More Tim

If I had to characterize Tim's attitude to life lately, it's lay low and get by. Today I looked over to see him slumped in his chair, lips roughly on the level with his plate, gently easing the rice over the ridge of the plate and straight into his mouth.

"Tim!" I said. "Sit up and eat with manners."

Since I'd noticed him already, he decided to take the opportunity to ask for more chicken (as Tim lovers know, he's fully capable of eating a whole one by himself). I said, "If you can eat the rest of your rice with perfect manners, you can have another piece of chicken."

Man! The kid is capable! After taking a few elegant bites, he said, "Mom, this is a lot of work."

Apparently he's decided that about prayers, too, because in the last few weeks he's pared down his prayer to a skimpy three thoughts, not one of which uses more than four words to express. Then he repeats. One night before nighttime prayers, I said, "Tim, I'd like you to really think about who you're talking to."

"No, Mom," he immediately replied, "I don't want to. That would make me feel very tiny."

I found a great blog (thanks to some friends) about the fate of kids in the paranoid old US of A. It couldn't express my thoughts more perfectly if I'd done all the research and writing myself. So if you're bugged by the fate of the modern day child who exists almost totally in an adult-mediated world, if you've ever wondered why we think it's safe to give a kid who has never walked across town the keys to the car at age 16, if you've ever sat through a discussion of the dangers of child rapists and kidnappers and wondered to yourself, How common is this stuff? How scared do I REALLY have to be?, head on over to free range kids. Be sure to check out the links farther down on the RH side for some thoughtful statistics.

Had a glorious ski day--last of the season and we had to use our free passes, so we skipped the WASL--on Friday, and I made a GREAT discovery! You don't have to ski to enjoy the trip. I didn't want to ski because a) I had no free pass, b) I had no equipment, and c) I'm a pleasant, slightly deconditioned woman in my forties who can clearly picture starting a response to inevitable questions like this: "Well, it was the last day of the season, and I hadn't skied much..."

So I spent the day on the slopes in my running shoes. It was GREAT!! And news for all you skiers: it's not really two miles from the lodge to the car, the stairs are incredibly shallow, and the bathroom is actually quite conveniently located. I spent part of the morning working in the lodge with two other pleasant, slightly deconditioned women in their forties and part of the morning being driven crazy by a bored Nigel. Then I got smart and put him in ski lessons. Jarad the ski instructor (with a snowboard coat but he skis, Mom) is now Nigel's best friend and Nige loves the "hand lift," where we spent the rest of the day with me lounging in a plastic chair waving to him as he endlessly rode up, skied down, rode up, skied down. Perfect day.

Tim Thought

"Mom, we love each other, and that will never change, even when we [i.e., you right now] are mad. The love is bigger than the madness, it's just covered in it."

Get Reader

Today's post is just a little quickie for those of you who have yet to discover Google Reader. This is especially you, Nigel. If you will take ten to fifteen minutes right now and head over to Google Reader, you can sign up for a service that will save you quite a bit of blog checking time. If you already have a blogger or gmail account, you don't even have to set up a new profile. Just log into your gmail account, click on "Reader" in the top LH corner. No gmail? Just google "google reader" and you'll go straight to the start page. You may already have a google account even if you don't think you do--google owns blogger so your ID and password for blogger also work for google. Dispense with the "tour"--it's so simple you don't need a tour. Click on "get started adding subscriptions." My favorite way to add is to navigate to a blog just like usual and just click on the orange square at the RH end of the URL address window. That takes you to a little routine that will let you add that blog to google reader. It takes a minute to add all the blogs you regularly check, but once you have, you just get all new blog posts like email--title and a little synopsis. You can either read the text right there or navigate over to get the full experience including comments. I'm sure there are other (better!) ways to set this up, but this was my way and WHAT A DIFFERENCE IT MAKES!!! I caught Colin's stealth post the day it went up and was surprised by Tamsin's out of the blue post right immediately (instead of 7 months later...) If you're a blog fan like me, you should try it!

And by the way, if you're not yet getting emailed when people comment on your blog, log on to settings and set that up. These two changes have drastically reduced the time I spend checking blogs (mine and everyone else's).

The Chain

My friend Teri hosted Alison, me, and eleven hungry, dirty, exhausted, exhilarated kids at her beach cabin last week. Before you can drive back in to park, you have to unlock and lower a chain. Teri says you leave life there when you come in and pick it up on the way back out. Except that I'm having trouble getting it all packed back on. I can't remember how it fit before.

Tim said his top five of the cabin were: 1) The cousins (including Sophie), 2) reading, 3) the clams galore beach, 4) the food, and 5) the independence. I loved waking up every morning in that big communal room and hearing the relaxed breathing of so many people I love. I liked going down before everyone else was awake and stretching in the cool Northwest sunshine. I loved the beach walks, and watching kids playing for hours and hours in the driftwood and sand, and piles of rubber boots, and sitting on the Adirondack chairs on the last night watching reflections on the Sound and pretending it was summer in April.

The weather was glorious, glorious! As were the bald eagles, seals, Orcas, porpoises and even a grey whale. It was a beautiful week. Thank you Teri, Alison, and all you grimy kids.

We took the train from Everett to Seattle to get Alison and the kids to their plane. I loved it, as always. I'm a train person. I'm not sure ALISON loved it, but she was incredible. After she left with the kids for the airport (did you make it, Alison?), Tim and I did "Tim's Seattle"--we met Mr. Dewey live and in person on the spiral at the Rem Koolhaas library , ate fabulous delicacies at Belle Epicurean in the basement of the Fairmont Olympic (you eat there, dream about it for a year, eat there again...), and trekked down to Elliott Bay Books to buy something to read on the train home. It was the most gorgeous day of the year, absolutely heavenly. We saw Ranier and Baker and sunlight on the Sound. I could have upgraded to a sleeper and kept going to Chicago!

Well, now I've crossed the chain. I'm picking it all up and piling it back on again. But I find that although the week was full of kids to care for and food to cook, it was a vacation, a real one. I'm lucky on both sides of that chain. It's a nice life. I'll take it.

Shorts

At Alex's Sasquatch/Young Readers Book competition this week, the moderator read this competition rule: "I will read all questions twice. I will not repeat the question." Tim burst out laughing. It took me some time to understand what made him laugh. If there is some career involving immediate recognition of absurdities, he's going to make a lot of money.

Our Emmett Mumford Cousins (EMC) are here. This involves teasing and huge quantities of cheddar cheese, among other things. We had meatloaf sundaes for dinner, and for the first time someone--Harrison!--out-ate Tim.

Well, this isn't like the week when Nigel's bath water somehow drained directly into the downstairs toilet and huge bubbles bloomed up from the toilet seat. I have time to blog...and of course, no worthy material.

