Karma and Hair Gel

Time is a good teacher.  Over the course of the last couple of years I have learned a lot from a little thing called Karma.  Or what goes around comes around.  I've never claimed to be perfect.  I'm so not.  But I am human, and like most humans I observe those around me and I make judgments.  It's not for me to judge anyone.  I know that. 

There are many examples of situations that I made judgment calls on and then had to live through the same experience as that person I had judged.  One that comes to mind sprang from my six year stint working retail. 

As many of you know I worked for Lowe's for six stinkin' years.  In that time period I came into contact with a variety of different people.  A lesbian vegan from Oregon, a gay Mormon boy from Logan, a Southern woman that grew up in poverty and neglect, a physically abused alcoholic woman, and many, many, seemingly "normal" people.  What I learned most from working there was that people are more alike than they are different.  I became friends with most of the above mentioned people.  Everyone of them was God's child and everyone of them had a unique story that shaped who they had become.

One particular woman was a challenge for me to get along with.  And I pride myself on being able to get along with people.  It wasn't that she was abrasive or difficult.  In fact she was quite congenial.  Very outgoing and vivacious.  She was one of those that loved to talk.  And talk.  And talk.  And talk.  She was a single mother of three.  Her ex was a drug addict.  She often railed at the LDS church for how she felt that it's followers treated her.  She also had naturally curly hair. 

One day another co-worker of mine was talking about how this particular woman needed a makeover badly.  I very ungenerously agreed.  (Like I'm the fashion maven).  We began talking about how her hair was frizzy and needed a bit of taming.  So it would look good like mine, the co-worker complimented me.  She suggested I talk to this woman about what type of product I use on my hair.  We worked out a pre-planned conversation that we'd bring up in the break room while she was on her break and I'd "advise" her on how to do her hair.  I know.  I was a jerk. So we went through with our plan.  She told me she just used a drugstore hair product.  I scoffed and told her those don't work for me and I have to buy one from the salon to get my hair to look good.  She didn't say much.  I'm sure she wanted to slap me in my smug face. 

This same lady was the first to come and see me from work after Ava was born.  She brought gifts and oohed and awed over my baby.  I've never felt so low in my life as when she came and visited me and I had thought so many negative things about her in the past.

Here we are in Salt Lake City.  Rent is enormous and Brigham's salary is modest.  This leaves very little left over for luxuries.  The day I went to ShopKo and bought a drugstore gel reminded me of this woman who until the very last day I worked at Lowe's made a fuss over Ava and never said a mean word to me.  And now I see.  Karma loves me. 

No one wants to be judged on how they appear to the outside world.  The real story is on the inside of a person.  There is a member in our ward who comes occasionally.  I don't know her story, but it is obvious to everyone that she is seriously ill battling Anorexia.  In the past I have thought that Anorexic women are obsessed with themselves and need to get over it.  You know what though.  That woman is not that different than I am.  I've struggled with my weight my entire life.  Very few women escape body image issues.  To fill the hurts from my past I eat food in excess.  To fill hurts in her past she abstains from food almost entirely.  It's just another face to the same coin.  I wanted to walk over to this woman and put my arms around her.  I wanted to tell her she is beautiful.  I want to weep for her. 

These days I hesitate to judge those around me.  Of course I still do it.  But before I get too carried away with my self-righteousness I think about what they may have experienced in their lives.  People have bad childhoods.  People have bad marriages.  People have mental illness.  People have little money.  But we're all people.  People trying to make the hurt go away.  People who need love.  People who need friendship.  Very few of us can say we've ever gained anything beneficial from other people's judgments.

Guess What Tonight is??? Here is my favorite dance from last time...

Laughing My Brain Squeezer Off!

Alright.  I'm bored.  It's Labor Day and all I've been doing is labor.  Laundry, bathing a West Yellowstone dirt encrusted child, baking bread, doing dishes, etc, etc, etc....  So I decided to keep this post short and sweet! SHOCKER.  If you've followed any of my links you'll be familiar with Natalie Hill's blog Mormon in Manhatten.  If not, feel free to start off with this post.  Read all the comments to get the grasp of the full on Mormon Mommy rage vented at this girl.  Then read this post for the final and hilarious conclusion.  I laughed and laughed.  Come on Mormon Mommies.  We've all been guilty of the brain squeezer.  Just thought I'd give you a little Labor Day reading.  Maybe others like me who live not so close to their family and have zero friends in their new city and therefore have no one to not labor with at a Labor Day BBQ will appreciate the link hook up.  Ciao!

