a sibling or cousin or friend

[note: I've now lost at least 3 different blogs--pieces of me, but the one that pains me most is my year of consistently writing with Ann Dee Ellis' 8-minute memoir prompts. Maybe someday I'll retrieve them. But for how, let's start where we are on this day in January of 2022.]

Jen Galan

Bright blue eyes full of mischief and also full of love. Brightest smile. One of the smartest and funniest people I may ever know. Jen had--has--the biggest and most generous heart.

Jen was my friend for years before I actually saw her. We met right here--through Blogger, back in the day. Galanpalooza meet Compulsive Writer. We had mutual friends. Bloggers--mostly moms--for blogging sake. We connected because she was brave enough to be vulnerable before it was the subject of a Brene Brown book. Our hearts went out to each other's. Jen has many friends and was open and loving to all. She made us all feel special and like we were her best person. Not in a contrived way. She just gave you her heart. Sometimes she confided in me. Sometimes I peeled away a layer or two and confided in her. We listened, loved, and supported and strengthened each other. We connected because she was real.

This past Christmas I did some organizing. And it seemed every time I turned around I found something she had made me. A red and black crocheted Dalak hand towel. A paper mache (or some other DIY method) angel with her hands over her eyes <<Don't Blink!.>> A blue phone booth Christmas stocking. (It's bigger on the inside.) She made these things for me at a time I was buried with a demanding job she helped me land and sandwiched between kids at home and helping care of my mom, so it's not like they were every reciprocated. But Jen gave freely and from the heart and never expected anything back.

I have an assortment of photos of Jen I will forever cherish:

Jen and--in one of the rare times I will get in the picture--me at Disneyland. That time her husband was stationed who-knows-where and I told her I was driving down to Cedar City to help and she told me all she needed was for me to drive her to Disneyland. OK. It was the very best time I've ever had at Disneyland. 

Jen sitting across from me at Cracker Barrel when she drove down from Cedar City to St. George during Winter Fire School so we could nosh on chicken fried something comfort food and laugh and almost cry together. 

And, perhaps two of my most cherished: 

One of Jen sitting across the table from me at her home in Kansas nibbling on the homemade chicken pot pie I made for her--my best offering of comfort food. Though chemo affected her sense of taste and her appetite, she made me feel like she could actually taste it and it was good. 

The other at the entrance of First City Cheese Market where we had the most perfect tomato soup, cheese sandwich, and chocolates before she sent me home from an extended stay with her and her kids while her husband was deployed. 

It would be the last time I saw her. 

things i don't enjoy

i planned on reading the book for book club this month. at the risk of being mean, i've decided to attempt to write this post without saying the name of the book i'm talking about, but we'll see how it goes. (or rather, to avoid coming across as mean.)

it was not a book i had selected or voted for. in fact at the time we chose it as a group i can't recall if i mistook it for its sister book or if i knew already i didn't want to read it. memory--at leas mine--is fickle like that.

in any case, when i heard we were reading it this month at first i mistook it for its sister book.

two friends--very funny--write books.

my kid who at the time was fascinated by tv comedy and movies and screenplays and all sorts of clever (because he is clever) bought both books.

with my money, but still, they were his.

in any case, i tried to read the first one and didn't get much past the first chapter.

there was an edge, a bitterness, yes, i'll say it, a meanness to it.

i didn't like the way it made me feel.

so, in my mind confusing the titles even though i full well knew better if i would have thought about it, i was at least someone excited to read it thinking it was the other one. i sensed it had a different tone.

and then i heard it was funnier on audio book in the author's voice.

and after two days of hoop-jumping to renew my apparently accidentally expired library card and get access to the audio book i realized my confusion.

we were reading the mean one.

i figured i should get over myself and give it a chance.

maybe it was funnier in her own voice.

maybe it was kinder, gentler.

maybe i would feel better about it.

maybe i would enjoy it this time.

i didn't.

i even shopped around for a different chapter (maybe she was nicer when she got past her childhood--some people are).

i found a few poignant moments.

i may have laughed a time or two.

but i didn't enjoy it.

so i returned it.

and now i'm listening to the sister book.

there is still a bit of an edge.

there is coarse language.

