To Al, With Love

Happy Birthday to a girl who can hunt with the pros, bowl a 180 (right?), make up on-the-spot fan mail, and writes great poetry. She has the best Mother-Russia/Mexican accent, will call the cops if you try to put lettuce on anyone's car ("Hello? Chess, nine-vun-vun?") and will keep your apartment safe by blocking out robbers with chairs, the TV stand and/or the sofa. She can drive through the Gorge in a thunderstorm, run through Disneyland while holding all diabetic supplies, ride ridiculously scary roller coasters, send amazing packages halfway across the world (just ask Raymond). She can handle a classroom full of kiddos, a house full of men (she's got three) and an apartment full of silly girls. She makes a wicked peach cobbler, killer fondue and will bring a cooler full of treats to any team outing. She's a great listener, gives helpful advice and is a great mother, wife, sister, daughter and friend. She is one of my favorite people and I wish her the best year yet!

everyone do high kicks, Al is now 26.
H A P P Y B I R T H D A Y, A L !

a moment's memory

I sat with her in the front room, the light of midday warming our backs. We were facing the chandelier from Italy and the painting from Switzerland. The daylight played tag as it pranced across the wall, bounded off the crystal and leaped onto the mirror above the fireplace where I could see our two reflections.

Before long, she asked if we could re-arrange the furniture and sit facing the window to look at the mountain. I moved the two green velvet chairs right up next to each other. Pulling back the sheer curtains, I revealed the mountain in all her majesty. It's quite bright. Would you like me to get your glasses? I turned toward the kitchen. She sat there as if she hadn't heard me say it; as if I wasn't even in the room. It was as though she had been transported to some other world where time and age don't exist. Where colors are vivid again and the air smells of Evergreens. A place where memories are made in an instant and kept for eternity. Where the first warm breeze of summer floats across porcelain skin and sunlight touches perfect pink lips. He is there with her.

I suppose it is a bit bright, dear. I pass through the hallway with the family photos, all matted and framed with Grandpa's artistic eye. Dark glasses in hand, I approach the entryway. I stop to make a memory of her. Of the way the light hits her bright white hair and softly falls on her pale pink lips. Of the way she sits so straight in her chair, legs to one side. Of the way she longingly looks up at the mountain, as though she sees him in it. Come. Sit here, dear. Isn't it beautiful? I take her hand in mine; we sit together.

wii won't be doing that again anytime soon

A few nights ago, my roommates and I decided it was time to get out of the house. We'd been eating pink-frosted cupcakes most of the evening and worshiping those brilliant geniuses who invented the DVR. Thinking we'd stretch our sea legs a bit (our futon is anything but comfortable. We might as well be sitting on the deck of a boat) we headed out on a late-night jaunt in the hood. K decided we'd head over to her friend H's house. H is out of town and has asked K to look in on the place. After giving ourselves much more of a self-guided tour than was probably necessary and/or appropriate (that girl has the closet of dreams!) we helped ourselves to some otter pops and headed back outside. K also decided we would stop in to see P and D. It would be short and sweet, she said. Sucking the last bit of blue juice out of my otter pop tube, I followed my roomies up the front steps, blowing air in and out of my otter pop wrapper while we waited for someone to answer the door. I looked positively seven years old. I had just come from the perfect house of a very successful single 30 year-old so-on-top-of-her-life girl and I was curling my otter pop wrapper in and out like a snake, blue tongue and all. The only thing that saved upon meeting P and D for the second time is the fact that I bare the name of a 92 year-old German woman.

D answered the door, pencil behind his ear. He was beyond excited to see us (the seven year old included) and invited us in. P slouched on the sofa, and was engrossed in a wicked round of Mario Kart. Sure, I've heard of The Wii. I've even seen one in person (and not just the other night). But I have absolutely NO patience for such things. Give me an otter pop and I'll entertain myself for eight hours. Hand me a Wii controller thingy and you've lost me. Perhaps I was robbed of a childhood, but I have spent 30 minutes of the last 26 years of my life with a Nintendo. This is not an exaggeration. That said, I believe I have more brain cells than 95 percent of the three people who read this blog. I'd rather use them twisting an otter pop wrapper around my finger until it turns blue and matches the shade of my tongue. A color theory lesson at its finest.

