In Jill's Words

Girl Scout Cookie Season Has Arrived

2012-01-28T07:00:00.018-07:00

It's Girl Scout Cookie season. Like every supportive teacher with a sweet tooth, I plan my dessert menu according to my students' fundraisers. Candy bars in the fall, Butter Braid in the winter, and Girl Scout Cookies in the spring.

I was a Girl Scout, but I dropped out when the troop planned its first camping trip. All I remember about my stint as a Girl Scout was a song, "Make new friends, but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold," and a puppet show with a grandmother who kept repeating, "Babes are a bane and burden." I liked the puppet show, but I don't think I understood the definition of "bane" or "burden." And I probably didn't consider myself a "babe" at the wise old age of six.

Of course, I also remember Girl Scout Cookie season. Since we Girl Scouts were the ones selling the cookies, our leaders allowed us to sample the products in order to share our expertise with potential customers. It was one of my favorite Girl Scout activities.

As a teacher, I was delighted when little girls started knocking on my classroom door, cookie order forms in their hands. I was probably my kiddos' best customer, ordering a box of everything (except the sugar-free kind). After I married Dan, I ordered a box of everything and a couple of extra Samoas and Thin Mints.

Sadly, the past couple of years, not one Girl Scout has darkened my doorstep, an unusual turn of events since about 650 kids darken my doorstep every week. I would think these are pretty decent odds. One of those lovely children must be a cookie-selling Girl Scout.

Last year, Dan and I had to buy all of our Girl Scout Cookies from the hyper girls that plant themselves in front of the local supermarket. We made several trips. One evening toward the end of cookie season, Dan returned home, dejected.

"They didn't have any Samoas left, so I bought another box of Thin Mints," he said with a sigh.

Last spring, I announced in all of my classes, "I expect all Girl Scouts to sell me cookies next year. Don't forget! You have all made my husband and me very sad."

They all remembered.

When the first little girl handed me her order form, I marked one of each flavor, fearing - in light of my Girl Scout Cookie dry spell the last few years - that this would be my only chance.

The next day, the girl's mother e-mailed me, thanking me for supporting her daughter and essentially asking me, "Are you sure you want to order all these cookies?"

Of course I did! Didn't she know that I had a growing husband-boy at home, and this was the only Girl Scout Cookie request I had received in - like - four decades?

Then another wide-eyed, smiling face showed up at my door later that week.

I ordered more Samoas, Thin Mints, and Savannah Smiles, a new cookie issued in honor of the Girl Scouts' 100th anniversary. (I was probably about Brownie age when the cookie's namesake, the movie Savannah Smiles, was released.)

At the end of the week, one more little girl brought me her form.

"I want to sell a thousand boxes this year," she exclaimed.

I ordered more Trefoils, Tagalongs, and . . . Samoas. (If you haven't guessed already, Dan's mantra is, "You can never have too many Samoas." By the way, Samoas are still made with hydrogenated oils, but no one seems to care at my house.)

The little girl tried to make me pay on the spot, but I am a Girl Scout Cookie pro. I know from many years of experience that I am supposed to hand the kids their money when they show up in the spring with a plastic grocery bag filled with several pounds of sugary goodness. I gently delineated the entire cookie-selling procedure. She went away penniless - for the time being.

I was afraid she might lose the check before I got my one hundred sixty-four boxes of Samoas.

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SNOWPOCALYPSE!

2012-01-21T10:35:00.005-07:00

My diabolical plan worked.

Just four days after posting "SNOWLESS!," Idaho (and the Pacific Northwest) braced itself for SNOWPOCALYPSE! We were finally going to get the big snowstorm we had all been awaiting with bated breath.

When the local meteorologists reported a severe winter storm warning for Wednesday, the news was greeted, not with trepidation, but with eager anticipation. Boise residents seemed to breathe a sigh of relief and complained less than usual about having to drive on the snowy winter streets. The ACHD went to work pretreating roads with an almost happy diligence. It was predicted that we were going to get anywhere from three to nine inches in the Treasure Valley alone.

But then SNOWPOCALYPSE! came, and with it came fifty-nine crashes, thirty-five slide offs, and twenty-four stalled vehicles (according to an early report on the local news station).

SNOWPOCALYPSE! didn't reach Boise soon enough to necessitate a snow day. It wasn't until all of us school district employees were driving to school that we got pelted with snow. Many of the buses didn't make it to our school on time. The fourth graders were supposed to go on a music department-sponsored field trip to the Philharmonic, but only one bus arrived, and it was over a half-hour late. We watched the snow come down in wet, fluffy flakes, hoping we wouldn't get stuck at the school overnight. The kids spent the day rolling around in the stuff, returning to our rooms a sopping, soggy mess of little bodies.

The nurse finally sent us an e-mail that said something to the effect: "I have no dry clothes. Please let students know if they play in the snow, they are going to get wet."

The kids didn't care.

"When I get out to recess, I'm going to do a face plant in the snow!" one of my students exclaimed.

"What did our principal say about that on the morning announcements?" I reminded him.

"He just said not to do it to someone else," another kid chimed in.

Eventually the snow turned into rain, making the commute home slushy and slick. The temperatures in the Treasure Valley crept back up to the forties, and we have been stuck with rain ever since. Later in the week, the remaining snow in the higher elevations was so wet and heavy that it knocked out power for a couple hundred customers in Boise County.

But in the long run, I believe SNOWPOCALYPSE! will benefit our local economy. Bogus Basin opened the very next day, having gained ten inches on Wednesday and fourteen more on Thursday. Even non-skiers, like me, can appreciate the impact that will have on our community. And I'll be the first to admit - That one day of Snowmageddon was pretty exciting.

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Reject PIPA and SOPA

2012-01-18T11:59:00.003-07:00

The Internet blacklist legislation—known as PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) in the Senate and Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) in the House—invites Internet security risks, threatens online speech, and hampers innovation on the Web. Urge your members of Congress to reject this Internet blacklist campaign in both its forms! For more information, see the following sites:

Stop the Internet Blacklist Bills

Strike Against SOPA

SNOWLESS!

2012-01-14T12:00:00.000-07:00

We have no snow in Boise. In a state that bases much of its economy on snow-related recreation, this is devastatingly big news. Bogus Basin, our local ski resort, still hasn't opened. Until now, the latest Bogus has ever opened was on January 6 in 1989. It is January 14.

My husband, Dan, a season pass holder, is mourning the lack of snow. Some of the nearby resorts are offering discounts to Bogus Basin pass holders, but there hasn't been much snow anywhere else either. Dan gave me new Nordic skis for Christmas, and they currently sit lonely in the garage, gathering dust, lamenting the absence of snow, a reflection of the melancholy many Idahoans are experiencing right now.

For the people who could care less or are even joyful about not having to maneuver around snowy roads, this is truly sad for the local businesses that are dependent on winter recreation. Bogus Basin itself has lost over $2 million in revenue and has had to temporarily lay off some of its staff. It may prove to be sadder in the spring when we realize the mild winter's effect on our snow melt and water supply.

Yikes! This isn't my typical lighthearted, comedic fare. How depressing!

On Tuesday, the morning forecast still predicted low-forties and no precipitation, maybe some snow in northern Idaho. But around 10:30ish, slowly but surely, white fluffy flakes began to float apprehensively from the sky.

"The weatherman's always wrong!" one of my fourth graders exclaimed.

"My brother bought a ski package and lessons this year and hasn't been able to use it. Maybe now he can!" another third grader cried, as he lumbered in from recess. (As I watched the snow melt immediately upon touching the ground, I didn't have the heart to tell him that it wasn't likely.)

"You jinxed it in choir!" a fifth grader told me.

She was referring to a comment I had made earlier that morning: "Pretend like you are balancing a snowman on your head . . . even though there is no snow out there."

"Jinxed it?" I said. "I'm so powerful, I made it snow!"

I instant messaged Dan at lunch, "Did you see that it's snowing? We're all very excited here!"

A few hours later, the snow stopped, and the sun came out. But I believe it provided a tiny glimmer of hope for the snow-loving Boise community.

"Bogus only gained about a half-inch," Dan said that evening. "I've been checking the snow report all day."

Yesterday, Dan finally gave up and went snowboarding at Anthony Lakes in Oregon.

Bogus Basin is throwing a "Getting Louder for Powder" party on Wednesday. Apparently, there will be snow-dancing on the Basque Block downtown. (And I think this is a serious claim. It is not just a fundraiser. They really are calling on the snow gods.)

Maybe it will work. Snow is in the forecast this week.

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Rescued By the 1%

2012-01-07T07:00:00.009-07:00

Dan and I spent our eighth wedding anniversary in Sun Valley, Idaho this year. For those of you not familiar with Sun Valley, a lot of rich people hang out there. At times, the attitude of entitlement some of these rich people cop with the retail workers, restaurant servers, and anyone else they deem an "underling" disturbs me. But, for the most part, it is a friendly, laid-back, and refreshingly open-minded community.

This year, in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement, I spent the first portion of our trip yelling, "There goes the 1%!" at the crazy drivers (mostly with California license plates) in downtown Ketchum. I did this from the safety of our own car, where no one could actually hear me, and from the pedestrian crosswalks whenever a car, with its windows completely rolled up, tried to run me over. I say "in solidarity" meaning that it was my way of showing support without actually doing anything.

Then, on the afternoon of our anniversary, December 20, 2011, Dan and I were rescued by the 1%.

Dan had left his skis at Galena Lodge after a morning of cross-country skiing. Neither one of us had realized this until we were halfway back to Ketchum via Highway 75. As soon as the way was clear, Dan made a nice, neat U-turn. Or we thought it was neat until he hit a patch of ice, which must have been invisible to the naked eye. We ended up trapped in a snowbank on the side of the road. I should say I ended up in a snowbank because it was the passenger side that was actually trapped by the snow. Dan flipped on the four-wheel drive and tried to gun it out of the ditch but to no avail. We were stuck.