(i don't enjoy coarse language.)

but it is kinder, gentler.

and i enjoy it.

100 years old

my grandfather--well, one of them--lived to be 98 years old.

nearly every day i saw him the last handful of years of his life--you know, the five plus years he was on hospice. and oxygen. he would say to me

"growing old ain't for sissies."

well shoot.

i'm just a bit over halfway there and i'm already hurting, so i just don't know about that.

i'd like to think that as long as i keep moving--even if s-l-o-w-l-y--i'll be ok.

but i just don't know.

sometimes i want to live a long time and visit all the places and see and do all the things and love all the people and watch all the babies be born and grow and do things and become who they are and get married and have their own babies.

some days i worries this is a hard cruel world and i don't know that i can lose anyone else or watch any more people i love suffer any more and i want to be done sooner rather than later.

i just don't know.

sometimes i have hope we will clean up our acts and our air and learn to work together to make the world a better place and that good will prevail not just in the next life, but in the hear and now.

sometimes i can't wait for it to be the next life because i don't know if i can watch things keep getting worse.

war and apocalypse and dystopia are so much better left in the imagination lost in a good book.

but at least a part of me wants to grow into an old eccentric woman who can get away with wearing and saying whatever she likes, as long as she is kind. can still read and quilt and walk.

and can sleep at night.

i don't understand

i don't understand a lot of things. i don't understand why i'm content to not yet understand some things, but discontent to not understand others.

this prompt was issued before the latest school massacre.

i don't understand why so many this year already, so many the year before, and the year before, since ??, since columbine, since forever.

and we do nothing but yell at each other across the divide.

i told my son today i'd like to think there are rational people who understand we need to quit yelling at each other and find some common ground and sit down at the table together to find some solutions both sides can live with but that the media doesn't talk about it because they get more clicks from the yelling (i don't hate the media. i know there are good people working hard to sort fact from fiction and get to and reveal the truth. but greed and profit seem to rule the corporate world.)

i don't understand why we are tearing apart families and yanking providers and caregivers right out of their homes and why we can't keep our promises to children who've lived entire productive lives here in our country as march 6 (or was it 5) looms near and we are too busy yelling at each other or feeling superior and self-righteous or changing our minds to save them.

i don't really understand yelling at each other any way.

why it's not accepted that perhaps we can stand up for one thing without being hateful to what is perceived as its opposite.

why it's not accepted that we can love people--not just tolerate, but truly love--while not agreeing with them or experiencing the world in the same way they do.

i don't understand unkindness.

i don't understand meanness.

i don't understand willfully hurting someone.

or brutally killing them.

grapefruit

The best posts I read about fruit are metaphorical rather than literal, but the truth is I love grapefruit.

Instead of buying soda, I sometimes splurge and purchase the rather expensive fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice available sometimes at Macey's.

I work really hard not to see again that time I was there while the Macey's employee was pushing fresh citrus down the machine.

Did he wash it first? (I always wash my produce before I cut into it.)

Did he wash his hands???

The other day I stopped at the El Salvadoran restaurant on my way home from seeing The Post--by myself (the restaurant, not the movie, where I was met by a friend) and ordered their steak and fries because I knew the steak is marinated in grapefruit juice.

(I keep mistyping grapefruit.)

Even though I like it so very much, I rarely buy grapefruit.

Is it because the best grapefruit are sold at Sam's and I only have a Costco membership?

Am I lazy?

It takes time to loosen the flesh from the membrane and then scoop it out.

It's messy.

Ha! Life is messy.

And then you have to squeeze the dismembered--is cutting out the flesh dismembering? Disemboweled? I'd better stop two sentences ago--rind hard to extract all the tart juice.

In any case, I do love grapefruit.

