In a Pinch

Some mornings, I rush out of the house because I failed to get up when the alarm rang. Today, I apparently shut off the alarm in my sleep, and only because CoolGuy rolled over and asked me if I needed to get up yet, did I actually awaken and leap out of bed. It wasn't a good day for sleeping a little too long, because I really needed to wash my hair. So I took the time and washed it, and dried it, and used the curling iron and it looked great.

In fact, whenever I leave my hair down, with curls here and there, several students will always say how pretty it is. Or that I should wear it down all the time, because they really like it. They're sweet. But, it does look nice like that--for about an hour. Then the curls start to droop a little, and pretty soon, the sweaty-me starts to fire up and it is just too hot. So, I have a clip or two in my purse or in my desk, and in my car, and everywhere, just for that time of day.

However, today...couldn't find one. So I used teacher-skills and improvised:

Smokey Cuisine

Little Smokies are legend in our family. Well, legend may be the wrong word...how about notorious? Actually, they started out very popular. It all began a really long time ago near Christmas. We were going to decorate the tree one evening, and I thought it would be fun to have a buffet-supper so that we could nosh as we trimmed. I bought a bunch of cool things I'd never normally purchase: ready-made hors d'oeuvres and appetizers and then I made a punch bowl of something yummy. NOT the normal, frugal, made-from-scratch type of meal I usually served. One of the menu items was Little Smokies in barbecue sauce, eaten by jabbing one with a toothpick and plopping in the mouth. Cool! And we had cups for the punch bowl--it was exotic. It was pretty fun, too. So we did it again for most of the years that we had children living at home. Somehow, Little Smokies became a ridiculed item on this menu, yet, it was strangely required. I no longer know if they were actually despised all along, or if people secretly like them, but are too embarrassed to admit it.

Anyway, I found a new way to serve them! It's a recipe from Sunset Magazine, of all places, so that gives it the imprimatur of coolness. But they were also tasty and attractive. Here's photo to show them off:

Here they are "plated" with a little mustard, a little sweet relish and a sprinkle of grated cheese:

I served them with fruit salad (pears, mango, pomegrante seeds, banana) and baked beans. They were really terrific and also good again today with lunch after we re-heated them in the oven for 10-15 minutes.

The recipe has you make creme-puff dough and then squeeze it out onto a parchment paper in two tiny strips, side by side, not quite touching. Next, plop a little piece in the center, so you've formed an "H". Then you nestle the sausage onto the center piece. Bake them about 20 minutes, and serve them with mustard, sweet relish and grated cheese. They were attractive and delicious. Seriously.

Whining Pays Off

A couple of weeks ago, I complained about the cost of tickets to go to an NPR show that was being broadcast from Las Vegas on Thursday. Well, about a week later, I got a comment on my blog from a person with that show. (!) She offered me free tickets! Good Grief...I'm simultaneously embarrassed and delighted. So, I responded to their website, as instructed, and now I have two tickets at WillCall in my name to attend the show at the Paris Casino. Cool.

I'm pretty sure there must be some service that they hire to keep track of how and when their show name shows up on the net. Then, they rank if it is positive or negative, or if people need some response. I am startled that they gave me free tickets. I hope it's because they read some of my posts and learned what a wonderful person I am, and that I teach little children and I'm a fabulous mother and grandmother, and that I'm just so worthy to part of their audience. Hah. No, I imagine it's because their PR people are hoping I'll give them a positive shout-out in my blog and they can count it on their list. So, excited as I am to go to the show on their dime, I decided I'd just refrain from mentioning them. I'll write something nice after I go as a thank you.

Celebrate A Veteran

We commemorated this day by attending the parade in Las Vegas. It is one of the biggest Veteran's Day parade in the United States. It actually lasted almost two and a half hours. But it was a lovely day to be standing outside here. It started out a little chilly, but got up to a sunny 65 by noon.

There were many groups represented. The first group to come by, and then they took their seats in a reviewing stand, was a large troop of "wounded warriors" who are here as guests of a couple of casinos. They and their families are spending a few days on R&R here in Las Vegas. Then there were many, many high school marching bands and JROTC groups. We had all the VFW groups, floats with Pearl Harbor survivors, Purple Heart Vets, and one gentleman who marched on his own wearing his orginal Army uniform. He was introduced as a veteran of the Burma/China Trail. He had to have been at least 87 years old and that would have made him only 20 when he served. Tough nut. The group that got a standing ovation, and many a tear-filled eye, was the Gold-Star families who each carried a photo of the loved one whose sacrifice resulted in their family's entry into this "club" of bereaved people.

I always spend time with my students learning about Veteran's Day. I don't ever want them to think it is just a free day off from school, or a shopping time. We looked at a short video this year that described the history of the day. We took a little quiz on the information. Another day we drew "commemorative stamps" on a paper, and then wrote about what we were honoring. When they were finished with that project, they could use my "stationery" (I've copied a sheet with a box for a drawing, and typed in my school address for the return address) to write a letter to a veteran. I'll go on-line and find someone to mail them to. A few of my students asked if they could take their letter home to give to someone in their family. What a great idea! The letters are to say "thank-you" for the veteran's military service. How nice that they have someone personal to give it to.

That's the main reason for this post: to thank the veterans in my life. Naturally, at the top of the list is CoolGuy--US Navy. Then, there is my dad, US Navy, CoolGuy's dad, US Army. All three of his brothers served, two Army and one Air Force. I have a nephew and his wife who are in the Army, and my mother-in-law served in the Army National Guard. The problem with a list like this is that someone will be left out. So I just want to say to all of our relatives and many, many friends who are veterans:

Thank You

Here's a little flash from the past: CoolGuy's re-enlistment ceremony on the deck of the submarine control trainer in San Diego.

Seven Down---25 To Go

Many adults no longer have their "wisdom teeth" because, often when these third molars begin to grow in their late teens and early twenties, there isn't room in the person's mouth for them to fit. Or many times, in my case for instance, they were growing in sideways and would not have erupted crown-up, but would have grown into the other teeth, crowding them together. So, I had to have all four of my wisdom teeth extracted. The uppers came right out. But the lower ones were quite an ordeal to remove. Most people know that an adult has 32 teeth, and in the case of those who had their third molars extracted, they spend their life with 28.

I'm now down to 25. Yes, I went back to my dentist this afternoon because all weekend #20 was really aggravating me. The extraction site, after a week of healing, was feeling rather good. But even tapping on the tooth with my fingernail caused sharp pain. So, I determined that I had to go back. He reviewed the advice from the endodontist and agreed: something was definitely wrong with that dopey tooth. The only option left was extraction. We both sighed.

Actually we laughed with great ghoulish gusto. None of us--the dentist, the assistant, nor I--wanted a re-run of the previous procedure! That took two hours of torture--they worked so hard. So he gave me the injections, they made little jokes about it, I laughed despite the hands in my mouth. But! 40 minutes later, success! He lifted the entire tooth right out of my jaw without having to resort to drilling and chipping and grinding. Awesome!

And there it was: an obvious crack the entire vertical length of the root, starting right at the gum line, all the way to the base. [FYI: root length was 3/4 inch] So, all that gunky stuff in my mouth has been seeping down that crack, pooling up in the root cavity. I was finally feeling the effects of the inflammation now that I had no other teeth on that side to take the force of a bite.

Three teeth are gone from the lower left side of my mouth. When the bone and gums heal we will put in some implants and make some lovely crowns to cover it all up and give me a chewing surface again.