"Should I crawl to the other side? You know, distribute the weight?" I asked.

Dan looked at my five-foot-two-and-a-half frame.

"I don't think it would make much difference."

I have never worried about getting stuck because I am a proud, card-carrying member of AAA. I have been ever since my mother sent me off to college and somehow predicted that I would need several rescues (mostly due to the dome light in my '93 Hyundai Excel being left on overnight). But alas, there was no cell service in the Sawtooths on December 20, 2011.

Dan decided he would walk down to the Sawtooth National Recreational Area (SNRA) Headquarters to make a phone call.

"Do you want to go or just stay here?" he asked me.

Recollections of news stories about husbands and wives splitting up and disappearing and/or dying in the snow-capped mountains, followed by visions of a crazy man murdering me flooded my mind.

"I'll go with you, but I'm not sure how to get out of the car."

Did I mention I was almost sitting parallel with ground? That is how tilted the car was, by the way. If I had opened the door, I probably would have been suffocated by snow. (Dan just accused me of exaggerating. I just informed him that hyperbole is a common literary device.)

As I unbuckled my seat belt and crawled across to the driver's side, a Blaine County Parks and Recreation vehicle drove up, and the gracious worker offered to head to SNRA and call AAA for us. She couldn't give us a ride because she had too many dogs in her pickup. (I love Idaho.)

We were in the midst of giving her our information when a few vacationers stopped. Pretty soon, we had four different groups of people who were willing to help us. One even had a tow rope, and another had a CB.

The men set to work attaching the tow rope.

"So what's the best way to go about doing this?" Dan asked, always the engineer.

"I'm not sure. This is the first time I've ever had to use it," the gentleman said, crouching down by his vehicle's hitch.

Within a matter of minutes, we were out of the snow bank. My liberal side hates to admit it, but I was grateful for SUVs that day, despite all the damage they do to our environment (although, our 4x4 didn't do us much good).

Dan and I shook the vacationers' and recreation worker's hands, thanking them profusely.

"Next time, I won't let him do a U-turn on the highway," I said to our saviors with a nervous laugh and a wave goodbye.

And we were back on our way down Highway 75. The whole ordeal only took forty minutes, all because a handful of friendly northwestern vacationers were willing to stop and help a couple of desperate thirty-somethings.

Dan spent the rest of the day deep in thought, his brow furrowed.

"Don't feel bad," I said. "I do stupid stuff all the time. And nobody treated us like we were stupid. They just acted like getting stuck is par for the course for people who play in the mountains."

I waited. Dan sighed but didn't respond.

"I wasn't very witty or sarcastic," I continued. "In fact, we both stayed surprisingly calm. Maybe I should have been funnier. Maybe I should have made more jokes about being rescued by the 1%."

"Thank you for being a good wife," Dan finally said.

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"High-Def Television" Killed the Radio Star

2011-12-30T07:00:00.012-07:00

Last Christmas, our furnace broke down, and we felt that it was necessary to replace it right away. This Christmas, our TV broke down, and we felt that it was necessary to replace it right away. What kind of world do we live in when a furnace and a television hold equal sway in our livelihood?

In my defense, I thought we could go TV-less for a while. I imagined a utopia of orange and violet butterflies fluttering around my head, soft grocery store music in the background, where I spent my time reading, writing, and playing Quiddler and Boggle with my husband.

But Dan, the husband with whom I had envisioned spirited rounds of Phase 10, practically rejoiced when the TV bit the dust. He has wanted a new television for a long time now. But our old school 25-inch model was suiting us just fine, a television not being a necessity anyway. Plus the technological industry makes its money through the use of conflict minerals and unfair labor practices (just an example of the guilt-ridden editorializing I would throw Dan's way whenever he talked about wanting a newer, better TV).

For the past few months, our television had been rattling every time we turned it on.

"It's just cold. It needs to warm up - like a car," I would say.

Then it started humming in the middle of our television programs.

"It still works," I would say, cranking up the volume to its maximum level.

The day after Christmas, Dan called me into the living room.

"I think we need a new TV," he said.

I blinked my eyes to make sure I wasn't seeing double. The images were superimposed on top of one other, creating a rather colorful, psychedelic effect.

"Are you sure your video game's not 3-D?" I asked.

"It's giving me a headache," Dan said.

"Maybe we had better think about getting a new TV," I finally relented.

"Yes!" Dan exclaimed as though this was a century-long desire being realized at last.

So Dan set to researching high-definition televisions - "I'm an engineer. You know I have to weigh all my options" - which gave me an entire TV-free evening to read my dystopian novel about an impersonal, relationship-starved society created by technological advances.

He scrolled through web pages filled with tech-geek knowledge that looked as though it was written in a different language. He pulled out his tape measure and examined our entertainment center and current television. Then he compared the various lengths of the several HDTVs that had caught his eye on the tech-geek-o-sphere.

He returned to the sofa and sat down wearily.

"This research is overwhelming."

"I can help you if you want," I offered, half-hoping he would not take me up on it.

"If I need your input, I'll ask for it," he said. Then he quickly recovered with, "I mean, most of what overwhelms me won't make a difference to you. You'll just say 'That doesn't matter.'"

"True."

That evening, an enthusiastic Dan looked up from his laptop and cried, "I think I found one!"

Apparently ready for my "input," he made me watch a video review of the HDTV in question, most of which I didn't understand. One of the package deals included a Blu-ray player, while another included "Smart TV Apps" - "Like a smart phone on your TV," Dan explained. This particular HDTV came with about 152 remote controls. One of the controllers, the "Magic Motion Remote," worked like a Wii remote but with a much cooler name. And it came with 3-D glasses. This cutting edge technology was demonstrated by the reviewer who proceeded to place a pair over his own glasses and stare at the HDTV screen in front of him.

"Don't laugh at the nerd!" Dan admonished as I started to giggle.

He ordered the TV online, and, since it was in stock, the store e-mailed him later that day. The television was ready to be picked up.

"You didn't even have to talk to a sales person."

"I know. That's awesome," Dan said.

Dan, too excited to wait until I finished my post-Christmas ritual of writing thank you notes, took off for the store by himself, lugging our old TV out the door. A while later, he burst back into the living room.

"I'm here with our new Christmas present! I hope a 47-inch monitor isn't too big."

As I mentioned earlier, this TV included 3-D glasses. But the store was running a special, an additional six free pairs of 3-D glasses with the purchase of an HDTV. Dan couldn't resist. (We now own eight pairs of 3-D glasses.)

"I don't even like 3-D. It gives me seizures," I said, cranky due either to a sense of guilt caused by greedy consumerism or because I was getting hungry.

"Do you just come up with silly stuff to say so you can put it in your blog?"

He started to babble about a new cable for the Wii called a component video cable, with red, blue, and green components, three jacks for video, and two for audio. He told me that he bought an HDMI cable instead of S-Video cable, only one little plug for all of our video and audio needs . . .

"Pretty cool, huh?" he said when he came up for breath. "It does Ethernet too."

"Okay, I officially don't understand a single thing you just said," I admitted.

The other morning, I walked into our living room and found Dan using the TouchPad while the television played in background.

"Is this how it's going to be now? The new TV looks so good that we have to have it on 24/7 even though no one's watching? Or do you just really like Kelly Rippa?"

Dan reached for one of the 152 remote controls.

"The newness will wear off soon," he assured me.

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A Sweet Story Just in Time for Christmas

2011-12-24T07:00:00.014-07:00

As I sat in my hotel room, a clear view of the Sun Valley Resort and Village below me, my husband snowboarding at River Run providing me a with much-needed writer's retreat, I fully intended to write a sappy, sentimental treatise on the reality of Santa Claus, not unlike "Yes, Mrs. Duggan, There is a Santa Claus" which I wrote about two years ago.

But then I got hungry and ventured into the village in search of lunch. Anyone who knows me knows that it is virtually impossible for me to be inspirational on an empty stomach.

On my way to pick up a sandwich, I took a detour into a nearby gift shop to look at earrings and ornaments. While perusing the jewelry selection, I overheard a young girl, probably around ten or eleven, ask the clerk what she could buy for four dollars. Apparently, her father had given her some money to spend at the Chocolate Foundry, and she had decided to spend the money on a Christmas gift for her father instead.

Before I continue, let me outline my past experiences with child tourists in Sun Valley. Most of the people who vacation at this resort are very wealthy and feel quite entitled to allow their children to run wild without consequence. During my stays in Sun Valley, I have had children slam into me without so much as an apology. I have heard children whining and crying over the most superficial, overpriced products known to the consumer market. One year, I sat in the Warm Springs Lodge, writing while Dan snowboarded, only to have objects thrown at me by a couple of self-absorbed teenagers.

"Did you just throw something?" a worker confronted the two girls as something whizzed past my ear.

One of the girls snorted while the other clenched her jaw defiantly, "No," they answered in unison.

I rolled my eyes and nodded at the worker who shrugged helplessly and left the two adolescents to continue their annoying game.

So, to hear this girl politely ask for help in finding a four-dollar gift for her father, money that her father thought she was spending on herself, piqued my curiosity. She settled on a small item and dug into her pocket, coming up with three dollars instead of four.

"I guess he only gave me three dollars. It's too much," the little girl said as she picked up her money and started to turn from the clerk.

I was about ready to cover the cost myself when I heard the clerk say, "Wait, I think there is a discount," she punched some numbers into her cash register. " Ah, yes. It's actually only $2.88."

The little girl paid for the gift and left the store with an innocent, "Thank you."

"That was really nice of you," I said to the clerk.

"Sometimes, you just have to give back, you know?"

"Well, it's nice to see that in action."