I should enjoy it more often.

my work is loving the world

my work is loving the world.

that means finding joy in cloudy skies

happiness in rainy days

enduring a too-warm too-dry winter that wasn't without at least too much complaint, maybe only feeling a little guilty for not hurting from the cold

looking up and finding light when your heart is down or feeling dark

laugh a little, even when you feel like crying

being kind to yourself even when the voices you hear in your head are harsh

that's where it starts

then it means looking outward even when you feel compelled to retreat inward

lifting, loving others whose hearts and heavy and feelings are dark

noticing and appreciating and paying forward kindness both small and large

remember, there are no small things

being of good cheer even on those "fake it till you make it" days

maybe especially on those

seeking understanding and responding in kindness to those who lash out and wound

maybe even removing yourself from target practice or that which drags you down

seeking instead to life where you stand, even if it seems only a little

offer a word of encouragement

point out a silver lining

remind yourself "it's not about you"

seek to see others in a different light when needed

build bridges

make friends

choose kindness

Something I'm proud of

Today I'm proud of getting back on the horse.

Several weeks ago I went to write my post and was horrified to see words to the effect that nothing was here. In other words, this is not the blog you're looking for.

After losing years of writing before, I was tempted to panic, but didn't. At least at first. It was easy to think maybe the issue was with GoDaddy. "Perhaps GoDaddy got up and went." I thought.

But as days went on and after multiple calls by both me and my friend whom I thought was hosting my blog, it became apparent the issue was more serious. Apparently there had been a miscommunication between my friend and I went I took over responsibility for my domain name and while I still don't know who has been hosting my blog since that time over a year ago, or how or why it got disconnected, apparently I am both host-less and blog-less.

Well, unless you could my half-dozen other blogs on blogger.

I have been stressed at work and loathe to take on something that feels and is over my head, so time passed. I finally got back to it this week. I am uncomfortable having conversations trying to fix something about which I don't have enough knowledge or information to address knowingly.

Finally I quit putting it off. I had lame conversations with GoDaddy and others who know more than I do and whose vocabularies are over my head.

And while I'm reassured--at least somewhat--believing the database and my files are safe somewhere and will eventually be sent my way where I can then send them on to someone who make be able to help, there is a part of me who is still afraid that the past couple years of actual writing--plus all the years before (the ones that weren't originally lost) are lost.

In any case, here I am. Writing again. And I have a brand new blog to which I hope we can eventually transfer the files. And tonight I decided not to wait any longer for resolution, but to pick up the hypothetical pen and write again while I wait.

And that feels satisfying. Which is even better than proud.

8-minute memoir revisited

"Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy to a friend." Martin Luther King Jr.

Sometimes I feel I'm a broken record, writing the same stories over and over. I've written before about several people with whom I did not exactly hit it off, but who I later came to view as a close friend.

I was thinking about this recently and about how this happens. I love Brene Brown's work on vulnerability and wonder if perhaps the short cut is when someone shows you their heart--even if briefly--which illuminates a path for your love to work it's way in.

A friend of mine (Internet friend, of course--we've never met IRL) recently wrote a Valentine's tribute to her husband. It wasn't soft of mushy. In fact in it she mentioned she is not easy to love and described both her husband and herself as hard coolies. But then she went on to pay tribute to some of the great qualities she noticed and admired in him.

I think that's the key. When presented with a hard cookie who doesn't present an easy target for your arrow of love, maybe you can pass the time waiting for a brief glance of vulnerability noticing and appreciating the good qualities of said person. The way this person makes the world a better place.

Perhaps in the absence of vulnerability, appreciation can be the conduit of love that may soften, somewhat a hard cookie. If nothing else it will certainly soften one's on heart.

And perhaps the only perception over which we have control by which to identify friend or enemy is our own.

Softly, deftly

So you try directing 700 teenagers from all over the state of Utah and performing in front of a packed house.

Last night I sat on the 4th row of the acoustically perfect Salt Lake Tabernacle to listen to theGrand Festival Concert of the Utah All-State Choir. The choir was directed by the delightful and talented Ann Howard Jones. The kids had spent most all of their fall break rehearsing and it was absolutely fabulous. Hey, even my eight-year-old was interested.