When I told my students that I was leaving this afternoon for the dentist and I'd probably have stitches tomorrow, they said, "You always have stitches!" Um...yes, I have had a rather crazy few weeks between my foot and my mouth. I'm looking forward to just healing right now. After all, Food Season is here--I want to be able to eat.

Doom and Gloom Days Are Back

Autumn starts a period of wonderful events. First is Halloween, then Thanksgiving, finally Christmas and New Year's round out the celebration season. The leaves change colors, and the temperatures moderate. If you live in the East, humidity finally goes away, allowing you to throw open the windows and turn off the air conditioning. Here in the desert, we don't have the humidity, but we also get to enjoy the outdoor air, because it isn't over 100 degrees every day. Even the clothing colors are pleasant: people wear orange, yellow, tan and shades of russet. The air is clear and there is just a sense of vigor and joy as people walk in the evenings.

But, then comes the day of darkness. Daylight savings time is on us once again. I'll walk out of school tomorrow afternoon and the sun will be down. Twilight will be nearly over and it'll be dark for hours and hours. I do not like losing the light and so this time of year is depressing for me. It's a good thing it is filled with beautiful music, holiday decorations (all of them---Halloween decor is one of my joys!) and celebrations. I can understand how ancient peoples in Scandinavia and other Northern climes would hold celebrations and holy days this time of year in an attempt to bring back the sun, or to show how they missed it. I'll be thinking of them until finally February comes around again, and we'll get back our friend, Old Sol.

Wait, Wait,--How Much Did You Say?

So I've been hearing on the radio that one of my favorite NPR shows, "Wait, Wait... Don't Tell Me!" is going to have a live show here in Las Vegas. Tonight I finally sat down and went to check out tickets.

Oh.

I guess I'll just be listening on the radio after all. I selected "best available" and hit the button. Those tickets would cost us $250.00 to go. The lowest prices were $70 each.

Wow. Who knew? Maybe I'm just naive. But I was certainly not expecting to pay that much to be in the audience of a radio show.

Happy Halloween

I have always loved Halloween. It is fun! There is chocolate! Even when I was depriving my children of trick 0r treat, I loved the costumes and the party parts. I enjoyed thinking up my costume every year. I recall being Pebbles Flintstone once. I can remember cutting out a cardboard bone to put in my hair. For a couple of years here I've been a cowgirl. I wear my red bandana skirt, a cowboy hat, my boots, and I hang a lariat from my belt. Then I put my Beanie Baby cow in my shirt pocket. Students ask me why I have the rope, and I say it so if my cow tries to run away, I can catch her.

We only went out trick or treating once that I remember, but it was snowy and cold and, since we lived out in the wilderness, our mom had to drive us. It was always a lot more fun when they held a party at the church and we could just be indoors and play games and have fun. Of course, we still got the candy. I loved getting the candy. One of my sisters always rationed her candy so that she ran out just in time for the Christmas candy to begin. Not me...gobbled it right up. Which probably accounts for the stitches in my mouth...hmm...cause-effect.

Oh, well--Halloween is still quite fun. I live on a street where lots of people come by begging for candy. I just got in from lighting my pumpkin candlesticks and hanging up my ghost bells over the door. I anticipate many costumed small people tonight again. Fun for me!

Here are some of the Ghosts of Halloween Past in our family. Because, as you know, "Halloween is just for fun! There isn't any "deeper meaning" of Halloween to worry about." (quote from a seven or eight year old daughter long ago.)

San Diego 1985

Mountain Home, Idaho 1987

San Diego,1980

San Diego, 1985 Bat Girl

San Diego 1985 Tooth Fairy

What's Worse Than Cleaning the Refrigerator?

This morning I got all energized for my day off and cleaned the refrigerator. Took out all the shelves, washed the walls, really really cleaned it. I took out all the wilting produce and chopped it up for my composter. I discarded everything in the little leftovers containers, just in case. (One of my sons, who once worked as a dairy stocker at a grocery, would have died...buttermilk from June.) (Eeew-I just dumped the whole container in the trash without looking.) I even cleaned out and organized the freezer. Again---any container that I couldn't instantly recall putting in there---dumped. Wow, it looks awesome! And can I tell you how much I don't like cleaning the refrigerator? Which possibly accounts for the buttermilk from June.

But, then I spent the afternoon doing something even worse! Tooth extraction. When I realized I was spending the second hour with my mouth cranked open while he and the assistant drilled and tugged and suctioned, I began to long for the stinky refrigerator. This was the tooth that had been root-canaled years ago and now had a pocket of infection growing around the base of those dead roots. So, now I'm on anti-biotics, I have a wad of gauze in my mouth soaking up the leakage from the 4 stitches. I just took a big dose of ibuprofen and I will lie down on the couch with a cup of water to sip while I watch a chick-flick. Cool Guy arrives back in town tomorrow night. Ironically, he, too has stitches in his mouth because a cracked tooth had to be pulled while he was in Maryland. We're just falling apart here.

Perks of My Job

Tonight was our school's "Harvest Festival"--the big fall PTO fundraiser. It is an elaborate affair, and it is worth all the hoo-hah because we usually make a great deal of money. All the staff members have a job, which we volunteer to do-I've been face-painting for four years now.
1) It is easy and I stay busy
2) I can sit the entire time.

I make a poster with about 8 drawings that we can do and so the kids don't sit down and say, "Paint the Lakers' logo on my face." Well, some of them still ask for extravagant things, but we just point to our poster and say, "Sorry, that's all we can do!" We offer choices like the peace sign, or a spider or a bat or a jack-o-lantern, and we increased our repertoire to include a kitty face with a newly recruited teacher. We always have a long line and everyone goes away happy. They get their money's worth--we charge nothing! (A little money is earned through food sales, but the big bucks are made at the auction where themed baskets centered around a story book are sold--one went for $400 tonight.) (How nice are some of our families? Guess where all the cool stuff in the baskets comes from--yes, donations from them.)

But, the real fun is the casual atmosphere where parents and grandparents get to come to school and meet the teachers and everyone is just having a good time. Students who've moved on to middle school always come to see their old teachers and to bring their little brothers and sisters. Grandparents who barely speak English get introduced by our students. I meet non-custodial dads, and mothers who otherwise would never be at school because of their schedules. Tonight was another night that made it worth staying until 8:00 P.M. when our day started at 8:00 A.M.

I have a boy who is on the autism spectrum. He isn't misbehaved, he is just stand-offish. His parents had a business trip back to their home in Trinidad last week, so he went with them--and they visited relatives, too. When he returned on Monday, he brought me gift. He just plucked it out of his backpack, and thrust it at me, without saying anything. I opened it and found a little dolphin statue, with "Trinidad" painted on it and a water globe with a bit of sand and teeny shells balanced in the curve of the dolphin's tail. I smiled and thanked him and said how much I love the ocean, and put it on my shelf where my family pictures are. He didn't say anything.

But, tonight, when the brothers sat down for their face painting, Mom leaned in to tell me how much her son loves me and my class. (Seriously---I would never have suspected that he had any reaction whatsoever to me or my class.) She pointed out that during the entire trip, he was looking for a gift for me. In a market, he hurried up to her with the dolphin souvenir and told her that I love dolphins and the ocean and that this was just perfect for me and he had to buy it. I assured her that he was right, I do love the ocean, and I did love his gift.

Really, I had been quite impressed that he gave me a gift. He also talked to me about his trip a little later that day--it was new for him to speak to me at all. But to find out that he planned it all himself, and shopped for me--wow! So sweet!

This is why I'm a teacher. I just love working with children and being their friend. I get thanked for oddly shaped bat drawings painted on their cheeks, and they bring me ceramic dolphins because they remember a story I wrote in class about my summer trip at the beach.

