Five Crows

Diet

2011-04-07T21:54:00.000-07:00

First week: I lost four and a half pounds. Second week: one pound. This week, my goal is to exercise every day. Today I was so resistant to the idea of exercising that I bit Tom's head off. He didn't know what he'd done wrong. He hadn't done anything wrong, except he went down to the vending machines twice to buy candy. The first time he ate it in the basement. The second time he brought up fruit gummies which I hate.

I'm sure he ate chocolate the first time.

I rode the exercise bike at ten o clock at night. Stupid stupid.

I've wasted more time in my life resisting the inevitable.

What do you resist?

The Chattering Crow

2010-09-01T13:06:00.001-07:00

Follow me on my new blog thechatteringcrow.blogspot.com

New Blog

2010-08-10T09:31:00.000-07:00

Beginning September 1, I'm beginning a new blog: The Chattering Crow. This is an effort to get the Asian pornographers off my blog comments.

Auf Wiedersehen, Rian.

2010-07-16T12:49:00.000-07:00

Dear Rian,

We found your note and the feelings are mutual. We loved having you come, hearing about the lazy-eye couple, hearing the list from your journal, listening to alternative music and beating you in Golf. Especially beating you in Golf.

All your photos are gorgeous, but this one taken at the historic Cafe Central the night before you left, may be my favorite. We are now bonded because of the Schokozauber, (the best chocolate dessert ever made). Thank your father for footing the bill for the most delicious meal of the summer.

Hope you had a great trip home. Kiss all the homies for me.

Love,

Grandma P.

P.S. May the power of the cane go with you.

Weekend update

2010-07-12T03:55:00.001-07:00

We took the train to Halstaat with the students and Rian on Friday. It was supposed to be non-stop from Vienna but because of rail repairs we ended up getting off the train, on a bus, and back on a train. Old crippled women don't like this kind of lumping about. Grrrr.

But picturesque Halstaat always lowers my blood pressure especially when we're on the water. Rian is paddling with Jessica and Kayla in the first photo on Friday afternoon. Next morning, we rented our own boat and Rian drove us around a couple of hours. It was delicious. Tom is behind us taking a jillion photographs.

We have been following the World Cup games--when in Europe, do as the Europeans do--and last night was the final game between Spain and the Netherlands. We were whooped up for the Netherlands to win, even though everyone knew Spain would win. Perhaps even me. There was no score until they went into overtime when Spain got their single, winning point.

This morning the Austrian papers are full of sneers for the Dutch teams' mean spirited playing. They show a photo of the Dutch player kicking a Spanish player hard on his chest, a kung fu kind of move that flattened the Spanish guy.

I feel defensive and unreasonably uppity about the rivalry. I wish I had some orange to wear.

We ate at THE RUBENS CAFE at Palais Lichtenstein and this time, I was wise enough to order the Saffron Risotta and Prawns as did Rian. Tom ordered wienershnitzel and he got three huge pieces of it without vegetables (a pomme frite is not a vegetable). It could have eaten HIM. We ate inside because it is hot and humid outside.

We played Golf (the card game). We drank Cokes. Rian wore her new scarf on her head, my sunglasses and used my cane as a prop. She looked like the eunuchs in Duerenmatt's THE VISIT. That cane has power. Like in the power of the cane be with you.

Rian is in Vienna

2010-07-06T06:34:00.000-07:00

She's jet lagged and tired, but she made it. She's eaten and had a diet Coke and a shower, so she's recovering. Hurrah for Rian!

Happy 4th of July

2010-07-04T15:48:00.000-07:00

I wish Murgatroyd had been here for our 4th of July party held after church in our apartment. The fifteen BYU females wore bright red lipstick to celebrate the day and sang and acted out songs from HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL.

Murgatroyd could have rocked it tonight.

They sang all the patriotic songs from that elementary school program that my boys sang years ago, ending with THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND; THIS LAND IS MY LAND, FROM CALIFORNIA TO THE NEW YORK ISLANDS.

We ate McDonald hamburgers (a half block away). What can be more American than that? Frankly, they tasted delicious. The kids brought treats. I made tons of ice over the last few days, because they miss ice. They miss air conditioning and clothes dryers.

We played Charades and that electronic game that you pass while the clock ticks and you have to describe the words that come up? My synapses aren't making connections I can't think of what that game is called. We've played it with family. Does it start with an "O"?

Tell me what the name of that game is!

Fireworks exploded from our our mouths and then we exclaimed at the ones we loved: AAAH and OOOH that was a good one, look up at the sky. It's been a lot of pretending today.

I asked Tom to find a flag store, but that didn't happen. So he called The American Embassy and they had them for us, paper ones, large enough to hang in the windows and little ones perfect for our Vienna travel journals. These are coming up as works of art. I'm keeping one too, and frankly find it difficult to keep a written journal and a blog at the same time. Have never been good at multi-tasking. The students are ALIVE and PASSIONATE and they make me happy.

We sang no American patriotic hymns at church, but I suspect that's because our English speaking ward members come from Ghana, the Phillipines , Nigeria, Australia and Korea. Americans are just a small part of the community

Tom and I ran into the Gay Pride Parade yesterday, and we without our cameras. The cross dressing was the most entertaining: guys in red high heels and black skivvies and capes pulling other guys in leather collars and leather shorts. I liked the ones who looked like women with huge wigs and purses and petticoats. The parade ended at the Ratshaus where the big Wien Fest is being held this month. Large screen productions of operas every night and lots of eating tents.

We went home and watched Law and Order on Channel 131.com without advertising. It was heavenly. And very American.

Healthy Feet

2010-07-03T02:53:00.000-07:00

I now regret that I ever asked for information about the Healthy Feet Store, because I am receiving daily emails from them. I don't want or need to know about how to get rid of stinky feet. Foot odor has never been a problem.

Bone spurs, ankle replacement, nails holding this and that in place. I would be better off subscribing to an orthopedic journal.

My brother had ridiculously smelly feet and he was meticulous about caring for them with talcums, soda, sock deodorizers, showering several times a day. His feet still smelled.

I also receive daily emails from Kathleen Peddicord advising me on how I can live abroad on a thousand dollars a month. I receive emails from Bert somebody who is going to tell me the secret of happiness. Did I actually invite Bert into my life? I already know the secret of happiness: do your work and drink lots of water. Or is that the secret to a long life?

The secret of happiness: deciding to be happy. I wonder if I could sell that.

Summer Reading

2010-06-29T08:04:00.000-07:00

If you can’t stomach graphic violence, this trilogy by the Swedish writer Stieg Larrson is not for you, but I couldn’t put it down.

THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET’S NEST

In that order.

Two Harlan Coben novels:

FADE AWAY

CAUGHT

Any mystery by P.D. James. I read THE LIGHTHOUSE this month.

Colin Dexter’s THE REMORSEFUL DAY. This is the last of the Inspector Morse novels. Exquisitely written. I’m going to read more Colin Dexter.

THE GUERNSEY LITERARY AND POTATO PEEL PIE SOCIETY by Mary Ann Shaffer. Enjoyable but not as good as Larrson, James or Dexter.

THE DARK TIDE by Andrew Gross and THE DAFFODIL MYSTERY by Edgar Wallace, because I got them free from Amazon Kindle. The last one is terribly old fashioned and not highly recommended, and I can’t remember anything about the other one.

PRIVATE JUSTICE by Terri Blackstock. Don’t remember. Could probably read it again.

Other books I read this summer, not mysteries:

THE LAKE SHORE LIMITED by Sue Miller (She never lets me down).

THE THREE WEISSMANNS OF WESTPORT by Cathleen Schine A contemporary comic novel. Well done.

SECOND HONEYMOON by Joanna Trollope and also by her, THE OTHER FAMILY

THE FORSYTE SAGA –complete (three books) by John Galsworthy. Loved it.

PASCAL’S PENSEES by Blaise Pascal Inspiring.

HOW TO RETIRE OVERSEAS by Kathleen Peddicord. Cuenca, Ecuador is it.

I have the same terrible reading habits that I’ve always had: once I get started, I can’t put it down. I try to space them a little, so that Tom sees the whites of my eyes occasionally.

P.S. I love love love my Kindle.

The Fiat 500

2010-06-24T14:30:00.000-07:00

I see this car everywhere and I want one. They are coming to the U.S. in early 2011. We owned a Fiat station wagon once. Picked it up at the factory in Milan, paid for it, and it wouldn't start. We called it The Citrona the four months we owned it. Our two toddlers slept in the back while Tom and I camped in a blue pup tent in gravelled campgrounds. The best camp was above Florence. At night, we walked around envying the Germans and their nifty trailers with the white bedding turned down at one corner. Then we would return to our pup tent, put on the Knorr soup, butter the brown bread and have dinner.

I read that Fiat has improved! (I'm a sucker for tiny cars.) I love the chrome line running through the logo.

I suppose it is human to want stuff. I was hoping I'd get over that. I have too much stuff as it is. Sometimes, I want to blow my stuff up.

And start with new stuff.

Pascal would say that was a distraction from having to think about our own deaths. Mostly, I've been reading mysteries, but I got Pascal's Pensees in there.

Reading mysteries is also a distraction from thinking about death. And watching The Black Adder on the BBC. And riding the tram through the second bezirk as we did today. Eating ice cream in Schwedenplatz. Dancing in your underwear.

Sarah's happy place

2010-06-21T04:39:00.001-07:00

Hallstatter See

We ask the waiter in the restaurant who owned the castle across the lake. It was Herr Handel.

"And what does Herr Handel do for a living?" Tom asked.

"He sells pork," the waiter said. "Lots of pork."

Indeed.

It's the first day of summer and it is raining in Vienna. After a few days of roaring heat, I like the rain better. Sam and Sarah have come and gone. I miss them.

Tom is off buying a Polaroid printer. It prints digital photos right from your camera , 2 x 3 inches. Perfect for little scrapbooks. I was going to go with him, but then just before we left, I said, "Now you know where this place is?"

"I think so, " he said.

I've been using a cane for a couple of weeks and "I think so" isn't good enough. Crippled people don't like "looking for a place" on foot. I'm not complaining. I'm just saying.

Lazing around in the alps

2010-06-13T04:26:00.000-07:00

This is my idea of a perfect vacation day: still in my pajamas late morning, reading a good novel, and glimpsing up at the alps when it suits me. Others are out earnestly hiking about. Not me. In another world I was a cat sitting in my own square of sunshine. Purrrr.

Tom's yearly hat fiasco.

2010-06-09T08:58:00.000-07:00

Tom needed a hat to cover his balding skull now that the sun is shining in all its glory. I think he meant to copy Sam's British Pub-style hat, but he missed the mark slightly and instead bought a J.Lo hat. Or a Beyonce hat. Or Thomas the Train. Or one of those boys from newsies. It's surprising what a difference a couple of inches makes.

There is no photo. He refuses to be photographed. And I think he will not wear that hat again. It will go the way of the of the Jonas Brothers cap of last summer

Wecome to Salzburg

2010-06-06T02:40:00.000-07:00

"Hello, my name is HORST, and I will be your guide in Salzburg for two and a half hours in the pouring rain. I will lead you through puddles the size of lakes and destroy any illusions you might have had about the story from The Sound of Music. Mozart was born here and grew up here. This restaurant has been here since 803. We have the largest, coolest music festival with the most talented musicians in the world. They play in this palace and here and here. This was built to accommodate a larger audience. Salzburg is the most cultured, hippest, oldest, goldest place in the wide world, you dumb little tourist turds."

The bull scores

2010-05-29T15:26:00.000-07:00

Did you see this in the news? The bull's horn enters under the matador's chin and comes out of his mouth. The matador is in critical condition. The bull was killed.

It's not a Ferdinand story.

The Monastery at Melk

2010-05-23T11:53:00.000-07:00

I am walking across the ballroom at the Monastery at Melk. You can imagine all the monks waltzing with each other in their dark robes: "No I want to take the male position this time; I was the female last time." Monk spats.

Actually, the Monastery at Melk hosted the royalty of Europe. The Empress Maria Theresa had had her own room and rooms for all her entourage. The cathedral is one of my all time favorites. I wanted to fall to my knees and praise God. Not many places have that effect on me.

