway, the dog would further injur that cat.

But I also can't put a cat down for having a broken leg. I can't, I can't, I can't. And that $80 put a hole in my carefully managed budget for the rest of the month anyway. I just can't budget for a giant vet bill for a stray cat.

Ok. Tell me what an idiot I am, and then tell me what to do. Seriously, does anyone know of pet organizations that help in these situations? OR charitable vets? Or have a rich uncle who has been meaning to get a crippled kitten for himself? Or have knowledge of what animal shelters do?

I am going to call Lost Paws tomorrow and see if it is the sort of charity case that they take on or if they can refer me to any sort of animal charity. I know there is a pet over population and that perfectly healthy cats are euthanized every day. But he looked at me, right at ME, and cried out. I swear he did.

I am also going to post a sign at the supermarket I was near when I found the thing. It's a long shot, but maybe the owner will turn up. I don't want to be the one to make the call. And if anyone knows someone in PG missing a kitten, have them call me.

Earthquake!!!

Southern California is having WAY more fun than we are today!

I grew up on the San Andreas fault line and I really miss Earthquake drills like we had in elementary school. Instead of doing your assignments, you got to get under your desk, duck your head, and cover your neck with your hands. When I do that at work these days under my desk instead of doing my assignments, they start getting all, “You need to take a mandatory personal day” to “work things out.”

It’s been weird living in Utah. When I lived in California, “The Big One” I was told, would occur in my life time inevitably; it was a fact of life, like wrinkles and taxes, just a thing that was coming. Now all I have to worry about geologically is the day when that super volcano in Yellow Stone blows the entire Rocky Mountain region to smithereens. It should be any century now. Hmn, I wonder if I can get my boss to go for a super volcano drill. What does one do when they ground under one’s feet turns to molten lava?

My Daughter?

My Baby, My Little Girl. Sometimes I just sit and stare at her. I just take her in and I can’t believe she is mine. I can’t equate her with that thing that caused that little blue line so many years ago, that line that made me shake and crumple in to tears on the bathroom floor and pray and make promises into the air I was terrified I could not keep.


When she sleeps, the way her face relaxes and her body curls reminds me of that little baby I used to dress in cotton onesies, and lay on my chest, and hope she would stay asleep for at least a few hours. And then hope even more that she would wake up every time too.



And when I see her run in, with leaves in her hair, and sometimes dirt on her face, with no shoes and blackened feet, from play time outside, I often look at her and wonder where the parents of this little urchin can be found.



Her little frame seems so tiny in comparison to the early pubescent bodies of the older girls that pass her by more quickly on the way into the building. Her tiny, skinny arms and legs are no match for the doors that seem so heavy while she struggles to open them, and her three pound back pack threatens to pull her to the ground. I watch this scene every morning that I drop her off at her school, and I still get tight throat when I send that itty bitty thing off into the world all alone. She is taller than most of the boys and girls in her class, so why, when I look at her, does she seem so much tinier and more fragile than all of the other children?



And then, yesterday, with her hair in curls, wearing her velvety dress with the green sash, and a ridiculous necklace, this tall pretty girl, with a face that looks vaguely like my mother’s, stood against the wall so I could take a picture. She paced the living room with her head held high, taking proud pristine steps, and moving so as not to muffle her hair. Her freckles seem to be fading and her cheek bones are beginning to take a deeper shape than before, so her cheeks aren’t so chubby, her eyes are not so wide, her nose is not so flat against her skin. She doesn’t fall when she crosses one ankle over another to walk like a beauty queen, and she doesn’t press her teeth together in a grit and open her lips to “smile” for a camera like the little clown she used to be; she’s growing up.



I know she’s still little, and there is so much left to teach her, and watch her do, before I have to really let her go, but now and then, when she holds herself like this, I see a flash of the woman she might become. I hope she will always cross a room so confidently and so plainly and proudly aware of how beautiful she is.

Why I Voted for This Guy

I don’t think I have seen a blog today that has not mentioned that last night something rather momentous occurred in this country.