P.S. Yes I was in West Yellowstone this last week and no, I did not take any pictures.  Booo!  Booo!  Down with the Queen of Filth, the Queen of Slime...blah, blah, blah obvious reference to the movie classic that is The Princess Bride.  

Life of Pi Book Review

 I had heard of this book as you do when a book is a best seller and an Oprah's Book Club selection, like flies buzzing in your ears every now and then.  You try to ignore it and bat those pecky flies away.  I have better things to read,  I thought  like book after book that is set in Victorian England in the same time period with the same sort of characters.  So I had fallen into a bit of a reading slump.   And I decided to take a chance on a different sort of book.  

 

Life of Pi by Yann Martel begins in Pondicherry India and introduces us to a little boy named Piscine Molitar Patel.  Named after a French swimming pool he tormented by his classmates who call him Pissing.  He eventually insists on going by just Pi.  I formed an instant kinship with him as only someone with a last name that rhymed with Pooper can.  

 When political unrest comes to India Pi's mother and father decide to move the family to Canada.  The boat they are on shipwrecks in the Pacific Ocean.  From there the story becomes one of desperate survival, harrowing experiences and a lesson in faith and love of God.  

I equal parts loved and hated this book.  It reminded me of my experience reading The Kite Runner.  Maybe it's the sign of a good book when you can't decide if you've just read the most depressing book in the world or the most inspiring.  Life of Pi spares it's readers none of the awful and horrible details of surviving a shipwreck and floating on an ocean for months.  It's also faith promoting and a triumph and testament to the capabilities of the human spirit and the divine within all of us.  It's what life is.  Light and shadows.  Darkest night and dazzling day.  I can and probably will continue to indulge my reading taste for stories that contain romance and true love and happy endings, but they don't really make me think.  There is a lot of symbolism in this book and is a bit of a parable for the underlying story.  

 

A word to the wise.  This is not a true story.  I read the entire 319 pages loving and pitying Pi Patel as a real person.  The author sets this book up as if this is a true story and he has spent time with Pi and researched his story.  Can you blame me for believing him?  As one book review I read put it..."You have to be incredibly naive to believe that as the story unfolds that any of the events could possibly be true."  I have been called naive before and it's probably not the last time.  I think this book would be a great book club selection to read and discuss with others.  When I finished this book I immediately wanted to call my brother and tell him to read it so we could discuss.  

P.S. I love the picture of the slogan used in Britain in WWII.  The message of this book is not far from this.

The Last First Kiss

I have an odd appreciation for sidewalks.  I think it's because the town I grew up in had so few of them.   The sidewalks in the city are the best because they are the busiest.  I love people watching.  Wondering what kind of food a person likes or what type of person they are attracted to.  I often make up little biographies about complete strangers as I observe them.  I was walking with Ava the other evening.  I love summer evenings.  The warm night air, the beautiful light as the sun goes down.  We decided to take a shortcut from Harvard Avenue through our ward's beautiful grounds.  The Garden Park Ward church house is like nothing I've witnessed before, but the grounds are what make it special. 

  

There is a stream that runs through the grounds.  And a duck pond where two ducks reside.  Our first Sunday here one of the sweet older sisters in our ward insisted that we take Ava out to see the ducks.  Ava loves quacking at the ducks and on week days we often bring old bread to feed them.  Anyway back to the story.  So we were walking down Harvard Avenue and decided to cut through the grounds.  There is a brick wall that surrounds the grounds...