I'm thinking that I should tell you that my darling angel of a fourteen year old bomb maker got the most HIDEOUS progress report this week--a report so BAD that his teacher was REQUIRED to CALL ME ! We were both so embarrassed and surprised. We just traded awkward Zach compliments while struggling to find the words to discuss an F in Orchestra. This would be for a kid who practices every day AND comes to "Fiddle Club" at 7:30 am once a week. What are you going to say? He's the only Bass in Orchestra. Everybody KNOWS he's got the part down. And that earns an F? Yet I don't want to be the parent whining about the grade. Clearly this is Zach's problem. He has to turn in the practice sheets. He ACTUALLY PRACTICES!! And he doesn't turn in the sheets. But an F? Showing up every day with the part learned, attending all concerts dressed in a white shirt and tie, coming in an hour early once a week, being (as I discovered this week) the ONLY KID IN THE EIGHTH GRADE WHO STILL LIKES ORCHESTRA--this is FAILURE?!?!? COME ON!! Oops. Slipped over into the whiny Mom for a second.

That's all. Maybe something interesting will happen this week?

Frozen

Last time I was in trouble with the police, I nearly got arrested for playing sardines in Sloan Hall. That particular group of Young Adults was classic bad company--the group that also decided on a different Friday night to explore the steam tunnels under the campus police station.

Having raised a whole new pack of bad company, I found myself in trouble with the police again last Monday afternoon. Well, if your kids suggested popping old milk jugs and Seven-up bottles with dry ice and water, would you think that was a bad idea? I did have them all wear eye protection (snorkel masks, old sun glasses, hockey eye shields, swim goggles) and gloves, and I was more or less supervising the activity from the kitchen. True, I though it would sound like a pop gun, and the first blast sounded more like a land mine, but really! How many fun ideas are there left for your average over-supervised, wii-zombie type all American boy? We have no "system," and so we're constantly on the lookout for good clean fun. Like dry ice bombs.

Ben's mom arrived to pick him up and the two of us were chatting in the kitchen. She had just finished saying, "No, I'm glad you let them blow up the milk cartons. I'm delighted to think of him playing out in the yard instead of sitting in front of a screen," when the police officer rang the door bell.

Now, I do realize that I had failed in my due diligence, as later info from the web confirmed. For example, I did not realize that the 2 liter pop bottle they exploded went off with 200 psi of blast force. And I didn't realize that dry ice bombs are explicitly illegal in four states, and quasi illegal in 46 others. I felt that his point about incurring large legal fees while trying to spring my kids from jail or juvy was well made if inaccurate in our particular situation. BUT as far as the dry ice bombs blowing the kids' hands off...well, even after extensive research, I think that nice officer was just perpetuating an urban myth. In fact, I feel so strongly about this that I'm going to let all of YOU vote on it! That's right, my first ever poll!

Ben's mom was very nice about the visit from the law, although she looked just a little tense as she hustled him out the door. *Sigh.* You'd think just one of the members of the MTC would have some common sense. You'd think that would be me.

Other shorts:

Zach ref'ed two games in a roaring blizzard on Saturday morning, then took the bus to the corner of Northwest and Bakerview and slogged home through six inches of wet snow wearing...you got it! His ref shorts and his ref socks pulled as far up his thighs as they could go. Where was I? At Cub Scout Day Camp registration and Adjudications, frantically calling to try to get him a ride, but never able to connect with him even after I did. Tom was in balmy Nashville. We got a letter from the ref coordinator that might as well have been addressed to "Zach Mumford" and which explicitly outlined ALL the cold weather gear you can wear to a Youth League game under your uniform--including under armour, a black hat, black gloves, black track pants, and even a winter coat under your long sleeved ref shirt! Poor kid. He still seems to like the job.

Alex had a great adjudication! And pleaded with me to take him to play his soccer game in the snow. Too bad it got canceled.

Porter kept scratching open a sore on his nose so he had to wear a lampshade this week. It made him even more spastic than usual, and you could hear him, night and day, charging through the house sending chairs, toys, and small children flying as he whapped them full-on with the lamp shade. He was completely unembarrassed at having to wear the contraption and continued to charge through the door to welcome visitors, knocking them off their feet and imprinting a circle on their chests (with a tongue mark in the middle).

Spring Back

I feel spring. Not the way I used to feel it--coaxing sunshine, green shoots, soft air--but the way it feels with four active boys and two active church callings--jammed calendar, impossible schedules, exhausting, oppressive. I fear the end of affordable oil, but wouldn't life be easier if orchestra teachers COULDN'T plan back to back concerts across town from each other? If schools couldn't afford to bus your kid to the school 30 minutes away and had to let him bike to the one five minutes down the road? If we literally couldn't make it to the huge list of activities planned by church, school, lacrosse, soccer, piano, voice, cello? Yes, I chose some of this for myself and my kids, but still, I can't help but sometimes wish for a sort of transportation breakdown that leaves me stranded at home.

The Mumford boys got a shout out in Sacrament Meeting today from the Bishop. He was telling a classic story of what the Mumfords know as FTPA (failure to plan ahead, or ready fire aim syndrome), and he looked down at our bench and said, "I can just see the Mumford boys doing this." True, but slightly funny from a man whose own son broke his wrist longboarding, and (since he could still ride) broke his collar bone doing the same thing the very next week.

Zach ref'ed his first games Saturday. This required a ridiculous amount of behind the scenes work by me. But still it was mostly satisfying to watch him stride out onto the pitch in his ref uniform. It would have been TOTALLY satisfying, except that the uni featured shorts with a 2.5 inch inseam and a V necked, short sleeved shirt, and the outside temp was about 37 degrees F.

The website dictated that "Black long sleeved shirts under the official jersey are NOT acceptable." So I wouldn't let him wear his Under Armour. He was absolutely the ONLY ref there without it. Nobody on the sidelines seemed to notice him, which I found astonishing since he looked like a skinny vanilla popsicle. We stuck around for a few minutes to cheer him on in his first assignment, but after making him miss a couple of calls, we discovered that it wasn't so helpful to stand there yelling, "Blow your whistle louder!" and "Nice call, Ref!" and "Way to chase that play down!" So we took off.

Two and a half hours later, I went to pick him up. It would have been only two hours later, except that he was a bit confused about the length of the halves and gave his teams extra long games. I blew the equivalent of his first day's earnings on a hot chocolate (venti) and ran to the field for the last few minutes of the game. His nose was red and weeping slightly, and his body looked a little cramped. Luckily his second game was girls U9, which was less challenging ("Mom, I love ref'ing girls. Every time something comes up, they ALL LOOK AT ME to see what they're supposed to do!") After he blew the final whistle, I ran onto the field, hot chocolate extended. He wouldn't take it. After a few seconds of me trying to thrust it into his hand and him not taking it, he said, "Sorry Mom. I can't move my hand."

Still, I think he's going to enjoy it. And I think he's going to wear his Under Armour next week.