The last time we were here, Sue Howe married us at the alter. She faced us and said to me, "Do you?" and I said, "I do." Then she turned to Tom and said, "Do you?" and he said "I do." She then pronounced us husband and wife. A tasteful and short ceremony.

We are still married.

They're here!

2010-05-21T15:22:00.000-07:00

Charles, Erica and Anne arrived this week. We hadn't seen Anne for nine months and she has become--what? A raving beauty? Highly competent in German? Independent? Grown up?

All of the above.

I feel like the soppy Tevye in "Fiddler on the Roof." I may break into warbling "Sunrise, Sunset, quickly go the days . . ." at any moment and break into choking sobs at the quick passage of time. I may flail my limbs and weep.

Tick tock tick tock tick tock tick tock. You're dead!

Or I may enjoy watching her happen for as long as possible and count my blessings that I got to be a part of her life and she of mine.

Or I could eat a cookie.

Aging in Vienna

2010-05-17T06:07:00.000-07:00

We needed a headshot for a Segullah interview and came up with this. As usual, we are dressed exactly alike, blue and khaki. I wish my collar covered my sagging, wrinkled neck as well as Tom's covers his, but "Oh vel."

This might be the time to mention that Tom and I are shrinking at the same rate, which means I'm shrinking faster, because I'm younger than he is. We have both lost an inch and a half over the last decade. My ankle surgery may have put me on speed shrink, since one leg is now an inch shorter than the other, but I try to stand on the tall leg when Dr. Westermann's nurse, Laura, measures me. Frankly, I think Laura is reading the measurement from her low height--she is shorter than we are--and is getting it WRONG. Or she might have height envy. Some people do.

Sam, my youngest son, said she miss measured him by inches. He claims to be six foot, two inches. She said he was five, eleven or something. See, I think Laura has issues. Not me. Not Tom. Not Sam. LAURA HAS ISSUES.

I haven't been five, eight since seventh grade.

I hope I'm not moving backwards. That would mean I'd have to eat at Chuckie Cheeses again.

And go to the Golden Green Ball at age 12 with Link Bailey and dance in one large circle with my elbow folded in awkwardly on his shoulder, mashing my corsage. Junior Gold and Green Ball for ages 12 and 13. We danced cheek to cheek in 1954.

I must be standing on my short leg in the photo. Look How much shorter than Tom I am. I should only be a half inch shorter than he.

My gosh, I'm melting. I'm melting!

This evening's walk

2010-05-14T12:07:00.000-07:00

WE walked from our apartment down the Porzellangasse this evening to the Palais Liechtenstein, which has this lovely statue in the midst of a pond. The water runs from her jar at this angle, but in the back, the water comes out of a fish's mouth. The park surrounding the palace has giant old sycamore and blooming chestnut trees. There are two songbirds that hang out in the sycamores with the most musical, but distinct songs. I have no idea what they are. Not robins. I want one of them to be a lark. Remember, "Greet the day with a song"? I can't see them. I may have to get some binoculars.

A duck and six tiny ducklings swam by. Why are all babies so attractive?

Six little ducklings swimming in a pond,

Five were brown and one was blonde.

Oh excuse me, for a second I thought I was Rick Walton.

If I WERE Rick Walton, I'd have that published by five in the afternoon tomorrow.

I may be eating a leetle too much chocolate.

Shopping The Billa

2010-05-11T04:19:00.000-07:00

I don't like grocery shopping at home, but I could hardly breathe at the BILLA down the street. First of all, mayonnaise comes in a tube like toothpaste. I pick up that tube and think, doesn't anyone here eat potato salad? Milk comes in one litre boxes and is whole milk. Butter comes in a square. What part of a pound is a square? Bread is uncut. I haven't really seen a classic loaf of bread. It is all rounded, covered with pumpkin seed or some other nut or seed. White bread is twisted into odd shapes. No packaged "grated" cheese. I bought some cheddar for a recipe. It must be like a fourth of a pounds. More leeks than onions.

"People shop every day. They don't store up for three weeks like Americans do," Tom tells me.

I like that, actually. I don't plan well for more than one day at a time, anyway. The store is just down the street, a three minute walk. I can adjust to the small packaging of flour, sugar, almost everything. Its like buying a cup at a time. It's like living in Miniature Land.

In America, they're always trying to sell you more than you need. Packaged hamburger, for example is always a little more than a pound, never less.

I can get used to this.

I'm in Vienna

2010-05-05T11:26:00.001-07:00

I look shorter in Vienna. I guess it's because the door is about ten feet high.To read about my first day, please go to theapronstage.com where you will see this same photo but different text.

Where is the dog, Alice?

I held her head under water in the toilet for just a minute until the bup bup bup of her tiny heart stopped.

Just kidding. It's much easier to describe killing a dog than it actually is to kill one.

She's at my sister Judy's house until mid-June. Then the Bowmans from Oregon are staying in our house and will take care of her.

I forgot about the toilets here--like platters--on display. Very satisfying.

We are sitting in bed just as if we were home.

We will see the granddaughter--the vivacious Anne--in a couple of weeks. She will come with parents.

So you know how I bought a Kindle for the trip? Well, I discovered in the airport that it needed to be recharged. So I bought a P.D. James novel and read a REAL book.

I am cleaning. I know how.

2010-04-28T11:50:00.000-07:00

Tom and I are leaving for Vienna on Monday, so now we're down to the last hours cleaning our house for the people who are coming to stay for two of those months. We take breaks with Ms. Pacman and get back to it. I like the smell of cleaning agents.

I'm wearing my back brace, because the last thing I need is for my back to go out. I think Alice knows something is up. She follows us around looking nervous.

And a nervous wind blows outside. Last night I thought the house might blow away with us in it.

I've always been afraid of being blown away, or being invisible to others. That's why I continue the chatter.

I wear red rubber gloves for the bathrooms. In a minute I will have some of the broccoli soup I made yesterday.

A week from today I'll be in Vienna. Yippee Skippy.

Phone Calls from offspring

2010-04-25T23:17:00.000-07:00

How I know which of my four sons is calling me on the phone:

Jonathan: "Hi Mom, it's me, Jonathan." He always identifies himself as if I might not recognize him from the 5 million people I know.

Ed: "MOTHER!"

Charles: "Helloooo." Very musical.

Sam: "Hi. What are you doing?" He speaks slowly. "Get on your computer to Utah Real Estate. I want you to see this house."

West of I-15. Like way west of I-15.

2010-04-23T21:48:00.000-07:00

I miss the real estate bubble. Most of my married life we've made extra money by buying and selling houses. We've moved about like gypsies in the wind. I actually cleaned out cupboards last week, because I thought, I'm not moving anytime soon; guess I'd better do some spring cleaning.

If I have to be stuck in a house, then this is not a bad house to be stuck in. It's new construction and has granite and stainless steel in the kitchen, which I would not bother updating in another, older house. It has a usable front porch. The neighborhood has a lake and a pool and parks and other good stuff.

I like my ward. I like "my temple." I like being close to Charles and Erica and their kids. I like when Harrison brings Curtis by.

The downer is this: I almost vomit when I have to write on a form that I live in South Jordan. I like everything about my neighborhood except that it's in South Jordan. I've never in my life known anyone who lived in South Jordan. Now I know hundreds of people who live in South Jordan.

It's like a hair short of living in Bluffdale next to the penitentiary. Excuse me, people who live in Bluffdale.

And then there's this. I'm happy here. I'm happy HERE IN SOUTH JORDAN! How can this be? Am I working toward some kind of maturity?

I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Lucy

2010-04-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

Dear Lucy,

Where are you and what are you doing? Happy sixth Birthday! Does that even mean anything in your timeless world?

Your parents hosted a huge birthday party in your honor today. It was an indoor picnic in the 27th Ward building on P Street. It's the ward where your funeral was held. You wore a white dress that Grandma Sharon made, and your coffin was white, the size of a picnic basket. Are you still wearing that dress?

Many of your aunts, uncles and cousins, along with friends were there to remember you. I saw your youngest brother, Louis, his face smeared with frosting from eating one of the ladybug cupcakes. Elliot sat at the children's activity table where there were ladybug stickers and colored paper. We associate you with ladybugs. Lucy Ladybug. I think Pop-pop found that verse about Lucy Ladybug. We see ladybugs and we think of you.

The twelve-minute slide show of your life was mesmerizing and painful. Those short four months and your subsequent death, cracked our universe. You were courageous, Lucy. I think of you as determined--a fighter against all odds. Courageous.

After the slide show, your dad stood on the edge of the stage and held a ladybug pinata from the end of a rod while the kids swung at it with a bat until it split open and the candy fell onto the floor. One of your cousins used her skirt as a bag for the candy she picked up. In this world, we're all crazy about sugar. We ate sandwiches and potato salad and fruit too.

Later, we walked outside into the sunshine, crossed the street to the cemetery, to your grave site, which was decorated with flowers and little pots of pansies that your mother handed out as favors. Your parents opened up the packets of live ladybugs onto the marble bench with your name inscribed in it, and we gathered them onto our hands and let them crawl up and down our arms. One disappeared under my sleeve.

I'm missing you, Lucy. I'm missing you.

Love,

Grandma P.

P.S. Your Aunt Marcia stole ugly plastic salad spoons from the church.

Watching it yet again . . .

2010-04-10T23:08:00.000-07:00

Tom and I watched AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER on the computer tonight in our beddy. We see it every year or so, although we hardly ever watch the whole movie. After Deborah Kerr's character, Terry McKay, is hit by a car on her way to meet Cary Grant's character, Nicky Ferranti, at the top of the Empire State Building, we fast forward to the first night she sees him again at the ballet, then to the end. We skip all the sentimental hospital and kid scenes. I mean, let's face it, the movie is completely neurotic after the accident. She doesn't want him to know that she can't walk? Puleeze. If she's not walking a year after the accident, she's not going to walk, period. Still, I enjoy watching the last scene as much as I did in junior high even though it's completely implausible.

The charm of the movie is it's two beautiful, graceful stars and the script's irony, despite the emotional manipulation. Then there's the song sung by Vic Damone. Love that song. Even better when it's sung by Nat King Cole. And that opening scene of Central Park in the snow! And the Empire State Building! Maybe it was this movie that made me a sucker for New York City.

No, it started with those Rock Hudson/Doris Day movies. I'm thinking of PILLOW TALK. NYC is one of the finest film characters ever.

Easter Egg Hunt 2010

2010-04-07T10:14:00.000-07:00

I began to write about Easter yesterday but got distracted with royalty, which reminds me, my oldest granddaughter had a boyfriend who looked exactly, I mean exactly, like Prince William.

Only cuter. Sigh. I miss her while she is off having her glam life in Europe, speaking Deutsch like a native.

Sam and Sarah organized the Easter egg hunt outside. They were hidden in trees, on top of cars and some were munificently lying atop the lawn as if they had just sprouted.

From top to bottom: Murgatroyd, Louis, Elliot and Louis, Max, and finally, Harrison, who is reading Ovid's Metamorphoses "for fun." Do I love that or do I love that? Ovid for fun. Yes!

He's a complete nerd just like his father and grandfather and pretty much all his relatives. I adore him. And guess what? Girls swarm him. Girls are smarter than they used to be.

I wish I knew how to make titles for each photograph but that is out of my tech range.

I finally made it to 20,000 in Ms. Pacman. I hope they have that game in heaven.

Easter 2010

2010-04-05T16:55:00.000-07:00

Sarah brought hats and silk flowers on Saturday night, so while the men were at Priesthood meeting, we made Easter hats. A glue gun is a powerful tool. I wanted to look as much like Camilla Parker-Bowles as I could. Second to Mamie Eisenhower, she is my ideal fashion icon. Both Camilla and Mamie are such non-threatening couture queens. Mamie, because she's dead, and Camilla because she isn't very pretty with that scrunched up face and pointy teeth.

I understand she loved Prince Charles a long time before she married him. They spent some time making shameful phone calls with tawdry conversations and delighted in adulterating each other.

Is that anything like having your lawn aereated? I don't know.

I'm glad I have my hat; it makes me feel like royalty. So posh.

Bird by Bird

2010-04-02T20:06:00.000-07:00

"So today I read several chapters of Anne Lamott's book on "writing and life," (after I wrote me some more novel), because I am teaching an advanced writing class to our study abroad students this spring and summer in Vienna, and I ordered this book as one of the texts.