I feel like I should say something about it, but I feel at a loss really, for words that add to how amazing last night must have been for people of previous generations, who were alive and aware when a man with black skin could not in many places go to college, or manage a company, or sit his tired body down on any empty bus seat, let alone say, “I want to be president of the United States.”

And of course my throat had a lump in it when my next president spoke to the nation and Oprah and Rev. Jesse Jackson’s faces were tear soaked. That may sound like a silly comment, but both of those people have determinedly and bravely broken through barriers, and have helped evolve the American consciousness over the last several decades into what it is now, and they must know their work helped contribute to changing this into a country which could and would elect a black man. I think to them it must have felt like this is the final outcome of what they have worked and stood for, and not just them, every man or woman of any color who marched with Dr. King, or faced a fire hose, or who believed and lived by the belief that anyone who worked hard enough can do anything, this has to feel like the final outcome of what they believed in, and in many cases fought and sacrificed for.

Not to belittle what this elections means to those people, or what it says about who we are as a nation, or that I was lucky enough to cast my vote in this election, that I am sure will be a big one in the history books, for a man I admire a good deal, but I hope the celebration that we elected a black man ends soon and that we will let him get to work. Because, we didn’t just elect a black man, we elected a smart man, we elected a good man, we elected a thoughtful, knowledgeable, inspirational man. And we haven’t done that for a while.

A man at work today said that we elected and ideal. He said that Americans were just ready to say we would elect a black man so we did, without regard to the man's ideas. I normally won't participate in political arguments with people I don't care about, since it's nothing but an "I am right, no I am, no I am" contest and no one ever listens the other side or thinks about what the other guy is saying anyway. But I answered this man. I told him that that is not why I voted for him. I voted for him because I strongly agree with his ideas, and the fact that we finally elected a black man, to me, was an incidental bonus. But I find it demeaning to our next president to say he was elected merely because of his race (as I would find it demeaning had Hillary won, if they said it was because she was a woman, and that is why I hope we will move on soon from celebrating his race, and quickly start to celebrate his work).

I do imagine that there was a certain demographic that voted for him due mostly to his race, as there was another demographic who voted against him for the same reason. But, if it were not for the majority of us, who believe in his ideas and philosophies and voted for those, the turnout of those black voters who don't usually vote, would not have won the race alone. That Senator Obama was able to reach people that have previously felt disenfranchised and unheard, and make them believe their voices DO matter in this new world, well that is a testament to the inspirational power of the leader we have just chosen.

I don’t usually loudly proclaim my political opinions, except to my nearest and dearest, because I know we all have deeply personal ideals that are deep rooted in our own sacred and basic beliefs about the nature of man, God, and our responsibilities to one another as human beings and so on. So this is probably a one time blog thing for me. But, let me try to explain my personal jubilation over this new president.

Imagine you are on an airplane, and it’s losing altitude fast. And the pilot just keeps doing his fancy tricks, loopty-loos and spinny-caboos and what not, and every one keeps clapping. Then people start to notice that the ground is getting much, much closer all of a sudden and the pilot and crew say, “well, he’s a great pilot and all but the last guy who flew the plane left the buttons and levers all screwy” (but the last time anyone else flew the plane it was like…eight years ago.”

Then finally everyone decides we need a new guy to fly the plane. Then after a bit we have it whittled down to two volunteers and the first guy is like, “I should do it because I can do the same loopty-loos as the first guy, and also I have seen Top Gun like nine times and I am a lot that guy in it. What’s his name again?”

And then the other guy is like, “Ok, I am not so in to loopty-loos, but I have studied airplane mechanics a good deal and I see what is causing the decrease in altitude, and, although the flight won’t be as flashy and showy, I can probably keep us from smacking into the ground, and I also know what all the button and levers are for.”