Mumford shorts (but not as short as the ref shorts :D):

Pulled from Tim's pocket just prior to leaving for sacrament meeting last week: a nose flute.

NCAA highlights: watching basketball with Zach. We're both pro-PAC-10. Tom thinks rooting for Stanford and UCLA is disloyal. Zach and I think it's fun. What's not to like about Kevin Love and the Lopez twins, as long as you're not trying to beat them?

NCAA lowlights: the commercials. I'm constantly craving pizza and I've realized that *I* am Sven.

Nigel walked up to me tonight and said, "Want to take the woman test? Hold out your arm." I obediently held out my arm. He hit it hard with a thin strip of cardboard. "Ow!" I yelled. He looked at me with satisfaction and pronounced conclusively, "Woman!"

And Other Misc.

I've been waiting for something to blog about. Nothing has come up. So, since everyone is posting videos of their darling kids, I thought I'd just post...essays... about my darling kids. These will not be in video form. We have no video camera. We bought one once but I got so scared that I'd bought the wrong thing and gotten a bad deal (which was probably true since I bought it, retail, at Circuit City at Christmas time) that I took it back.

Nigel's week goes like this: Monday, School Day, PAM DAY!!!!, School Day, Friday. He lives for the arrival of our housekeeper Pam. She brings him cheetos, gummy snacks, and real turkey eggs, lets him help scrub out the toilets and dust with the feather duster, and gives him a tin full of bath fizzies (which contain foam animal gel capsules) for Christmas. Did you follow that? Oh well. I also let him watch TV while Pam and I clean. It's his ONLY TV day. Pam Day is the best day of the week. He carefully monitors the days of the week so he knows how long left until the glorious day arrives. In fact, he carefully monitors and manages everything. He is the kind of kid who refuses to go to the potty until he has 1) informed me of the fact that he needs to go and received my acknowledgment. (This takes a little longer if he is going to take a little longer as I must faithfully promise to be on hand to wipe before he gets started.) 2) Has carefully turned on all the lights, 3) has checked that there is adequate soap on hand AND a towel within reach, and 4) has made sure that there is adequate toilet paper. He is also fascinated by anything having to do with anatomy--the NG issue on the circulatory system, the leap pad anatomy book, the book on diabetes at the doctor's office ("Mom, is this a pancreas?"). He still insists that he's going to be a fireman, but...OC Surgeon, anyone?

I asked Tim what he wanted to make for the annual Cub Scout Cake Decorating contest, and he immediately replied, "Watermelon Island." So we did. Yes, yes, I took a picture and I'll post it. I was telling the boys tonight that I needed their help so we could get ourselves off for Pullman on Weds and he reminded me, "I think you'd better not count on me. I'd love to help but my Tuesdays are just packed." Which is true. He goes from school straight to Kids on the Run (they "ran" 2.5 miles last week and I had to scrape Tim up off the floor to take him...) straight to Cello lessons, home for a quick dinner, and then to Cubs. That's EVERYTHING he does, and it's all on Tuesday. Go figure.

Alex is suffering from a testosterone surge. No, actually, Alex isn't suffering. We're ALL suffering from the testosterone surge. Alex and Zach look like Big Horn Sheep much of the time. ("Stop bugging me!" *thwack* "YOU stop!" *thwack*)

And yet, there's also a lovely side of Alex. I'd tell you all about it, except I think he'd *thwack* me afterward. Let's just say...you ought to hear him sing. Our stake sent a primary choir to Interfaith this year and Alex sang a gorgeous solo. And yes, I did discover that it's impossible to hear the flaws in your own child's performance. Alex also did a project (under duress) for music history day. I enclose a sample of his work.

Zach is fun. Well, they're all fun, but they're especially fun when they send you text messages that say "I love you," thank you for your help, do their online geometry without reminder day after day, babysit gratis at the drop of a hat, thoroughly clean the playroom when asked, and are the cutest teenage boy in the Ward, School, and possibly State. He's even started emptying the pockets of his jeans before putting them in the wash. Quick! Somebody pinch me! The only real argument I've heard from him lately would be a tiff with Dad over the exact basketball rankings. Is UCLA #2 or #3? Yes, we have the odd Bighorn moment (see above), but by and large... I'm not going to complete that sentence. Knock on the computer screen. In a few months you'll be leading me back to this post by the nose and insisting that all things pass. He's become quite the electric bassist and is loving playing the electric guitar. Members of an embryonic band have formed up in the basement for a jam session or two, but fortunately they have not yet managed to find a drummer.

Hey, Mom, glad you stuck with me this far! If something interesting comes along in my life (have not done any surgeries or stuck it to the man recently) I'll post again.

Getting to LaX

This last Saturday I attended what appeared to be the culminating event of CougNation Fantasy Camp. The Coug faithful, dressed in Western Viking Blue, donned pads and helmets and spent a couple of hours chasing men in purple Husky jerseys around a football field, beating them up with metal sticks.

There were refs on the field, but they were worse than any Pac 10 refs I've ever seen. Ignoramuses on the sidelines (self included) tried yelling out helpful observations, like, "Number Six just tripped a guy!" and "Over the back! Shooting two?" and "Sir! Assault with a deadly weapon on the twenty yard line!" and "Hey! That man just punched his opponent and left him for dead!" And about twenty minutes into the game, we discovered that they DID have yellow flags in their pockets. But despite all our hints, they did not USE the flags OR their whistles (if they had them) to stop the violence.

By this time, of course you have realized that I was attending neither a Husky Slam Fest nor a crime in progress, but a collegiate lacrosse game. And I was clearly an alien in a strange land. Nothing looked right. Lacrosse has always seemed like a finesse game to me--little ball, little nets, tossing and catching, keep away kind of thing. That whole finesse idea went right out the window during the first sixty seconds of the game. The ref dropped the ball on the ground and as soon as a player scooped it up, all other players began whacking him furiously about the legs and torso as if he had stolen the ball rather than merely acquiring possession.

Turns out the Iroquois were not kidding when they invented the game and called it "Little Brother of War." And the coaches are not kidding when they say that even seven year olds playing the game need more pads than a football player--arm pads! Wrist pads! Shoulder pads! Chest pads! Shoulder BLADE pads! Back pads! Finger pads! Plus a full face helmet, mouth guard, and chin guard. After all, in football you only get to use your bare hands. In lacrosse, they give you a stick. And to the amazement of the uneducated spectators at Saturday's match, they REALLY DO tell you to whack away!

Fortunately Alex's friend arrived about half time with his Dad in tow, and the Dad explained a few things to me. "What I love about this game," he said, "is that the coaches absolutely respect the origins of the game. This is our heritage, our oldest game, and disrespect is absolutely not tolerated, in any form. I really love that cheap hits are just not tolerated, just not allowed. If they refs see a cheap hit, that's an automatic penalty, and on the second one, you get tossed."