What is with the long sentence?

Anyway, I read the introduction, then chapter one and chapter two, when I remembered a rule I learned when I was still teaching but I have since forgotten: you should read the text BEFORE you have your students order the book. One f-word and a chapter named "Sh--ty First Drafts." Not that those descriptions aren't accurate, because certainly first drafts are sh--ty every single time. It's I forget the world and its writers aren't as squeaky clean as I imagine the religious school I represent would like it to be.

Most students know this, of course, but occasionally you'll get a student who is easily offended and will relay this private offense to you, but usually not. Usually they tell some all powerful clergyman. I don't need this in my life.

But I do need Vienna. So, on the first day of class I will apologize for not reading before ordering, although I've read several more chapters and haven't seen more foul words.

Really, Anne Lamott is funny, wise and experienced. And she believes in Jesus. There aren't that many writers you can say that about anymore.

I made a good choice.

Writing Day 1

2010-03-30T23:15:00.000-07:00

Today, I had to clean up my study from an art project, so that I could write. I need two studies.

One for art projects, which are generally messy, and one for writing, which can be emotionally messy, but generally not messy messy.

I have not joined the writing marathons that have enjoyed popularity this month: the thousand words a day (4 pages) nor the weekend marathon. But I have decided to spend a few weeks writing every day for a couple of hours including weekends. I don't like to make page goals. It makes me anxious. It is good enough to sit at a clean desk every day doing something, anything, with a novel.

Today, I made notes on where I was going and started going there. I read what I had written aloud to Tom and it was like God said when he created the world: it was good. I am feeling more hopeful about writing, a feeling I haven't had in two and a half years. I felt so hopeful today, in fact, that I set a goal for finishing it. I never do that unless I'm sure I can make it. I don't like to set myself up for failure.

I hate failure.

Sometimes I'm not all that great with success either. So there you go.

Drey jar

2010-03-28T19:52:00.001-07:00

This afternoon I drank my water from a Drey jar while eating chocolate chips straight from the bag. Perfect.

Alice

2010-03-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

Since Tom got his new Nikon, he's been posting a picture a day and this one of our dog, Alice, is one of my favorites. See the rubber toy? We are supposed to throw that thing across the room ad infinitum, and if we don't, she whines like the annoying little dog that she is.

Don't tell anyone, but I feel most protective about Alice. More than any of the dogs we've had. It may be because my children despise her. It may be those perky ears and that perfectly proportioned four-pound body. It may be that she loves me and wants to French kiss me every moment of the day. Ech.

The only real tension in our house is between Tom and Alice. Alice yaps and Tom yaps back louder. "Why do you want a dog if you don't want the dog to be what she is?" This is my question. I would never go out and buy a dog. It wouldn't even occur to me. But when we are without canine, Tom begins shopping and then says the curdling, "Let's go have a look at these Yorkies," which is, yea verily, the same as "Let's go spend several hundred dollars on a Yorkie."

Then for the next fifteen years, he and the dog bark at each other.

I imagine I will miss this interaction some day.

Plum House

2010-03-21T21:11:00.000-07:00

Every once in awhile a house goes up in a color I love. This dark plum makes me happy. I think it would be great to be a Plummer and live in a plum-colored house. (It's like I'm still in third grade).

We had a grand time at the Cannon wedding last night which was like old home week at the 27th Ward. It was held in the Sky Room at BYU which looks out to mountains from every window, including the one with our old house on it. So it was old home week for Provo as well.

I felt nostalgic and grateful for beloved friends and places. (This prose is sounding like a bad Christmas letter).

I started a new P.D. James novel today. It's a rest from Dostoevsky who'll I'll take up again when I'm done with this one.

On the writing front, I'm outlining my book, because I'm lost, and I'm not writing another scene until I know where it's going. I did some drawing this week. I like playing with my colored pencils and ink. Really, I'm too happy to write. Happiness doesn't make for good writing.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

2010-03-18T08:50:00.000-07:00

Oh, how I love you Fyodor. I'm thinking of framing your picture and hanging it above my desk. I haven't paraded an author above my desk since Earnest Hemingway in 1961. You know the one. You out write him, Fyodor. He's good, but you're a genius. The things you know about human character, religion, philosophy, history, demons--you had demons, didn't you? Demons and epilepsy. The Brothers Karamazov took three weeks to finish. It was like being my teenage self sopping up a long novel like toast and honey. I read Crime and Punishment last summer. I'm going to read every novel you've written. But first I'm taking a break with P.D. James. Then I'll return to you, my love.

Game up!

2010-03-16T10:43:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged since Ms Pacman entered our house a couple of weeks ago. My addictions take many forms, but Ms Pacman may be one of the more insidious ones.

I first became addicted to Ms Pacman the week of a summer writing class in Quadna Resort and Conference Center in Minnesota under the tutelage of Marian Dane Bauer. We workshopped all day, but after dinner we gathered in the game room and played the newly developed Ms Pacman, our pockets loaded with quarters. This was 1982, the summer before I turned 40 and Magnum P.I had just finished its first season. I loved Ms Pacman and I loved Tom Selleck and I loved the idea of becoming a writer. Marian Dane Bauer took me out to lunch to tell me that I had what it took. One of the best days of my life.

We bought Ms Pacman for our Coleco set and I stayed up into the wee hours of the night trying to clear boards so I wouldn't be shamed in front of my sons.

Then all of it disappeared for a few decades and now I have a Wii and at Christmas I found out that one could still get Ms Pacman and so we bought one. But it took us months to get the other necessary accouterments to get the game up and running.

You may be interested to know that playing Ms Pacman is not like riding a bike. Don't use it and lose it. But it's coming back. I have a blister on my left thumb. I have cleared the second board. Right now it's hard to imagine ever seeing the third and fourth boards.

I do other things. Really I do. There's temple work, church, institute class, writer's group, cleaning up, finishing THE BROTHERS KARAMAZOV.

I'm so busy.

Max's piano recital

2010-03-03T11:19:00.000-08:00

Max and his piano, teacher, Betsy, are two of my favorite people on earth. So it was wonderful to be invited to his piano recital last Friday night. Tom and I were early so we could sit on a sofa. Old people think about these things.

Betsy's twenty-one students played crisply and clearly and had been taught to bow before and after playing without breaking into sniggers. So not only has she taught them to play piano, she has taught them poise.

I kept a pleasant smile plastered on my face during the whole evening, realizing almost immediately that a recital is NOT a concert. A recital is full of glitches, second starts and sighing, and then continuing despite breakdowns. This creates a morbid tension in the listening audience who is invested in these children playing well.

Max played "The Gray Donkey" and "Splashing in the Brook."

A genius.

Dark room stuff--gone

2010-02-26T10:35:00.000-08:00

Our garage is stacked with "stuff" that we don't seem to be able to let go of. So yesterday was a big big day, because Tom gave away all of his dark room equipment to a student, a photographer.

Our "stuff" lies heavy on me. I picture our children cursing us when we're dead and gone and they have to do the clean up.

So I did a little lightness of being dance on my tippy toes when I saw it all disappear. I twirled.

It's snowing

2010-02-24T23:17:00.000-08:00

Tom has his new three million dollar camera. The good thing is that I can get him to take any picture anytime. Like it was after midnight when I noticed it was snowing, and I said, "You need to take a picture of that," and out he went. He took it without a flash. It is a pretty cool camera.

I was not going to stay up past midnight, but here I am again. Today was day one of organizing my pantry and listening to the Brothers Karamazov, which is fine entertainment. I figure I'll be done about when that book ends.

Everything is beautiful at the ballet

2010-02-20T21:49:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, I saw Ballet West's production of Swan Lake. I went with high expectations and was not disappointed. I loved the prologue that shows how Odette was cursed. Her captured sister swan dancers rise out of the mist on stage, arms and hands fluttering like wings. I don't think I've ever seen the corps so precise and so bird-like.

I hate a stumbling corps of dancing swans. I needn't have worried.

There were other stumbles in the afternoon that had nothing to do with the production. I arrived at "Will Call" where they didn't have my ticket. I pulled out my internet copy that Tom had printed for me, and the woman in the booth, said, "Oh, your ticket is for this evening at 7:30."

No!

The woman huffed and puffed with her superior who gave me a new ticket in box F, seat number 4 where I was cut off from one third of the left side of the stage and could see back stage on the right, including bare light bulbs. I could also see the heads of the orchestra members.

My original seat had a full view of the stage and was well above the orchestra pit.

Grumpy, grumpy, grumpy. Really grumpy.

And yet the production was so beautiful, the two-thirds of it I could see. It took me twenty minutes to decide that two-thirds was better than not seeing it at all, and that I could ignore the action back stage and the orchestra pit.

It was a good decision.

Strangely, the one aspect of the production I didn't like was the circular projection on the back wall of the stage of Prince Siegfried and Odette united in heaven at the end. Please. They martyr themselves to save others. We cry. That's why we go to Swan Lake--to see beautiful lovers parted in death--so we can cry our eyes out at the loss.

A resurrection in Swan Lake? A happy ending? That's just wrong.

For Ann

2010-02-10T21:27:00.000-08:00

5 Things you can do with only a left hand:

1. Play Ravel's Piano Concerto for the Left Hand in D major (Concerto pour la main gauche en re' majeur).

2. Practice toilet hygiene the way Muslim, Hindu and South East Asian People do.

3. Eat like the Europeans with the fork in the left hand.

4. Reach out with that one hand and pray that you can reach others for Jesus.

5. Take a road trip to Left Hand, West Virginia, just up the highway from Looney Road, and have your photo taken with the left hand shaped as West Virginia. Hold your left hand in front of you side ways, palm facing you, thumb pointed up and extend middle finger.

Dreaming about art

2010-02-06T17:30:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking of art projects. One I found on Apartment Therapy where the guy had made modern art with paint chips he had gathered from various paint stores. Very cool. And I have a hankering to buy different colors of India Ink and try some faces on squared paper.

Don't you love the name India Ink?

And I still haven't dropped the idea of running a thick black line through the middle of my novel. It's not original, but I don't think it's been done with YA. As I write, I'm finding more justification for doing it. It would be meant to be read across the top for a chapter and then across the bottom. Near the end, when all actions and people come together at a wedding, the line would stop.

It would probably irritate readers, but I'm not your momma.

Colors and lines and print and head drawings and novels are all engaging me right now. Not bad for February.

And as long as we're on the subject . . .

2010-02-03T22:20:00.000-08:00

If there's a person with the longest fingernails, then it stands to reason that there is also a person with the longest toenails. I assume it is not the same person. Look at all those trophies in the background. What do you think they're for?

The visuals for Ann Cannon's blog:

2010-02-02T00:03:00.000-08:00

Ann wrote about this woman who grew her nails out for the Guinness Book of World Records. The idea made my skin crawl. Tonight I googled the nail lady and here she is in all her micabre glory. Even if I did absolutely nothing, I don't think I could grow my nails like this. They look like horns protruding from her fingers. Finger horns.

Happy Birthday, Erica!

2010-01-28T07:45:00.000-08:00

It's Erica's birthday; ring out wild bells! I have known her for twenty birthdays, and my life has been better for knowing her. She is an artist, musician, writer, runner, swimmer, camper, decorator, gardner--and oh yes--wife and mother, daughter and sister, and aunt.

Okay, I can't stop the listing. It's like counting for writers.

Anyway, Happy Birthday, Erica. I hope your day is filled with cake and flowers, friends and family and everything else your heart desires.

Strike up the marching band!

Lamb's Grill Cafe

2010-01-26T20:23:00.000-08:00

This restaurant has stood on Main Street for 90 years now, but I've not gone there much. Always thought it was for old geezers. So we went last Friday with friends (old geezers) and I had their rice pudding with whipped cream and cinnamon. Holy cow is that good. On Monday, I said to Tom, "I think we need some of that rice pudding," and we drove in and had it again. I'm thinking I may need some tomorrow as well. Rice pudding. Who knew?

The Buddy Holly look

2010-01-21T16:11:00.000-08:00

The best part of seeing AVATAR last night was the cool 3D glasses that I brought home with me. They're so much better than the old folded plastic ones we used to get. These actually have frames. Of course, they charged us an extra $2.50 a piece. Believe me, these didn't cost anywhere near two and a half bucks to make, but hey, this is America, land of the 500% profit.