Passing

So far, I'm getting an "A" in my current class. That's great! I don't think I've gotten a straight "A" in any of the classes I've taken so far for this master's degree. I got one A- and several B+ so if I can keep this up, it'll be great. It will make my GPA improve. The problem with school at this level is that you have to get a B or an A in every class, or it doesn't count. Bleh, can you imagine having to take one over again? Oh, yeah, I was imagining that last fall, as I recall, when I flunked the first test in statistics. But then, I finally figured out the right formulas and how to use my calculator correctly, I did get a B, ultimately.

It was such piece of cake to get good grades when I was a little kid. I didn't struggle at all until I met Algebra in the 8th grade. By then, it was too late. I'd never learned any study skills and I didn't know how to learn something that didn't come easily to me. I didn't get skilled at that until I was a mom going back to college at age 32. I guess I just needed to grow up. If you know someone who has an easy time in elementary school, watch out for them, because they, too, may hit a scholarly wall someday and you'll have been warned by me to help them learn how to learn. It may be the first time they've had to be conscious of doing so.

California Dreamin'

The air outside today is exactly like San Diego. I stepped outside the church about 12:30 and it was soft and moist and just the right warm. There were clouds in the sky, but the horizons were clear and you could see every rock on the mountains. The only thing missing was the smell of the ocean.

Mother Nature's Bounty

It rained here in the desert. Several times this week, actually. One night, it was a serious gully washer, with thunder and lightening. There are still little swaths of landscaping gravel along the streets from the water that pushed it off people's yards into the gutters. The soil in the front of our house is still damp and there were streets in the city that had yellow cones marking off the flooded lanes. The concrete channels that mark where the natural desert washes once were have been flowing with the run-off that is headed downhill to the Colorado River and Lake Mead. Everything looks refreshed and shiny. The pungent odor of resin from the desert plants is in the air. This morning the early sun showed the first snow atop Mt. Charleston on the western border of the valley.

But do you know what is the best part of all this delightful wetness? We didn't have to have even one rainy-day lunch/recess schedule this week! It managed to deliver all that moisture outside the 11:30 -1:00 block. Wasn't that kind of Mother Nature?

Busy, busy...

I've spent a lot of time at the computer lately, but none of it was spent blogging and I hope my "vast" audience (all three of you...) are still checking now and then to see if I've posted anything lately.

I started teaching the Saturday Instructional Aide Writing Academy. Every other Saturday my partner teacher and I are teaching 30 IAs about the Clark County Writing Curriculum in order to help them to be more effective in the classroom. Apparently they've had a Language Arts and a Math Academy for two years, and there is such enthusiasm for it by the teachers and the aides that they started a Writing version this year. I applied to be a teacher because I wanted the extra money, and--hey--I like to teach writing. We are allowed 20 paid hours for planning and we used a bunch of it in the last 10 days to write our overview and some lesson plans. The first session went really well. In fact, we didn't get through everything we'd intended to, so this week we're half prepared already from last week's left-overs! I'm much less nervous for this Saturday because now I know what to expect and what their response will be. And yes, I realize I said "alternating" Saturdays, but because of Nevada Statehood Day (Oct. 31) there is no school on Friday, Oct. 29th, and so they did not want to stick a class in there on a three day weekend.

There are also no students coming to school on Nov.1st because of staff development. And there is another staff development day on Nov. 2nd. At first I thought how weird this was, until I wrote it into my November calendar and saw that it was election day, and, of course, they use the schools for polling places, so they'd be in the way when it was time for lunch. That means our students will have five days off in a row! They'll be zombies when they return. But the good news is that the Halloween candy will mostly have had time to exit their systems by Nov. 3rd and we won't have sugared-up kiddos. Just tired, sugar-coma children who've stayed up late for days and days and now have to return to the grueling schedule of school.

In addition to teaching two groups of people, planning for two groups of people and correcting papers for 108 fourth graders, I've also been busy with church playing for baptisms and Primary program practice. Then, my neighbor had a baby shower for her daughter (I went) and I'm going to a meeting tomorrow night to write curriculum for a tobacco use prevention lesson series for elementary school. Again, I applied for a bunch of extra pay projects...got them all!

In the middle of this, I had a midterm for my graduate class. We didn't have to go to class on Monday night (yippee) but I had to complete and e-mail to her by then the answers to five essay questions from a page of 9 that she passed out two weeks ago. Each answer was about a page and half long and had to use information from our text to prove our point. I turned it in on-time. But, hey, that took a lot of typing and hours.

So, you can see I haven't been lying around much. But on the upcoming three day weekend (Halloween) I intend to do just that.

P.S. Tom Bosley died today. He was the dad on Happy Days. I didn't regularly watch that show, I don't think we had a TV at that time. But I did know who he was. One day, in the 90's, I was driving through Malibu on my way back to my home in Ventura County from L.A. The traffic was thick and so we stopped often at lights and it was just too crowded to go fast on the curving Pacific Coast Highway. I glanced over at the car to my left as we wended our way north, and thought to myself, "Hmmm...that guy looks familiar." I had the chance to drive alongside him for two more lights and finally realized it was Tom Bosley. He was just whistling as he drove along, his arm propped on the open window, enjoying the lovely California afternoon like the rest of us, cruising up the PCH.

Keep Praying

Tonight I got home from work really late. I made some supper, I turned on the TV and watched for about 45 minutes "live from Chile" and saw as the first of the thirty-two trapped miners was lifted to the surface and embraced his family and then embraced all the men who'd worked so hard to get him up there. Big, burly men in work clothes with hard hats, all hugging and crying. I'm sure there will be cameras all night as they slowly extract all the rest of these miners. I'm going to finish my contribution for tomorrow's potluck lunch at work, and then I shall collapse into bed.

But first, I will pray again to thank God for this awesome miracle and to implore Him to keep it up so that the rest of these men can hug people uptop, too. (You also realize that thanks for this miracle includes His providing the skills and talents of all the blessed people who invented and manufactured and operated the technology that enabled this rescue.)

And I'll pray for many other things as well: my students, my children and their lives, CoolGuy, my sister's neighbor who is dying of brain cancer and leaving his young family. I'll pray that every one of His children can feel His love and His guidance in their lives. A person could simply pray continually...oh, right, that's what we're advised to do. Uh, huh--I get it.

Power Weekend

Wow..I'm sitting here after coming home from stake conference. I'm aglow with the powerful talk given by the visiting authority. He is Elder Pearson and his final address today was sensational. I realized I'm using odd words to describe a talk in church, but it was really so stunning and well delivered I wish I could watch a video of it to enjoy it again.

I was part of the stake choir and we sang "Oh, How Lovely Was the Morning," "Praise to the Man," and ended with "High on a Mountain Top", and the rest hymn was "The Spirit of God," so you can see that the theme was the Restoration. He started his talk by complimenting us (we were awesome, I agree) and he said, "Do you know why it was such a lovely morning?" He then went on to explain, in the plainest way I've ever heard, the entire history of the Church of Jesus Christ--the original one and how it was altered and changed by apostasy. He explained how the texts that later became the Bible were written mostly by men who'd been apostles of Christ and realized how the doctrines were being changed and subsumed by the cultures of the surrounding Greek and Roman civilizations. (Here's a good book on the subject--it's a challenging read.) These men wanted the words and deeds of Jesus recorded by those who had known him and witnessed the miracles. It had only been a few decades since Christ had been on the earth Himself.

Anyway, he described the compilation of the Bible from these texts, he described the Protestant Reformation wherein the Bible was finally translated into a language that common people could read and see for themselves what the actual teachings of Christ were, instead of the altered and mutated doctrines of the prevailing organized church.