No, this isn’t them, but, see the middle and largest pipe in the set of foremost and largest pipes right of center? Luke stood right below it. I bet he had the best seat in the house when Linda Margetts pulled out all the stops on Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor.

Anyway, the concert was amazing. I sat there and thought, Wow! How cool is this that that’s my kid up there having this experience of a lifetime and I get to watch and listen.

So if you enjoy choral and chamber music (I didn’t really know how much I did until I spent the last couple of years as “choir mom” to Luke and a few other of the choir kids), I’m inviting you to attend Provo High’s Fall Sing on Wednesday, October 17, at 7 p.m. in the PHS Auditorium.

Trust me, I would not even mention this if it were going to be lame. These kids are amazing. The chamber choir moves me to tears almost every time. Do come.

Some pumpkin

The other day I bumped into a neighbor at the local grocery store. Her delightfully precocious daughter chatted my ears off. She was especially excited to tell me about her pumpkin patch. She was selling her pumpkins to earn some money. “For college?” I asked. “Oh no,” she replied, “but maybe for a trip to Disneyland.”

The very next evening the little girl and her mother appeared at my door, with a wagon load of pumpins trailing behind her. She wanted to know if I wanted to buy one. “How much?” I asked. “Whatever it’s worth to you,” she replied. Not wanting to take advantage I pointed out one of the smaller pumpkins and put the bid back in her court. “How much is that one worth to you?”

“Five dollars,” she said firmly. “Sheesh–I’m involved in a bidding war with a five-year-old over pumpkins!” I thought to myself. She then pointed to an even bigger one and assured me that one was worth at least $10!

Wanting to be generous, but also knowing I’m not made out of money, I told her I needed to go inside to see if I had any cash. It was almost a relief to see all I had on hand was three one-dollar bills. Realizing I was still in way over my head, I took out the ones and told her that was all I had and sweetly asked her if there were any pumpkins in her wagon that were worth three dollars. She thought for a second and pointed out the very smallest pumpkin. We exchanged money for pumpkin and she went on her way to shake down the next unsuspecting neighbor.

Whew! Never underestimate the business savy of a kindergartener.

The day the rabbit died

So most of you are too young to even know what I meant by that. Except I didn’t really mean that anyway. I just really wanted to be able to write that.

I found our pet rabbit, Cookie (short for Cookie Dough, because as a baby she looked just like Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream), dead this morning and it broke my heart.

We bought her on a whim just over five years ago. I’d run out to Vineyard Garden Center for some mulch. I must have gone in the back way, because it was only as I was leaving with my purchase in hand that I noticed the bunny cage. Bunnies for sale, $3, the sign read. I’d always wanted a lop-eared bunny and these were too cute to resist. Cookie was the runt of the litter and had been chewed up a bit by her siblings. But she thrived on all the attention and extra calories we tried to give her.

As far as pets go she’s probably one of the best we’ve ever had. Sweet disposition, warm and cuddly and a kick to watch when she hopped around the yard and garden. We’d often talked about breeding her because she was so good with the kids. (The ad I wrote in my head and intended to put up at the local IFA went something like this: SWR–single white rabbit–seeks one-night stand with friendly and fertile male.)

We all loved Cookie, but my daugher L~ loved her the most. In that sweet and serendipitous way in which sometimes something good will happen just before you’re about to get your heart broken, L~ had spent most of Friday afternoon playing with Cookie out under the crabapple tree.

Goldfish and betas aside, I’m pretty much a puddle over the passing of pets. (I bawled for an entire day over the death of our pet rat Tillie.) You learn to love what you care for and of course as mom I get to help take care of a lot of pets. But losing this one was especially hard. The worst part was watching my daughter. It’s hard to just sit back and watch your kid’s heart get broken. Wracked with sobs, she removed Cookie from her box in her cage and held her close for most of the morning. It was almost more than I could bear.