I'm not a big fantasy lover and didn't really care about seeing AVATAR, but I'm a fool for 3D movies. I'm a big kid in the theater, gawping and exclaiming, "ooh and aaah" while moving my head from side to side to miss those bullets zinging at me.

The movie was thoroughly entertaining and creative, and three hours zipped by. I had to pee the last hour, but didn't want to miss anything.

Change of subject: Tom just yelled at me, because I ate the remainder of his chocolate Rittersport with Hazelnut candy bar. It's 5:30 in the afternoon and I ate it first thing this morning. He hasn't missed it until now? Hasn't he been married to me long enough to know that he can't trust me to save his piece of chocolate when he leaves it sitting out in the open on the kitchen countertop? Hasn't he learned anything at all?

Playing Scrabble

2010-01-19T13:43:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, Tom and I realized that we were living parallel lives in the same house, in the same living room, in the same bed, grunting to each other when necessary but not really connecting in any serious way. We'd taken the marriage for granted and plugged into our individual computers, watching our individual movies. Just two old people waiting for death to scrape us off the sidewalk and dump us in a can.

The good thing about The Tom and Louise Show is that we dislike boredom of any kind and we especially don't like boring marriages, especially if it's ours.

So we've taken up playing Scrabble again. It's not quite the same as deciding to move to Buenos Aires or Cuente, Ecuador, but believe me, there are downsides to picking up and taking off. We've done it more than once.

We are competitive Scrabble players and well-matched. Often the difference between winner and loser is a couple of points. This week, though, has been a week of extremes. He beat me big time, crushed me by almost a hundred points yesterday.

Today, I pushed back and won by the same amount. Victory. I like winning more than losing and so does he. We expect to do an even amount of each. We are lazy about looking up questionable words. We do it after the game is over. Jinn is a an islamic ghost or devil. (I learned this from reading Turkish novels). Jen has something to do with Confuscious. I put down jen thinking it was an islamic ghost, and was happy to find that I'd spelled it wrong but it was a viable word anyway.

Word games don't work for everyone, but Scrabble makes our day.

Glue gunning

2010-01-14T15:51:00.001-08:00

Yesterday, I used a glue gun for the first time in my life. I was down in Chantel's basement scrap-booking room with Erica and the ever yummy Murgatroyd, who was allowed to stay home from school.

Yes, I am making a scrapbook. I am cutting and pasting and choosing colors and buttons and learning how to stress the paper. It was like being in 4th grade art class, and I loved 4th grade art class. Chantel has more art supplies than any fourth grade teacher and three work spaces. It was a perfect way to spend a January afternoon.

Get this, Greg, Chantel's husband, made us a lunch of grilled salmon, steamed spinach and baked squash. It was practically a spa day.

"This is my first experience with a glue gun," I said to Chantel, holding the gun like it was a Glock 27.

"Where were you in the 80's ?" she asked.

"I was preparing to be a novelist," I said.

"Hoity toity!" Chantel rolled her eyes.

We listened to Billie Holiday.

It was the coolest afternoon.

Thank you, Chantel. Thanks for lunch, Greg. Thanks for introducing me to your friends, Erica. Thanks for the kisses, Murgatroyd.

Five more crows

2010-01-10T22:48:00.000-08:00

Don't you love these five crows? We always had crows waking us up on Prince Edward Island. They're loud, insistent birds. My parents were married in a house called "The Crow's Nest" in Holland. It was down the path from my grandparents' house. That's really what I wanted to name this blog--The Crow's Nest-- but the name was taken. Now "The Crow's Nest" is a small hotel. I want to spend a night there this summer.

So I broke down the writing resistance this past week and wrote some scenes and thought to myself: what can be better than work that lets you sit in your study at a desk? Everything I love doing can be done at a desk. I wore my magic multi-colored socks. Magic socks are the solution to most any problem.

I can see the Bingham Copper Mines and the Oquirrh Mountains from my study window I have a tiny bird cage with a canary in it hanging from my desk lamp. I have three wooden artist mannequins and the snow queen on my desk, along with a bright red stapler and matching alarm clock. I have water colors and acrylics and brushes and books and canvas bags from various cities. I have a black antique rotating GE fan. I keep my pens in a University of Minnesota mug. I have computer paper and art paper.

I allowed myself one Dr. Pepper while I wrote. I don't smoke. I would be a better writer if I smoked. One Dr. Pepper a day isn't going to kill me.

Ann Cannon is having a follow-up operation on her wrist today. Everyone say this aloud: Bless Ann. Shout it!

Make me cry

2010-01-06T08:22:00.000-08:00

According to the paper, the golf index today is zero. The quality of air is red alert, which means that if you have lung issues you need to stay indoors. You shouldn't drive your car if you can avoid it. It pollutes, don't ya know.

Nuts to that. Get out of the house. Play golf. Revolt. Stick your tongue out at that wet cement colored sky.

I have a blooming geranium in the kitchen. This is its second winter. I love that geranium.

I think I need my fiction writing group to do an intervention. They should come to my house, knock down the front door, shout profanities at me, and make me cry. Make me write a sentence. Somebody, make me write a sentence of fiction.

Save me from myself.

Did I say I've kept a geranium blooming for two years running?

Happy New Decade!

2010-01-04T11:07:00.000-08:00

I have been unplugged for a couple of weeks, mainly because I was out of town enjoying myself and also because I just need to be unplugged occasionally.

January and the new decade has come in like a lamb. I know that's a March metaphor, but I'm always expecting January in the form of a monstrous lion's jaw aimed at my face. That is not the case this year. I have even been so bold as to think resolutions, which I generally think of as the loser's path to disappointment and destruction.

But hey, it's a new decade and for me, I think, the last full decade. I don't expect to live to 2030. My resolutions are :

1. Write daily. Work on the novel , but also write about family.

2. Exercise daily

3. Eat more and more vegetables

4. Clean up after myself.

5. Love Tom.

6. Go outside every day, no matter what the weather. Walk out to the lake and around. Listen to birds.

7. Read the complete Old Testament. Read, read, read.

8. Enjoy new and old friends.

9. Make a collage. I keep thinking I will, but then I don't. This year I will.

10. Practice Ms. Pac Man on the Wii. Make Ed wait for his turn.

It's a small list. It's taken me forever to learn that getting up and starting again is not failure. It's life.

Upper west side special of the week

2009-12-14T15:37:00.000-08:00

If you know anything about me, you'll know that I'm on the internet every night looking for Manhattan real estate. The apartment above is one room, one closet and, as you can see a half-fridge and a cupboard badly nailed to the wall. The bathroom is out in the hall and is shared with several other people. This apartment is on West 88th Street between Central Park West and Columbus Ave. It's a thousand dollars a month.

West 88th and Central Park West is a fine address, but how much is one willing to sacrifice (if you're poor like me) to live at such a fine address? I have looked carefully at the photos and I figure this room is twice the width of the hallway that extends between my kitchen and the garage, and perhaps the same length. I'm guessing this room is six by ten. Barely six by ten.

I'm not sure a single bed fits across the width of this room like under that window, for example.

In fact, it looks like the room narrows down to the window, unless the window is much larger than it seems.

If I were renting this apartment, I would ask that they remove the fridge and the cupboard. They take up far too much space, and I would eat out and keep some fruit and crackers around.

That is if I could walk up and down the four stories of stairs. It's not an elevator building.

It IS sunny. If you stand in the window.

Festival of Trees

2009-12-04T00:00:00.001-08:00

You should all attend the Salt Lake City Festival of Trees and make your way to Aisle A where Sam and Sarah's tree is displayed. The tree honors Lucy Gladys who lived for four months in Primary Children's Hospital in 2004. Sarah has designed a new tree every year for six years and they have all been fabulous. This year may be my favorite ever. Mark Eaton bought it for his restaurant "Tuscany," where it will be displayed after this weekend.

They are holding Elliot and Louis, Lucy's younger brothers.

All donations from food sales, tickets, tree and wreathe sales go to Primary Children's Hospital. It's a great outing.

Murgatroyd and me

2009-12-02T11:17:00.000-08:00

Murgatroyd was bored last Friday and wanted to go to Grandma's house. She is seven. I was on my way out to buy a comfortable pair of shoes, so I took her with me. "Now where do YOU want to go?" I asked her after I'd gotten my shoes.

"Justice," she said. It's a teeny-bopper store. We walked in and everything was 40% off so I bought her a skanky black dress with rhinestones and silver flats.

"I'm glad I came over when you wanted to go shopping," she told me.

We walked to the car. Murgatroyd gets into the back seat, which always surprises me. She seems old enough to be able to sit next to me in the front seat.

I get in the passenger seat in the front.

Murgatroyd says, "Grandma, who's going to drive the car? Your spirit?"

Duh.

Later, Charles her father said, "I told her you're bored here and now you want to go over to Grandma's house to be bored there."

Murgatroyd heard this and said, "Grandma's never boring."

I'll use it for my epitaph.

Feeding ducks on Thanksgiving afternoon.

2009-11-27T14:14:00.000-08:00

The only way the day could have been better was to have a sleep-over. Next year!

Happy Thanksgiving, Everyone!

2009-11-26T08:16:00.000-08:00

I’m writing this from my kitchen island. I have boiled yams, made a pumpkin-chiffon pie and I’m about to cut up carrots for the Carrot Puffs that I hope will fool my youngest grandchildren into thinking they’re eating dessert. I will cut the ends off the string beans tonight. The table is set with china and silver and yellow flowers. (See the place tag above—Tom did his Photoshop magic with the one card I bought at Target). We bought a high chair for Louis, and a push button Elmo phone that talks back, and a yellow truck that also makes noise of some kind when you thump on it.

Most of my preparations have been for four-year old Elliot, who LOVES to watch movies, especially anything with Thomas the Train in it. So I made him a corner in the upstairs hall with colored pillows, one of them I embroidered with “Elliot’s Corner” on it. There’s a red IKEA table with a TV/VCR on it and a stool that I painted red and blue in case he doesn’t want to sit on the floor. There’s a yellow circle rug, and seven—count them—seven Thomas the Train DVDs.

Maybe, I’m over medicated.

Here’s a few things I’m thankful for this Thanksgiving in no particular order:

1. The boys, their wives, their kids. Who knew it would be so good?

2. Hot hot water whenever I want it.

3. Thank you, Lord, for helping me lose those fifty pounds and keeping them off.

4. Tom

5. Two working cars.

6. Saturdays in the temple

7. Virtual friends on the blogosphere

8. Anne’s German “parents,” Herbert and Josa, who love her like we do.

9. My writers’ group.

10. The anticipation of 10-days in NYC over the holidays.

So what are you thankful for today? And if something went terribly wrong, I’d really like to hear about that too. I love to hear about things going askew, like Rebecca’s horrible cranberry pear pie. Thanksgiving 2009. Sublime or something else?

Tom's Basil Squamous Cell Carcinoma

2009-11-17T12:54:00.000-08:00

This morning, Tom awoke and said, “Do I have something on my head?”

I bent reluctantly over him to have a look. I have no stomach for odd skin growths. There was a small, slightly discolored, slightly raised circle on the top of his head.

“You probably ought to have it checked,” I said, not all that alarmed.

About an hour later, the dermatologist’s office calls to say that Dr. Parkinson has two openings in a couple of hours. Do we want them? I don’t, but Tom goes.

Tom hadn’t phoned them. They called out of the blessed blue. I love that kind of sychronicity.

Later, Tom calls me on the cell, which identifies him as Basilio Filbert—we don’t know why—and tells me it was squamous—rhymes with pus. It’s the second most common skin cancer but is very fast growing, and he found it early.

When he gets home, he looks at Squamous Cell Carconomas on the internet. One old man has about a fourth of his head chopped out. One has a huge one on his anus. A woman has a large one on her vulva. Tom wants me to see all of these photographs, but I won’t have it. He holds up his laptop, “You should see this!”

“Get away from me,” I said.

Years ago, my father wanted to show everyone an MRI of his blocked colon.

“No thanks,” I said.

“No thanks,” said my sister.

“Uhh, no,” said my brother.