In a very powerful section, Elder Pearson describe how the young Joseph Smith wanted to get some advice from God, not because he thought God himself would answer, but because Joseph thought of himself as just a boy who was confused and he'd been taught to read the Bible, and in it was a promise that God can clear up confusion. He only went to pray whether he should join the Methodist church with his mother and brothers. Of course, the doctrine that every Christian had been taught at that time was that God was unknowable, without body or parts, and was a spirit that all in one contained the Father and the Son. So, imagine how stunned Joseph was to be greeted by two separate personages, one introducing the other as "My beloved Son." That is why it was such a lovely morning...Finally the world would know the truth.

What a conference this has been. Last night at that session, Elder Pearson talked about Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life and the Iron Rod. I gained thought provoking insights into the symbolism of this vision and how to really ramp up my own spirituality. I came away from it feeling optimism and joy I haven't felt in a long time.

I'd started the day early, too. Our Relief Society president invited us to join together for the 7:30 A.M. temple session and then meet at her home for a breakfast following the temple. This has been probably one of the most uplifting, light-filled, joyous weekends I've spent in my life. I have learned so much and been bathed in the Spirit for hours. Too bad I have to go correct papers now....Oh well, I will correct them with joy and love. What a great Father we have in God.

Traditions

This weekend was sooo relaxed. It was General Conference and so there weren't church meetings held at the building. One could still go there and watch the broadcast via satellite transmission. Or, here in Almost-Mormon-Land, one could watch it on a local television station. Or, like I did, I have Expensive Cable and so I watched it on the BYU channel. (We have all-the-bells & whistles cable as part of the internet package CoolGuy needs for work.) Anyway, being able to watch General Conference on TV is such a luxury for me. This means that I had the opportunity to lay on my couch for eight hours this weekend!

Since I am sporting three-day-old stitches in my left foot, lying down with it propped up with an ice-pack was ideal. So, mostly I did just that. When I felt drowsy, I got up and cleaned the windows in my patio doors. Then, I laid down again. CoolGuy was in and out, so he went to the store for the milk and, seriously, I just stayed home. For two straight days. Except for stake choir practice this evening in preparation for next week.

That is where I realized what different traditions we all have for these bi-annual Church-wide events. The choir director was thanking us all for coming out, especially realizing that it Conference Weekend, and one fellow said, "Yeah, I've been in my PJ's all day!" Another person said that she'd almost not come, just because it was so nice to have a day off from everything.

When we first lived in Maryland, sixteen years ago, the only way for us to see Conference was to drive over to the church building. We were joined by many others. It was rare for most people to have satellite TV at that point. The cable company in Southern Maryland would definitely not have dedicated any space to something as obscure as LDS conference at that point. We'd go over for the morning meeting, then go out for fast food for lunch. Due to the time zone differences, our morning session didn't start until noon. Some people lived 15-20 miles from the church, and so they would pack a lunch for Saturday to feed their brood. The kids would run and play, while the parents had a little nap and we'd all be back for the for the P.M. session.

The afternoon session was from 4:00 -- 6:00. After that, the men and boys would stay at the church, play volleyball for an hour, then eat ice cream sundaes, and clean up in time for the Priesthood session from 8:00-10:00. We'd all get to sleep in the next day, and arrive at noon again, this time toting our contribution to the potluck lunch between the Sunday sessions. It was truly one of our favorite Sundays of the year. Everyone came. Even non-member spouses of faithful Church-goers would come over for the lunch because it was just so relaxed and pleasant.

My daughter and her husband now live in Utah close enough to his brother and sisters and mom to get together for dinner on Conference Sunday. Most Sundays, everyone's meeting schedules make it hard for a big dinner. Plus, if they're like me, after all the work we do at the meetings, we're kind of glad to just go home and have a quiet afternoon or evening. I remember as a little kid, that we'd all sit in the living room and watch it. As a teenager, I don't think I made through a single afternoon session without nodding off.

It's a weekend I eagerly anticipate now as an adult. I enjoy it for the content. What was once an endless weekend of old guys talking when I was a kid, is now a feast for my spirit that ends much too quickly.

This year my take-aways were:

• be grateful for what you have instead of bemoaning what you don't have
• never, ever let your faith in God and His Son Jesus waver
• Priesthood power is personal because you have made baptismal covenants and are entitled to it
• follow the prophet

Sunset on Ocean Beach, Easter 1980

It had rained all day. That was unfortunate because Easter Sunday is a time for many to spend outside on egg hunts or picnics in the park. We had been to church and now it was late afternoon and the deluge was stopping. The solid gray ceiling was breaking up into big purple clouds. We knew a spectacular sunset awaited anyone who stood along the beach in San Diego that day. We pulled up in the parking lot just as the brilliant orb pierced the remains of the shredded storm clouds. Light poured over the ocean and, as the sun touched the horizon, a single shaft of gold shot from the far edge of the ocean, sliding across the darkening water, through the weathered pilings that held up the pier. The shimmering light traveled across the wet sand until it stopped at our feet. We were stunned into silence at this display of nature's glory. All day we had been enshrouded by dark rain and dim light. But, now, as the last moments of Easter Sunday ebbed away, this glorious revelation of light seemed to express the entire message of the Holy Day: from darkness to light--for eternity.

Photos by CoolGuy.

Going Home

I had a great weekend. That might be a weird way to describe a trip that included a funeral, but even that was great. I left Friday morning to fly up to Utah. I had lunch with my son, got to visit a bit with his wife and son and then I drove up to Idaho.

It was a simply gorgeous day. The weather was balmy and pleasant, all along my way were late autumn fields where hay bales were being gathered, or straw being baled. There were hawks flying around and wide open spaces. I got up to Idaho in time to go to the viewing and greet my cousins. Then I went over to my friend's house to stay overnight. I was able to help them out early the next morning with a ride to the airport, so they didn't have to leave their car for four days to rack up parking charges.

The funeral was really lovely. My cousins honored their mother very well. Other friends and church leaders also spoke lovingly of her. The music was completely apt and performed very nicely. The whole event was befitting her long and good life. This song caused me to cry. It reflects her era, her life and the reunion she experienced with her family as the last one to arrive in the Promised Land.

She was buried next to my uncle, near her parents and brothers, on a hillside that overlooks their family homestead. The mountains surrounding this little corner of the valley were shimmering in the afternoon sun with clusters of golden-leafed aspens. Here and there were brilliant red patches that almost looked like the photo of a burning bush. The effect was created because some leaves from the bush had fallen to the ground, so that the lower part of the plant was still covered in the flame-like leaves while the upper part was just dull gray sticks jutting up like smoke billowing. It was surreal effect.

When the entire event was finished, my sisters and I took a small nostalgia tour of our grandparents' old farm, and then we met for a quick dinner. We then drove up to a nearby church where the broadcast of the General Women's meeting was being hosted by the stake which we had grown up attending. The meeting was uplifting and spiritual, but I realized it was almost eclipsed by the opportunity I had to sit surrounded not just by sisters in the Gospel, but actual SISTERS. It was fabulous. We joined the others for cookies and ice cream after the meeting, enjoyed a reunion with some old (in every sense of the word) friends from our childhood ward, and finally ended an excellent day of memories, family, spirituality and joy.

"Sisters, sisters, there were never such devoted sisters."

Way off in the distance, you can see some grey-roofed buildings. That is where my mom and her sisters and brothers were born and raised. Now they rest at peace on a beautiful hillside overlooking their childhood home.