I left the gift shop, a gift shop situated in the middle of one of the most affluent resort towns in the Northwest, my faith in humanity partially restored this Christmas season by a young tourist and a store cashier.

I didn't even care that, as I made my way back to my hotel room, I had to step on two little rich kids who had draped themselves over the inn stairs while waiting for their parents. In fact, as I smiled at them and chuckled a little to myself, one of them actually mumbled, "Sorry."

Okay, I'll take that for now. Just don't throw anything at me, rich kids.

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It would make a terrific Christmas gift!

The Spirit of Christmas and Caffeine

2011-12-10T14:09:00.009-07:00

My husband takes me out on a coffee date after church every Sunday. Quite often, it's about the only way he can con me into going to church. Now some avid church-goers and super duper Christians may be offended by my ambivalence toward attending church every single Sunday. But I'll unabashedly admit that after a week of working with 650+ kids, teaching ten classes a day, putting on programs every few weeks, conducting a 60-member children's choir, performing in or rehearsing for whatever project I may have going on at the time, sometimes the last thing I want to do is spend yet another day surrounded by people. So Dan bribes me with caffeine.

Because our service ends by 9:30, our coffee date is usually early enough in the day that we spend it with church avoiders and non-church goers, so the former preacher's kid in me feels slightly and delightfully heathen-ish.

Last week, we didn't go to our regular Tully's haunt where the two baristas make our typical fare as soon as they see us walk in the door. We had to run an errand near a Starbucks, an easy feat since there is a Starbucks on every corner as the saying goes.

As we arrived at the coffee shop, Dan tried to pull into a parking spot but another car darted in front of us from the other direction. Dan may have grumbled a bit under his breath, but I was too busy daydreaming about which holiday drink I would try that day. (Come on, coffee drinkers, you know you mourn the loss of your Pumpkin Spice Lattes and Peppermint Mochas at the end of the season.)

As we entered the busy shop, Dan muttered, "Now I remember why I like Tully's better. Less people."

The gentleman standing in line ahead of us turned around.

"Did I just steal your spot out there?" he asked.

It took me a minute to register to what he was referring. He was the one who had pulled into the parking spot in front of Dan.

"No, it was fine."

"I hate it when people drive like a**holes. And then to think I just did that. I'm really sorry."

"That's okay. Just the fact that you're so conscientious about it proves that you're not an 'a**hole,'" I said.

The woman with him in line laughed, "No, he still is."

"Anyway, it's no problem," I told them. "We didn't think anything about it."

"Well, I'm really sorry," he said again.

A couple of minutes later, while Dan and I were ordering our drinks, the gentleman who called himself an "a**hole" handed the barista a gift card and said, "Would you put this toward these guys' order? Thanks!" And he hurried away before Dan and I could thank him.

I started to wonder, as I watched the man and woman speed away, if I - the reluctant church-goer - would have admitted that I was in a car that had cut someone off, much less pay the person's coffee bill, had the situation been reversed. Then I wondered - not without cynicism - whether any of those often maniacal drivers who so proudly display Christian fishes on their back bumpers would have done the same thing.

"Did you just get an anonymous donation?" a customer asked us as we waited at the counter for our coffee.

"I think we did."

"That was a nice Christmas gift," the man said.

"Yeah, it was."

Now, we could have afforded our own coffee, and a latte is probably the most superfluous and overpriced product in the world; but every once in a while it encourages my faith in humanity to be on the receiving end of a little Christmas charity.

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The Great Pumpkin Fiasco That Could Have Been

2011-11-24T07:00:00.002-07:00

"What, no pie!" cried my husband Dan.

I had just informed him that we would not be having pumpkin pie for Thanksgiving. Emmy, my father's wife, thought my contribution of Hello Dolly Cookie Bars would be sufficient in the dessert category.

"I always eat at least five or six pieces on Thanksgiving," he continued.

Let me remind you, faithful readers, that Dan is five-foot-ten and 135 pounds (dripping wet).

I e-mailed Emmy to tell her that she and I had been vetoed. I would bring Hello Dollies and a pumpkin pie.

I had a nice-sized pumpkin in my kitchen. I decided I would cook pumpkin pie for the first time with real pumpkin instead of with my old stand-by - canned pumpkin. And then I would blog about what it's like for a not-very-domestic, semi-unskilled cook to bake a pumpkin pie from an actual pumpkin. I was sure it would prove to be hilarious. I could write about being grossed out by the stringy stuff that resembled brain dendrites or about attempting to toast the seeds and instead almost burning down my kitchen (which could easily have happened).

I cut out articles in my cooking magazines. (Even though I am a semi-unskilled cook, I still like to look at pictures of food.) I looked up "how to cook pumpkin" on the Internet. And I bought a can of pumpkin just in case my foray into cooking with real pumpkin went horribly wrong. That way, Dan would still be able to happily eat his annual five or six pieces of pie.

It was soon after my extensive research efforts that I discovered my fresh pumpkin had gone bad. Its bottom was squishy and moldy, even though the rest of our winter squash was still okay. Thinking I could still salvage my awesome blog topic, I went to the grocery in search of the last of the orange fall vegetable. I returned to my kitchen empty-handed. Apparently, pumpkins go bad earlier than other types of squash. I mentally kicked myself for not having pureed and frozen the fresh pumpkin earlier in the season.

So I used canned pumpkin after all, resulting in this not-so-awesome blogging attempt. I did add a little toasted coconut to the top of the pie, a unique twist to my typical made-from-the-can fare.

I could have attempted homemade crust; that would have probably resulted in tragedy and made for good blog material. Even my crusts-from-the-box baking is sketchy at best. During this latest endeavor, some of the crust broke off as I removed it from the oven, the edges shrunk and cracked more than I would have liked, and it looked a little browner than the beautiful, golden, flaky pictures on the box. In fact, I am looking at my pie right now and am slightly embarrassed at the sight of the crust.

"You can just break the edges off all the way around," Dan suggested. I should mention that he had preceded this statement with "It smells good in here," as he walked in the door from work.

"I already did that, kind of."

"We'll just tell them the crust broke off in the car. It probably would anyway on the two-hour drive," he said.

Then he reached for a Hello Dolly as I simultaneously slapped (I suppose "love-patted" would be a better way of saying it) his hand away.

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My Yankee Doodle Dandy Kids

2011-11-19T13:46:00.008-07:00

I recently conducted the annual Veterans Day program at my elementary school. For about two months, I prepped my students. I taught patriotic song after patriotic song, trying to feign pride in a country with which, frankly, I have become more and more disillusioned, especially in regards to the wars America has "mongered" in recent years.

"Actually, the day is about the need for peace in our world and about those individuals who have made it possible for us to have a measure of peace, however imperfect it might be. Veterans Day is about honoring those who have expended themselves in time, energy, and blood for us," my father so eloquently wrote in an e-mail a few weeks ago.

So, I focused on the individuals, rather than on our government's foreign policy. And I discovered that Veterans Day hits very close to home with my students these days. Many of my students have family members - fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles - who have just returned from or are currently fighting overseas. In our audience alone on 11/11/11, we had veterans in attendance who had fought in World War II, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

My 3rd and 4th grade performers hailed from all over the globe as well - India, Africa, the Middle East, Myanmar, Thailand.

"That is a good song!" one of my little girls from Africa exclaimed after singing "This Land is Your Land" one morning.

I found it prophetic that she would choose a song (that began as a slightly socialist anthem) that talked about providing a place for all people to live in equality as her favorite.

"My favorite is 'I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy,'" I overheard one of my little boys from India tell his ELL teacher. And then he started to sing, "When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again . . ."

"When I watch my class sing, I keep wondering 'Which one of you is the Yankee Doodle Dandy?'" one of the third grade teachers told me, referring to the number of refugees and English-As-A-Second-Language students in her class. "And that's their favorite song!"

Though many of the 180 kids in my Veterans program were not "Yankees" by birth, by the end of that afternoon, they had truly become proud Americans, "however imperfect" they might later discover America to be. They filed onto the risers, clad in red, white, and blue, and sang their hearts out. They watched in reverence as the veterans stood and accepted thank you notes from one of the fourth grade helpers. They saluted the audience with gusto during the final song. Wasn't this the definition of "Yankee-hood," the essence of "The New Colossus?"

Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

"All those kids, they sang to us," one of the World War II veterans said to me afterward, tears in his eyes. "It was beautiful."

And it was. It was yet again a case of the students teaching the (jaded, cynical, disillusioned) music teacher.

Or, as I like to say to my kiddos from time to time, "The student has now become the master!"

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The Halloween Candy Dilemma

2011-11-04T07:00:00.020-06:00

As my husband and I prepared for Halloween, I was consumed with a nagging sense of guilt that had been festering over the last few years.

My students get almost more excited about Halloween than they do about Christmas, all that frenzy over a pillowcase full of free sugar. On top of that, on Fridays at my school, the kids can buy popcorn, Popsicles, and - on special occasions - cotton candy. This year, the "special occasion" happened to fall on the Friday before Halloween - as if they weren't going to be eating enough junk already.

Of course, I suppose I contribute to this problem. I have a couple packages of Dum Dums and Smarties (notice the cute juxtaposition) hidden in my classroom for students who help me move instruments or risers around.

Our school also sponsors a special trick-or-treat night where the kids can parade through the school, after hours, in their costumes, while the teachers stand in front of their classrooms and pass out candy. It actually makes for a fun evening, and it's a great excuse to see the kids in their Halloween best. But it also means kids get two nights of trick-or-treating or, in other words, double the candy.

I started to reevaluate my feelings about handing out candy on Halloween. Plus, I was not happy with the Hershey Corporation's recent use of foreign student slave labor. How could Dan and I promote a healthy lifestyle and be socially responsible on Halloween, the sugariest night of the year?