“I’d like to see it,” Tom said.

The two of them walked out of the room like guys heading for a beer.

Please note that I spared you an image.

Fiction writer at work--or not

2009-11-16T16:29:00.000-08:00

I am cynical of fiction writers who say they LOVE writing. Give me a break.

I love having written. I love having a new book arrive in the post. It hasn't happened often enough.

What I love even more is finding ways to avoid writing: a door needs to be painted today, the shower door needs LimeAway today; I need to file five years worth of paper today. I have a cold. I'm aging. I'm demented. So many reasons not to write.

But today, Monday, the beginning of a new week, I said I would write and exercise. Bonanza goals. And I did both and read a great deal of a Pat Barker Trilogy, REGENERATION, about World War I and the British poets who died in it. I did not make my bed, though.

Back to writing: I sat dutifully and comfortably on the sofa with my lap top and bled out a page of new writing. Then I looked up the definition of "besotted" on the Microsoft dictionary, and then in a moment of fiery self-destruction, I deleted the page I'd written instead of the dictionary page. I jumped up and flayed my limbs and repeated the s-word more times than you care to know.

I ate a Lindt dark chocolate ball.

I thought of that Hemingway novel, where a young writer and his wife travel through Europe staying in small hotels. The protagonist, unlike me, works at his novel every morning. The wife is lovely, young. He is "besotted" by her. It turns out she is also mentally ill and when the novel is almost finished she shreds up the manuscript in a fit of rage.

This is the good part. Hemingway has his writer-protagonist get up the next morning and start the same novel over again. That's what writers do, I remember thinking.

And that's what I did today. I sat down and rewrote the page. So I "have written" and I have "rewritten."

I'm feeling quite smug.

Break out the fireworks!

2009-11-12T08:45:00.000-08:00

Congratulations, Erica, on passing your MFA exam. Gloria, gloria,gloria. Hallelujah.

Let's eat something fattening soon.

After midnight

2009-11-07T23:18:00.000-08:00

I am awake after midnight. Tom has long ago fallen asleep and I am sitting in the dark taking pictures of myself. My bedside table lamp is now in the living room and the two flashlights in the bedside table drawer do not work. They worked when I put them in there, but now they don't work. So if THE earthquake happens tonight, we'll be stumbling around in the dark wishing we had been prepared. There are two large flashlights down in the pantry. I wonder if they work. I have matches and candles, canned pears, a bag of chocolate chips, several warm coats and a 55-gallon drum of water. That should get me through the weekend. I am so hungry. I'd like to go down and nuke myself one of those chocolate cakes in a cup and eat it with a large glass of milk. But I don't want to be fat.

We did not win the chili bake-off, even though it was the best damned chili ever.

Will we sleep in heaven?

Not me.

Happy Birthday, Dede

2009-11-05T08:32:00.000-08:00

Dede, I know this year's birthday cake isn't as fancy and complicated as last year's Cinderella cake, but those "busy bees" are hard to mold with arthritic fingers. It will arrive tomorrow. Happy Birthday, doll face.

Redecorating

2009-11-03T21:13:00.000-08:00

This weekend we sold the grand piano. The youngish couple who bought it live in Orem and they came up nine o' clock Saturday morning with the piano mover to pick it up. It left quite a hole in the living room. Even though Tom and I had to be in the temple ready to work at 11:10, I called Charles immediately, still wet from my bath, and told him to come over and help Tom move a sofa from the basement. We moved the demilune cabinet between the two windows, and the sofa where the cabinet had been. Now we have two white sofas facing each other.

I stole a second oriental carpet from Tom's study, a lamp from our bedroom, a small table from the upstairs hall, along with the old Remington typewriter. I bought a tree with huge elephant ear leaves, a new goldish brown barrel lamp shade from Pottery Barn and three pillows. I bought a white ottoman from Ikea and covered it with a red wool blanket and a crocheted tablecloth, so it doesn't look like like an Ikea ottoman.

I had a $500 budget to make changes and I did it with $400.

I am a damned genius.

Nothing, I mean nothing, gives me more energy than decorating a room.

Imperfect photos thanks to Photo Booth.

Bravo Speedo

2009-10-29T23:36:00.000-07:00

I’ve begun swimming again for exercise, for mental health. It’s hard to go when it’s cold outside. I hate the undressing, dressing, drying the hair, bundling up in a coat, stepping out into the parking lot. But I do like to move through water, feel my heart beating, hear the muffled pool noises, see the tiled blue line at the bottom of the pool, the iron rod of lane swimmers. I swim a mile: sixteen laps in a 50-meter pool.

I am still alive, I think. I am alive.

My bathing suit is an old black Speedo that is too big now and is pulling apart at the side seams. It’s the end of October, and I need a new bathing suit. I went shopping for one last week, and there were no swimsuits to be found. Winter coats had replaced them. So I went online to Lands End and looked through the dozens of suits they offer, all of them on sale now. I picked out a modest one-piece black and white number with a number 2-leg. I figure if you need a ruffle around the bottom of your swimming suit, you probably ought not to be wearing a swimming suit. Who is fooled by that ruffle?

The suit arrived today. It wasn’t quite what the online photo showed. It was black and white and GOLD. It was a modest gold line running through the pattern, but I don’t like gold threads running through my swimming suits. It smacks of tom-foolery, of Las Vegas costume. I’m sixty-seven. I’m no showgirl. Who is fooled by a gold thread?

I liked the rise of the number-2 leg. I liked the way it fit my behind.

I did not like the cleavage. I don’t like cleavage, period. Cleavage is pressed fat. Old women should not show cleavage. I tried pulling the suit up, but that didn’t work. The disgusting cleavage was still there.

I put the suit back in the box. I will return it. Actually, Tom will return it. There is something in my DNA that says “no return policy.”

Tonight, I looked up “Speedo for women” online. I want the “ultraback conservative" suit. It’s high in the front with the back cross straps. It’s a suit for serious swimmers. Thank you, Speedo.

Why didn’t I think to go there in the first place?

When I got out of the pool today, someone had taken my towel, and I had to dry myself with paper towels.

Echo

2009-10-28T09:40:00.000-07:00

Like Wordsworth searching his "mind's eye," I'm returning to a sunny day of a few weeks back when Tom and I spontaneously decided on a car trip to Echo to view Utah's oldest standing church (1870). It's made of handmade bricks, built by Protestants, not Mormons. Tom took camera and tripod, of course.

While he set up, I walked to the small cemetary adjacent to the church and read the names of dead children: Gilchrist children, Keys children, their parents outliving them by decades. Behind the cemetery, red cliffs gleamed gaudy in the sun. I walked back to the car and pulled a cheap aluminum folding chair out of the trunk and took it back to a spot of gravel in front of the cemetary. I sat with my back to the grave markers and looked out over a green meadow with four large trees, black cows and a broken gate. In the distance, a train chugged on by and blew its whistle.

I sat in the sunlight for more than an hour melting into that calm landscape, content, wanting nothing but to be where I was at that moment.

When Tom was finished with his shoot, I carried my chair back to the car and surveyed the house next door to the church where a man and a woman sat on the lawn talking. Under a tree, by the road, four old bentwood chairs were arranged in a neat row. Was it sculpture to place indoor chairs like that under a tree, like museum pieces? I was mesmerized.

The man called to me. "Take them, if you want them."

I looked up, startled. "I thought they were sculpture."

He smiled. "No, they're from the old Echo Cafe. I have a whole garage full of them. You can have as many as you like."

I don't need any chairs. "I'd like these," I said. "Thank you."

Tom put them into the back of the car. "What are you going to do with these?" he asked.

"I don't know. I just want them."

On the night we celebrated Tom's 70th birthday complete with crepe paper streamers, over a table set for twelve, I went out to the garage and carried back two of the bentwoods. "We're going to need these," I said.

He cleaned the chairs, murdering innocent spiders living beneath the padded seats. "These are pretty banged up," he said.

"I like that about them."

The party was a happy occasion. Grandchildren were delighted with the diversions of cheap gifts and each other. The food was delicious. Tom loved the lemon creme cake I made. The adults played CHRONOLOGY. Charles won.

Now the chairs are back in the garage where I see them when I pull out in my car. Four bentwood chairs to remind me of a satisfying, sun-filled, October afternoon in Echo. Four chairs to carry me through the winter.

Cleaning my study

2009-10-14T22:35:00.000-07:00

It's taken four days to clean up my study. Ed came last summer looking for one snapshot and took all the boxes of photos and STUFF out of my closet and did not put them back. I really wanted to to dump them back into the closet and force the door shut with my butt. But Tom was all reasonable and supportive and suggested that we rebox everything into new smaller boxes, all the same size and label each box carefully.

The first night I sat and read letters I'd written forty years ago. Tom sat on the floor looking at photos of our boys when they were young and crying over them. I knew what he was thinking. Where did all that time go?

My favorite box is entitled, "Louise's memorabilia." Programs, snapshots, my drawings, an advertisement for summer school at the Sorbonne, the Life magazine cover of Earnest Hemingway (1961) that used to hang above my desk. I have a Utah Holiday Magazine from the same time period and I wondered why I had kept it. I looked through it and there was a long article about the coast of Maine with a huge picture of Monhegan Island, which I was obsessed with in my teens. I kept the Life magazines for the week of Kennedy's funeral and three with John Glenn on the cover. He was like a rock star back in the day.

I really liked that girl I used to be.

I threw some things out. Not the Life magazines, not my junior high school cartoons. In fact, not that much. I like to run into myself occasionally. That's why it took four days.

2009-10-07T08:48:00.000-07:00

Since I made myself a job chart and reward myself with sparkly stars, my house is looking much better and I have kept up with the laundry, including folding and putting it away. Cleaning up after myself, or cleaning up at all has never come naturally, but I'm enjoying the process of doing it as well as the result.

I also pulled out my "new sewing machine," which is seven years old and has never been used, and decided to learn how to use it. I should know how to sew, but have been impatient about it. The horrid sewing machine I had before had a problem with the tension setting and so the thread was always breaking. Much cursing involved with that machine.

I have always associated domestic work as my mother's work. She was tidy to a fault, if there is such a thing. I considered myself an artist and above domestic work. That's a crock, of course. Artists can clean up after themselves as well as anyone else.

The needing to sew idea came to me again when I sat in the temple as a worker and looked down at Tom, who was a patron, and when he crossed his legs, I saw a bright blue band of painter's tape where he had hemmed his pants.

Or . . . I could teach him how to hem his pants.

My other obsession is my diet and exercise. I am liking the way I look and it's been a long time since I felt that way.

So things are good, except I'm not writing. I'm tired of writing.

Beware of round worms

2009-09-23T19:48:00.000-07:00

All hell broke loose in our cottage communtity last weekend. Two people have contracted round worms, and both of those people swam in the lake. The lake was tested and sure enough there's animal feces in it. Whether the feces is human or not, I don't know. I suspect there's both human and dog, since I have seen people let their dogs swim in the lake as well as toddlers with saggy diapers.

Isn't feces the nastiest word? Pooh is better.

Anyway, the two beaches (yes, there's actual sand!) have been closed and my friend, Anne M. and her husband were forced off the lake by one of the security men when they were kayaking. "We're not going to drink the water for heaven's sake," Anne told him. He was not sympathetic. (I find security guards, on the whole, do not have a highly developed sense of humor. Least of all, the security guards at Temple Square. Where do they find those guys?)

But I digress. Round worms will die during the winter, but I have a feeling the beaches will disappear next summer and kids won't be allowed to cannon ball into the water from the wooden piers. It's a definite loss.

Round worms aside, Tom and I went to see some new modern condos built on the north side of the lake with gigantic windows. Get this: the second-floor apartments, the ones with the terrific view, have their entrance from the alley next to the garage! Up a dark stairwell to your beautiful condo.

The architect must be a cabbage.

Exquisite hairbands and hairclips for girls

2009-09-21T14:14:00.000-07:00

Katy, whom I've never met, but who writes one of my favorite blogs (Word to Mi Madre on blogspot) said she would send me some of her hairclips. She thought Erica might like them.

Sorry, Erica but I think this girl likes them way too much to give away. I LOVE the headband with the red roses. Why can't an old lady wear this to the symphony with her cute red jacket and black skirt?