However, the other night, I felt like a rude guest. Here P was, offering up his Wii for the taking. I know how much he loves that thing. I see the way he looks at it. It's true love for sure. "Just one round," he begged. After a discourse on why I wished that upon no one (a round of Wii with the likes of me), I found myself with a white control (is that what it's called?) in hand. "Just press two to go, and pull the button underneath to use your Super Powers." That's what P said. This is what I heard, "Blah, blah, blah." Just kidding, P. Love ya! Before I knew it, I was standing up on one leg, the other behind me, knee up on the couch (something about my center of gravity?) maneuvering the white controller, and shouting "Go, Dude! Go! Go Dude! Go!" This was by no means an exclamation of excitement. This was a demand. I was in 12th place behind my other two roommates and P, who got me into this mess in the first place. Twenty seconds of my life I will never get back. I wish I would have plummeted into the brown water (in what backwards world is water brown?!) at 15 seconds. At the latest. We certainly won't be doing that again anytime soon. I'm sticking to uninvited closet exploration and otter pops.

I never ever thought I'd see the day a Super Mario character would grace a page of my blog. My life has taken a deep plunge. I may never resurface nor recover.

Confession...

...I think video games are a horrendous waste of time.

twenty-five

To my dear roomie, I say:
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

It's true, Kasi is one year older and wiser (check out here blog) today. You're right Kas, it's about the little things. Here are 25 little reasons why I adore you.

• Your up-for-anything attitude
• Your work hours, which allow us to begin post-work wind-downs at 4 p.m.
• That one night we stayed up for seven hours talking about seven years and came to the conclusion that seven means the same to both of us.
• Sunning in the back yard on Saturdays at 9 am
  
• Your TV watching rules. You. Mean. Business.
  
• Apple pies at midnight and chocolate donut cookies
• Thoughtful comments in RS*
  
• When you say you're going to bed, but really you're watching Jim.
  
• Your love for John.
  
• All the videos you find of John: "...I see really important things out of my periphery. I. Don't. Know. What. That. Was! ... At 110, I was pretty sure I was dead."
  
• "Snap, what a happy sound!"
• Cali roadtripping
• Every Sunday without fail you try to get me to transfer to your ward
  
• Blue Crush - you let us take her anywhere, anytime!
• Your definition of "happiness," and I don't mean what you put on your blog. (You know what I mean?)
• Our CRAZY weekends. (We really need a few weekends in. It's getting out of hand).
• How you want to be Julia Roberts so bad
  
• The morning you thought I was going to die and I thought you were going to die. We're such a good upstairs team! "Call Maren!"
  
• I believe you are the only person on this planet I would allow to call me "Mar"
• That HD TV you're going to win us. "I believe you should start praying about that now."
• You share Robin with us.
• The conversations you and Mare and I have in the "hallway" by our rooms late at night. Topics ranging from Life/Death to carbon monoxide poisoning to heartaches to sleeping in a sauna.
  
• Trips up to the Bountiful temple - we're about due for one of those.
  
• You never complain that I go between every room and my bedroom 95 times before bed.
• Your pep talks. The hurdles you help me jump - Saturday was a big day for us. Are your legs as sore as mine? I think we deserve a hot fudge sundae. I'll drive.
• When you take people to the airport in your pajamas.
  

I'm so glad we're roomies! Have a happy day. See you tonight for all the birthday FUN.

*I'm not quite sure why this is so big. I tried to fix it. Apparently this isn't a little thing I adore bout you. Even Blogger knows how thoughtful your comments are in RS!

doing dishes with zeus

In my office, I have a set of architectural plans which I've inherited. They are meticulously hand-drawn. I have traced the writing. I know the footprint by heart. I could draw the floor plan in my sleep.