On Cotton Candy/Popcorn Friday, I discussed my misgivings with my co-workers in the faculty room. One teacher said that she and her husband give their grandkids graham crackers and a couple of pieces of candy. Another teacher said that she buys playing or trading cards at Costco as alternatives to sweets.

"I'm thinking about handing out apples and toothbrushes this year," I lied, knowing I would never have the guts to do that.

“That's a good way to get your house egged," said one of the student teachers.

Dan and I had just watched a TV show the night before where one of the characters decided to give full-size candy bars to the trick-or-treaters.

“I’m going to be the hero of the neighborhood,” the guy announced proudly, accompanied by a laugh track. Dan and I - sheepishly - shared that sentiment.

We didn't want to be the uncool, granola neighbors. I had heard my students talk about those people.

"Oh, you're that house," one of my former students said when I told her I had considered handing out fruit this year. "Some hippie lady gave us organic chocolate, and it's disgusting."

"One lady said she ran out of candy so she gave me an apple instead," another student once told me disdainfully.

So, Dan and I found ourselves at the grocery store staring at shelf after shelf of chocolate gluttony.

"We could get sugar-free candy,” Dan suggested half-heartedly.

"That's almost as bad as giving them dental floss."

"It's kind of the parents' job to monitor how much candy their kids eat."

With that part of my conundrum rationalized, we took up the daunting task of deciding what kind of candy to buy. As I said earlier, we were boycotting Hershey this Halloween. Dan also said he had heard socially irresponsible things about Nestle.

"I don't know about Mars. It's probably just as bad," Dan said.

"Well, ignorance is bliss, I guess."

(And yes, I discovered later, Mars Incorporated has had similar labor/fair practice issues in the past. It is supposedly taking steps to rectify this, not that my expectations are all that high.)

Then we had to decide how many bags to buy. The big bags were 30 cents per ounce, and the small bags were 20 cents per ounce.

"I'm not spending that much on these weirdo kids just so they can have free candy and get diabetes," I said, reaching for the small bags. "No more than one - two pieces max."

"It's okay if we have leftovers," Dan hinted.

"Yeah, we can just eat it all to keep the kids from making bad nutritional choices."

It took the first little Woody from Toy Story ringing our doorbell - "Twick ow Tweat!" - to make me forget about my aversion toward the candy industry.

"You want a piece of candy? Here, take four or five!"

We ended up running to the store and buying two more bags.

At school the next day, one of my fourth graders brought me an apple. She was only the second student to bring me an apple in my ten years of teaching. Did she really love me, her wonderful music teacher? Or did she just make the mistake of trick-or-treating at the neighborhood hippie house the night before?

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This is What Happens When "In Jill's Words" Gets Writer's Block

2011-10-28T07:00:00.010-06:00

I think I've had a case of writer's block this past week. Apparently, the more frequently one writes, the more likely one is to be afflicted by this condition.

Writing is not my day job. It's not even my night job. It's more like a weekend job and only when I'm not stressing out about all of the other tasks I have to complete before re-entering the trenches on Monday.

Last Monday, when I re-entered the trenches, I found myself with a miserable head cold, a gift given to me by my student teacher whose last day had been the previous Friday. There I was, sick and teaching ten classes per day with no assistant for the first time in eight weeks, simultaneously prepping my Veterans Day and Winter Programs, dealing with students throwing up in class (I've already had three sickies this year), collecting money for recorders, facilitating a patriotic mural painting during my lunch hours, etc., etc., etc. Oh, and by the way, I was loving every minute of it because I was finally teaching (as opposed to "mentoring" from the sidelines) again.

But I was left with little time to be witty.

Last night, I was so desperate that I even asked my very serious, very un-funny husband for help. (I personally think he's pretty humorous, but he claims otherwise.)

"What should I write about this weekend? I need a funny topic."

"Write about something that's not me," was Dan's response.

We were both staring into our respective bathroom mirrors, our mouths full of toothpaste.

"But you're so funny."

"No I'm not. I'm very serious."

"Then very seriously, Dan, what funny thing should I write about this week?"

Dan spit.

"Sweaters." He glanced at my cardigan hanging on the bathroom door. "The Broncos." He pointed at the BSU shirt I was wearing. "Hair brush. Kleenex."

He started laughing uncontrollably.

"Are you just naming random items around this bathroom?"

"Pretty funny, huh?"

I groaned and rolled my eyes, leaving him alone as he called out after me, "Toothpaste!"

Even though Dan's goal was to get me to write about something other than him, his weird demonstration last night had the opposite effect.

This is as witty as head-cold-ridden "In Jill's Words" gets. I apologize in advance for the weak topic.

Or, in the words of my husband, who said to me a few minutes ago, "You're writing about writer's block? That's so meta." (If he wishes to remain so anonymous, why does he have to be so funny?)

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The TouchPad Widow, Part 2

2011-10-21T07:00:00.016-06:00

In last week's “The TouchPad Widow, Part 1," Dan and I had decided to buy one of the discounted TouchPads HP was trying to sell off. After Dan made the purchase online, we eagerly awaited the arrival of our new tech toy.

It showed up on our front porch a few days later. Dan thought the TouchPad was so awesome that he hardly made eye contact with me for a week. I, on the other hand, was pretty grossed out by the greasy fingerprints on the screen. Apparently, greasy fingerprints are part of the wonders of touchscreen technology.

Now Dan's nose is always in the TouchPad. It's kind of like trying to talk to these young 'un, Wired Generation teenagers, always texting or . . . texting - I don't know what all these newfangled electronic gadgets are. Twittering, tweeting, chirping?

The other morning, I was in the bathroom, fixing my hair. Dan stood in the doorway, "listening" to me prattle on about very important (I'm pretty certain - very important) issues. Then I noticed he had the TouchPad in his hands.

"Are you listening to me?"

"Yeah . . ."

"When you don't make eye contact with someone while they're talking, it makes them think you're not listening."

He didn't respond.

In an attempt to entertain myself, since it appeared no one else was going to pay attention to me for a while, I started randomly calling out things like:

"Stop playing with your TouchPad!"

"Are you playing with your TouchPad again?"

"Ooo. That sounds a little naughty!"

Still no response. Not even an eye roll or a furrowed brow.

One afternoon, Dan found a weather app. He was so excited that he had actually found a compatible app that he spent all day looking at it.

He would peek into the office (where I was hiding from him and the TouchPad) and announce, "Accuweather says it's 64 right now. There's an app for that."

Later that week, I was deciding whether or not I wanted to ride my bike to my doctor's appointment.

"We can look it up on Accuweather," I said to Dan. "Aren't you proud of me? I want to use the TouchPad."

Dan, sensing that I was warming up to the TouchPad, downloaded a free e-book from Amazon. I guess he figured the way to my heart was through a book, even if it was in an electronic format. I have been reluctant to embrace the e-book idea. Dan has already said if we ever get a Nook or a Kindle, we can't buy any more print books. ("It's better for the environment," he says, appealing to my environmentalist sensibilities.) Maybe I'm just an old lady, but I still love feeling paper flipping through my fingers.

The other day, while Dan was still at work, I found myself looking for the TouchPad. I figured Dan must have taken it with him, and all of a sudden, I felt a little sad that I couldn't play with it. Perhaps soon, Dan will be the one asking, "Are you playing with your TouchPad again?"

That still sounds slightly naughty.

Check out my writing in An Eclectic Collage Volume 2: Relationships of Life, now available at www.freundshippress.com. For more information, visit the book's Facebook page.

The TouchPad Widow, Part 1

2011-10-14T07:00:00.030-06:00

Some women bemoan being football widows around this time of the year, or more specifically from where I'm writing, Boise State football widows. I thought I was so fortunate, after growing up a non-sports fan in a live-eat-breathe sports family, to find a sports un-enthusiast husband.

But I have now joined your ranks, football widows. Except in my case, I have become "The TouchPad Widow." I thought I was safe in marrying an intellectual computer geek who was more interested in codes and algorithms than the Superbowl, but I didn't realize that a tech toy "is to" software engineers "as" the NFL season "is to" sports fanatics.

Hewlett-Packard is selling off its TouchPad stock - $99 for the 16GB and $150 for the 32 GB. Just to put this into perspective, the 16GB model was around $500 when it was first launched.
After hearing about the clearance sale, Dan and I spent many sleepless nights discussing whether or not we were going to purchase a TouchPad at this deeply discounted price.

Q: Do we need a TouchPad? Would it really be that much more convenient?
A: No, it would just be a toy.

Q: Is HP even going to continue supporting them?
A: Maybe for a little while.

Q: Do we really want to promote the use of conflict minerals and overseas slave labor through this purchase?
A: No, but the company won't be making much of a profit off this anyway.
Q: Doesn't that sound a bit like a rationalization?
A: Yeah . . . probably . . .

Q: Do you remember how I used to call iPads "i-Maxi-Pads" when they first came out?
A: Yes.
Q: That was so funny, huh?
A: Hilarious.

Eventually, Dan had to make a decision.

"The sale opens tomorrow morning at 10:00. My manager scheduled our meeting a half-hour later just so we could all snag TouchPads."

"Are you going to buy one after all?"

Dan crinkled his eyebrows, "I don't know. You can't watch Netflix or Hulu on it - although I might be able to hack into it. You can't use iTunes or iBooks. It doesn't support Android or Apple apps. It's WiFi only, no 3G or GPS . . . "

"Sounds fantastic," I said sarcastically.

"But it's only $99."

"Then you should just get it."

"Okay."

"Is that all you wanted, for me to make the decision?"

"Yes," and with that, Dan was off to work.

He returned that afternoon, having successfully ordered a TouchPad before the website and call center crashed. The order was expected to arrive on our front doorstep that weekend. Little did I know that I was one step closer to becoming The TouchPad Widow.

Join me next week when I write about post-TouchPad life in "The TouchPad Widow, Part 2."