And then the first guy brings out a pretty stewardess in a short skirt, big glasses, and lipstick and says, “well also I have her to help me” and every one is like, “oooooooh” cause she is a babe, but you are in your seat thinkin’ “Uh…just cause she has served drinks on flights to and from Russia, does not mean she can fly this thing!” and you are sure they are ganna hand the plane over to the first guy and Bambi, when all of a sudden, every one says, “Yeah, we’ll take the guy that’s read the manual and knows what the buttons do.” And a wave of relief washes over you. People finally get it, they actually understand, we don't need a showman, we need a guy who can make things work right.

That’s how I feel. Like we handed the plane over to a guy who can fly it, and I don’t know if a machine this close to the ground can be pulled up, and I guess we are all ganna have to hang on. But I am really, really glad we have a pilot that knows about the airplanes.

I think it’s great that we have grown up enough to choose him without being afraid of his skin color or name, that means a lot to a lot of people and it’s wonderful. I am just so relieved we have also gotten smart enough to choose him.

***Ok, I know my plane metaphor will bug people who love McCain, and I know he has political and world experience, and I do respect the guy, but I just don’t think he understand economic or social issues the way Obama does, is not even close to having the ability to understand or repair the damage we have done to our relationship with the rest of the world as Obama, and I don’t think his world experience, or time served in office, is he is the equivalent of the education Obama has continually pursued in sociology, law, or government theory.

***Also, I still love my girl Hillary. A LOT!

Things I Would Blog About

Monday night of last week I was sitting in the study of my new apartment (ok it’s actually a little alcove the building management calls a dining room, but since formal dining is beyond me, I stuffed some desks, computer, and books in there), leaning back in my beat up old comfortable computer chair that’s missing its arm, watching my daughter play with her puppy, and chatting about nothing with this very good looking person I know, and then it suddenly struck me that I love my life.

I love my stupid, narrow hall way-ed, no linen closet, overpriced- for- what- it- is apartment. I love that little argumentative, constantly full of frustration and sarcasm, little freckled faced blonde God gave me.
I love my carpet spotting, fuzzy faced, butt waddling when he walks, lazy, pansy-arsed, scared of the dumbest things dog.
I love my good lookin’ friend.

I love my cut-off blue sweat pants that say Moab down the side and make my butt look huge! I love the stories I have to tell, and the ones I can’t yet, and the ones I finally spit out to the right people with satisfaction, and the way more things make me laugh than make me cry.

Sitting there I remembered that feeling I get sometimes when I am watching a movie and I look at the city the characters live in, or their houses, or swanky flats, or flawless skin, or adventures, and just something about their lives seemed so much more interesting, or promising, or just…you know, like a movie. Better. And I would think how nice it would be to be in the character’s place. But sitting there I realized, I didn’t want to be any of them. I wanted to be me, in this apartment. My life suddenly seems full of promise and I get to be in it.

And I thought, “Hey, I should totally post the feeling this moment is giving me on my blog.”

But then…dun dun dun ....

The following morning, Elsa woke me up at 5 am to say she did not feel well. By the time she woke me up she had already…how do I put this delicately for those with no children? She had thrown up all over her bed.

We spent the next 3 days, both of use throwing up violently every few hours. I know there were at least 72 hours in which I did not keep any food in my stomach at all and if I retained 2 ounces of fluid a day that would surprise me. These 3 days were followed by several days of feeling better, but experiencing excruciating stomach aches after eating even slight meals. Elsa described the same thing.

Yesterday was the first day we both were both "normal" again. And so my lovely post about my lovely moment got side tracked.

Then I got to thinking, I am continually thinking of things I should post...and I am continually getting sidetracked.

I was going to post a summary of those things I will probably never get around to, but I am a bit tired. Instead, at the top of this post, is a picture of the cutest kid there was in Utah County Halloween night.

Blah Blah Blog

Russian novelists are my favorite. They are the most boring and long winded.