I deeply appreciated his sorting that out, although I was not then or ever able to distinguish a cheap hit from all the other hits (To the chest! To the legs! Up and over the shoulders! One earth shaking smash flattened the ball carrier and sent the ball out of bounds. The ball was then awarded to the aggressor and play continued.) One thing I did sort out: the object for spectators is to keep an eye on the ball, as the players are so busy whaling away at each other that the little thing often falls out of the "crosse" and gets "loste." At that moment, all in-the-know spectators cry out, as a man, "ball down!" and the players stop hitting each other long enough to find the ball, scoop it up, and carry on with the carnage.

Alex fell in love with this game at the age of six when he saw a pair of toy lacrosse sticks in JoAnn Fabric and Crafts (hmmm...another black eye for crafts). He saw those sticks and he just HAD to have them. He worked six weeks for them. He has been determined to play the game ever since. And he loves it. Well, what boy wouldn't? Here are your pads. Here's your helmet. Here's your stick. Now go to it, buddy!

But Saturday's bloodbath gave me pause. Out here on the West Coast, lacrosse is our own cherished blend of native origin and East Coast Prep, irresistibly snooty yet earthy, the ultimate Volvo mom club sport. That image lured me in. But it didn't convince me to stay.

I only came to peace with lacrosse by recalling a game I know much better. Sometime late Saturday night, I realized that the maiming of the ball carrier would seem perfectly legal in a game of American football. Beat him up? Try to strip the ball? Shove him down? Step on his face? Kick him out of bounds? All perfectly legal. This is just football without the psychotic football dads. Oh, and everybody has to run around a lot more. And did I mention that if you have to be on defense, they try to soften the blow by giving you a stick roughly the length of a transom pole? If play gets held up on the other end of the field, you can amuse yourself by fiddling around with the angle on the stadium lights (if so equipped).

All fine now. Play on. Except I may try to steer Timmy toward swimming...

SNOWBOARDING

I have skied most of my life. From the first time Bill Felsted took us to Brundage when I was 14, to skiing 5 different resorts on our honeymoon, to last Monday, I have many fond memories of the slopes, and I have skied at almost every resort from Bellingham to Salt Lake.

I have been pretty lucky about avoiding injuries, too. The only exception was one time when we drove up to Mount Spokane with our friends, Dave and Ken. I volunteered to take a big jump and landed in very sticky spring snow. When I woke up a few minutes later I noticed the snow covered with blood and Julia and two other people standing over me. As my eyes began to focus I exclaimed “Hey look, Julia! Dave and Ken are here too!” Ski patrol imprisoned me until noon for that comment.

My favorite place to ski is Alta – both because it has the most spectacular terrain and because it does not allow snowboarders. I have always considered them to be part of the coarser lot – just above dentists, telemarketers and real estate agents.

So it was with a conflicted sense of bemusement that I found myself snowboarding at Mount Baker last week. My logic was as follows: All kids want to snowboard these days. If I don’t learn how now before I get too old and brittle, I won’t be able to, like, get massive air with my shredder sons.

I completed my first run with no problems other than getting separated from Tim. After waiting at the bottom for a while I began to get worried and decided to head up and look for him. I came partly down the slope and was looking around and behind me when … WHAM!!

I hit a small piece of ice which caught my edge and slammed me to the ground where I landed with my full weight on my right shoulder. Thanks to my New Year’s resolution that I will not shave until I have turned my two liter bottle into a six pack (I have lost 7 pounds so far) you might think that my full weight could not do much damage. You would be wrong. I felt a hard crunch and two thoughts popped into my mind in the following order: (1) dang! A beautiful day of snowboarding wasted! and (2) I just broke my collar bone.

I sat there wondering whether I should get up and try to make it down to the lodge, but I realized that I was going into serious shock.

A skier who was also a nurse recognized that I was not well, and soon I was riding on a snowmobile down the mountain while struggling to maintain consciousness.

My main concern was this: It was a beautiful blue sky day and I had six kids with me. I had just shelled out over $120 for lift tickets and I did not want to ruin the day for them.

The doctor assured me that it would not matter whether I got an x-ray now or in a few hours, so I rested in the first aid shack, took some ibuprofen and relaxed until I was out of shock. I was joined by another snowboarder with a deep bruise to his gluteus maximus and another snowboarder with a head injury. No skiers reported to the first aid shack.

My only other concern was getting down the mountain at the end of the day. I was not sure I could handle the windy and snowy access road with only my left hand. I figured that if I walked around the lodge enough I might run into someone I knew. So wrapped in my new sling I wandered the lodge, getting many concerned looks (most from parents of snowboarders). I eventually did find someone I knew who had a friend who drove us home at the end of the day.

As we were driving home I overheard one of Alex’s friends call his mom on his cell phone:

“Oh, it was really fun! – except Brother Mumford broke his collar bone.” He was right. Except that technically I just have a separated AC joint. There is not much difference however, between the two injuries: both heal in about 3 weeks – which means I still might be able to get some more snowboarding in this season.

On second thought, maybe I’ll just ski.

A few Timisms:

While praying: “…and please bless my friends – and also all my foes…”

--------

Dad: “Tim, maybe you could invent a special pill that would take away the desire to do wrong. And it could be given to bad guys so that they would not commit crimes anymore?”

Tim: “Dad, I think that would be against Heavenly Father’s plan of free agency. So I’m not going to invent it.”

"Dad, I will come on the snowcave campout, but I'm just going to sleep in the car." insisted Zach.

"No, the whole purpose is to teach you survival skills and you are going to dig a snow cave and spend the night in it – and I don't want to argue about it anymore!" I said for the fourteenth time.

I had just finished reading an article about a team of Polish mountaineers who climbs Himalayan peaks in the WINTER just to prove that they are tougher than everyone else, and I was motivated to have my own encounter with extreme adventure by digging my first snow cave. I figured that if those Polish mountaineers can spend 2 days in a tent on top of an icy ledge in 40 degree below weather waiting for the storm to break, I can surely survive on night in a snow cave at Mt. Baker.

Making the cave was relatively easy – if you don't mind a little hard work and you are not claustrophobic. After a few hours I was soaked with sweat on the inside and damp on the outside from lying in the snow, but Alex and I had a comfortable cave – a tunnel that led to two sleeping chambers lined with a tarp.

We ate and went sledding and then bedded down in the cave while we were still warm from the exercise. Alex and I talked a bit and he was soon asleep in his warm mummy bag. Since we had several scouts who did not have sleeping bags I had loaned the other ones out, keeping just my regular cloth bag for myself – after all if those Polish mountaineers could survive 4 weeks in sub zero temperatures I was sure I cold make it through one night.

Well, at first I was quite comfortable in our snug snow cave. We were out of the wind and my body was warm. As I snuggled down deeper into my sleeping bag, it did occur to me that I probably should have changed into drier clothes. However, at that point I did not want to go back out into the cold and I did not want to wake Alex up. That is how I learned what it must feel like to be a fresh steak thrown into the freezer. At first, only my head and feet were cold. However, as the night wore on the sweat on the inside and the moisture on the outside began to slowly freeze and after a long time I began to feel a few involuntary shivers.