My Left Foot...Again...Still

I've been swamped this week with college and with school. So that's why I haven't been writing here. Instead, I've (finally) finished a project for the seminar for the Ed Psy master's program. I had to look up a research article with a faculty member as primary or secondary author for each of the seventeen of them, and you can use one article for two of them. Then make an annotated reference for it (using APA style) and compile all of them into a document and send it off to the teacher. Who is also the department chair, and therefore is extremely familiar with everything each of his faculty members has written, so don't try to fake it or just copy the abstract word for word. Of course, I've crammed it into the last three days, even though I've had four weeks to w0rk on this.

But that would be the same four weeks in which we opened the 2010-11 school year. And we in fourth grade did it twice because we hired our new fourth grade teacher this week and that entailed rearranging all of our classes, rewriting the lists, reformatting the grade books, rearranging our rooms and putting new name stickers on their notebooks and folders to reflect their current teacher. Whew. (yes, it was crazy--but not crazier than 37 students per room.)

I also had a doctor's appointment on Tuesday afternoon with the foot doctor. We're both pleased with the big toe and its healing and posture. However, I'd developed a nagging pain in the ball of my foot, just under the next two toes, and the toe next to BigBoy was definitely not looking good. It has curled up and sticks up higher than the others, creating a red mark where it rubs on shoes. The diagnosis for the pain was a neuroma, into which he injected a painful cortisone shot. But that is already feeling much better by tonight. However, the curled up toe is the result of the tendon he'd "released" [severed] growing back together and pulling my toe the wrong way. So, I have another appointment next Thursday morning to go to the office and have the tendon "released" again, and I will have to splint my toe and wear a slipper on it for the next four weeks.

Blah.

Someone today asked about my foot. How was it? She knew I'd been to the doctor this week. I said it wasn't good this week and I had to have some more messing around with it. She expressed her sympathy and I said, "Well, I've learned that the ultimate solution is "be born with different feet." She laughed and I laughed, because, hey---what else are you going to do?

My Other Mother

This is an 82 year lady riding a horse in a canyon in Wyoming. We went up a rather steep trail and rode for about a half an hour each way. Don't you hope you will be this spry when you're 82?

I'm posting in honor of this woman, Lila Haderlie Burton, my mother's last remaining sibling, who passed away a couple of days ago at age 84. As I've spoken to my sisters about her, we all said the same thing, "She was like our other mother."

These sisters were less than two years apart in age, and were fast friends all of their lives. In fact, Aunt Lila was the reason my dad and mom met. She'd been the victim of his teasing in a class in high school. One day, he saw Lila sitting in a car along Main Street, and stopped off to bother her some more and noticed the cute girl in the back seat. When he started flirting with her, Lila told him to leave her sister alone. He didn't. They were married four years later after she finished high school and he finished WWII.

I think Lila visited us or we visited them every month of every year. She only lived 90 miles away in Idaho, and it was a convenient place to shop. They liked to visit us because my mom was a great cook and it was a mini-vacation to come "home" to Star Valley where they'd both grown up and my parents still lived. Often, in the summers, when my grandparents were at their home on the Idaho/Wyoming border, instead of Arizona where they wintered, our families would split the difference and meet up down there. We kids would play in the "woods" or the yard and the moms would bring the meal and my dad would bring his fishing pole, and we'd spend a long afternoon before we'd have to go home to milk.

Lila was the kind of aunt who sent a card and a gift to one of my young daughters who'd fallen and broke her arm. She was the aunt you could always stop by and visit if you were passing through town, and she was as happy to see you as your own mother. She was also the kind of aunt, that when you were 9 and staying for a week at her house, she'd yell at you just like she yelled at her own children, if the occasion called for it. You were her kid if you were in her house.

These two sisters had some upsets and a couple of falling-out times, but they always got over it and got back together. They always showed up for the special occasions, they talked on the phone many times a week, they shared the care of their elderly father by moving him into their homes on a monthly rotation with their oldest sister. When that sister died, there was just the two of them. They'd already shared the tragedy of losing their youngest brother in a plane crash at astronaut training school. Their mother went a couple of years after that. Their father's death wasn't a tragedy, just a sorrow at becoming orphans--it doesn't feel okay no matter how old you are. Years later, an estranged brother came home and they all made peace before he passed. It finally got down to just the two of them, and Lila made the two hour trek often to visit her little sister as our mother faded away those last two months. Lila missed her immensely.

They never hesitated to share what they owned. They took care of each other's children in good times and bad. They griped and complained and laughed and conspired and now I know they are embracing one another and rejoicing in the family reunion. Both are again with their beloved, eternal spouses, their bothers and sister, their loving parents and all the assorted aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandchildren that preceded them both. All together, forever more.

It's Your Birthday!

This is the smile that blessed our family on September 15, 1979. It seems like just a short time ago. CoolGuy and I clearly remember one significant thing about her birth. The first hour of her life, she looked at us each, as we held her, and focused her eyes intently on ours and babbled something extremely earnest. Of course, we didn't know that language, nor did she know ours, so we don't know what she said. But it was clearly very important. The reason this is significant is that new babies don't focus their eyes, nor babble. But she did, right after getting here, to each of us. And then, she didn't do it any more until it was developmentally appropriate. I hope some day to know what the important message was. I think it was something about God, or Heaven. She'd just been there so recently.

Here are some more remembrances of a life lived well, a delightful daughter, a loving sister, a loyal friend, and compassionate nurse.

Coronado Island beach on July 4th.

With Snowball, the bunny, in Idaho.

Eighth grade graduation, E.O. Green, Oxnard CA.

And did I tell you that she is also a talented artist? No, really--she started young with flowers and ladies, but expanded her talent to include pencil drawings, watercolors, ceramics and pies.

She has always loved cats and now she has two of her own who are really quite charming, in a psycho kind of way.





I'm telling you, that smile...

Writing Lessons

I implemented a new lesson format for my students last week. We first have a lesson about a specific skill and practice it a bit. Then, we write. The first day, I set the timer for 8 minutes and everyone diligently wrote. We had a few people share, then we evaluated them to see if they had successfully utilized the skill, and several of them did. The next day, the writing time was extended to 16 minutes, and then the following day we had 21 minutes set aside for writing. Finally, on Friday, we practiced how to be effective in a writer's conference with a partner, so several people read and we used our skills. We then had partners working together to implement the conferencing. (We had a four-day week...Labor Day.)

The concept for these first lessons is to choose a small "seed idea" not a large "watermelon" topic. Instead of talking about your whole soccer season, choose a moment from a game or practice in which something happened that you can make a little movie in your mind, and then retell, step-by-step. To generate these seed ideas, the students were to first think of a person, then list under that person's name three incidents they could think of that occurred with him or her. Another day, we wrote the name of a place, and the third day, we wrote about a thing. These are just ways to help them to think of specific incidents to recount, rather than a general topic that is broad and their story may then just degenerate into a list of items concerning it. We're trying to be story tellers--it is a personal narrative unit.

The fun part for me is that I, too, am supposed to write. I circulate around the room at first and check to see that people have been able to think of something. Then, I sit and use my own examples (which are on the board) and, in my writer's notebook, I write while the timer ticks away. If a person "finishes" they are to choose another of their incidents and start a new story. "Done" isn't part of the deal here. One should be always writing--either generating or revising--during our writing time. I'm liking it so far. Here is one of my small ideas:

Place: the beach---

It was like being on a cloud. I was floating on the green cool ocean along the edge of Carpenteria State Beach. It's one of my favorite places in the world. The oak-covered mountains loomed into the sky to the east. The dim outline of Santa Cruz Island was visible through the misty clouds hovering off-shore. I was suspended in between, drifting and bobbing like a piece of human seaweed. I could faintly hear the surf splashing as it landed on the sand. I could hear laughter and shrieking from people using body boards or just frolicking in the the wave break. But all the noise was far away as my body dipped and rose with the moving ocean. As I gazed around, a dark form appeared above me and I was astounded to see a pelican crash, bill-first, straight into the water not 10 feet from me. He was such a perfect arrow shape that his body hardly made a splash. He disappeared entirely into the water and then almost immediately popped back up--swallowing a fish I could see outlined through the skin on his throat. He floated there serenely, looking at me, blinking, not caring that I shared his watery feed ground. I was simply one more small creature in the vast Pacific Ocean.