Check out my writing in An Eclectic Collage Volume 2: Relationships of Life, now available at www.freundshippress.com. For more information, visit the book's Facebook page.

Celebrate Good Times: Woman Power!

2011-10-07T07:00:00.022-06:00

A few years ago, a couple of studies found correlations between friendships and life expectancy. In the women's magazines (to which I subscribe for research purposes only), these findings took the form of article titles like "Women Need Friends to Live a Longer Life" or "You Go, Girl: The Link between Longevity and Friendships."

I always scoffed at these proclamations with a sigh and a roll of the eyes. It was already difficult to find enough hours in the day to do everything I needed and/or wanted to do. And now some cheesy women’s magazine was telling me I needed to spend time building a larger network of friends. Just what I needed – one more task to add to my to-do list.

So I shunned this thinking. Maintaining friendships was more likely to cause me stress than increase my life expectancy. I had my husband; I liked hanging out with him. Most of my friends from high school and college lived out of town or were busy with their own families and jobs.

After my mother died and before my father remarried, my immediate family consisted of my dad, my brother, my husband, and me. Consequently, for a few years of my adult life, I didn’t even have women in my own family with whom I could interact.

However, I changed my tune a little (or at least modulated it into a neighboring key) after taking part in the Women’s Fitness Celebration a couple of weeks ago. It had been a few years since I had been free to participate in this, and I had forgotten how rewarding it was to socialize with other females and to be a part of a "Women Only" event.

This year, my father’s wife, her two daughters, her daughter-in-law, and her daughter-in-law’s friend joined in the festivities. (My father’s wife, didn’t end up walking with us. She fell ill the morning of the 5K, but we had all gone out to dinner the night before.) I also met up with one of my best friends and her family at the finish line. I had such a pleasant time during this girls’ weekend that I started to think there might be something to this “Girlfriends Are a Necessity” theme that the magazines had been touting.

I met my girl group at a downtown coffee shop for breakfast. We watched as female walkers and runners, clad in multicolor leggings, fluorescent wigs, and crazy, oversized sunglasses, lined the streets. Then, two of the women in my group pulled their arms through a set of orange and yellow, translucent wings.

We gathered at the starting line, red and purple balloons floating intermittently through the air. Of course, as someone who occasionally embraces the title of "Tree-Hugger," I couldn't get past the environmental impact of all that plastic eventually littering the earth.

We weaved in and out of the hoard of women, attempting to find enough room to move freely for the 3.1 miles. We critiqued the various sets of butterfly and fairy wings (which were surprisingly prevalent) throughout the crowd. We compared Zumba classes. We admired the older homes and the newly-built condominiums as we walked through a Boise Bench neighborhood. We related in ways that, though I tell my husband everything, only girls could truly understand.

At one point on the course, we passed a group of cheerleaders, chanting and hooting at us from the sidelines.

“That’s just what we need, a bunch of Barbie dolls rooting us on,” I said, a little louder than I had intended.

A woman walking beside me started laughing.

"Did I say that out loud?" I said, feigning embarrassment.

"My thought was, 'Why aren’t they out here with us?'” the woman said.

At the finish line, we were greeted by a group of men in tuxedo jackets and shorts, a longstanding tradition of this event. One man in particular was wearing bright yellow gym shorts with his coattails. This 5K was less about being in premium physical shape than it was about uniting and lifting up a community of women.

Even as I walked to Julia Davis Park where my husband, Dan, was picking me up, several people asked me about the race, gave me the thumbs up sign, and congratulated me - all that encouragement for an simple 5K. Sometimes (men, are you listening?), a little encouragement and female bonding is just what we women need.

Check out my writing in An Eclectic Collage Volume 2: Relationships of Life, now available at www.freundshippress.com. For more information, visit the book's Facebook page.

Meta: The Art of Self Reference

2011-09-30T07:00:00.001-06:00

I am going to confess something that, as someone who loves playing with words and grammar and syntax, is very difficult to admit. I don't know how to use the word "meta." Metaphysical, metaphor, metamorphosis - those are all concepts I can grasp. But this new slang version of what I used to think was just a prefix completely befuddles me. It is one of those words that extremely cool people use, like Jeff Winger on Community. And I want to be nothing else if not cool.

I told my husband, Dan, about my confusion.

"Meta means self-referential," he said.

"When did it start meaning that?"

"Forever."

Actually, from what I can gather, "meta" has just recently gained popularity as a stand alone colloquialism. Wikipedia claims the term "meta" was coined as a word in the 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. "Meta" was the November 2005 Urban Word of the Day on urbandictionary.com (warning: some entries not suitable for all audiences, and I'm pretty sure they just make some of that stuff up). The New York Times ran an article on the emergence of the prefix-turned-stand-alone-word "meta" in December of 2005. And the modern, hipster definition of "meta" as a self-referential adjective and noun shows up in dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon, copyright 2003-2011.

In other words, "meta," in its current usage, is a fairly recent addition to our modern vernacular. It appears that I'm jumping on the Meta Bandwagon a little later than most of the other young, hip people. But, as a mid-thirties professional woman, I have to resign myself that - alas - I am not as young and hip as I used to be.

Even after my extensive (note the sarcasm) research, I still don't know how to use "meta" properly. No one can explain it to my satisfaction. Will I just know it when I see it?

"A film within a film." I can grasp that concept.

"Dude, that's so meta." Not so much.

"That seems somewhat meta, dude." Um, if your defining sentence has "dude" in it . . .

"A lot of rock 'n' roll is 'meta,'" Dan explained to me once. "Listen to just about any Kiss song or 'I Wanna Rock' by Twisted Sister."

It was starting to sink in.

He continued, "Writing about writing or singing about singing."

Then he became philosophical, "Is watching a TV show about watching TV meta, or is watching a TV show about watching yourself watching TV meta? Or is that just more meta?"

I stared at him blankly.

That's when I began using "meta" to mean anything I wanted, kind of like when the Smurfs would replace various parts of speech with “smurfed” (please do NOT consult the Urban Dictionary): "Are you out of your smurf?" "Medical history is about to be smurfed!" "Great Smurf!" or “That’s smurfed up!” (Oh, I don’t think they said that one in the cartoon.)

I have been known to say, "That shirt is so meta," or "I liked the book, but it was kind of meta," just to sound cool. And, before you try to justify my examples, the shirt did not read, "This is a shirt," and the book wasn't a book about a book. Those would truly be meta examples - I think.

"Is 'Who's on First' meta?" I asked Dan one afternoon.

"Probably . . . kind of. . ."

"Meta is like breaking the 4th wall in theater!" I proclaimed a few minutes later.

Dan looked at me with his eyebrows crinkled for a long time.

"Isn't it?" I asked, still awaiting his reply. Then I said quietly, "No."

"It might be an example of meta . . . kind of . . ."

Later that day, Dan and I were talking about a funny video he had taken of me, a video that perfectly depicted my neuroses.

"I think you like that video even though you keep saying it's embarrassing," he said. "You keep showing it to people."

"That's because I'm meta."

"What?"

"Still not right? Dang it. I thought I was getting it."

"Usually ideas are meta, not people," Dan said.

"You just made my brain explode."

Check out my writing in An Eclectic Collage Volume 2: Relationships of Life, now available at www.freundshippress.com. For more information, visit the book's Facebook page.

Yet Another Hiking Story

2011-09-23T08:00:00.018-06:00

I thought I would say my final farewell to summer with one more hiking story. You might have guessed from my previous hiking anecdote that adventure ensues wherever my foot treads.

This time, my husband and I hiked to Mill Lake. In fact, we had originally planned to hike the Mill Lake trail in July but decided instead to venture to Norton Lakes when we saw the high water in Prairie Creek. (Prairie Creek crosses the Mill Lake trail.) Of course, that was a brilliant choice, considering the water was so low at Norton Lakes. (Did I mention my last hiking blog post was entitled In Which I Discover the Perils of Hiking During a High Water Year?) After fording the creeks and trekking across snow on the Norton Lakes trail, I was no longer allowed to use "too much water" as an excuse to turn around and head back to the car.

There were three creek crossings on the Mill Lake trail. The first crossing was at the trailhead, and as I found myself suspended on a log a quarter of the way across the creek, I thought about telling my husband, Dan, "Too bad. Change of plans. I don't feel like hiking today after all."

I was about to tell him this - very loudly - when Dan took out the camera. The last time Dan "took out the camera," he ended up recording one of my most notorious acrophobia meltdowns. (See Exhibit A.)

"STOP!" I shouted. Dan was already across the creek. “When I giggle, and I’m frozen on a log suspended over water, it doesn’t necessarily mean 'He, he, he, I’m so happy to be here with my witty, funny husband.' It actually means that I’m scared to death. I giggle when I'm nervous. It's the way I deal with anxiety.”

"And you talk a lot too," Dan added.

He put away the camera, mostly because he knew if he didn't come help me across the log, I might stay there all day.

On the way up the mountain, Dan had to escort me across each creek crossing while I whimpered things like:

"I can't move. I need help."

"I'm not going to make it - I'm not going to make it - I'm not going to make it."

"Why do you always make me do this?!"

After the final crossing, I exclaimed, probably louder than usual, “'Creek' is not a good description for this body of water. How about we say it's a whitewater rapid-ish sea of foamy waves cresting at 70 feet -- ”

"There are people up ahead, Becky," Dan interrupted my eloquent oration. "It's time to dial back the crazy.”

Luckily, we were out of earshot of other hikers when we came upon a pile of fresh (extremely fresh) horse manure on the trail. Flies covered it, resting like frogs on lily pads. This sight even grossed out Dan - invincible, outdoorsy, superhero Dan. We hesitated, trying to ascertain the least disgusting way of getting around it.

“RUN!” I yelled.