Still, I figured that at some point I would become tired enough not to feel the cold so I waited, shivering in my sleeping bag, and endured. After a few hours of this I was still not sleepy and was starting to realize that I was not going to feel comfortable unless I reached that point in hypothermia where you start to feel warm again – the part that comes shortly before death. Still, I figured that I could get through the night. After a long time I decided to just shine my flashlight and see how the cave was holding up. To my surprise, the ceiling, which had been about 18 inches above my face when the cave was dug, was now less than a foot away. I realized that our body heat was slowly causing the cave to melt and shrink, and I began to try to calculate whether the roof would stay high enough to last the night, and whether it would keep shrinking slowly or simply collapse suddenly. I discovered that thinking such thoughts took my mind off how cold I was feeling. I also discovered that if I could lie very still I could actually hear the cave slowly collapsing and that the effort required to do this also distracted me from the cold.

However, that sound was soon replaced by the sound of an animal rummaging through my backpack at the cave entrance. I figured it was not a bear or a cougar since either of those would have already eaten us. More likely it was a badger, raccoon or a squirrel. I also found that thinking about this took my mind off the cold. I didn't want to wake up Alex and go out in the wind, so I finally decided I could share whatever was in my pack with the critter which was so intently rummaging through it.

Unfortunately, after making the decision to abandon my pack to the creature, I found it more difficult to take my mind off the cold. I realized that as the cave continued to shrink, my body heat was slowly escaping me from all sides and I was becoming entombed in a tube of snow. Still, I figured that if those Polish mountaineers could endure temperatures in which any piece of exposed flesh would be instantly frostbitten, I could stick it out through the night. Besides, I was probably more than half way through already.

I had turned off my cell phone to save batteries, and I felt the urge to check the time. But I figured if I could hold out for another hour or two before looking at the time I would be close enough to morning that I would be able to hang on. So I waited, listening to the creature rummaging through my pack as the cave slowly collapsed and Alex snored.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity I worked my cell phone out of an inner pocket and turned on the power. It was eleven thirty.

I can not describe the sense of despair that I felt when I realized that I was going to have spend another two lifetimes even colder than the one I had just experienced before I would see the light of day. Would the cave hold up? Should we dig deeper? At this point, I was shivering and I could tell that it would not be long until my teeth would start to chatter.

After agonizing about what to do for another hour, the critter finally woke Alex up. We yelled at it and swatted at the pack, but it seemed to be tangled up in the plastic cover. Finally, realizing that we would have to leave the cave, I pulled my boots on and decided to try to scare the animal as I made my exit. As I scrambled out of the cave entrance, yelling, I pushed my pack hard, and it fell over – and out of the wind, where it at once became a peaceful inanimate object -- completely intact. But if you were there, the wind would have fooled you too.

We saw two other snow cavers huddled around the fire and joined them. However, we only had a few logs left and we found that while huddling near the fire was better than being in the cave, we were were still losing body heat. After burning our few remaining logs and drinking some hot chocolate, we scrambled up to the cars to get a little sleep. We found the suburban inhabited by two other scouts who had already homesteaded the best seats.

It felt so good to walk that we just kept going, walking up to the ski lodge and down to the security gate. Once the blood started to flow I realized that I was going to survive. As long as I kept walking I would make it through the night. A feeling of gratitude came over me as I felt the cold and fear melt away and I realized that even though I would be tired the next day I was going to be warm again.

Reflecting on this experience, I believe it is much like our testimonies of the gospel. When we are passive and isolated, worrying about ourselves in the dark, our inner fire begins to cool. Even basking in the testimony of others, like sitting by the fire, can make parts of us feel warm for a little while. But the only way to really feel the warmth of the spirit fill our lives is to be active in the gospel. Jesus spent his ministry among the people. And Christianity is much less of an abstract set of concepts that it is an active way of life. I have found that my faith is stronger when I am actively involved in teaching, serving and worshiping than when I a take a theoretical and abstract view of religion. As James said:

"Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world."

Epilogue

Eventually, all the scouts ended up sleeping the in cars. We ran the heater for a while and loaded up the gear around 5:30 am. I had not slept at all and I jokingly asked the boys if they wanted to stay and go sledding one more time before we left. The answer was a resounding YES! Sometimes in life your only choice is tired or cold. If you choose cold you eventually die, but if you choose tired you will always come through all right. I have to sign off now. I've got to catch up on my sleep.

The Requested Photos

The Puzzled Creator (Tom)

Why do we have the universal urge to make things? I have never been
very good at mechanical things like building with wood (I don't like
to measure), or fixing cars or doing home repairs. One time after we
were married I decided to make myself a pair of shorts. I cut out two
pieces of cloth that LOOKED like shorts – in fact they were the exact
size I wanted them to be. However, when I sewed them together and
turned them right-side out the leg holes were so small I couldn't even
fit my arm through them. Curiously, the waist part was large enough
for me and at least one more companion. I never did figure that one
out.

When I was about 11, I invented the flying skier. I did this by duct
taping roller skates to a ski. My maiden and farewell voyage left my
face spread out in chunks all down the right side of Crestview drive
in Pullman. Ask Brett about my other infamous inventions: the goop
shooter (the project was abandoned after several malfunctions
resulting in backfire of flour water goop all over the kitchen) the
wheel of fortune, and my old motorcycle I bought for $15 from Brett
Myers.

So it is with some bemusement that I am sitting here reflecting that
it is very strange that out backyard now has: a tree house (sort of
anyway – it is really more of a tree platform) a skate park (well, a
few ¼ pipe ramps anyway) and now… a waterfall – all of which were
built by ... me.

Well, not exactly. We had this sunken area outside our deck that I
never liked. It was always wet, and ugly and difficult to mow.
Sometime this summer, this idea came into my head that it would be the
perfect place for a water feature. I pictured a little cascading
trickle falling into a quaint pool set between two stones.

Well that idea would not go away. It kept torturing me all summer and
one day I saw an ad on Craigslist for some free rock. I drove out to
the country and met this farmer who said he had some nice rocks that
he needed to get out of his field and that he was willing to give them
away of I took all of them. Well, it just so happened that I have a
client who is an excavator who was going to dig a French drain for me
so I asked him if he would mind picking up the rocks for me when he
came to dig the ditch.

A few days later I returned from work to find approximately SIX TONS
of bounders in a big pile off the deck in the back yard.



"The Farmer wanted me to take one that weighed over 1,000 pounds" my
client, Hank told me, "but I figured you already had enough."

Enough? What to do with all this rock? Well, I went back to Craigslist and found a couple of plastic ponds and started figuring how to put everything together. My problem is that I cannot visualize how something will turn out. I just have to start moving things around and seeking how they look. Unfortunately, you can't do that very easily with 500 lb. boulers.