...See.  As we entered through the gate I nearly tripped over Ava as she bent down to pick up a leaf.  I never would have saw them if I hadn't have stopped so abruptly.  I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and I quickly turned my head and there between the brick wall and some shrubs was a very amorous couple.  I starred for just a moment out of surprise and then told Ava to get a move on.  I stopped by the duck pond and saw the couple leaving though the gate hand in hand.  She had black hair and red lipstick and was curvier.  He was tall and lanky and I imagined he preferred the curvier girls and in my mind I applauded him.  I imagined they'd been dating a few months and were hopelessly in love.  They would stroll out the garden gate and walk down the street lamp lighted dusk towards his car.  They were headed for an ice cream shop.  I told you I make up stories for people.  As they were leaving, for just a moment I felt a surge of envy.

I've been married for nearly 7 years.  It's not even a blink of an eye in the scheme of things, I realize that.  There are many things that are so comfortable about knowing and loving someone day in and day out.  And there are many things that are not so comfortable.  I often wonder if I'm just a restless soul.  That after 7 years I'd stop mourning the slow disintegration of that spark of first love that burns so hot at the beginning of a relationship that slowly settles into a more even keeled every day love.  I partly blame society for it's glorification of the intense experience of falling in love with a person to the exclusion of all other stages of love.  And I partly blame myself for obsessively reading Victorian romance novels, crying over Disney movies, and watching Father of the Bride 123,000 times.  To say I had high expectations for love and marriage is a big understatement.  

 

Scientists have actually done studies on how long that first falling in love stage lasts and it's effect on the brain.  It turns out that type of love usually lasts 2 years at the max and the feelings and the chemicals they release actually act like a drug in your brain.  How do you stop missing that first kiss when all the memories you have of it are tied into that euphoric feeling so intoxicating to the system?  Sigh.  Can you blame me for giving that couple making out behind the brick wall an envious glare?  I admit making out on the grounds of a church house is a little odd, but the first time I walked around them I imagined myself in a Scarlett O'Hara ball gown snuggled up to Rhett Butler beneath the willow tree.  I know, stop with the period romances already...curse you Jane Austen! 

I'm not trying to bash long lasting love.  It's really the glue that keeps the wheels a churning in a family.  And the truth is I know and love my husband so much more today after going through trials and joys together than I did the day we were married.  But...I still miss it.  I still miss finding out about each other.  I miss those first tentative kisses.  I miss feeling on the cusp of a great adventure.  I've been thinking about it since that night and I've debated on taking Brig back to the garden wall and stealing a few kisses of my own.  But it would be rather embarrassing to have our Bishop discover us fawning over each other like common teenagers!  Does anyone else miss those first years together?  Or is it just me? 

This sums up how I feel courtesy of FOTC.

Living in the City Can be Demanding

Well I'd love to post some pictures of what Ava and I have been doing while we've been settling into city living but through an unfortunate accident my computer screen is dead. Well, not dead, but sick. So I am blogging from my husband's Mac and can't seem to get my pictures from my camera to this computer. The last time I used a Mac, they were called Macintosh Apples and I was in first grade.

First of all I really love the neighborhood we are in. The old houses are beautiful and the gardens are lovely. This area reminds me of the area around the Logan Temple.

Secondly I've been honked at more times driving here than all the times combined in Cache Valley. These people are out for blood. Admittedly driving in the city is something new for me. I wish I could put a sign in the window that reads Hick Driver in Training but then I'd be getting hassled more than I already am.

Places we've been since moving here: IKEA, West Valley City *shudder*, Liberty Park, Barbacoa, and the piece de resistance: The Salt Lake City Public Library. I could live at the library. It's wonderful. The glass elevators really freak me out though and I'm not sure the speed at which they move is really necessary. I keep picturing my leg or half of Ava's body stuck in the doors because of the speed at which those elevator doors close and shoot you up. I wanted to pin a medal on a couple of mothers and their strollers for daring to maneuver those strollers in there and not worrying about getting smashed in the doors. The underground parking is also kind of creepy. Please, if anybody goes there regularly tell me if the parking is safe. Is there anywhere else I can park? All my city violence paranoid fantasies start breathing down my neck when Ava and I had to ascend the stairs to get to the ground level.

Liberty Park is a blast and Ava has wanted to go every day since we've been here. Last week we were on vacation and Brig was left here to fend for himself. He rode his bike to Liberty Park and said there was a man sun bathing in a thong in a folding chair. Sweet. I was sorry I missed that!

When I figure out this computer I will post some of the pics I took around town.