We ran across the trail, screaming and flailing our arms (actually, the screaming and flailing was just me) as flies swarmed around us like some B-grade horror movie.

On our way back down the mountain, I was able to cross the creeks without much help from Dan. I even made it across one of the creeks completely solo . . . while hanging onto an adjacent log and crawling on all fours.

“I did it all by myself!" I said with pride as my feet touched dry land. "That was good, huh? It’s okay I had to go on all fours, right?”

Dan paused.

“It wasn't very graceful,” he finally said.

“I wasn’t going for graceful. I was going for survival.”

Check out my writing in An Eclectic Collage Volume 2: Relationships of Life, now available at www.freundshippress.com. For more information, visit the book's Facebook page.

It's Always the Little Dogs (Sigh)

2011-09-17T08:00:00.012-06:00

I have learned one important lesson on my daily jogs - stay away from the little dogs. I have concluded that little dogs suffer from what I like to call "Small Dog Syndrome," not unlike "Napoleon Syndrome (a.k.a. Small Man Syndrome)," although little dogs are probably not quite as destructive as little men.

I have been chased relentlessly by rat terriers, Chihuahuas, and miniature schnauzers. (One of my neighbors owns four mini schnauzers. Now that will keep you busy.) These little ones scamper after me and yip at me from their fenced backyards, making them virtually harmless and kind of cute.

In the not-so-cute vein, one summer morning I was running down one of my neighborhood streets. I happened to pass a woman who was gardening in her front yard while her dachshund stood guard. I ran by, on the sidewalk, a comfortable distance from the house. The wiener dog waddled up to me as I approached, his short stubby legs pitter-pattering along the grass. I thought perhaps he wanted to greet me, maybe even compliment me (in doggie language) on my healthy lifestyle. Instead, he bit me on my shin and (I swear) nodded his head in satisfaction as he shuffled back to his front yard.

"AGGGHHH!" I exclaimed, startled, expecting an apology or hoping, at the least, for a reaction from the dog owner who had, incidentally, been watching the entire event unfold.

She shrugged and turned back to her gardening.

I had a bruise on my shin for the rest of the week.

I found the mental image of the wiener dog waddling up to me and attacking the highest, reachable body part - my shin - quite amusing. I had been nipped at once before by a mini poodle named Huckleberry. "Huckleberry, don't," was his owner's unconvincing, whiny plea, so I was also used to people not taking responsibility for their pets.

But when I posted this most recent anecdote on Facebook, I was amazed at the outrage this elicited from fellow dog owners.

"Bad dog-owner!" they said. "Who lets their dog bite someone and then not even apologize for it?"

Apparently, the proper response to that question is, "The woman who lives around the corner from me and gardens in her front yard while her dachshund acts as sentinel . . . Oh, and the man who walks his pugs through the park behind my house."

I was jogging on a sidewalk that runs through my neighborhood park. I saw a gentleman walking three pugs that were barreling down the path, so I moved to the side, onto the grass, to give the dogs more room. I had no cause for concern. I was giving them plenty of space, and they were on a leash.

I repeat - they were on a leash.

Then the pug closest to me reached out, bit my heel (which was, luckily, protected by my tennis shoe), and gave one of those raspy, pug-gy growls. I glanced at the owner in dismay. He said nothing.

"Geesh," I muttered, half-hoping I was audible enough for him to hear. "Your dog's not that cute."

I've learned my lesson. Let me share it with you.

If you see a little dog, just assume that it suffers from Small Dog Syndrome, a serious, mental disorder that causes the smaller canine breeds to act out in irrational and ferocious ways.

And run the other direction.

Check out my writing in An Eclectic Collage Volume 2: Relationships of Life, now available at www.freundshippress.com. For more information, visit the book's Facebook page.

Daring Feats on Frozen Water (or in Living Rooms)

2011-09-10T20:35:00.007-06:00

I introduced my husband, Dan, to the Sun Valley Summer Ice Shows about a year ago. Figure skating is not a sport I would normally expect Dan to embrace. But in our seven years of marriage, I have succeeded in exposing Dan to a more sophisticated culture. And I can happily say that both of us now enjoy a variety of aesthetic entertainment on a regular basis.

Okay, so maybe it's not about the artistry. Dan's initial response to the Sun Valley Ice Show was, "This is way better than the boring stuff they do on the Olympics." The Sun Valley Ice Show is a bit like a circus-on-ice.

Last weekend, we found ourselves sitting on the west bleachers, waiting for the show to begin, watching the Zamboni circle the rink. I was excited to see Sasha Cohen.

Dan, on the other hand, said with eager anticipation, "I wonder if they're going to do that trick where they swing a woman by the legs, and her head gets so close to the ground that it looks like it's going to smack against the ice."

"You mean that trick I have to watch through my fingers, the trick where the crowd gasps in horror while you clap enthusiastically and egg the skaters on?"

"That's the one."

I handed him the camera. Dan also loves the challenge of photographing the skaters' most dangerous tricks in action.

And before you think it can't be that bad because I tend to exaggerate (as my husband is probably muttering right now while he reads this), here are some examples of those "most dangerous tricks."

One woman skates while hula hooping multiple hoops. Eventually, she graduates to a fiery hoop by the end of the show. One male skater places his female partner upside down on his shoulders as they glide around on the ice. Another male skater holds his ice partner above his head with one hand. In a different number, a skater holds his partner by her stomach . . . on his head. And that doesn't include the jumps, the back flips, and the throwing of one's partner across the ice.

While I am thrilled that I no longer have to pull teeth to get Dan to take me to an ice show, I am not so thrilled when we get back home, and he wants to try "ice skating" in our living room. I have had to fend off several attempts at being flipped in midair while simultaneously being thrown over the couch. And every now and then, Dan rushes toward me with every intention of lifting me over his head and balancing me on his index finger.

"You have to go limp," Dan instructed wisely. "Don't try to control it."

"How about we don't try ice skating moves in our living room at all?"

But truly, it's a win-win situation for all involved. I get to see live, phenomenal figure skating. Dan gets to see daring feats performed on frozen water. And our neighbors probably get to see some pretty lively entertainment through our windows when we get home.

Check out my writing in An Eclectic Collage Volume 2: Relationships of Life, available September 15, 2011 from www.freundshippress.com. For more information, visit the book's Facebook page.

Calvin and the Dinosaur Museum

2011-09-03T06:00:00.003-06:00

With the Labor Day holiday approaching, I have had less time to craft a post full of clever witticisms. So I decided to let my students do the work this week. The following anecdote occurred during a second grade class while my student teacher was attempting to introduce herself to the kids. For those of you who have children or work with children, you know you can't make this stuff up.

My student teacher had just shown the kids some pictures from her trip to Italy when little towheaded Calvin raised his hand. She called on him, and he wagged his finger at her, saying authoritatively.

“I’m Calvin with a C. Okay. When I grow up, here's what I'm going to do. I’m going to travel the whole entire world and find every dinosaur fossil in the whole entire world and bring all of them back to Idaho and put them in a huge museum, and I’m going to build it on the plains. I'm going to call it the World Museum, and it's going to have three rooms, Cabella’s size.”

All of a sudden, another second grader named Hank became very excited. He turned around to face Calvin.

“Are we friends, Calvin? Are we friends?"

"Well, yes," Calvin answered Hank abruptly.

"Can I help you now that we're friends?”

Calvin turned his wagging finger on Hank and said sternly, “Now, Hank, here’s how it’s going to be. You can help me find the fossils.”

As the class walked out of the music room, Hank bounced over to me.

"I’m going to help Calvin find fossils because I’m his friend now!”

Later that day, I told Calvin's teacher about the unusual entertainment in music class that morning.

"Oh yes," his teacher said as I finished my tale through a fit of laughter. "I've heard about this dinosaur museum. Calvin's got it all planned out!"

Check out my writing in An Eclectic Collage Volume 2: Relationships of Life, available September 15, 2011 from www.freundshippress.com. For more information, visit the book's Facebook page.

More School, More Books, More Teachers' Dirty Looks

2011-08-27T08:00:00.006-06:00

August rolled around, and I began to mourn the end of my summer. Most teachers probably relate to this sentiment in varying degrees, but this year, the end of my summer was especially bittersweet. The last three months were very rewarding. I debuted with a local opera company which ended up paying for my Orff Level I training. I did a lot of writing and traveling. I enjoyed my odd jobs so much that I started asking myself if I should become a full-time freelance writer or if I should try to study opera or musical theater more extensively and start auditioning around.

"You always feel this way at the end of the summer," Dan reminded me. "As soon as you see your kids, you'll forget all about the summer."

I held on to that promise throughout the final months, hoping for an attitude change by the beginning of August.

Earlier in the summer, I had vaguely glimpsed Dan's prediction during my Orff certification course. I was telling a story about one of my soon-to-be fifth graders. I paused midway through and said with a sigh, "I miss my kids."

Several of the experienced music teachers in the room nodded their heads in empathy. A couple of the undergrads, who hadn't started their teaching careers, looked at me like I was a weird science experiment.

"Did I just hear you say that?" one of the college students said.

"Yeah," I mused, also surprised.

But I finished my class and quickly regressed into my Maybe I Should Quit Teaching to Become a Writer/Opera Singer/Broadway Star/Gardener/European Traveler/Professional Reader/Do-Nothing-For-A-Living Mentality.

By the second week of August, my school recorders, disassembled and recently retrieved from the dishwasher, sat drying on the kitchen counter. Dan spent his Monday lunch hour, carrying heavy boxes and moving risers around in my classroom. That week, students began to creep around the school like zombies trying to get into a building containing the last living humans.

One student, whose mother was volunteering in the school office, showed up at my door, asking if she could "help."

"She begged to come with me," the mother told me later. "I told her, 'If the teachers don't want you around, you need to leave them alone.' "

The little girl started "helping" in one primary classroom - "When Mrs. S is busy, she sends me to Miss H's room."