You have to be patient to read Tolstoy, or Gogol. If you are easily bored (or distracted by shinny things), these fellows are not for you. If you need a quick and easy feel good slogan that you can get to giggling through cute phrases and antidotes, you are probably to shallow to really achieve the rapture of the heart that occurs when you stand with Alyosha at the young boy’s grave. And this rapture, for all the pretty words, and clever phrases, and catchy lyrics a skilled pop writer of today can craft, is nothing you will feel at the end of a shorter more thrilling ride.
I would never dare compare my ramblings to masterpieces that have ripped open my soul. If I am a student of Dostoevsky, then my studies are in how to think, and feel, and bleed, but on no level can I claim to have learned anything from him about how to write except that because of him, most of the rest of what I read seems to hold so little realness or weight. It’s all Dickens to me. Modernist, since the term was coined and up till now, are nothing more to me than actors looking for a cheap tear as a compliment to them that must mean they have depth.

I am writing this because I know my posts are long and droney. I know most of you blog surfers, children of the top ten list age, probably skim most of what I write, and you skip three or four paragraphs just to see if I have a point. Don’t deny it, and I am not ashamed to be boring. I know the world has evolved way past the style I prefer and try to mimic, and I don’t think I will ever be a writer on anyone’s radar. I readily admit I have not seen anything of this world that has not already been written better than I could write it.

I write for myself. I am learning. I am remembering. I am trying to express what I am seeing and who it is making me.

I know there are a few out there that read me word for word: one because for some reason she has always been there to make me feel like I am good enough, another because she loves me despite the miles and not wanting to, one because he is obligated to do so, and one because he’s a communist who love’s Dostoevsky too.

To you folks, I have one thing to say:

Do you have nothing better to do with your time?

Things are Getting Better All the Time

I saw something in my car the other day that I have not seen for months.



It was soooooooooooo exciting:

I'm Young, and I Love to be Young

I get every other Friday off from work these days, so every other Thursday night is my Friday night. And I love Thursday/Friday nights, and the feeling of freedom and infinite possibilities that either something amazing will happen over the weekend, or that I will catch up on some sleep!

I picked up Elsa after work on Thursday and on the way home, I was (as is my custom) blasting my burned CD, which is a hodge podge of random songs I like and then a few that I figured would amuse Elsa while we were driving.

This song came on, the one in the video above (it’s a video, because blogger won’t upload a music file, so you have to make it a video to get it on there). I started singing it, because when I first burnt it to the CD I was thinking Elsa might get a kick out of it (the words actually say, “don’t tell me what to do” and that has Elsa all over it!) I like to sing it because in the last few months, with the crap that happens and the memories of why I walked out the door, and all the …stuff…ok, well let’s just say the song was used in the movie for a reason. It’s a great divorce anthem, but not really even divorce. It’s a great, “I am a girl, but that doesn’t mean I am going to forget who I am and lose myself for you (again) kind of song.” I mean, think about it, this song came out in 1963…one year after my least favorite pop song “Johnny Get Angry” (lyric sample: Johnny get angry, Johnny get mad, give me the biggest lecture I’ve ever had, I need a brave man, I need a cave man!) so…well thank you Feminine Mystique!

The song was on and the line “And when I go out with you, don’t put me on display.” And Elsa asked me what it meant. I tripped over the explanation, and I will spare you the details, but I told her as accurately as I could. And when the song was over, not only did she ask if I would play it again, so told me (as if she had to, I would have anyway) to sing. And when that song was over, she insisted I sing again. And again. I think we went through it four times.

I was in a particularly light mood, with it being Thursday and all, and so I was vocally blasting and dancing as much as one can while holding a steering wheel steady. And every time I happened to look in my rearview mirror, I saw my daughter leaning her head back and staring out an open car window, smiling, while the wind blew her hair back.

The Puppy Game

Elsa and I visit the pet store after school a couple days a week and play “If we were getting a doggie now, which one would it be?”

I also play this game in the classified ads. I like to browse what’s for sale right now and wish…

If I were buying a puppy tonight, I would want it to be one of these.

I love little schnauzers!

Pretty Cool Video Worth Watching

Paul this to me at work. I thought it was worth sharing.

A couple of weeks ago, when I took Elsa to Salt Lake, we passed a man holding a sign that said “will work for food” and, because I had no work to give him, we kept walking.