Not Laboring Day

All week I was home alone. Which is good because I spent too many hours at school and two nights last week, I had to go to classes. But CoolGuy was coming home finally from business tripping and we were anticipating a three day weekend. Except that I worked all day Saturday.

In the morning, while it was still (relatively) cool, I rode my bicycle over to my school (8:30 A.M.) and hung up all 97 papers that my students got finished the first week. They were to write a paragraph to introduce themselves to the rest of us and then draw a picture above it to illustrate. I had conferenced with each one just to check spelling (mostly--a couple needed a serious re-work for coherency). Now they were turned in and I could make a display in the hall. The reason I hung up 97 was because the other 6 students weren't quite finished and are going to bring it back Tuesday from home--completed.

Yes, we have 103 fourth graders. Yes, it is far too many to divide between three teachers. Yes, we have been authorized to hire another fourth grade teacher. YEAH! We just don't know how long that will take.

After that, I came home and started reading the chapter for my college class. I still need to finish and also to write a one-page paper about it (the writing is easy--the reading takes time.) But I have until next Monday night to do it. Then, I left the house at 3:00 to go to the teacher store for a couple of things, then I went by the airport and picked up CoolGuy. We came home and ate dinner and hot-tubbed and went to bed.

On Sunday after church, I read the first book of the writing series I'm using this year. I tried and tried to read it this summer and kept falling asleep. Not a good sign, huh? But, I've enrolled in a teacher development class offered by the district to use this series. Also I meet with another group of teachers at a school a block or two from mine once a week and we discuss what we've done and how to do it better. We are to answer questions and post comments in an on-line forum, too, to discuss this with the larger group. It will force me to use it and do it and I will also have support, so it is a very good thing for me.

Finally, Monday morning, after CoolGuy got back from his early morning run, he and I went off for some recreation on the motorcycle. Our original goal was to drive over to Hoover Dam and gawk at the new highway bypass they've built over the canyon, downstream from the dam. We drove up over the mountain on Lake Mead Boulevard and down and around through the desert until we came circling back up to the highway that leads from Boulder City to the dam/border of Arizona. And discovered that thousands of other people had the same great idea this morning to go to Hoover Dam. We were at least 8 miles from the dam and the highway was a parking lot. Cars backed up, creeping along at 5 miles an hour. The road to the border/dam is only two lanes, and winds down through the canyon. Plus there is a security checkpoint to make sure someone isn't driving a carbomb onto the road that crosses the dam.

Well, on a motorcycle in Nevada, one cannot "split lanes"--a practice one can do in California. I recognize that many car drivers hate it when motorcyclists drive between the lanes of stopped or very slow cars. But it is excruciatingly difficult to balance a motorcycle upright while driving in stop-and-start traffic. So we decided to just go the opposite way and travel into Boulder City and have lunch. We can go to Hoover Dam some other day when far fewer people are also heading that way.

I was struck, though, by one thing I saw in the desert as we traveled on the road through the Lake Mead Recreation Area, an official Bureau of Land Management area. You must stop at a kiosk and pay 5 dollars for the privilege of entering this zone, and you are in a stark, vast desert area, with very little vegetation and jutting slices of rock that thrust upward into mountain sized piles. It is beautiful, yet harsh and unchanged by the passing eras of time. One gets the sense of prehistory out here. An intersection appeared, giving us the choice go left or right, toward different coves and bays of the enormous Lake Mead. At this intersection is a yield sign shaped in a red triangle. And someone has taken the time to stop and with their two inch wide black marker (which strangely they've brought with them to this unique, remote, delicate area) and write stupid graffiti on the yield sign. Sigh. Jerks.

We ate our lunch and headed back to Las Vegas, passing at least one more mile of the long stretch of cars heading out to the dam. When we got back, I went swimming for a half hour or so, laid in the sun and now I'm going to finish my lesson plans for tomorrow. I wish every school week was four days long.

A Little Extra Touch

Have you ever eaten Amy's products? I get them quite frequently, and all of them are delicious. One of my favorites is the Indian food. There are several different frozen dinners made with rice and beans and a vegetarian Indian entree. Tonight I had palak paneer. It is creamed spinach with a soft Indian cheese cut into cubes. It really is tasty just microwaved as is. But I like to steam cauliflower and put it on the plate first, then pour over it the spinach and cheese mixture, eating the rice and beans on the side, too. Yummmm ...seriously, if you like cauliflower, this is terrific.

Tonight, I was craving meat, however, so I rummaged around in the freezer and there was a bag of Italian meatballs, with just two left in it. So, I steamed them with the cauliflower, and served two meatballs alongside the palak paneer over the cauliflower. Now you're talking...mmm, mmm, good.

I hope there aren't any food police out there who will come to my house and revoke my purchase rights to Amy's organic, vegetarian tasty meals made with no bioengineered ingredients, and using rBST hormone free milk products, no hidden ingredients, etc. etc.

I like their food. With or without meatballs.

First Day of School

When I was a little girl getting ready for the first day of school, it was always so exciting. I am a little bit excited today, too, as usual. But the actual reason for this post is the weather. It feels like the first day of school in Wyoming here today.

It is 65 degrees right now...in August...in Las Vegas. Bizarre. It was windy all weekend and I guess it just blew the hot right out of here. I expect the temperature will creep back up to the "normal" range this week---low 100's. But it is very odd today to wake up and see that thermometer below the 80 mark. In July, it didn't dip below 90, even at night. Bizarre.

Family Style

Yesterday was the 20th anniversary of the death of Stevie Ray Vaughan. Here's just one reason why I like his music.


I'd heard his music, and I liked it, but I didn't really know much about him. CoolGuy liked the blues and played them a lot in the rotation at the house. Vaughan was one of those Texas guys. We'd been to see another Texas guy in concert that I'd vaguely heard of: Doug Sahm of the Sir Douglas Quintet (a relic from junior high top forty). He was now in a group called The Texas Tornados that we listened to one night at one of the most awesome concerts I'd ever been to.

So Vaughan, being another of those Texas guys, was someone I took to right away because he had the great sound. He could do things to a Fender Stratocaster that was really attention getting. One reason he was such a big deal to me is the inspiration he had on Number One Son. Son likes to play blues guitar too, and he listened to a lot of Stevie Ray Vaughan. NOS does a pretty good job with Vaughan songs, too.

Vaughan had a rough and tumble life, and ended up in rehab (which is better than the morgue with so many of his fellow musicians.) He'd gotten his life and career back and he and older brother Jimmie finally made an album together. Jimmie's guys, The Fabulous Thunderbirds are completely outrageous too. I don't know what Mother and Father Vaughan fed the boys, but it worked!

Anyway, the album "Family Style" was released under the name of the The Vaughan Brothers in September 1990. It was right after Stevie Ray was killed in helicopter wreck. He was leaving a summer concert. It was a huge loss for music because he really was just fantastic at his craft.