Somehow, the little girl ended up in my room. I put her to work recycling old files for me.

"Well," she said after we had thoroughly filled up my recycle bin, "I'd better get back to Miss H's room."

At that moment, I started to experience a twinge of Glad-to-See-My-Kids Syndrome, but it soon disappeared that evening when I started looking through my European vacation pictures on my home computer.

The following week, a couple of sisters stopped by my classroom and asked if they could help me get ready for the school's Sneak Peek.

They spent the afternoon compiling listening journals and telling me blonde jokes - "How does a blonde try to kill a fish? She drowns it."

After their plethora of blonde jokes had been exhausted, I said to the seventh grade sister with genuine nostalgia, "I can't believe you're going to be in junior high this year. And you," I turned to her sixth grade sister, "are leaving me next year. What am I going to do without either of you to entertain me?"

"I'll be here to pick her up after school," the seventh grade sister said.

"Like your oldest sister did last year?" Their oldest sister, now in high school, was also one of my former kids.

They informed me that their oldest sister was too busy watching T.V. to pick them up at school anymore.

Then the sixth grade sister paused and asked me, "Do you still type up all the funny things we say on your computer?"

At the Sneak Peek, several of last year's sixth graders - now seventh graders and no longer my "kiddos" - stopped by and talked about their excitement and apprehension about the next day, the first day of junior high.

Their biggest fear? Being able to open their lockers.

By the end of the evening, I was no longer mourning the end of my summer. Instead, I was mourning the loss of my former students. And I found myself equally delighted to see my new and returning students. I was officially ready for the school year to begin.

Check out my writing in An Eclectic Collage Volume 2: Relationships of Life, available September 15, 2011 from www.freundshippress.com. For more information, visit the book's Facebook page.

National Duggan's European Vacation, Episode #4: A Parallel Universe

2011-08-20T08:00:00.019-06:00

Yield signs read "Give Way"
Exit signs read "Way Out"
In case of fire, use stairs = an icon of a little panicked cartoon man running, exactly what we're told not to do in case of fire

Restaurants:

Ordering food to go = "take away"
Often in more casual eateries (think delis with pre-made sandwiches, etc.), "dining in" costs extra.
In Ireland, we noticed that the hosts/hostesses ask, "Are you okay?" which translates to "Two for dinner?"
The servers don't bring the check before you finish your meal and rush you out the door like they do in American restaurants. That was kind of refreshing. They wait for you to ask for your "bill" (as opposed to check). This tells them that you are ready to leave.

Other parallel universe attributes:

In the U.K. and Ireland, they drive on the left side - still weird even if you've been told over and over that this is the case.
Standing in line = Standing in "queue"
They talk funny, or maybe we do. (The Australians on our tour had a hard time understanding us Americans, but understood the Brits, Scots, Welsh, and Irish just fine.)
The outlets in the hotel bathrooms were only for shavers.
Tire is sometimes spelled "tyre" (at least in Ireland).
Low-power dryers, rather than paper towels, were the hand-drying apparatus of choice in the "toilets" (as opposed to restrooms).
I never found an auto flush in the U.K. or in Ireland.
Flyers explaining various components of socialized medicine popped up in the "loo" stalls.
Some of the hotel-provided blow dryers looked like mini vacuums mounted to the walls.
A switch had to be flipped to turn on the electrical outlets.
Pickpocketing seemed to be more prevalent than mugging.
The bank notes were different sizes and didn't fit in Dan's American wallet.
Tax was included in the price at stores; no math was required to figure out the actual payment due.
Cream or custard was poured over every dessert. (I fully embraced this tradition.)

The customs officials in the U.K. seemed a lot friendlier than in the U.S. When we came back to the States, the official was very serious, militaristic even. But upon entering England:

"How do you two know each other?" the British official asked.
"We're married."
"To each other?" Then he chuckled heartily. "Just a little joke."
As we left, he called after us, "Buy a lot while you're here because when you go back, your dollar won't be worth much."
And that turned out to be quite prophetic.

National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #1
National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #2
National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #3

National Duggan's European Vacation, Episode #3: The Official Duggan Travelogue

2011-08-13T08:00:00.031-06:00

NOTE: Dan and I were in London the day Mark Duggan was shot. We watched the report on the morning news from our hotel room. We flew out of the U.K. the day before the riots broke. Though I am writing a humor piece, I do not want to disregard the tragedy, desperation, and - frankly - social injustice that results in such violence. My heart goes out to all those affected by the London riots.

PRE-VACATION (or, in honor of European terminology, "Pre-Holiday") ADVENTURES:
From the time we booked our tour up until the time we flew to London, Dan walked around the house speaking in (his version of) an Irish brogue.

“I’m Irish," (Imagine a very American boy from the Wild West, regardless of his last name - Duggan - attempting an Irish dialect.) "I've got ta work on me Irish accent," he would say. "I’m goin’ to the mothuh-land."

“Please don’t say that when we get over there,” I warned.

A month or two before our highly anticipated vacation, we took an inventory of any sort of equipment, luggage, etc. we might need overseas.

Dan kept insisting that we only needed one backpack, but I wanted one too, something larger than a purse. While I was explaining this, I put the backpack on and bounced around the living room.

"See, aren't I cute?" I put the backpack on in front, "And in the crowded areas, to avoid pick-pockets, I’ll wear it like this!” I explained as I stroked the pack (a little suggestively, I must admit).

I must have been convincing. Dan bought me a canvas messenger bag just for our trip.

Then came the adventure of packing lightly . . . for two weeks . . .

We checked the Heathrow website for any unknown security requirements. U.K. guidelines looked similar to U.S. guidelines. We did find a couple of funny details on the website, however.

(Under FAQ's):
"What foodstuffs can I carry in my hand luggage? Can I take my wedding cake?"

Apparently, wedding cake is just fine to fly to the U.K.

(Under banned projectile-firing weapons):
No catapults.

We were pretty certain we didn't have any catapults around the house, so we started to pack. At least, I started to pack. Dan, on the other hand, tried to put it off as long as possible.

While I was going through my various travel-size toiletries, Dan walked into the master bath, donning his new raincoat.

"I like my new raincoat. I think I'll try it out."

And with that, he locked himself in the shower room.

"Dan, do not turn on that shower! Get out here and pack."

A couple of minutes later, he rolled the suitcases into the bathroom (where I was still packing) and said, "Look, a short handle for you."

Dan had just discovered the adjustable handle lengths on our new luggage.

After my suitcase was packed, Dan stood on the bathroom scale and weighed it, more likely a symptom of his procrastination efforts than a genuine need to ascertain the weight of my bag. Finally, realizing that I was "winning," he started to pack his own bags. He still finished before I did.

LONDON:
Our first night in London, my worst nightmare came true. I had seen enough romantic comedies about American couples traveling in Europe to know that the Yanks are notorious for causing power outages through the use of electrical appliances with improper voltage. And even here in America, I had a habit of blowing out fuses in older buildings (e.g. in Sun Valley on my honeymoon and in Cairo, Illinois at my Aunt Alice's turn-of-the-century home). I had also read several accounts on the internet posted by American travelers who had done just that, and I had come to the conclusion that this stereotype was 100% true.

So Dan and I extensively researched adapters, converters, and dual voltage appliances and decided that we would be just fine with my dual voltage hair flattening iron and an adapter. At the last minute, I suggested we also bring a surge protector; it was not dual voltage, but it could supposedly handle up to 300 volts.

"But what about all of the stories about people who had adapters and converters and still blew out their room and the five rooms next to them?" I asked as I tentatively plugged my flat iron into the surge protector which was plugged into the adapter which was plugged into an ominous looking European outlet.

"Don't listen to those dumb people on the internet," Dan assured me. "They don't know anything."

Then I switched on the outlet on and blew the fuse. We were left without a T.V. and hair dryer.

"Well, I guess I go curly tomorrow," I said. "If we did just blow out the next five rooms, will they know it was us?"

We sneaked out the next morning, possibly after blowing out the other rooms in our hall. Our lights were still on though, and no one from maintenance came banging on our door. It turned out we hadn't needed the surge protector after all. Strangely, what was supposed to have protected a surge had actually caused one. For the rest of the trip, my dual voltage flattening iron worked fine with an adapter and sans surge protector.

STONEHENGE - SALISBURY - BATH - NEWPORT, WALES:
The next morning, after quickly sneaking out of our room before anyone could call us "Stupid Americans," we officially started our tour. We began with a routine that would continue every morning throughout the trip. Paul the Guide would say, "Say 'Hello, Young Richard.'" And we tourists would recite in unison, "Hello, Young Richard." Young Richard was our driver.

Once on the road, Paul the Guide asked if anyone knew of James Dyson. Dan was the only one who raised his hand.

"He invented that Airblade Hand Dryer and the bagless vacuum cleaner," Dan whispered to me enthusiastically.

"That's kind of nerdy that you know that," I whispered back.

Paul the Guide had a plethora of interesting information, but I just couldn't stay awake on the bus. And I couldn't exactly blame jet lag. Maybe I was reverting back to my childhood. My parents used to say that when I was a baby, they would throw me in the car and drive around town because it was the only thing that would put me to sleep. We were supposed to rotate seats on the bus which meant, in a few days, I would be up front, in view of our guide, sleeping very inconspicuously.

CARDIFF, WALES - WATERFORD, IRELAND:
Right before we drove off the ferry into Ireland the next day, I said to Dan, "We're in the mothuh-land."

"We're still at sea," he responded, excited to finally get to use his brogue.

Paul the Guide, who had been telling us that the elevators at our next hotel - a charming historic hotel - were powered by mice, called out our room numbers for the night. When he got to our name, he said, "Duggans - welcome back to Ireland - room 226."