Why can't an old lady wear a black flower with rhinestones?

Why can't an old lady wear rhinestones, period?

I only had to take a hundred pictures to show these off. First of all, I smiled a wide toothy smile, but low and behold, the blueberries I had just eaten had turned my teeth blue. I looked like a deranged zombie with really pretty hairclips. And still, I have a crumb of a pretzel on my lip in the second photo, but who's looking that carefully?

Katy, I never would have thought of trying on hairclips in a thousand years. I love them. They make me feel femmie and happy. Thank you. You've made my week.

The rest of you may want to look at Katy's business website: Jean Kate: Exquisite hairbands and hairclips for girls.

"I feel pretty! I feel pretty! I feel pretty and happy and gay!"

Well, maybe not gay.

Dutch windows

2009-09-13T23:24:00.001-07:00

I met my new visiting teaching companion on Sunday, just returned from a Hong Kong temple mission with her husband and it turns out she is "one-hundred percent Dutch" (her words).

She was born in Amsterdam and emigrated with her parents to America in 1955 when she was ten.

I am one-hundred-percent Dutch as well, and in my excitement I may have tried to hug her, which is about the most anti-Dutch thing one can do. Emotion is an embarrassment to the Dutch. Fortunately, she was also a good humored woman and chatty, features I like about my

fellow countrymen and women.

But there are down sides to being Dutch: you think you know everything, even what people are thinking. You don't deserve a birthday party, unless you have it yourself and cook for all your guests. You don't deserve anything, actually. Especially success. And there is that Calvinist guilt that we generate so effortlessly.

My new friend told me something I didn't know. The old Calvinists had a rule that good people should not have window coverings. They had another rule: do not look into other people's windows.

Well, of course. Trust the Dutch to come up with impossible rules. Here I thought those windows with the potted plants in them and a tiny rim of lace at the top were so friendly, so inviting. I loved gawking through them.

Turns out that gawking is against the rules.

I've been butting up against other people's rules all my life. Perhaps the modern Dutch, with their ultra-progressive social programs, like me, are butting up against those Calvinist forefathers.

Am I on my high horse? Better get down before I hurt myself.

Thursday, I will go visiting teaching with my new friend and she will speak Dutch to me and I will be happy.

The diet: Part II

2009-09-10T09:07:00.000-07:00

The summer of 2008, I lost 40 lbs, which brought me back inside the proper weight grid for my age. I've kept it off a year and so this week I've begun part II, lose 20 lbs and get in the middle of the weight grid. My doctor approved.

My diet of choice is the OPTIFAST diet. Optifast is a protein drink (there are bars too) and is done under the supervision of a nutritionist (Nanette) who makes me write down what I eat and how much of it I eat and harasses me about exercising.

Oprah went on Optifast that first time she lost weight. Remember how she came out wearing those size 10 jeans, looking fabulous? When she stopped the diet, she gained it all back.

I drink two of my meals and eat real food for the third meal. (Oprah drank all of her meals). It works so well for me that I should do ads for them. I do not have to think and plan about what I eat. I just open the refrigerator, pull out a box of chocolate or strawberry Optifast, drink it and I'm done. Oh, and I drink lots of water.

I am not inclined to cheat, because Optifast is relatively expensive and I don't want to be throwing money down a hole.

For exercise, I ride the bike and have added these arm exercises holding cans of vegetables while I do them. Not very hip, but if beans work as well as weights, why spend the money?

At Christmas I will have dropped another dress size. Oh happy day.

Labor Day 2009

2009-09-07T20:39:00.000-07:00

When you're retired, holidays are fairly ho-hum. I forgot about Labor Day until Sunday night when Sarah asked me if we had plans.

No, did they have plans? No. I don't think the other Plummers had plans either. The New Jersey Plummers went to a Yankees game. That's what I call a great Labor Day outing.

I am not a planner. I like planners, but I am not one. I'm not the mother who gathers her chicks for a major cook-out on, say, Labor Day. I like it a lot better when one of the daughters-in-law plans something that includes Tom and me and we just get to sit around and eat their food and make smores and joke with the grandkids.

I miss my mother, who used to make jello salad mixed with whipping cream, potato salad and great sloppy joes for good-weather holidays. We would drive to Washington Park up Parley's Canyon and have a picnic. Very 1950's. I miss the 50's too.

My version of that is to go to Ruth's Diner in Emigration Canyon.

Anyway, Tom wanted to drive to the Cathedral of the Madeline to prepare for a class in architectural photography he's taking at BYU. They're photographing the cathedral on Thursday morning and he wanted to be prepared. We parked the car and walked up the steps, and lolled around, heads back, staring at gargoyles. The bells rang the hour, which is my favorite sound in the world. Twice, I've had an apartment in the Covey down the street where I could hear those bells. It's my favorite area of Salt Lake: South Temple between 2nd and 5th East (Backers' Bakery).

We walked up the street shaded by Sycamore trees. Then got back in our car and bought Dr. Peppers and Hershey bars at the K Street 7-Eleven for the trip home.

Later, we took Alice, our Yorkshire Terrier, for a walk by the lake. Lots of families out biking or pushing strollers. We met with a family who also had a Yorkshire Terrier (Sophie) and we chatted with them about what nasty little dogs they are. Meanwhile, little girls pass by saying "Oooh what a cute little dog!"

We sat on the porch until the sun went down.

Pretty good Labor Day, really.

Sibling rivalry

2009-09-05T19:40:00.000-07:00

Max (9) has learned to play the recorder in school. He played JINGLE BELLS for us with verve and musical insight. He's obviously a genius.

He has taught Mira (7) to play her own recorder: every note except the "d." She begs him to teach her the "d" note, but he refuses. She can't play JINGLE BELLS because it requires the "d" note.

"If you don't teach me today," she says, "then I'll ask Dad to teach me."

"Fine," says Max, "but I won't let you use the book.

"If you teach her all the notes, you can play duets. Duets are fun." I say. "Ensemble playing is satisfying."

His face crimps into a shudder. I've asked him to kiss his sister.

He's a genius. He's a also a pedagogical Marquis de Sade.

"He doesn't want me to play as well as him," Mira says.

I understand perfectly. Who wants Mira crawling up his backside playing JINGLE BELLS as if she were 9? Duh.

I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon

2009-09-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

And I have to come in fasting. So I'm sitting here sipping cold water. I'd really like some of those mixed berries in the fridge and a bowl of Cheerios and maybe a small handful of chocolate chips for dessert. My kind of breakfast.

I will be tested for cholesterol and blood pressure and diabetes and thyroid. Maybe, he'll ask me if I can subtract sevens from one-hundred and who is president. Can I balance on one leg? Can I touch my nose with my eyes closed?

Today, I will pass all the tests.

Ila's house

2009-08-27T19:47:00.000-07:00

Tom and I were in Provo today to do a short spiel on study abroad in the Freshmen Honors meeting. When we were done, we drove up to Oak Hills where we lived for ten years. To our surprise Ila Wheelwright's house was for sale. I think her family has kept it since she died, but now it's up for grabs.

"I would like to live in Ila's house," I told Tom. "Not because I like the house--I always thought it was rather ugly (despite the gorgeous views), but because I'd like to live with Ila's ghost."

Ila was the old lady who wore purple. She also wore wigs. She owned a wardrobe of wigs including a red one and a blonde one. She wore lots of makeup with bright red lipstick and nail polish. She sang soprano with a vibrato that could knock you sideways. She spoke her mind. She was always herself. She was very tall for a short woman.

Once the Relief Society had all the older women bring clothes and aritifacts from when they were young to display in the cultural hall. Ila had a flapper dress, but even more interesting was a photograph in a baroque frame of her at nineteen in a mountain pool of water. "That's me," she said when I picked it up.

"What I want to know is what are you wearing?" I said.

"Nothing!" And she laughed her horsey laugh.

"Really?" I said. "Who took the picture?"

More laughing. "My boyfriend," she said. "I told him to take it."

That was Ila: the closest thing to a Mormon bohemian I can think of. I know that after she was widowed, she stayed up all hours of the night reading and looking through magazines and slept through the morning. Her yard was completely fenced in, but sometimes the gate was open and she'd be in a house dress smelling the roses in her chaotic garden. "Smell this one," she would say. "And this one." She always cut a rose or two for me to take home.

I would like to have Ila as my guide into old age.

My consistent good taste

2009-08-13T22:36:00.000-07:00

Elliot turned four today, and Sam and Sarah invited us to a barbecue/birthday party for him along with Sarah's parents and an assortment of friends with cute offspring. Earlier in the day I went to Target to buy him a Tonka truck. I bought him a Tonka truck last year and it was a huge hit. Could I be so bold as to say it was his favorite gift?

I have a Tonka fire truck at my house, which is also a popular item.

Anyway, I stood in front of the trucks to decide which was the BEST one, because I'm a competitive and self-absorbed, nasty person (or because I like to bring joy and pleasure to my grandchild--choose one). I found a red one that made noises and had moving parts but then I saw the garbage truck which also made noises and had moving parts plus two garbage men and it was BIGGER than the red truck. I chose the garbage truck. Then I remembered that I had not bought Louis a present for his first birthday in May, so I also bought the red truck for Louis.

Sam brings all the presents out to the back yard, and after the children beat up a pinata, Elliot opens his presents. He is stunned with the garbage truck. I read this as pleasure. Sam walks up to me, smirking: "You bought him that same truck last year." Crap.

"I'm so embarrassed," I say, but that might have been overstating things. Over medicated people don't get embarrassed, nor do we cry. "Go get the truck I bought for Louis," I tell him.

I think Elliot liked it. It's all a blur to me now. I know that Louis played with it for the rest of the evening, so I know he liked it.

Then Sam brings out the red two-wheeler with training wheels. I can state positively that it was the favorite gift this year. Remember your first bike?

Here's the thing: at this writing I cannot identify the truck I originally bought for Louis. I'm sure it was red. Other than that, I don't know. So, I can never again buy a Tonka truck for Elliot or Louis without making a phone call first. And I don't make phone calls.

Later, we stopped by Charles and Erica's where they were hosting a Lindsay open-house for Anne. There I learned that I had bought the same present two years in a row for Harrison, for Max and for Anne.

Why change when you've found the perfect gift?

What is the difference between me and Audrey Hepburn??

2009-08-05T19:46:00.000-07:00

We both have bikes. We both have Yorkshire terriers in our basket. We both have pleasant smiles. One of us is about four dress sizes smaller than the other one. But one of us is also dead.

So I win.

I didn't intend to take a vacation from blogging. It just happened. Tom and I went on our vacation to New Jersey and spent some time in THE city as well, and I came home thinking I should be living in said city (and I don't mean Hoboken). So I've been whining and complaining and fault finding, spitting and kicking small animals. Who wants to read about such insufferable behavior?

I stole Audrey Hepburn's picture off Erica's blog. She is very much into bikes these days. Not the bikes that require latex costuming but bikes that allow you to wear regular clothes, even dresses.

Tom was the photographer and is lashing himself for cutting out my feet. I won't let him re-shoot. Besides, I have cankles.

It is August, the saddest month of summer. The anticipation is gone. It's here, now, today. Go do something fun. Go outside. Go. Go. Go.

The Road Island Diner, Oakley UT

2009-07-02T17:24:00.000-07:00

Today we got the idea to drive to Oakley and eat lunch at the Road Island Diner, which has been in existence since 1939 but has only been in Oakley since 2006. It began as the Road Island diner in the actual state of Rhode Island but was moved to Fall Rivers, Massachusetts and then back to Rhode Island. The Canadian fast food folks, Tim Horton's, bought it up and stuck a Tim Horton's there--I love Tim Horton's doughnuts by the way.

Okay, I don't remember the particulars because I have the brain of a sluggish sixty-six year old, but the diner was put on a flatbed and moved across country to Oakley UT, home of the Oakley Rodeo, which is the only rodeo I've ever been to that didn't bore me into catatonia. It's a real rodeo, not one of those flashy, sequined affairs with bustier-wearing cowgirls. When I attended the Oakley Rodeo, a man was chased by a bull, and while he was scrambling up the chain-link fence, the bull gored him and broke his leg. Now THAT's entertainment.