That is how I found myself one day last August, taking the day off
work to watch my client with his excavator machine being directed by
another client of mine who is an architect as they moved boulders
around, flipped them over, replaced them with others and basically
acted just like a woman directing her husband to re- arrange the
furniture.

The long and short is that I have spent all my spare time during the past two months working on the waterfall. I did have to hire an expert in pond and waterfall construction to give me some basic tips about how to lay out the rocks and prepare the flat falls, but most of what you see was my design. And so far, unlike my other great ideas, it seems to be working. Except that I have to put more water in it every day. Now when I come home from work the first thing I do is go
and visit the waterfall and make sure it is still working. THEN, I give JB a kiss and say hi to the kids. I am hoping that the water loss is due to splash and evaporation -- and not to a leak. But
knowing how my other inventions have turned out, it will only be a matter of time until we have a massive flood in our basement. In the mean time, however, I will keep the screen door open, even in winter, to hear the soothing sound of our waterfall.

Triple A

There are at least five things I ought to be doing right now other than blogging, but a promise is a promise, and it ought to be kept, especially when that means you can procrastinate doing laundry.

Today has been a bizarre day. Tim had oral surgery this morning and he got put under for it. I was a little nervous about that. When I went in to see him after it was over, it was strange to see him there but not there, his eyes stuttering as he tried to track the Doctor's face. He didn't talk for a while--talking is not his favorite mode of communication anyway--but he was ready to jump right up, in spite of the fact that he was bobbing and weaving as he tried to move.

We walked into the house and he promptly threw up and, to his bleary bewilderment, lost bladder control. Glad I didn't send him back to school (just kidding! I probably would NEVER have done that.) I don't mind the work of caring for invalids, but I don't like the people I love to be something other than themselves. He's feeling a little more Tim now, reading a book and banging on the wall with a lacrosse stick when he needs my help.

I went into school the other day to help Tim with writing and got the tail end of a pep talk his teacher was giving the class. He was just finishing telling a story about how his day had started (it seemed to involve mechanical failure of a car, a downpour, and a fair bit of walking), but told the kids that he'd seen a bumper sticker that said "No Bad Days" as he was trying to get himself to school. He asked them what they thought that meant.

My favorite answer was (can you guess?) Tim's. He said , "It means, 'You decide.'" After we had finished up Tim's writing and the kids had gone to PE, I was cleaning out Tim's desk (this is a job he sometimes needs help with) when the teacher came back. I asked what had happened, and he told me that his car had died--run out of gas, he thought--several MILES from school, that he had a class to attend (teach?) after school until 9 pm and that his other car was in the shop. But no bad days!

It took me ten minutes or so, but I finally extracted the key from his reluctant hand, grabbed a gas can from the garage, implored Teri to go with me (okay, it didn't take much persuasion--she's incredibly busy painting her house, but she fairly sizzles with jump in and do good spirit) and set off to find the car.

Now, I was not as optimistic as Tim's teacher that the car would turn out to be merely out of gas. He had confided a) that the 'car' was actually a Volkswagen Westphalia, b) that he was unfamiliar with the gas gauge because the car was a recent purchase, c) that he had bought it from a graduating college student, and d) would we please overlook without prejudice the marijuana-promoting bumpersticker affixed to the back since it belonged to the previous owner?

I thought (and Teri agreed) that if you buy a Westphalia from a college kid on weed, you get what you pay for. Which is a long walk to school. But this teacher is a great guy, dedicated, intelligent, hard working, and very much loved by both our kids, and a mercy mission makes more sense than plates full of cookies, so we both prayed that somehow gas really was the problem and went to work.

Teri, wearing paint clothes and a take-charge expression, grabbed the gas can while I got the gas key out of the ash tray. (Aside: keeping your gas key in the ash tray is the same as not bothering with a gas key, except that it increases the chances of dropping the thing down into the innards of the dash. Anyway.) The gas can spout was a tricky, and neither of us had used it before. It had sort of a retracting cover which we couldn't figure out how to pull back and the gas seemed to be supposed to come out the sides.

Finally Teri pulled the cover back with one hand and holding the gas can in the other, stuck the nozzle in and poured. Gas gushed out all over her hands and feet and splashed into her eye. She set down the gas can and calmly but forcefully asked for water. I ran around ineffectually, first looking for a water source (a mud puddle?) and finally settling on the box of wipes I keep in the car.

Once Teri's sight was restored we were back to trying to force gas into the Westphalia. After Teri had been doused a couple more times, I called Tom (fortunately without generating static electric sparks.)

"Hi," I said. "Teri and I are here with Mr. Smith's car and without asking for any explanations could you please tell us how the gas can works?"

Long pause. "Who's Mr. Smith?" he asked.

Finally he divulged that the gas can works on faith. You cannot see how the gas will get from the can to the tank, but if you shove it in there and pour, somehow the transfer becomes true. We tried this method. It worked as advertised. Until Teri pulled the can out.

As it turned out, there was a stopper in the end of the gas can spout. Had we seen it in the first place, we could have pulled it out and simply poured. Too bad we didn't, because as Teri removed the can, the edge of the stopper caught on the inside of the spring loaded fuel inlet cover and stayed caught half inside, half outside the gas tank.

The moment stretched painfully as the possibilities became clear.

"Ah, Mr. Smith....? Though we only wanted to help, unfortunately...."

I asked Teri if she thought it was appropriate for me to pray. She asked me why I hadn't been praying all along.

Clearly, in order to get the thing OUT, we had to open the spring loaded cover without dropping the stopper, but the space was pretty cramped. Teri clutched the stopper while I ran around looking for sticks...screw drivers...pliers...

"Do you have a chopstick in your car?" Teri called. I came up with a live-strong bracelet, a pair of sunglasses, and a capless pen.

After several abortive attempts, at last I pulled and twisted while Teri poked (with the sunglasses ear piece) and whew! Our prayers were answered and we hyperunventilated.

Teri's VW experience being more recent than mine (though I recall revving the rabbit frantically at every stoplight with the best of them), she got behind the wheel. The Westphalia belched several clouds of exhaust and miraculously started up.

We walked into the school together, smelling like a well-prepped arson site, and presented Mr. Smith with the key.

He walked up enthusiastically but was forced to take a step backwards as the fumes overcame him. He gave us a sincere if watery-eyed smile and gasped out, "I'm so sorry! You smell like gasoline!"

Which is all the thanks a couple of bored middle-aged stay at home moms hungry for adventure really need. I think Teri muttered that next time she's bringing HER gas can.

