the one with the bridge

Great things happen at the Market Street Grill. The one with the bridge across the creek. Like the time we saw someone famous in the lobby. We joked about going up and introducing ourselves, but he was out the revolving door before we mustered up enough courage to do anything about it. We trotted across the bridge (you have to trot, or run; it's so much better that way) and found the semi-famous person right by our car. He had locked himself out and needed to borrow a phone. He used ours and then struck up a friendly conversation which lasted until his manager brought him keys. He opened his trunk, filled with cds and gave us one to say thank you.

And then there was the time that I ate crab legs. The last time I had crab was in San Fransisco and everyone got so sick we spent the night in the hotel puking our guts out. But, it's amazing what you'll do when a very handsome man tells you you're going love it (especially when he's buying you your most favorite steak in the whole wide world, plus dessert.)

And then there was last night. We sat right by the windows facing the bridge. We watched people walk back and forth the whole night. Friends. Families. Husbands who made the bridge wobble so their wives had to hold on tight to their arms or else they'd lose their balance. Mid-meal, we laughed so hard about a really great story that I smacked the table, which made the plates and the silverware rattle and everyone stared, which just made us laugh harder.

When we got outside, the sky looked like rainbow sherbet and the clouds were fluffy like angel food cake. We decided we had to drive west towards the sunset until we got to the Great Salt Lake, or until it got dark, which ever came first. We took pictures with my phone, because that's all we had.

rub-a-dubba

My parents say each grandchild will be as anticipated and loved and adored as this one. I'm not sure that's possible. Just look at that face!

back from a stay at the sea

with this out our window
{and the sound of the fountain at night as we fell asleep}

a visit to the flower fields

and sunsets like this:
The sea is just a wetter version of the sky.
|Regina Spektor|

take a sad song and make it better

*Warning: The following post may make tears flow like spring rain (or snow, in Utah).

In a series of unfortunate and unpreventable events (dead branch, splitting wood, weak rope) the backyard swing was removed -- for safety reasons -- and we are sad. Dad has promised to replace it with something equally as nostalgic. Soon. Until then, we have pictures and warm memories. (We may or may not be contemplating a memorial service.)

Picture of R & O, c.1995

Only in Utah

A few weeks ago, my Dad sent us a forward titled, Only in Utah. It was a fairly lame list compiled by Jeff Foxworthy; a bunch of You-Know-You're-in-Utah-When scenarios about speed limits, hitting deer, how everyone in Utah leaves their houses unlocked, etc. I read it and deleted it. (Mostly because I hate forwards.)

It snowed this morning. When I heard music from the ice cream truck in the afternoon, I thought to myself, Only in Utah.

Bad News

Monday is the day we get emails from my brother. We sit around all morning with our computers or phones waiting waiting waiting. I usually write Sunday night, summing up my week, telling him about the goings on back here at home, and sometimes I have to be the bearer of bad news. Like this week. This is what I said:

One of your IKEA bamboo stalks has gone the way of all the earth. Dad had to put it to rest. Forever. Just one. Weird, right? The other one is fine, just lonely. I hope you were sitting down for that.

Also...

Mom's car got smashed this week. Twice. The first time, she was backing out of a parking spot at the temple and she hit not one, but two yellow posts. To make matters worse, she was backing out to let someone in, so they witnessed the car crunching debacle in its entirety. The very next day in the Dan's parking lot (it was snowing--remember how I said it's still winter here? In April?) another car hit her. The back bumper was falling off. The tire scraped the rim when you turned the corner. It's getting fixed as I type. The silver linings: All those dents that happened in the Olympus Parking lot? Gone-zo! Lining Two: All of this, and not once has she hit the Howell's car, which is more than a lot of us can say. What a blessing.
There were happy tidbits included as well, like how we surprised Papa at his office for his birthday. We took him a sandwich from Grove Market (which was more of a mountain than a meal) and ate apple pie in the Clark B. Fetzer Memorial Dining Room (á propos, no?) while Baby Naomi sat on Brian's lap. Afterward she did her fishy face (which I am rather proud of, seeing as I worked on it with her for weeks) and she clapped hooray for Papa's Birthday. So amidst the bad, there is lots of good.

long words

Saturday I spent time preparing for a lesson I gave today. I pulled out boxes from under my bed and old journals off the shelves with doodles in the margins and notes tucked inside. I spent a good hour reading. Much of what I read were records of college days when life was fairly routine and academic: français, color theory boards. An observational drawing class taught by a German professor I could barely understand, save his finger movements above my drawing pad indicating more shading here, more detail there. American History in the most historic building on campus, which seems only fitting.

Then there were the things between academics: Sunday dinners on the ping pong table in the basement by the fireplace we weren't allowed to use; nights we talked at the kitchen table until 3 in the morning, after which we miraculously made it to 8 am class; cupboards full of sugar cereal and six loaves of bread (we were somewhat territorial, but brownies were fair game); calls on the apartment phone, the cord stretched out into the laundry room for long calls and attempted privacy. Taking turns being rolled in the laundry cart down the hall between the storage cages, crashing haphazardly by the computers at the other end.

I read about the time we drove to Vegas on a whim. The time we "borrowed" a bright green E from a shake shop in Heber. The time we were locked in our own apartment by the boys in the next building -- a morning none of us made it to 8 am class. The weekend we played multi-level Spoons and nearly died running flights of stairs when someone got four of the same card.

I came across weekly emails sent by Grandma and Grandpa to the college-age cousins, full of love and support, encouragement to keep at it and a reminder that they prayed for each of us individually every day. I shared one such email in my lesson. The point of all of this being, I'm glad I kept record of it. Even the bad days. In one of my journals I found the following quote:

We don't choose our stories. Our stories choose us, and if we don't write them, if we ignore them, we are somehow diminished.

Write it out. Jot it down. Doodle in the margins. You'll be glad you did.

Why I will never own a Kindle ...

...and why I would live in a cardboard box--without furniture--as long as it was filled with books and great art.

"There is something almost sacred about a great library because it represents the preservation of the wisdom, the learning, and the pondering of men and women of all the ages, accumulated under one roof. I love books. There is something wonderful about a book. We can pick it up. We can heft it. We can read it. We can set it down. We can think of what we have read. It does something for us. We can share great minds, great actions, and great undertakings in the pages of a book.

"Emerson was once asked which, of all the books he had read, had most affected his life. His response was that he could no more remember the books he had read than he could remember the meals he had eaten, but they had made him. All of us are the products of the elements to which we are exposed.

"Parents know that their children will read. They will read books and magazines and newspapers. Cultivate within them a taste for the best. While they are very young, read to them the great stories that have become immortal because of the virtues they teach. Let there be a corner somewhere in the house, be it ever so small, where they will see at least a few books of the kind on which great minds have been nourished." Gordon B. Hinckley