Back to the diner: way cool as only things from 1939 can be. I had a BLT with avocado on wholewheat and a glass of milk. Tom had the Smith-Morehouse burger. Diner food. The food wasn't really the point. It was the drive up the canyon, green as Switzerland, the yellow daisies and Queen Anne's Lace, and Jordanelle and Rockport filled to the brim. It was a tiny vacation. We oohed and aahed our way up and back. It rained.

Tom and I decided to date other people and not just each other. This made us laugh for fifteen minutes.

We drove into Salt Lake to Tulie Bakery on 7th South just west of 9th east where we bought a brownie to share, a brownie made of real butter, a brownie worth a triple-bypass. Thanks for the tip, Erica.

Ann, I know I'm plagiarizing your format. It won't be the last time either.

Living in Holland, not in the moment

2009-07-01T10:42:00.001-07:00

I have found the mother of all websites for those who dream of living in Holland for a year like I do. It is Pararius.Com. Rental apartments and houses in all places, all prices, furnished and unfurnished, near water, near cows, near churches--whatever your heart desires. The above photo is a one bedroom house in Volendam for about 1000 U.S. dollars a month. It's one block from the Harbor, which may well be one of the kitchiest shopping streets in the world. This house is near that street but not on it. But hey, if you feel like having your photo taken wearing 19th century lace caps and klompen, it's only a short walk away.

Look up Breukelen, Giethoorn and Delft. Be sure to pick a place in centrum. Otherwise, you might just as well be on the Jordan River Parkway.

Dag!

Michael Jackson

2009-06-29T09:14:00.000-07:00

Even if I wasn't sixteen or even thirty when Michael Jackson was at his prime, I find myself mourning his demise. I loved to watch him perform and I always wanted a red jacket with gold epaulettes. I was born to wear such a jacket. We gave Ed a sequined glove for one of his birthdays (it cost way too much). One of the better gifts. Everyone wore that glove at least once. Later, I wrote a roadshow where I had a large group of seventy-somethings sing "Bad." They were hilarious.

I thought he was beautiful before he had himself cut into little pieces. Someone didn't love that boy enough.

Go see "The Proposal."

2009-06-19T23:42:00.000-07:00

Tom and I saw 'The Proposal" tonight and were thoroughly entertained. Ryan Reynolds and Sandra Bullock lead a wonderful ensemble cast including the always funny Betty White, Mary Steenburgen, Craig T. Nelson and the hilarious Oscar Nunez from "The Office." The writing is

witty, well-paced and believable (with maybe one exception--the indian chanting scene). It's a great night out.

Our 45th Wedding Anniversary

2009-06-18T15:07:00.000-07:00

We were married on June 18, 1964, around nine in the morning, in the Salt Lake Temple by Howard Stevenson McDonald, the temple president (1964-68). He was also the president of BYU preceding Earnest L. Wilkenson. I didn’t know any of this, not even the name, McDonald, but Tom remembered that much and found the rest on the internet. We had a Howard Stevenson as a neighhor in Harvard student housing, 24A Shaler Lane. They must be related. The Howard we knew was later divorced from his wife, Sarah, so there you go: not everyone makes it 45 years.

My father said days before the wedding, “You think Tom is perfect, but he farts like everyone else.” Maybe he meant, “He farts just like I do.” Maybe it was a warning: Tom isn’t perfect. Duh.

The picture above was taken at the end of the reception that 650 people attended in an all- night downpour and went way beyond closing time, which was supposed to be ten ‘o clock. Tom and I were exhausted to our hair follicles.

The next morning (as much as I like sexual tension, I’m skipping it), Tom let a loud fart.

“Oh my gosh,” I yelled. “My father said you would do that and you did it the first morning. The FIRST morning.” Tom laughed. My father would have cracked up if he’d been there. The two of them together would have had one of those guy moments.

Tom and I have mostly hung out today. Neither one of us feels well. We’ll go to Taco Bell and have three taco supremes each (unless he can talk me out of that). Maybe we’ll sit on the porch awhile. We’ve already looked at old photos and sighed. He tells me every single day he loves me, so why should this day be any different? I don’t want it to be different. I’ve always liked hanging with Tom.

Tarragon chicken salad

2009-06-17T22:11:00.000-07:00

For those of you who simply stalk the postings, the recipe for the Tarragon chicken is imbedded in the comments of the last post. Emily posted first and wins an all expense paid trip on a pirate ship to Sierra Leone--beach front. Robin is going to Boise this weekend. Who needs a prize when you have Boise?

I can't believe there are two recipes on this page. Maybe I should write a cookbook. It should be titled, "Where is Tarragon and How Can I get there?"

Attention Robin and Emily

2009-06-17T13:48:00.000-07:00

One of you should cough up the tarragon chicken salad recipe. I'm not one of those natural cooks who can just throw a bit of this and that together. It turns out too this and that.

Isn't everything better with a "little cream"?

Just say no to the Shiloh Inn in Nampa, Idaho

2009-06-16T14:06:00.000-07:00

The whole Utah clan drove to Idaho this weekend to be with Jon and Julie when they had Liam blessed in sacrament meeting. We wanted cheap. We should raise our standards by about ten bucks. The Shiloh Inn (not to be confused with the Shiloh Suites, which is newer and nicer) was

one of the top five rattiest places we have ever stayed. Keep in mind that we have stayed in whore houses across Europe. Just because it's a "pension" in the daytime doesn't mean it's a "pension" at night. One of them had carpets on the BEDS.

Anyhoo, this particular Shiloh Inn's exterior was rotting. We were greeted by four wranglers smoking at the entrance, each in varying states of decay. They were there when we left for dinner, and they were there when we returned. In the morning they were still there. The room had a masking floral scent, but masking what? Semen? Armpit hair? Pee? Ear wax? Sloughed off dead skin? Ailing maggots? Blood? Boogers?

Yes. All of the above. One didn't want to walk barefoot on that carpet. The above photo is exactly the way our room looked except for an added one hundred years of fading, body fluids, and a poof of aerosol.

Sunday morning we were ready to go forty minutes before church started at nine AM. Tom was blessing the baby, an important role. We were dressed like the respectable old folks that we are, raised in the fifties and early sixties: pantyhose and all. Not Tom. He only wears pantyhose on Wednesday nights.

Tom unlocks the deadbolt, but the door doesn't open. He tries again. No go. I try. No. He tries. No, no and no.

He calls the front desk and explains that we are locked into our room. A woman comes with a key to get us out, but it doesn't work. Tom calls the front desk again. "I have an important appointment at nine. We need to be out of here in ten minutes!"

He calls back in ten minutes. "Don't you have a screwdriver?" His voice is menacing.

"Yes, it's in the maintenance room, but only the maintenance man can get in there, and he's on his way now."

I think Tom's head will explode, and I go to a zen place, which means staring at a dot and listening to my own breathing.

At nine, the maintenance man arrives with a screwdriver, slips it under the door, and Tom unscrews the deadbolt. We get there two minutes before the sacrament is over.

Tom gives a lovely blessing. We have lunch at Jonathan's. (I still want that chicken salad recipe) and we all drive home in heavy rain.

Do not even THINK about bringing up the pioneers to me.

His Buttocks Ached from Flexing

2009-06-13T06:20:00.000-07:00

I have just returned from a week of teaching at BYU's Writing for Children Conference. I had a fabulous class and our last project together was to assemble a story from THE NEW YORKER magazine fictions. We borrowed phrases and whole sentences to make an "original" short fiction. Our only requirements were 1) it must contain the word "butter," and 2) it must have sexual tension.

This is what we came up with (title above) :

I was in love with a man named Cuthbert, origin unknown. And oh, that man could really eat. He would go home and sculpt his butter. On these nights of low moon, Cuthbert, of a more unstable temperment, began to do weird things:

"I was thinking we could duct tape the child," he said.

"The boy is hungry, I said.

"Is it because of the cancer?" Cuthbert asked.

"That was crap," I said. "That was negative."

"Do you want some dessert?"

"Have you been drinking from the wine bowl again?"

The boy was sleeping. We had brought back the morphine for his pain. He was rarely awake and not very happy when he was.

Cuthbert ran around in his skivvies, to no avail. "Don't worry about it, Ignatia." He held a hand against his ribs.

It was a depressing sight.

"You've let yourself go," Cuthbert said.

I grew furious and plotted my revenge. I decided to kill him.

The whole thing happened almost too fast to be real. I threw a butterfly net over his head. Cuthbert tore at the net and clawed at his face.

"So Daddy. Isn't this cozy?" I whispered.

"What are you talking about?" Cuthbert yelled. "I'm miserable."

He yanked the net off his head. Frozen in the hard spotlight, he looked old, crazy and forlorn. An intense discomfort settled on the room. There was one false note, one shadow: the moon.

"I'm kicking you out of the house," I said.

Just at that moment, the animals at the zoo next door began to growl.

I reached beneath the boy's pillow and found the perfectly dreamed weapon: an old lanyard.

"What a terrible gift you have given me," I said to my husband.

"I always knew you were a lesbian, you with your one boob."

I should have said something cold. Instead, I stretched the lanyard.

Cuthbert knew I was in a position to injure him. He let me do what I wanted. Too old be aroused by pleasure, I sought pain. I circled behind him and pulled the lanyard against his throat. The winding required a huge effort. The lanyard closed against his spine with a dry sound--crack!

At the zoo, seals barked, large cats danced on their hind legs, and birds followed them by the dozen.

Cuthbert slumped down to the bed, where the boy was sweating and sleeping--dreaming of something unpleasant.

And for the first time, I thought of Cuthbert as a lover, possibly dying.

Goodbye to the life I would never have.

The quick fix

2009-06-04T11:00:00.000-07:00

My friend, Claudia, just sent me this recipe for a single-serving chocolate cake. Brilliant!

5 MINUTE CHOCOLATE MUG CAKE

4 tablespoons flour

4 tablespoons sugar

2 tablespoons cocoa

1 egg

3 tablespoons milk

3 tablespoons oil

3 tablespoons chocolate chips (optional)

A small splash of vanilla extract

1 large coffee mug (MicroSafe)

Add dry ingredients to mug, and mix well. Add the egg and mix thoroughly.

Pour in the milk and oil and mix well..

Add the chocolate chips (if using) and vanilla extract, and mix again.

Put your mug in the microwave and cook for 3 minutes at 1000 watts.

The cake will rise over the top of the mug, but don't be alarmed!

Allow to cool a little, and tip out onto a plate if desired.

EAT ! (this can serve 2 if you want to feel slightly more virtuous).

And why is this the most dangerous cake recipe in the world?

Because now we are all only 5 minutes away from chocolate cake at any time of the day or night!

The 5th Sunday

2009-06-01T08:36:00.000-07:00

I love fifth Sundays, because Tom and I have made a decision never to stay for combined R.S. and Priesthood meetings. After Sunday School, he said, "I'm going to surprise you," and he took me to brunch at the Grand America. Nice surprise, indeed. We sat by a window overlooking the garden and I watched a large yellow butterfly hover on red flowers for a full five minutes. The interior, too, was filled with bouquets of fresh flowers. Beauty, more than anything, lifts me out of myself. It made me forget the headache I had.

Earlier I rolled pretend cigarettes out of the sacrament meeting program and offered Tom a smoke.

We watched AGE OF INNOCENCE at home and then called Sam and Sarah and asked if we could visit. Elliot called back almost immediately to say that he wanted to come our way, because he wanted to see Mira. Well yeah, who doesn't want to see Mira? We told him Mira wasn't home, and so we were allowed to visit at HIS house.

I was full of caffeine and talked nonstop. Sam and Sarah were gracious and sent us home with a vase of fresh cut pink roses from their bursting bush.

Nice evening. Louis flirted. Elliot sang. Sarah showed us her broken toe. Sam and I mulled over Bear Lake real estate.

Thank you, Tom. Thanks Sam and Sarah and boys. Thanks Grand America. I want to live in your hotel and have high tea every afternoon.

Who cares about the tooth fairy?

2009-05-29T07:47:00.000-07:00

Why isn't there a face-lift fairy?