Five Things that Moms Say that Make No Sense (No Particular Order)

1. Why can moms not get that only girls wear coats? You'd think they were girls or something.

2. What is this bizarre obsession with mud? Sheesh! You'd think it was radioactive the way they carry on about it.

3. Eat! Don't eat! Eat! Don't eat! Moms cannot make up their minds. Look, Mom, there are two categories of food: good food (Lucky Charms, cheetos, root beer) and bad food (weird soup, spaghetti sauce, whatever's for dinner). If you'd just work on always getting us good food, we'd eat and you wouldn't have to say a word.

4. The room clean thing is one I'll never get. It's just a whole lot of effort for no reason. I've cleaned that thing a million times and no progress has been made. In fact, I think it's dirtier than when I first started. Could we just stop?

5. WHY do you want to comb my hair? And WHAT is the purpose of a "part?"

Okay, yes, I do admit you were right about the deodorant, and where did I put that, anyway?

Play it, Mom

I bought a bottle of fish oil pills at Costco. My thinking: yes, they could be quackery, and they do make you burp fish, but what ACTUAL damage can they do, other than to the pocketbook? So I told Tim that some studies show that Omega-3 and Omega-6 make you smarter. He wanted to try this out. I gave him a pill to swallow. About five minutes later I looked over and he was still trying to swallow it. He would put it in his mouth, fill a glass full of water, get an incredibly determined look on his face, and then throw his head back, splashing water all over his shirt, his face, and the floor. He would look hopeful for a second or two, then spit the capsule out, fill the glass again, and start over. After about fifteen minutes of this, he jubilantly yelled, "I did it! I did it! I swallowed the capsule! I'm going to be smarter--if that's possible."

Church today was one of those humbling, exhausting experiences. I got up at 5 am to finish up Program Practice Prep. This involved lots of printing, collating, copying, and one large Eddie Spaghetti poster. At 8 am, I ran to my Ward Council meeting. Bishop: "Primary?" Me: "Nothing from us."

All heads swivel. Bishop: (incredulous) "Primary has nothing?"

I know, I know, me and my big mouth are the most popular members of Ward Council. I got home to find Mom and all boys in action, having made SIX pans of rice crispy treats. Thanks Mom. And we were even all in the car and off to church right on time. A beautiful, textbook morning. And then...

It started with the Organ. About half way through the prelude, a sizzling fried-wires sound was heard from the vicinity of the soffits and POOF! no more organ. Then, just as the sacrament was just coming to a close, into the reverent silence came a distinctive, loud, IRREVERENT, musically electronic sound from our bench. As the noise went on...and on...and on...and on... and nobody did anything about it, I began to realize that it was NOT one of the boys. The sound was way too pretty. It could only be one person on our bench.

Mom.

That's right. Let one unsearched person onto the bench, and that's what you get. I couldn't stop laughing (silently). Then it got worse. I had planned a complex schedule for Primary time and as a result I brought a whole bag full of watches to distribute to watchless teachers. I never thought about the possibility that some of them might be have alarms...that were switched on...and left at the default setting of...what ever time but 12 noon? So right about the time our very excellent WML speaker was approaching his conclusion (and I was once again sitting at the piano), all beeping broke loose from the Mumford vicinity.

We heard last night at (yet another) ward fireside that a Puritan woman and her employer's family were forced to leave their community because she smiled in church. My friends all tell me the best part of the Mumford reverence fiasco is watching me try to hold it together while playing the hymns.

Tonight at bedtime, Tim for some reason had his heart set on sleeping on the downstairs couch. He gave me every argument he could think of. Finally, I said, "Look, Tim. We sometimes DO allow kids to sleep on the couch, but NEVER on a school night." He demanded to see a copy of the family rules where that one was written down. "Tim," I said, "studies have shown that sleep deprivation actually reduces your academic performance." "Oh, don't worry Mom," he said. "We'll make up for that with the fish oil pills."

I have so much more to say, but I'm exhausted and I have to get up at 4:45 am to take Tom to the airport. We're so lucky to have Mom staying here this week--but LOOK! In spite of that, I still blogged. What commitment!

Muddy

Hey, thanks for all the comments. I'm loving the blog renaissance!

It has been the ugliest fall here in Bham. It has rained and rained and rained. Out in the back yard where Tom was once building the canal, we now have a muddy rock pile rising from a puddle. I would imagine that this frustrates him, but we haven't talked much about it.

Last Monday was an early release day from school. I hate early release days. Not because I dislike having the kids home. On the contrary! But having them home every odd once in a while just for the afternoon means that they want to plan something out of the ordinary, and that inevitably involves extra kids and quite a lot of bother of one sort and another. This particular Monday, it also involved our old dead lawnmower, now bereft of blade, and the muddy rock pile/puddle. Also jumper cables (fortunately no one was blinded) and quite a lot of whooping. And truckloads of mud.

I know, I know, you're wondering, "Julia! Where were YOU???" Well, I was here. Mostly. It just didn't seem like the stunningly bad idea it turned out to be until the moment that I realized that (unlike me) the boys saw the old lawnmower less as a great learning experience in the shop and more as a poor man's four wheeler. When I heard the mower roar to life, I ran out to the garage to congratulate them. For a moment, I basked in the joy of knowing what a great, broad minded mother I am.

Then I turned into a shrill, narrow minded, screaming mother. "STOP! NO!!! GET HIM OFF OF THERE!! NO WHEELIES!!! ONLY ONE PERSON!!! I REALLY DON'T THINK..... ZAAAAAACH!!!!! HEY!!! WHATEVER YOUR NAME IS!!! COULD YOU JUST! YIKES!!!! TIME OUT FOR THE MOWER.....HEY! BOYS!!! NOT THE SKATEBOARD!!"

"What, John? A tow rope? Like for a... No honey, no tow ropes."

"I don't mean we don't HAVE a tow rope. I mean YOU can't have a tow rope."

"I mean, no tow ropes on the mower. Look boys, think about this picture. A rope tied to the lawn mower. People running around. Ropes twisting around limbs and necks. Ropes dragging people. Ropes cutting things off. Important things like heads, arms, and legs. "

"Look, boys, I totally get that you are VERY responsible and..."

"I never questioned your judgment, but..."

"BOYS!!! NO TOW ROPES!!! NO, NOT FOR THE BIKE!!! OR FOR ANY VEHICLE OR REASON!!!"

"AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!! GET THAT THING OUT OF SIXTH GEAR!!! DO YOU HAVE A SPEEDOMETER?"

My friend Teri's advice to her boys is, "If it looks stupid, sounds stupid, or smells stupid, it IS stupid." I don't know how she successfully raised two boys with this piece of advice, because frankly, NO idea which has just occurred to a boy strikes him as stupid. Ever.

And later, after it has been proven stupid, the idiot antics still have to be shared. My boys can't resist telling me all the horrifyingly stupid things they do. They just can't. It's great to pull it off without getting caught, but within 60 minutes, they find themselves sidling up to me and asking, "Mom, if I tell you something, promise you won't get mad?"