Elsa seemed oblivious to the man. In her consciousness, there is not yet anything significant about a man sitting on the sidewalk with a sign. She is unaware of the concept of pan handlers and can’t read. She did not know what it was we were walking past or why it mattered if we kept walking or not.

But with every step I took, I thought of my mother and how she tried to teach me better. There are too many times to recount that she gave up something she worked hard for to help someone else. Sometimes she helped people over long periods at great cost to herself, and sometimes she put what little money she had set aside for “fun” in to the hands of a man or woman on the street corner that she didn’t know.

And more than once, when I walked away with her and I knew her pockets were empty, and that we wouldn’t be going to lunch now ourselves, and that she had saved money to entertain me rather than buying herself a new dress (she was a teacher and wore the same few dresses to school day after day—I know the kids teased her), and that now our entertainment money was gone too. And she would tell me that we were lucky because next month we could count on having that much money again and that we knew we would eat every month.

She also told me we should not pat ourselves on the back because we had shared, because that man or that woman would get maybe one or two meals and still sleep outside and we would go home and use our kitchen to eat too much, sleep in warm beds and watch tv and listen to our radio and have a pretty good life. She would tell me that giving her extra money away was nothing to be proud of, and that if I really wanted to do the least of what the Lord expected from us, we would not go home to those comforts but instead give all of the extra food and luxuries to people who didn’t have enough. Of course, she never expected me to do that, but she wanted me to understand that as little as I may have felt we had in comparison to some people, we always had a lot more than we needed.

Teaching by example is a lot harder than I thought it would be. Doing what I was shown was right is proving pretty hard too. One of the things I revere my mother for is her genuine selflessness. Not only does he firmly believe in sharing ever thing she has, but she does, even when she has so little, and even when she greatly feels the loss of what she gives away. My mother has changed a lot over the years, but that is one characteristic that has not changed at all.

I know this is something she has tried to instill in me. I have tried to let her, but I am still very selfish, and lazy, and proud. Sometimes I don’t share. Sometimes I put vanity and fashion above sharing. I am ashamed of what people around will think if I put money into the hands of a homeless man. I don’t want to be thought of as stupid and I would be mortified if some well dressed stranger were to pass and say I had just supported a drug habit.

It’s easy for me to think about how much I have to leave my child while I go to work to get just barely enough for us to live on. It’s easy to lament the things I can no longer afford and to feel entitled to hand on to the power to procure the little treasures I can. It’s easy to resent the feeling that this person with the sign may well have, probably did, begin an alcohol habit that put them there anyway. It’s easy to assure myself I don’t have to suffer because they chose to beg rather than work. But it’s also easy to hear my mother’s voice teaching me that when a person needs help, I have been asked to help and not given the authority to judge.

As an adult, I have walked away more often than I have done what I should do. Sometimes it’s because I don’t want to spare what I have for myself, sometimes it’s because I have made Elsa a promise I can’t fulfill unless I pinch my pennies, and sometimes it’s because I am embarrassed.
I once watched a mother and her son push a beat up old car to a gas station pump in the rain. I heard her instruct him to stay in the car with the small children until she got back with some money. I stood between the protection of an overhang and my car as my tank was filled and I knew that I had more than enough means to slide my credit card in the pump by her car, and save her the walk and what ever else she had to do. But I was too ashamed to offer because I did not know how to do so with the same amount of respect and humility my mother would have shown this woman. I would have seemed arrogant to this woman I know. I would have made her feel as though I wanted to be her savior; my mother would have known how to make the woman feel as if she were her sister instead. So I watched her walk away in to the storm.


I like Elsa because she calls me on my shortcomings. I like her for other reasons too. She’s a pretty likable person, once you get past the thing where she is always telling you what’s wrong with ya.