CoolGuy was in Saudi Arabia working with the Marines at that point. I bought the album and sent him a copy. It remains one of my favorites today because of one silly song: The Telephone Song. This trip to the Big Sandbox came up suddenly and CoolGuy was gone with only a few days notice. It was disorienting and lonely for me, and although he was very busy, he did find time to miss me, too. So, when I first heard this song, I wrote the words out for him and mailed him the tape. It was "our song" for the duration:

Woke up this morning, I was all alone,
Saw your picture by the telephone.
I was missing you, oh, so bad.
Wish I had you here to hold,
all I've got is this touch-tone phone.
So I guess I'll give you a call,
Operator help me please
get thru to my baby way overseas.
Time's a wastin' oh so fast
Hello, baby tell me is that you?
I don't know what we're gonna do,
But for now I'm glad I got you on the line.
Well, it feels so fine knowing you're all right
But you're miles away, lord it's not the same.
Well, I woke up this morning
I was all alone, saw your picture by the telephone
I've been missing you baby, oh, so bad.
I love you baby with all my might.
Come on home and squeeze me tight.
Long distance lovin's gonna drive me out of my mind.

It's not great art, but it hit the spot, and was amazingly dead-on for our particular circumstances right then. So, whenever I hear Stevie Ray Vaughan playing, I'm transported back in time and feel again the pangs of loneliness and appreciate him all over again for putting my angst to music. It's too bad he left the earth so abruptly with the world hungry for more. We all miss him.

Ah, Now I Get It

Last night was the first class for the fall semester in my ongoing pursuit of a master's degree. I'm enrolled in two classes--one lasts the full term and the other is only five weeks. The shorter one is a seminar about being a graduate student. It is labeled "701" which should have been a hint to me when I was first taking classes...I've taken 711, 721, 702, & 712 so far. The first class I enrolled in was 788 which turned out to be the first class for PhD in Ed.Psy. that my friend urged me to take with her. It was really good--really hard, but good. And I learned a lot of things that have been really helpful in my subsequent classes. But, sheesh, I felt like a Kindergarten kid in there when everyone else revealed their multiple master's degrees. I was the only classroom teacher in a room full of women who were all in supervisory positions in the district.

But, last night's first class of 701 was the "Ah ha!" moment of my graduate school experience. The purpose of the class is very specific. One is to introduce us to the Educational Psychology department of the university and the faculty (next week is an actual gathering, catered, with the 17 members of the department). These are the people from whom we choose our committee to guide us through to completion of our project/thesis. Also the seminar teaches a quick course in APA style writing (how to correctly cite references and compose for research reports). We also have to pass an on-line program to certify to work with human subjects in a research setting--yes, an actual certificate. Then, we must create a CV for ourselves (curriculum vitae = professional academic resume) which the professor will review and return for corrections until it is complete and stylistically correct. In order to practice the writing skills and to acquaint ourselves with the faculty and their areas of expertise, we must find, read and summarize a research article for which each of them has been the primary or secondary author, and create a paper with these summaries.

Oh.

All of my instructors in those other classes have assumed that I took this 5-week seminar already, and knew about various concepts that they referenced periodically. Wouldn't that have been nice for me if I'd have carefully enrolled in the first class, first?

But, I'm in it now and it is a relief to find it. I've been pretty confused up till now about this whole experience. One thing he stated last night is practically a quote I've said to CoolGuy. "To graduate with the bachelor's degree you get the list, take the classes, check off the boxes and, voila, we hand you a diploma." Yes, that is what I liked about it: there's the goal, I scurried about and achieved it.

But, the professor (he's actually the department chair) went on to say: "The difference at this level of the university is this: a graduate degree requires that you choose the focus for your mastery, and we'll guide and mentor you through the process."

Okey-dokey...it all makes sense now. See what doing things in their proper sequence can do for you? Confusion is cleared up, I have the view from beginning to end--at last. Just another episode in my life of not doing first-things-first. Doh.

An Example

There is a saying about everyone being useful, even if only as a bad example. I'm the dental bad example. I visited an endodontist and my regular dentist this week and it was bad news all around.

First, let me explain that, as a child, I spent hours and hours reclined in a dentist's chair having fillings put into my teeth because of rampant decay. Then, as a young adult, one of my first jobs was chairside assistant to a children's dentist. I learned on the job, and the most important thing I learned was that tooth decay is preventable. It may sound bizarre that I only learned that as an adult. I did brush when I was a child, but I also ate lots of sweets and --- it turns out -- our family has genetically weak teeth. All of my brothers and sisters also have many restorations.

Luckily, I did two things to avoid passing this on: 1) learned how to care for teeth correctly (fluoride treatments, flossing and brushing, limit sweets) and, 2) married someone who brought good teeth to the gene pool. So, due to a minor bit of fanaticism (can you have minor fanaticism?) on my part with the teeth hygiene and sweets-limiting & the lovely dental inheritance from their father, our children have mostly excellent teeth with very little need for restorative dental work.

And this is good for many reasons --finances, appearance, personal comfort. But the principle reason this is good is that once you start making holes in the enamel it is all downhill from there. A cavity will be filled and eventually it'll deteriorate into needing a root canal and a crown. Then sometimes those fail too, and you'll need to have a rotted root structure extracted and a bridge built. Which puts undo pressure on the adjoining teeth after so many years, which can crack their delicate structures and lead to more avenues for bacteria to invade the root systems and make little pockets of infection around the bottoms of those roots. Then you must remove the bridge and allow the cracked tooth to try and heal while you take antibiotics. Or if you can retreat the root canal, you may resolve the infection, or perhaps you just have to extract the tooth after all because it is too difficult and iffy to retreat such an old root canal with scar tissue like that.

Now all of this takes decades to occur. The first little cavity starting in the permanent teeth when you're about 14 and too lazy to brush every night, and chewed sugary bubble gum a lot or ate snacks like bread and butter with sugar sprinkled all over it. Then it culminates one week when you are 57 sitting in the dentist's chair while he and his assitant nearly dislocate your jaw while trying to dismantle and remove the "permanant" bridge so that the supporting teeth can get exotic treaments. And you sign the consent/estimate for dental work to be done over the next six-eight months that cost more than any of your last three cars.

But, having the two missing (one gone, one soon to be gone) teeth replaced with implants beats the heck out of just being a toothless old lady, or putting up with dreadful dentures. Technological advances in the dental world are a wonderful part of modern life.

About that example: brush, floss, avoid a constant diet of sweets. You don't want to get the holes started in your teeth. My dentist explained today, "The trouble with restorations is that, while it solves one problem, it starts another. Every hole in your tooth enamel, even the carefully drilled and filled ones, create a pathway for bacteria and it is all downhill from here." Even if it takes decades, it will occur.

Home Again...From My Once and Future Home

Camping at the Beach 2010 is finished. There was a unanimous vote to come back here next summer. It was a little bit cooler this year than we've experienced living in SoCal, apparently caused by La Nina after a winter time El Nino...weather conditions having to do with the ocean. So, at night we got a little chilly. But that's what the campfire is for. Actually, the last night, we ate inside the motorhome because it was extra windy and darn cold.

But, aside from that, we had a really nice time. There were birds--scrub jays, crows, and the wild parrots. And of course, seagulls at the beach. There was a very busy gopher who was vigorously shoveling dirt up out of his hole to the delight of our four-year old grandson. And then, the gopher himself peaked up to look around and was as startled as Little Dude when their eyes met. Mr. Gopher dug another hole during our breakfast the next morning, too. He was worth the whole trip!