Just as I was wondering how to balance L~’s need to grieve with the rest of the family’s need to watch General Conference without a dead rabbit in the room, L~ got up to look for a box and went out to dig a hole. It just seemed to be understood that she would do it, and do it herself. Wracked with sobs myself, I watched from my bedroom window as L~ dug through the rain-laden soil, measured the hole then dug again and again until she got it right. I didn’t worry that the location she chose was in the middle of my flower bed, but instead resolved to take L~ shopping next spring for just the right perennial to plant over Cookie’s grave.

With the same stubborn independence I’ve noticed in other members of my family, L~ refused to be comforted or consoled. But I was worried for her. Then I remembered my part-time neighbor Jan had just arrived in town yesterday. Jan and L~ share the same birthday and have forged a special friendship. And Jan’s pets are family to her, so I knew she would understand. I casually mentioned Jan’s return to L~ and watched hopefully as she bounded out the door to go see her. Sure enough, Jan let her talk about it and then put her to work on a project that would serve both to distract her and help her work out her grief.

So although I am sad today, I’m also grateful. Grateful for tender mercies–that L~ will have the fresh memory of Friday to soothe her sadness a bit. Grateful for good neighbors who have compassionate hearts and are willing to be there for my kids at times when, for whatever the reason, they need to deal with things in their own way. And grateful for the inspiration that helps me see that without being hurt by it and also lets me know exactly what I need to do to help them find what they need.

During conference this afternoon I picked up a piece of appliqué I need to complete for a block-of-the-month out at Amercian Quilting. It’s a chocolate brown bunny. Although the pattern calls for the ears to be straight-up, I’m going to make them lop back. In memory of Cookie.

This old house - compiled

This old house table – October 3, 2007

I’m quite sure by now you are all sick and tired of reading about my remodel. But let me tell you, you’re probably not quite so sick of hearing about it as I am of doing it! You write what you know and right now this is all I know.

Tonight, after painstakingly masking off the upstairs with yards and yards of blue tape (and I’ve only just begun) and just as I was thinking about how nice it would be to be able to afford to hire out this type of grunt work, I went into to do one last wipe-down of my soon-to-be refinished dining room table (yes, silly me. I figured it was already in pieces and with the room empty until Friday now was as good a time as any). As I was running my hand–the one that’s still reverberating from too much time holding the power sander–across the smooth wood I realized that is exactly what I would miss if I paid someone else to do it.

Sure the DIY series make it all look sooooo much easier than it is IRL. (And no, most redo or remodel projects cannot be completed in the standard 22 minutes.) But nothing can quite capture that sense of satisfaction that comes from having realized that with no more than the free advice of the friendly wood guy at your local D&B, some toxic substance sure to cause cancer in the state of California and just a little bit of elbow grease, you managed to pull a few muscles you didn’t remember you still had and make something old seem like new again.

Of course I might be feeling differently about that when I try to drag my old and tired bones out of bed in the morning. But I’ll take that chance.

*****

Enough about the pain, let’s talk about carpet – September 29, 2007

Yesterday–after two weeks of trying–I finally heard back from the carpet retailer and I now have a date on the calendar for them to measure my house for new carpet. Wahoo!

It’s not a lot of new carpet. We have some pretty beat up wood flooring in the upstairs bedrooms, tile in the kitchen and we are putting wood in the dining room (to be installed Friday–Yay!) And we are leaving the bright red but practically invincible carpet downstairs alone. But having new carpet in on the split-entry stairs and in the living room and hallway will make a big difference in the look and feel of our upstairs as well as in my desire to vacuum (like there will actually be a point to vacuuming now).

So it’s time to move on from my completely depressing paint failures and talk about the new carpet. Here is why I’m hopeful this new carpet will the best ever:

1. I’ve discovered the absolutely genius and beauty of a product called Folex.

2. Because I bought my wood flooring during a big promotion I’m also getting a brand newHoover absolutely free. I’m really more of a commercial Eureka girl, but hey, if the price is right… (And just think how nice it will be to have a vacuum on each floor of the house and have attachments to use on the stairs.)