K, here is the thing about being a parent: not only do you become your mother or father when you talk to your kids, but you have to start following your parents’ rules again too. For instance, if your mom and dad did not allow you to have ice cream in the middle of the day for no good reason, then you will probably not let your little kid have it any old time she wants either. BUT, this actually means that YOU can no longer have ice cream in the middle of the day when ever you want either. And then when your little kid is someplace other than home, you think “cool, I can so just have ice cream” and not get busted, but you have to sneak and so when your kids are gone it’s a lot like when your parents were gone.

Elsa’s always bossing me around too, “Mom, don’t bite your nails if I can’t?” “How come you can say THAT word and I can’t?” “Why aren’t YOU going to bed then if it’s so late?”
I can’t tell you how many times the kids has reminded me to hold on to my temper, get things cleaned up, be kind in my out loud thoughts about others, be temperate in my indulgences, and not to wear anything that makes me “look like a boy.”

Fortunately, all it takes to be forgiven by Elsa is a confession and an apology. “Mommy is sorry she borrowed a quarter from your piggy bank” and “I am sorry I ate your Easter candy” and “I am sorry I forgot to get that thing wanted me to get at the store.” She shrugs her shoulders and says, “It’s ok.” And more often than not, that’s that.




We had walked nearly a block away from the man and the sign when I stopped. The voice in my head had been good natured at first, “coward” it had said when I passed the man. As I walked though, it screamed, “You are not becoming the woman you were taught to be.” And then it said, “You are not raising her to be the woman you were taught to be either.”

I kneeled beside Elsa. I wanted to prepare her for something that was going to seem strange and I did not want any questions in a moment that would surely be awkward enough. I told her that the man back there with a sign did not have enough money to get anything to eat and that we had had such a nice day already. I suggested maybe we skip the ice cream and give him the money. She was shocked, but too my relief it was not at the thought of self sacrifice. She was amazed that some man did not have enough to eat. She nodded and we went back to him and handed him our ice cream money. I tried to say what my mother would have said. He clasped the bills in a severely blistered hand and said “God Bless you” dutifully.

As we walked back to the train I told Elsa that when I was a little girl, it was very important to “Sukey” (the name she calls my mother instead of Grandma) that I learned that sometimes I should give up the little things I wanted so that I could help someone else. I told her that that was what Jesus asked us to do. And she told me that that must be because Jesus loves “EVERYBODY in the world”. I was amazed at how easily she accepted that this was the right thing to do.

It made me wonder what was going on in her head for the silent few minutes we had spent, but after sitting at the train stop waiting without talking for a little while, she said, “Mommy? Why did you walk past that man before you went back to give him the money.”

I have often lied to my child. I have sometimes told her the truth. I have never teetered so long trying to figure out which way to go. I usually know instantly how honest I want to be.
I said, “I wasn’t sure at first if I wanted to give him any. I had to think about it, but I decided it was the right thing to do.”

She shrugged as if the answer made perfect sense. That was that.

The Good Ol' Days

My mother used to think a lot. And then she would talk to me about the things she thought.

I remember her once telling me that she had often in her life she has very often wished to be richer. And she has also looked toward the future and hoped that in the future she’d be richer. She admitted to sometimes resenting people who were richer. But she told me one thing she had never done is look back at her life and every thought that her memories would be any better, or that she would have been any happier if at that point in her life she had had more money.
She told me this shortly after I had graduated high school and was working two ridiculously hard jobs to which I had to wear super lame uniforms (one was a plastic apron and the other was…well… the letter “M”) for $4.25 an hour just to try to pay my Jr. College tuition and get some text books. And I was a pretty happy person. I remember thinking, and feeling, I swear to you, that I was pretty lucky. I was a pretty happy go lucky creature then, even when I was exhausted and covered in grease. And I felt like I was on top of the world and the whole future was stretched out before me like a spread of gifts under a Christmas tree. I was a bohemian spirit and loved the romance of just climbing a hill to eat a $3 meal and feel the wind and then maybe dance in the rain.