I love my boys, I DO, I DO!! But don't tell me I have my hands full. Everybody does. Do they think I don't understand this? I am in a boat with six adorable males. The boat is filling with water. I'm frantically bailing, yelling for help. The boys are looking at me. They're all wearing the same perplexed look and they're asking, "Why is water (mud, a party for sixty, hooky-bobbing, etc., etc.) a problem?"

Ten Blogs in Ten Weeks

Scott has thrown down the gauntlet. I pick it up. A challenge for all my beloved blogging sibs. I miss the blogs! I am as much to blame as anyone! So I'm going to take an oath: I will write 10 blogs in 10 weeks--a blog a week for the next two and a half months. May some of the rest of you take the challenge and help me avoid housework on Monday morning.

Oh, and if anyone can help me get rid of the little green bar in my pretty picture, DO IT!! PLEASE!! HELP!!!

The kids have started school and its been even more painful than usual. The lunches. The backpacks. The signatures on everything, though why they think it prevents things like progress reports and picture day from escaping my notice, I'll never know. Violins, Cellos, Double basses. Concerts. SOCCER SOCCER SOCCER SOCCER SOCCER SOCCER. Birthdays for everyone. And SO on.

Alex is taking singing lessons, but don't tell anyone. He sings like an angel. He loves the lessons. He loves to practice. It's fragile bliss, though, because if even ONE person makes a derogatory comment, I suspect that I won't be able to drag him back to the lessons with a tow rope. His teacher is a lovely man who has an entire mantelpiece full of cut glass and crystal, sparklingly lit and backed by a gigantic mirror. It's probably half a ton of fragile leaded glass whatever. Honestly.

I've noticed that standing there gazing at the crystal makes the kids incredibly, perfectly good. They don't balk. They don't refuse. They don't look mulish and they NEVER EVEN THINK of banging the keys or stomping their feet. The possible consequences are just too terrifying. I wish I'd thought of that technique years ago.

Now, I have several more possible topics and I'd like to go on, but frankly if I'm going to make it through ten blogs in ten weeks, I have to save some topics. So remind me that I promised to tell you about a man, a plan, a canal...panama! next week.

I'll just finish up with a Tim. This is a report from Tom. The other day they were riding in the car together and this conversation happened:

Tim: Dad, as soon as the last of our friends move away, can we move to Idaho?

Dad: What are you talking about?

Tim: You know, most of our friends have moved away, so I figure after the Rosses move we might as well go, too.

Dad: But the Rosses aren't moving.

Tim: Well, it's only a matter of time. Besides, if we move to Idaho, Zach can save you some time by driving me to Scouts when he is 14.

Dad: True, but I have a law practice here. I have a reputation--people know I'm a good lawyer, so they come to me. If we moved to Idaho I'd have to start all over.

Tim: Sure, but if you're such a hot-shot lawyer, you can build up a new reputation in no time. And I don't mind eating smaller portions for a while.

Silence…

Tim: Besides, don't we have all those cans of wheat and stuff out in the garage? We can just eat that.

A Lone Man in the Garden of Eden

They say that Adam was lonely in the garden and needed Eve to be a help meet for him. Well this past week Julia and the Boys have been in Idaho having their 1940’s knee boarding vacation and as Julia put it that means that I have been left “a lone man in the Garden of Eden”. Let’s deconstruct:

“1940’s knee boarding vacation”: the original idea of this vacation was that it was going to be a rustic vacation in like in the 1940’s (see e.g. “Blueberries for Sal”)

No CD players, no Ipods, no cell phones, no computers, no radio, no tv and NO MOVIES. Just books, games, and puzzles. EXCEPT that they decided they would also take the boat. Well, the reports I am hearing are that they are out on the water all day every day taking turns knee boarding, wakeboarding, waterskiing etc. But when they go home, NO ELECTRONICS. Hence, the 1940’s knee boarding vacation.

Garden of Eden: That would be Bellingham. It used to be that when Julia left to visit family, I would eat many if not most of my meals in restaurants. It has not been a whole week, and I have eaten only one meal at a restaurant -- and that was mostly for convenience. Instead, I have been living off homemade bread and produce from our garden. For example I invented a new dish I call pink patriotic potato salad. We grew some BLUE potatoes this year and yes they are really blue. When combined with white potatoes and beets (from the garden) they make a patriotic combination. Except that when you add the mayo (I have now learned how to make homemade mayonnaise) everything turns pink. I made a large batch for our BBQ party last week and it was DELICIOUS, but most people avoided it because they could not figure out how a salad with obvious bits of egg and pickles could be pink, and not be some kind of Jell-O concoction. The result was that the left over potato salad fed me for a couple of days – YUMMY! When I want a snack, I just go to the garden and grab a cucumber from the cucumber patch. They are fresh and crisp and delicious. For lunch, I grab a garden fresh tomato and slice it on homemade bread with an avocado. Tonight for dinner I had zucchini with melted cheese. (That was traditionally my secret power meal before football games in High School). For breakfast, I have been making berry smoothies and finishing off the remaining hard boiled eggs.

Why do you need to know this? I’m not sure, but I suspect that Adam didn’t really need Eve to cook his meals for him, with all that fresh produce literally hanging around.

“Help Meet?” I have discovered that I can get a lot more done with nobody around. As a general rule, it takes at least 3 times longer (and 200% more frustration) to teach a kid to do a job instead of just doing the job myself. I have also noticed that when I clean a room, it STAYS CLEAN. What a concept! I have enjoyed being able to work at home without interruptions, and to follow whatever schedule I feel like (as long as I make my client meetings, I can work at the office, at home, morning afternoon or night. I have also enjoyed the peace and quiet of the house. And when I want company I invite my bluegrass buddies over for a jam session.

In fact, I have been enjoying myself so much that I was beginning to reflect that Adam may have been better off before Eve came along. As I was reflecting on this, I picked up this month’s Ensign. The feature article is entitled “Welcoming Every Single One” and talks about issues faced by single members of the church, who often find it hard to fit in to a church which places so much focus on families.

As I read the article, I realized that the only reason I have been enjoying being alone this past week is that it is such a novel contrast to my usual daily life. What would it feel like to come home every day and not have Nigel jump off the stairs into my arms? Or to hear silence all the time instead of Zach practicing his piano and bass? Or to not take Tim with me to the store and listen to his deep philosophical questions as we go? Or to take care of the yard without Alex to discover all the snakes, frogs and plants? And most of all not to be able to look into Julia’s eyes, to not hear her voice, and to not hold her close at night?

If I did not have the hope that my family will be coming home in a few days, the peaceful solitude I am enjoying now would turn into restless loneliness. Sometimes the grass is greener on the other side. Sometimes, seeing the greener grass on the other side just makes you more grateful for your own yard. Not because it is less green, but simply because it is yours.

So, I will enjoy my last few days of being alone. But I am already looking forward to the day when the house is messy again, when I have to come home for dinner every night, and when I have somebody to help me in the garden.