3. It’s Stainmaster.

4. It’s the color of dirt (twelve different kinds of dirt).

5. Three of my four children will have moved out before the stain warranty expires.

Enough said.

*****

When the room and my mood are dripping – September 28, 2007

So like all good remodel projects this one hasn’t been without its setbacks. Aside from it being impossible to get someone from the flooring retailer (from whom I am resigned to purchase my carpet because their “bid” came in at about half of the one I got from RC Willey for the same carpet) to come and measure for the carpet, things had been going fairly well until yesterday afternoon. When I had a panic attack.

I’m trying to invest a bit more time and money to do this the right way. Which means I’m sanding everything before I paint, painting one coat, sanding again, then painting a second coat. But yesterday while I was sanding a little chunk of paint came off and I more or less stopped breathing. What if I had just painted Latex over oil-based paint and the entire room would peel off much like one would peel a banana?

YIKES!

I was fairly certain this wasn’t the case because a friend of mine who does faux painting professionally painted my daughter’s room over a year ago and she had done the alcohol test and decided the paint was Latex. But this is where I start to drive myself and others crazy–my not-really OCD omes out in full glory and I start obsessing over things. What if she had been wrong?

I ransacked the cupboard looking for rubbing alcohol and cotton balls and frantically ran through the house trying desperately to rub off the old paint in various rooms. What if…? What am I…? Oh no, how will I ever…? Assuming the acohol test is even accurate, I’m guessing what I have is Latex over oil-based in most rooms, but straight-up oil based in the bathrooms. Which, if I remember correctly, may have been the fashionable thing to do back in the day.

Having no choice at this point but to bravely forge ahead, I proceeded with the second coat in the dining room, because the paint needs to cure for an entire week before the wood flooring is installed next Friday.

Enter panic attack number two. As we pulled the blue masking tape off the ceiling and from around the windows the paint came off (in parts) in this neat little skin of Latex paint. ARGH! Of course then my paint paranoia struck again and I pictured myself standing in a room of freshing painted peeling paint. Quel disastre!

(Here’s one thing I wish I’d have known before I started painting. And of course, if all else fails, it never hurts to actually read the directions. Although the jury isn’t out on the part about how long you can wait to remove tape. If it’s still too wet, it smudges. If it’s too dry, your paint peels off. And who knew the use of masking tape required directions?)

Oh well, live-n-learn.

sigh.

*****

The Story of the Little Red Hen – September 25, 2007

The Little Red Hen (known heretoafter simply as LRH, but not to be confused with Lucky Red Hen whose presence is sorely missed in these parts) decided she was tired of worn and dirty carpet and ill-painted walls and she needed to update her look. So she ordered some new flooring and chose some new paint and jumped into the project with both feet.

“Who will help me put things away?” LRH asked.

“Not I,” said each of her four chickadees all at the same time.

“Then I will,” said the LRH. And so she did.

“Who will help me move the furniture?” asked LRH.

“Not I,” came the unified reply.

And so it went. No one wanted to do the boring stuff so LRH was left to do it all herself. OK, well a lot of it anyway.

“Who will prep the room(s) because even I don’t want to do that?” said LRH, but in spite of her bad habits of usually skipping that part she resigned herself to do this job the right way.

“Now who will help me paint the walls?” whispered LRH a bit sarcastically.

“I will!” “I will!” “I want to!” “Me! Me! Me!” they all cried.

“Fat chance of that,” said LRH and she savored every minute of changing the look of her home as if from night to day. Well more like day to night because she chose carpet the color of dirt and was going with darker paint, too.

(disclaimer: Eventually LRH’s little chicks might reluctantly give in a help a little, but no where nearly enough to merit the reward of helping paint. But by then LRH’s hard heart might have softened and she might let them help anyway. At least a little.)

Overheard: desperate times call for...

After an 30 minutes of almost incessant fighting between my two youngest I found the following escaping from my lips:

You and your sister are not allowed in the same hemisphere!

Haven’t yet figured out the logistics of that one.

Suggestions?