And then when I was first married, we loved to laugh at ourselves in the little dingy apartment we lived in, eating candle light dinners of pasta off of a card table. I don’t remember a day in my life, looking back now, that I can say would have been made better if we had been rich. None of the memories I cherish most about any of the parties we had, games we played, traditions we started (annual water fight), or adventures we went on had anything to do with what we had to spend. Through it all, I already knew I would look back on my 18 year old self, and my newly wed self and know, “Those were the good times.”

I do.

So here I am now. I am still pretty lucky. I am done with school and have a good job (thankfully) but I will confess, the last couple years had gotten easier, we had begun to grow fatter, and I was enjoying a bit of a princess status. With the split, my income has been split in half and somehow, a household of one adult is not much less expensive than one with two.

It’s what my mom said back then though. I do wish for a little more right now. I am not above that. I guess it’s human nature. And I hope things don’t feel so tight forever. I miss the things I got spoiled on being able to purchase and go do without a thought. I miss buying my daughter anything I see that I know she would like while I am out and about.

But I also figure, these are probably still the days. I am still young and strikingly beautiful. I still love to walk in the wind. Being alive still feels like a wonderful thing. Some of the packages are unwrapped and revealed, but there are still shiny boxes under the tree with surprises inside.
And Elsa still readily admits to being my baby, I can still lift her and rock her in my arms, she still likes me to sing her to sleep, she still thinks I know everything just cause I am a mom, and she still thinks my shoes are cool.

And I have had do find more creative activities to do with her…which has led to more time to get to know her in a different day. We talk more when we are cruising the pet store (it’s free) than we did when we went to the movies all the time. I cook her more meals now that eating out has gotten to be too much of a luxury.

I know THESE are the good old days.

Some of the first memories I have are of the days my mother used to walk me down to the “little store.” It was a liquor store about a half mile from our apartment. (If you are from Utah and not California, calm down. Convenience stores sell alcohol in California so we call them that but they also sell other things. I used the term liquor store to my mother-in-law once and she almost choked!) This little store had a small grocery section, a large candy section, and a deli. They sold corn dogs for a few cents. There was no greater treat than a walk down there to get a corn dog. In fact, corn dogs still hold the same place in my heart held by cookies and milk in the hearts of others.

I also remember sitting on the lawn of the apartment complex we lived in, in the summer, after dark, and the adults talked and played games while the children played on the play ground all night (which was really probably till nine or ten pm). Some nights this summer, Elsa has come in from outside where all the kids are still playing well after dusk, and has told me “I stayed out till way late!”

I hope when she’s all grown up, she remembers how great our life was when she was six.

Utahns Don't Know About Pools

In Salt Lake, there is this place called The Gateway, which is supposed to be Utah’s answer to like…Rodeo Drive I think. It’s a big outdoor mall with the normal trendy mall stores like the Gap, AE, Banana Republic etc. But those are the “low end” stores. It also has stores that don’t sell any pants for less than $300 dollars. So the clientele is kind of…well women with perfect makeup, hair, and who got SUVs the second they had their first baby…and got their figures back 20 min later.

But at the edge of this gateway, is this sidewalk fountain that shoots water in time to music. This is Elsa’s favorite part of the whole city. We spent a day there this weekend. (I only had my cell phone for pics, and I have not figured out how to work it cause some pictures will only come out as thumbnails!)

In the summer, the fountain is full of people playing in it. Some even come in swimsuits. I don’t get that part; if you want to get in a swim suit and get wet, why not have a water fight or play in sprinklers? Besides, isn't the charm of playing in a public fountain that it is spontaneous and you go running through it praying you don’t get your clothes soaked (but getting your clothes soaked)?

What do I know?

First Day of First Grade

My little bitty baby started first grade. That's not even Kindergarten. That's REAL school people.

I lost the good digital camera in the seperation (it was his anyway) so the pics I took on my cell are not the best quality...but she looked something like this:

I feel like I have grown too this summer. I cried WAY less dropping her off than I did on the first day last year.