Memorial Day Roundup 2009

2009-05-25T21:53:00.001-07:00

It was a sunny day. The predicted thunder showers never materialized. We met Sam and Sarah and boys at their house and rode up in tandem to Heber Cemetery where Tom's parents, grandparents and aunts and uncles are buried in a Plummer plot. Elva, his mother, began this tradition many years ago. She would fix all the flowers in coffee cans lined with aluminum foil. Flowers from her exuberant garden: iris, peonies, bridal wreath, and roses. Her husband, Gail, got the largest bouquet but the others did pretty well, including Gail's sister, the unfortunate Lodema Plummer, who dropped dead at the age of 23 on the dance floor in 1927. She had had the 1918 influenza and it had weakened her heart. She died in the arms of Robert Bjorkman, who teared up whenever he talked about it.

I suggested to Sam and Sarah that they name their next daughter Lodema. We could not come up with a pleasing nickname. Lodi? Dema? Od? But is a nickname even necessary?

We were saying how all kinds of distant relatives would come by to talk to Elva--the Andersons and Bjorkmans are the two names we remembered--when suddenly lots of Plummer cousins appeared: Susan, Scott, Pat and Anne. There was much celebrating about this happy coincidence, and we all chattered in the sun and marvelled at the over decorated graves and had a generally good visit.

The children, Elliot and Louis grew hungry so we went off for our "picnic." Elva always made a large lunch of fried chicken, potato salad, jello salad, brownies, chips, punch and we would eat in back of the Heber tabernacle rain or shine, hot or cold.

We did our own version: we went to the Homestead and ate lunch overlooking the pond and the geese and then went to the gift store for fudge and a carmeled apple. Elliot made two trips up the volcano while the rest of us listened to birds and fed Louis bits of chocolate.

Tom and I napped and then drove the Miata with the top down around the neighborhood, past the lake where we noticed the new sections had been opened up. This means longer kayak rides. It was all rather blissful. I think you should say it aloud when you know it's true: it was blissful.

Cartoon: 1960

2009-05-24T21:04:00.000-07:00

I found a box with high school stuff in it, including old East High newspapers back in the day when I was the cartoonist. Can't believe I ever did this:

Weekend update

2009-05-18T22:43:00.000-07:00

Friday, I went to the doctor to have a uterine biopsy. She told me to come back on Monday for a sonogram to look at my useless ovaries. She said ovarian cancer is the worst.

Saturday morning I went kayaking. Of my many hats, I have chosen the yellow one as my kayak hat. Kayaking is spiritual

Saturday, I participated all of ten minutes in the Provo Children's Book Writers and Ilustrators' Conference, or whatever it's called. It was the first time I had been in the library at Academy Square and it is lovely. I used to have a class there when I went to BYU in the dark ages. The best part of the conference was running into old students who were now published authors themselves. And seeing old friends.

Saturday evening, Tom and I went to see STAR WARS and root for the good guys. Or do we route for the good guys? NPR had spoiled a good deal of it the day before. Was it Ira Flato talking with the critics and blabbing all the surprises? I hate when they do that.

Sunday morning, I did not go to church. First I practiced lying like a dead woman, my arms crossed over my bosom trying not to breathe, trying not to think. It's hard to be dead, if you're alive. Then I read the New York Times. Tom came home from church and broiled a steak on the barbecue. I love gnashing a bloody steak.

Sunday afternoon, we went to Liberty Park with Carlos and Erica and the kids. Max and Murgatroyd played on the playground while the adults and teens discussed life, love, dating, and Germany. I wore my safari hat (as opposed to my yellow kayak hat). We ate cream puffs from Costco.

Sunday night, we went to Sam and Sarah's to sing Happy Birthday to Louis who is one. The Kameraths were also there (Sharon had excellent gossip). Louis practically turned inside out when we sang. He knew it was his party. I could eat that child, he's so cute. Sam made a train cake for him.

Monday morning, Tom drove me to the doctor. I was pissy. He didn't care. My ovaries waved at me on the sonogram. No cancer. I turned into Miss America. We celebrated by eating at Ruth's diner and I bought a bunch of clothes and smiled a lot at Tom, because he really likes it when I smile.

Monday night, we went to D. R.'s viewing. She looked dead.

But I am very much alive.

Alarmed

2009-05-14T07:11:00.000-07:00

Anne and Max, grandchildren of mine, (not their real names), decided to take a walk and when they were a fair distance from home, Max had to pee.

"Go behind this bush," Anne said.

He wouldn't.

"We'll go to Grandma's house."

When they arrived at G'ma's, she and G'pa weren't there.

But Anne knew the garage code and they let themselves in.

When they opened the back door of the house, Holy Moly, Rocky, the security system began its anxious beeping. Alarming! Max couldn't pee with all that racket.

Anne danced nervously about, until she got an idea. She called 911 and told them that she was at her grandparents' house and had set the alarm off.

They already knew! Police were on the way. Wow, we're getting our money's worth.

Anyway, the police were averted, the alarm was turned off.

And Max peed.

This is against the rules

2009-05-12T18:42:00.000-07:00

I think I may be getting boring.

Mother's Day 2009 receives maximum points

2009-05-12T13:51:00.000-07:00

Mother's Day lasted two days this year, just the way I like it.

Tom, who is not my child, but who is one smart husband, bought me an orange kayak and he couldn't wait until Sunday to give it to me, and so I received it on Saturday. I was completely surprised, because last time I heard, we had 75 cents in our checking account. I took her out for a spin on the lake. It was a perfect day, sunny, maybe 75 degrees, and I paddled from one end of the lake to the other. I'm never happier than when I'm on

water.

The Kayak came with a two-wheel carrier and I can pull it the block and half from my house to the lake with ease, even though I am a total cripple.

Sam and Sarah gave me the book, LOUISE, THE ADVENTURES OF A CHICKEN, which would be a good title for my autobiography. Louise the Chicken also likes water and adventure. She leaves the henhouse three times and is kidnapped by pirates, joins the circus, and then is kidnapped and held prisoner in a cage with other chickens until she picks the lock. Like me, her heart beats inside her feathered breast. (Tom claims this was the biggest surprise of marriage).

The best line in the book is "Good-bye my sweet COQ AU VIN," called Mitzi as Louise left the circus.

Sam and Sarah also had us over to dinner on Saturday night along with her parents, the Kamaraths. There were flowers everywhere and dinner was fabulous. Elliot dictated a card to me and the last thing he said was "X-Ray." Thank you, Sam and Sarah, Elliot and Louis. X-Ray!

Dede and Ed sent two beautifully wrapped packages from the MOMA. One was a red watch. I was wearing my red jacket when I opened it. Red has always been and always will be my favorite color. The second box was a muslin bag of tiny wooden blocks representing New York City, including one shaped like the Statue of Liberty and several limos and cars. Fabulous. Thank you, Ed and Dede, Rian, Samantha and Hank. X-Ray!

Erica and Charles had us all to dinner on Sunday including her parents, the Lindsays. We played half a game of Clue and I won. (It was Mother's Day!) Lots of flowers, laughs. Yummy dinner with hudspeth (Dutch mashed potatoes, onions and carrots) and a terrific coconut cake.

They gave me these sophisticated black and white kitchen towels that make my stove look too cool for words. I also got a handmade note where all of them essentially say I'm terrific. Thank you, Erica and Charles, Anne, Harrison, Maxwell and Mira. X-Ray!

And Jonathan and Julie called on Sunday night to wish me Happy Mother's Day. They gave me a new grandchild, Liam. Whoopty doo! Thank you, Jon and Julie, Katelyn and Liam. X-Ray.

Best damn Mother's Day ever.

Card night with the sisters

2009-05-06T20:02:00.000-07:00

On the first Monday of every month, I play cards with my sisters. The game is Golf, a nine-round game easy enough to be able to play and talk at the same time. Talk and actually win is another story.

This past Monday we took pictures. From the left, Janie, Marilyn, Judy, me, and Toni. I know, I look like their mother. I AM the oldest.

We play two rounds a night, add up the points and the sister with the least points wins.

We started out with one medal for the winner, but ended up with lst, 2nd and 3rd place medals. Last night, at Toni's, I said, "We should have booby prizes," and Toni turns, opens a drawer, and brings out two big black wooden Ls for losers. Her husband, Jesse, made them for us. Thanks Jesse. I'm pretty much a loser every month. Of course, I can always say, that L stands for Louise.

I tell my sisters that lately I've been saying that I was raised by my parents in an orphanage. "Like I never had a doll with hair," I say. Now Toni jumps up to get the doll she got and still has--a doll with hair! A bride. Then she she says the real killer: "I also had a Madame Alexander doll."

No, no no! No one in the orphanage ever had a Madame Alexander doll. That is not possible. Our frugal mother did not run a thrifty household by handing out Madame Alexander dolls. Unless she got them with 500 books of green stamps or, bought it USED and had to have the head replaced. I refuse to believe that Mother gave one of her daughters--not me--a Madame Alexander doll. Maybe it was a fake Madam Aleksender doil. I'll bet that's what it was: a fake.

I don't have any of the toys of my childhood, because I didn't take care of my things. Janie took care of HER things. Why didn't she take care of my things as well? It wouldn't have taken that much extra effort.

The only bike I ever had was a rebuilt Colgate. Ever heard of it?

We tell stories. In somebody's ward, the primary chorister is working the song to death by flailing her arms and bowing them into the shape of the sun and letting her fingers flutter down to show the rain coming down. You know the gig. These kids can't read, so you have to show them the words with your body. When the song is over, a three-year-old in the first row says in a loud voice, "What the hell was that all about?"

When the phone rings, Janie says, "Oh that's Mother. She calls me this time every night." (She's been dead for five years).

Marilyn tells us her best time for sleeping is after five when Neil, her husband, gets up. She can spread out in the bed and--and discover a half eaten peanut butter sandwich on his side of the bed. It is smushed as if he has lain on it half the night. Later that day, when he comes home and says he's hungry, she says, "Why don't you finish that peanut butter sandwich you started in bed last night?" He doesn't even remember getting up and making it.

I love my sisters. We laugh the same. We all sing alto. We're exceedingly anxious. Not one of us would ride a ferris wheel. We don't even ride the sky tram at lagoon. I did once and hyperventilated through the entire ride. Janie likes buttermilk and has a large, very large shoe size. We don't hold it against her.

Liam Scott Plummer

2009-05-04T23:41:00.001-07:00

Okay, I don't know how to place these photos. And I don't know why I'm getting an underlined script, or why it's a blue color. Like I'm some kind of blog ignoramus. I need to get help from someone who knows how to manipulate pictures and text. Someone under age thirty-five.

He's cute, though; isn't he?

Jon and Julie had their boy

2009-05-02T18:03:00.000-07:00

He was born today, May 2nd, just before 4:00 p.m and weighed 7 lbs. 2 oz. Everyone is well and happy. I will post pictures when Jonathan sends them. Brava, Julie!

Julie's bursting at the seams

2009-05-02T09:56:00.000-07:00

Jon and Julie have been making hospital visits for weeks now but always get sent home. Today she's having contractions 10-minutes apart. Kaitlyn can't wait. Today's the day, you guys.

Michael Roy Darley

2009-05-01T09:25:00.001-07:00

My neice, Lindsay, had her baby yesterday and he weighed 10 lbs 2 oz. I vaguely remember what it's like to push out a large baby. Only vaguely. Isn't he cute? Well done, Darleys!

Such a fine day

2009-04-29T20:29:00.000-07:00

I'm frustrated that I can't find my camera to illustrate some of my day, which took place in the tiny garden in front of my porch. Tom and I trimmed the bushes and bought some perennials, including a yellow rose bush and violas. (Is that right? Violas? Like the instrument that's slightly bigger than a violin?) I'm pretty sure that's what they're called. Not violets. They're blue like violets. I bought some columbine and some yellow daisy-like flower that I cannot name at this moment. (Erica knows the name of every plant in her garden, but I'd need to write the names on my hands to remember them. I might do that tomorrow).

I made a tuna casserole for dinner. It's been YEARS since I made a tuna casserole and I still love it, especially with all the potato chips crushed on the top. It was like going back to the fifties.

I set the table for a dinner party I'm having on Friday night, and then Gordon called and said he was in town for five days, so I invited him too, and that means I'm going to have to add a leaf to the table. I'm going to have to undo it all and redo it tomorrow. That's how much I love Gordon.

The house is in complete disarray. Books and papers everywhere. Tom and I are messy. So kill us.