Some people went to the SeaBee Musuem. Some people went to the Santa Barbara Mission. Some went on down the highway to Leo Carrillo beach to the tidepools. Some hiked up a trail that ended with a magnificent view of the ocean and the Pacific Coast Highway. Everyone of us just had a very pleasant time hanging out, reading, eating dinner, making the ritual S'Mores around the campfire each night for dessert. (Auntie Skye has added roasting Starburst candies...weirdly yummy.) We played Scrabble at the motorhome table after all the little people were tucked in, drinking Mexican hot chocolate.

CoolGuy ended up making a couple of trips to LAX that were bogus because of bad intel...blame me, mostly, for either being ill-informed or deeply confused. Oh well, we survived, although I got really mad at myself for being such a dope that I didn't double-check.

The ocean was stunning. I've never seen a more gorgeous shade of blue-green than it was the entire time we were there. And every day, we saw groups of dolphins. There was also a seal who'd swim in the surf so close to the shore that you could see him blink. And pelicans, squadrons of pelicans---flying in formation just off the surface of the water. Occasionally, one would swoop up high and dive straight down into the water at top speed only to pop back up again gulping down his fish.

The beach is the only place I don't take a book. I just like to look at the ocean. One of these years, I'll be viewing it daily because I'll be riding my bike there every morning. One of these years...

Lunch in Santa Barbara:

Grandpa CoolGuy helping with the dig to China.

Poor little baby was stressed out by all the new people and endless outdoor time, but she smiled a couple of times. We think her teeth were growing in, too.

Tide pools...the tide was coming back in, but we saw some nifty things, anyway.

The view from the top of the trail. Our campground was around the bend to the left in this photo. The point at the top right is seen in most car commercials if there is a view of the car driving along the ocean.

The campsite fire-ring in the center; the eating area under the shade tent to the left.

I tried to snap one last picture as we drove off this morning, but it is hard to see. Plus, in a photo, you can't inhale the salty scent and you can't hear the waves crashing on the rocks, nor feel the steady breeze. But it's all there in my head...

Forty...

That is how many degrees the thermometer in CoolGuy's truck has dropped since yesterday. We arrived at the beach today and every time I come back here, I think, "Now, why don't I still live here?" Oh, that's right, the job moved somewhere else, and we liked eating every day so we went with it.

But here we are visiting for 6 days and it is lovely. Today, we set up the whole camp and this year I added a shade canopy to my camping supplies for the dining table. We have the tee-pee from last year and each of our children brought a tent, so we have a very cozy set-up.
We went over to the beach today and dug big holes in the sand and walked a little in the surf. But the ocean at this beach is freezing cold and the break is fierce because it is steep, so we will drive up the coast to a more shallow, gentle beach that we can play with the boogie boards and swim.
Here are some photos of fun on the beach:

Vacation!

On Tuesday morning we're headed for the ocean. Last year we rented a campground at Sycamore Canyon, in Ventura County, near where we lived for six years. Camping in SoCal is good because they have actual bathrooms, real toilets, sinks, and --for fifty cents---hot showers. Plus, you're right across the street from the beach. The campsites are nestled in among the big oak trees, and have the lovely, pleasant, (not scorching hot) weather of the ocean. At night, you can hear the waves crashing and see all the stars.

We rented a motorhome so we'd have a kitchen and CoolGuy and I could sleep in a bed...But we also had a campfire every night, and a little kid teepee for playing in. This year I bought a shade canopy to go over the table so that we won't be cooked while eating lunch. We go over to the beach in the afternoons and make elaborate sand castles and play in the water.

We had such a good time last year, that we reserved another camp for this year. All the kids are able to come this time, and we're going to have a very nice time. The other good thing about beach camping is that it is relatively stress free. We don't schedule any outings, or visits or anything. If someone has a good idea, then we can go and do it, and those who feel like a nap instead, just have a nap. The only thing I plan is meals, so that we can eat without stress, too.

I probably won't be blogging because instead I'll be body-surfing. So, hasta la vista.

Temple Tourism

Today I drove 120 miles up the freeway to St. George, Utah, to be a tourist. I don't believe I've ever stopped in St. George longer than it took to put gas in my car and/or grab something to eat. Once, a couple of years ago, I also went to Dillard's there and bought a pair of shoes. It was just a longer than usual pit stop.

But today, my destination was St. George. It was novel to go there and have it be the end of the trip. When we lived in SoCal, St. George meant The End of The Desert, and that was a good thing. It meant that we were no longer traveling through a vast wasteland, and that, if our car broke down, there would be someone living within walking distance and we wouldn't die. But seriously, it was always a relief to get to Utah because each mile from then on (on the trip north to Wyoming) was going to be cooler, rather than hotter, than the previous mile.

So, I pulled into St. George today and got off the freeway and wandered around in an older residential area until I got to the temple. It was built in the 1870's, when the people were hardly established there, and still lived arduous lives in a harsh climate. It is a beautiful relic that is still extremely useful. I was struck by how small it is, particularly compared to modern temples like L.A and Washington D.C. The rooms are intimate, but the ceilings high, so you still feel the grandness of the edifice. It has pioneer period furnishings, and so you have the sense of being in another era, in a grand parlor and you almost expect ladies to have their hair swept up in buns with their long, silk skirts sweeping the floor in a hushed swish. It was nice.

After a couple of hours in the temple, I went to my other destination: Dinosaur Discovery Site at Johnson Farm. There are signs along I-15 beckoning the traveler to stop. It is a small museum/learning center that has been built on the site of an amazing find. A man who owned this property for his whole adult life, began to level off a hill in 2000. About 20 feet of dirt was removed, and he got down to a layer of rock. Using the digger bucket, he started to pull up the rock. One big slab dropped out of the bucket and turned over so he could see the underside. There was a large, 3-D mold of a three toed foot, that looked for all the world like a dinosaur footprint. Except that it was a cast, not a print.

Well, I'd read all of this in the materials, and watched the informational film, and wandered around looking at all the specimens, and then I went back to the front desk to ask some questions. I waited patiently for the lady to finish talking with an elderly man, and then she turned to me. I said I had a few questions about the large area of rock and I pointed behind me. She directed my attention to the elderly gentleman, and said, "He can tell you all about it." It was the Dr. Johnson, whose property this was, and who had been digging in 2000 in an attempt to level the piece of ground. (!!!) So we stepped over to the side of the railing and he told me about what he'd been doing and why and where back then.

He'd called the Smithsonian Institute in DC when he first found the slab, and they directed him to a palentologist in Salt Lake City. This scientist couldn't understand what he was describing and, frankly, didn't think it could be what the doctor thought it was. Finally, after about three months, the man was in the area and he came by to look up the doctor and see what he'd found.

"And did he blow a gasket when he saw what you had?" I asked. Well, yes. The doctor's daughter-in-law wrote an article about it, and quoted the scientist, and gave the article to AP. The family was soon inundated by gawkers from all over the world. They had to build a fence and hire security to keep people from trampling the site and stealing rocks with tracks. In 2004, the center was built with generous grants and gifts from local people and the city, and now you can go there to study, or have a field trip, or just marvel at it, like I did.

The doctor was at the site this afternoon because he was with a group of adult Down's Syndrome people, one of whom was his own son. There were about a dozen people waiting in a state of chattering excitement near the door, so I thanked him for his time, and told him I was a teacher with my enthusiasm for dinosaurs still high. He loved telling me his story and I loved listening to it.

What an astonishing thing to discover when you're just out digging around on your farm, trying level a piece of ground! It had been there for thousands of years, unknown. What great timing I had today, asking a question of the desk lady right at the moment the man who would know all the answers was available to talk to me. Serendipity strikes again. It must be a magic place on earth.