When I Say I am Going to Make a Montage, I am Going to Make a Montage

The photos that are signed with Marcia Vasquez Photography were done by my amazingly talented (and sometimes mean) friend Mars. To the benefit of the world she will soon be a busy world renowned portrait artist and won't have time to do such things for her friends. If you need an appointment for her to shoot you, you probably should make it now before she is too famous to even consider it.

Movie Mush

If you have seen the movie Momma Mia, you know the scene where the mom is getting the daughter ready for her wedding? Well, I saw the film twice (and stayed to hear Waterloo both times) and BOTH times I had tears dripping down my cheeks when that scene came up.

The first time I saw it, it was with Elsa. And literally moments before the scene, I was looking at the little actress (Elsa’s hair was curly that day) and thinking that when Elsa grows up, she would look about like that girl. Then there was that scene and I lost it.

I kept thinking about how our life is now, and how she looked on her first day of kindergarten and how someday she is going to grow up and be her own woman and not my baby and…oh dear my keyboard is getting wet.

If you have not seen the movie Momma Mia, how are we still friends? Well, you will be forgiven if you promise, promise, promise to go see it pronto, and that you will stay for Waterloo. In the mean time, here is an itty-bit of the scene:



If I can pull my blubbery head together long enough to do this, I think I will do a video montage of Elsa to the full version of this song as an excuse to post the full version of this song, since Blogger will let me upload video but not songs without storing it first someplace else. Fortunately, I love makin’ those video montages!

Starting New, But Not Over

I don’t know if life ever starts over new.

All the old stuff is what got us here, so this life is not really a new one. It's just a continuation of who we have always been becoming. Plus, I sure don’t want to lose some pretty important things from my “old” life.

But new things come up, and old steady things break, and sometimes I guess life seems to be starting over in a strange new place where I never thought I would be.

I don’t know if the term “single mother” really encompasses me. My mother was the real hard-core kind of single mother you hear about. She did it ALONE in every way; financially, emotionally, disciplinarily and everything in between. This is why on Father’s Day I call her before I call my actual father. After all, she took on being my provider and protector long before he ever tried.

But Elsa has a dad, and he’s been there since the beginning. From the second she was born he followed her to make sure those nurses didn’t drop her and to make sure they gave her her first bath gently. He took her for walks to ease the colic and rocked her in the wee hours of the morning. He’s dislodged tin foil from her throat (don’t ask). He’s leapt over park benches to stand under the jungle gym when he thinks she has climbed a little too high. We may have our differences, my soon to be ex-husband (my mom calls him my “was-band”) and I, but I think he’ll probably always jump over whatever he needs to to catch that kid. So, even though when I tuck my child in at night I do it alone, I know she’s still got two parents and not a “single.”

This new situation leaves me feeling more like a part-time parent, and that is hard. Some nights I don’t get to tuck her in. I tell bed time stories to a telephone. I don’t know what she wore for the day a couple of days a week. I don’t know where some of her sunburns came from, or what she had for dinner. It isn’t that I don’t think she is well taken care of; it’s that I don’t always get to be the one to do it. I hate dropping my little girl off and saying goodbye for two days, over and over again.

But when she is home, Elsa and I have a great time. It could just be that she is growing up and her thoughts are getting more complex. But I think there is something to be said about two girls on their own too. Don’t worry, we are not exactly becoming Thelma and Louise and I am still definitely a Mom before a pal (and I have to remind her of that often) but don’t think there has ever been a cooler six year old on this planet than mine.

Last night she and I agreed that we would work really hard, together, to save our money. I promised my daughter that if we did a good job at this that next summer I would move us in to a new place where we could have a puppy. I told her I would take her to a pet store next summer and tell her to pick any one of the puppies she wants. We had to sell Heidi and Klaus at the beginning of all this, and we both still have broken hearts. I promised her that when I got her a dog, it would be hers to keep forever.

This morning she offered me the $14 dollars she has been saving up for a Chuck E Cheese’s day, she said she wanted to put it toward the new house/puppy cause. I think we will go to Chuck E Cheese’s though. But I intend to keep the promise I made to my little girl.

I think we are going to be alright.