My Grandfather was an architect. When he and my Grandmother returned from living in Germany, he built her a beautiful house right up next to the mountains. There is a cascading rock garden out back and a patio to sit on at twilight. Adjacent to the patio are rows and rows of lily of the valley, Grandma's favorite flower. In the late spring, the mountain breeze picks up their scent and carries it along the lawn and into the Chinese money bushes which rustle with summer excitement to the Evergreen trees, towering above the scrub oak.

In the kitchen, Grandpa designed pull-out stools for Grandma to stand on and reach the top shelves. Growing up, my sister and I thought these step stools were very low cutting boards and found them the perfect height for playing bank. Sitting on the kitchen floor, we'd set up shop, stools serving as desks. Grandma would let us use all the paper in the world to make lots of fake money. We would write ridiculously large checks to Aunt Judy or Uncle Robert that couldn't be cashed until Grandma had signed them. Just off the kitchen there is a Utility Room that smells of apricot fruit leather and dried pears. It still houses a freezer full of frozen ginger creams year-round. The ping pong table that Grandpa designed and built is downstairs. It's perfect for Round Robin tournaments on Sunday evenings. Sometimes we laugh until we fall over into the lush green carpet.

The front room window looms large and frames Mount Olympus (Rich likes to call it Grandma's Mountain) perfectly, the top of the window coming to a point, like the mountain does. When the house was built, it was the last thing before the trail-head. Dad used to lace up his shoes on the front porch and run up the mountain for cross-country practice. Grandma can see her mountain from the kitchen sink. Even now, even though she can no longer make out our faces, she waves to us from the window as we back out of her driveway. She stands at the sink and waves from left to right and back left again. She's done this for as long as I can remember. Even now, even though we know she can't tell, we still turn on the dome light of the car and wave back. As we turn down the street, Mount Olympus grows smaller and smaller in the rear view mirror.

When the architect was working on my parent's house, Mom made sure she would be able to see Mount Olympus from the kitchen window. Just now as I loaded the dishwasher here at my Yellow Brick House, I glanced up at Grandma's Mountain. It looks so beautiful this time of year when there sun lights up the rock and the snow still shimmers. Now I just need a west-facing patio to watch the light at twilight.

quick! hide!

Today I saw a marquee downtown which said the following:

Salt Lake, hide all your women. Kobe's in town!

GO JAZZ!

Confession

My mother makes a mean Chinese chicken salad. It's so good in fact that "Mom's Chinese chicken salad," has, from time to time, graced surveys under the favorite food question. It's nearly next to ambrosia which, in high school we decided was a Butterfinger. (I'm happy to say my palate is a bit more sophisticated at this point. Although Butterfingers are quite delicious. And whatever Zeus snacks on up there on Mount Olympus, I'm 99.9 percent sure it's some sort of combination of peanut butter and chocolate). Mmmm. I digress.

Chinese chicken salad. I'm happy to report that up to this point in my life I've been fairly successful in my attempts to recreate my Mom's Hall-of-Famer recipes. I haven't tried all of them. She makes the best Swedish almond cake this side of The Fjords. I'm not going to touch that one. Why bother? If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? Not that her chicken salad is lacking. I just felt up to the task.

In preparation for a small gathering last Saturday, I spent Friday frying won tons and baking chicken in soy sauce. Thinking I was ahead of the game, I settled in to watch the Jazz defeat the Lakers. The air smelled of sesame oil and soy sauce, and Carlos Boozer was on a roll. Three hours (and two packages of won ton skins) later, I was finally finished. And that was just the beginning. Now for the confession: all-in-all, it took me nearly five hours to make that salad. Should I find comfort (or desolation) in the fact that it was devoured in less than 30 minutes? To add insult to serious injury, I don't even know if the Jazz won. I was too busy with my face in a frying pan to find out!