Dan looked very pleased that someone had recognized that he was indeed back in the mothuh-land.

WATERFORD - KILKINNEY - DUBLIN:
Dan's heritage kept manifesting itself throughout our time in Ireland. In Kilkenney, after seeing our last name on our credit card, one restaurant cashier informed us, "If you're a Duggan [with two g's], you're probably from here."

As we left the restaurant, Dan said, "This is a neat, little town. I'm proud of being from here."

DUBLIN:
I had already fallen in love with Dublin before ever setting foot on European soil after seeing the movie (or to be more accurate, encountered the emotional musical experience that is the movie) Once. It did not disappoint. Afterward, when I asked Dan to tell me his favorite city we visited, he also said "Dublin" without hesitation.

Our tour guide told us the story of the Ha'penny Bridge as we drove to our hotel.

In the olden days, young men would walk down a path known as the Gentleman's Walk on one side of the Liffey River. The young ladies would walk on the opposite side. The men would wink and tip their hats at the lady of their choice, and if the young woman tipped her parasol, it indicated that the gentleman in question was invited to meet her on the Ha'penny Bridge.

The next evening, Dan tried to reenact this story, but I ended up walking too fast and missed him winking at me from across the river. With my poor eyesight, I probably wouldn't have seen it anyway. We did meet on the bridge, satisfied in having participated in a slightly mushy Irish legend.

Dan was adamant about having Irish Stew at dinner that night, wanting to embrace Irish tradition to the fullest during our last night in the mothuh-land. We walked streets of Dublin until we found a pub with an empty table.

Later, I asked him how his long-awaited Irish Stew had tasted.

"It was okay," he replied. Actually, by Dan's stoic standards, that's not too bad.

BELFAST, NORTHERN IRELAND - EDINBURGH, SCOTLAND:
The next morning, we were seated in the dreaded front row on the bus. As it turned out, Paul the Guide didn't seem to mind that I occasionally listened while "resting my eyes." And Dan and I got a behind-the-scenes perspective of our tour.

"Elvis Presley landed at that airport," Paul the Guide said over the P.A. system as we drove into Scotland. "It was the only show Elvis did here."

Then he set the microphone aside and said to Richard with a chuckle, "What kind of rubbish is that?"

Then to us he said, "Now your life is complete, now that you know that."

Paul the Guide would also sing from his perch in the front of the bus. We thought he might be keeping his voice warm, or maybe he was just trying to keep himself awake. I could relate.

He would talk to the cars on the roads, "Come on, Little Volvo," and "Did we just break out of jail?" about a woman driver wearing a black and white striped top.

"He reminds me of Mr. Bean with his funny noises," Dan said. And, almost on cue, Paul the Guide said, "Doobee, doobee, doo, doo."

One drawback to sitting in the front, I had to stop Dan from being a backseat driver and making suggestions to Young Richard.

I pointed emphatically to a sign above our heads that read, "Do not talk to driver."

"I'm a control freak, huh?" Dan said.

"YES!"

EDINBURGH:
The first thing I saw when we drove into Edinburgh was a busker playing a guitar. His dog stood loyally beside him, holding a purple hat for tips.

We took a tour of Edinburgh Castle the first morning. Paul the Guide took a much deserved break and left us in the hands of a "local expert," a tall, blond, blue-eyed man with a thick Scottish brogue. He wore a brown oil skin jacket and a blue and green plaid kilt. And by the way, don't call it a skirt! These Scottish men are bigger than (and probably more masculine than) you. Scotland is known for its extensive military history. If you insult their kilts, American men, I have a feeling, they could easily take you down and break a few bones.

YORK - STRATFORD-UPON-AVON:
Upon arrival in York, England, Dan and I watched a street performer juggle knives on a unicycle. I, of course, watched through my fingers.

When he finished risking his life, the performer passed around a yellow plastic hat for tips. He held up a couple of bank notes and called out, "Tourists, these are five-pound notes. One or two of these would be great!"

After our day in York, right before heading back to the bus, we started to walk a wall that runs throughout the city. I was rambling on aimlessly about a fair trade store we had just visited.

A couple of minutes later, I was frozen, gripping onto the stone wall. I had finally stopped chattering and had realized that I was pretty far off the ground, suspended over a high-traffic street, with no railings preventing me from spilling over the edge and splatting onto a pile of cars.

"Wait! This is scary!" I exclaimed in horror.

"I was wondering when you would notice," Dan said.

Then he took out the camera and snapped my picture, which forced me to swallow my fear and pose in my typical, adorable fashion.

LONDON:
We spent the next morning at Heathrow Airport standing in line for 45 minutes. The self check kiosks were not working, but Globus had gotten us there in plenty of time. In line (or in "queue," I was still in England, after all), Dan entertained himself by drawing his passport out of his pocket like a cowboy in a quick-draw shoot-out.

I suppose this was his way of preparing to leave the "mothuh-land" and return to the great American West.

If you are looking for a tour at a decent price with fun, informative guides (such as Paul the Guide and Young Richard) who take care of everything for you and your family, try Globus. We had a terrific experience with the company.

National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #1
National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #2
National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #4

National Duggan's European Vacation, Episode #2: Tales from the Passport Office

2011-08-06T08:00:00.001-06:00

A few months ago, my husband, Dan, and I applied for passports. Especially disappointing to my reserved husband, we could not, as first-time passport applicants, complete the entire process online. In other words, we had to go talk to people.

When we called to make the necessary appointment, the clerk (a.k.a. The Passport Nazi) was quite adamant that we have the paperwork properly filled out prior to our time slot lest it hinder our status as potential passport recipients.

She ended our phone conversation abruptly by saying, “If you’re late, you’ll have to reschedule.”

We got the impression that we could single-handedly (as a couple) bring about the Passport Apocalypse if our forms were not filled out to perfection upon arrival.

Due to our shared fear of The Passport Gestapo, our diligent, rule-following, responsible, overachieving, oldest child syndrome kicked into high gear. We filled out the forms, printed off two copies of each, and attached the applications, with color coded paper clips, to our birth certificates.

The night before, I put all of the passport materials in our European vacation file folder and set it on the dining room table. I suggested that we take the entire folder to our appointment. Dan decided we just needed the passport forms, and we left the copies and file folder at home.

The next afternoon, we realized, while sitting at the passport office desk, that Dan had only grabbed my passport applications, the original and the copy, and had left his application in the file folder at home.

“I should have checked," I said. "It’s my fault,” which probably carried with it the implication, "because you never do this sort of thing right."

Luckily, the woman who worked with us (a.k.a. Nice Passport Clerk) was much more laid back than The Passport Nazi who had scheduled our appointment. This clerk allowed Dan to fill out a new form while taking my picture. So much for jeopardizing our passport recipient status if we didn't have all the paperwork filled out beforehand.

Dan started to fill out the second application incorrectly, writing his first name under the last name blank, and had to ask for yet another new form.

“He’s very nervous,” I confided to the clerk.

Dan shot me an annoyed glance.

“You’ve got plenty of time,” Nice Passport Clerk told him soothingly.

That seemed to calm Dan down, and we got through the rest of the process without much of a hitch.

As we were leaving, Dan hissed, “That lady at the desk behind us was the one I talked to on the phone. I recognized her voice.”

As we imagined how different our passport application experience might have been, a shudder simultaneously passed through our bodies . . .

National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #1
National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #3
National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #4

National Duggan's European Vacation, Episode #1: Dear Airline

2011-07-30T08:00:00.002-06:00

Dear Airline That Will Fly Me to Europe This Summer,

I like to read on planes. I don't like to meet new people. I don't even like to talk to my husband when I'm on an airplane. Flying is the one time in my life that I have an uninterrupted chunk of time to read. And since I will be flying to Europe, that chunk of time should be nice and long.

You already force me to sit for hours in a seat with arm rests that fit snugly around my waist, to sit for hours with so little leg room that any slight adjustment in my crossed legs or posture feels like a cataclysmic event to the people in front of me. (And keep in mind, I'm only five-foot-two.) You force me to relieve myself, after pouring cranberry juice down my throat, in a closet that has been known to test positive for E. coli, fecal bacteria, and H1N1. And the water in said closet? Also occasionally E. coli-ridden.

I will put up with all of those less than comfortable aspects of flying as long as you let me read.

Therefore, here is my one request - please don't put me next to these passengers:

Elderly man who served in World War II
He spent the entire trip telling me his life story, very interesting too I must admit, but it wasn't in a book. And like I said, I want to read when I fly. Whenever I would attempt to open my book, he would pull out another family photo from his carry-on bag and tell me a story about his kids, his (deceased - which was sad) wife, or the war. When we were taking off, he told me that if a pilot doesn't lift off within forty-five seconds of hitting the throttle, then that's it. You're dead meat. I now have him to thank for my recently-developed, debilitating anxiety during lift-off.

Loud or crying child who kicks my seat the entire ride
Enough said . . . Sorry parents with young children.

Agitated man who takes his frustration out on loud or crying child
Until airlines have a baby/small child section, I have to accept the fact that children will be loud, children will cry, and children will kick the back of my seat, through no fault of their own or their parents.

One man I got stuck next to was already agitated when I crawled over him to get to my seat. This was before they told us the plane was delayed in taking off because of a fuel pump indicator light. When the attendant announced this, the man went ballistic - growling, squirming, sighing in exasperation.

We happened to have several children seated around us, and every time one of them squealed, he would shift his position and let out a long, deep, pointed breath.

Eventually, he muttered, “Shut up!” just loud enough so that I could hear him, but he apparently was not gutsy enough to confront the kids or parents.

He was reading My Life by Keith Richards, but he was so busy groaning and rolling his eyes that I don't know how much Rolling Stones debauchery he actually absorbed.

At the end of the plane ride, one little girl in front of us stood up on her seat, turned around, and said “hi” to him. He said “hi” back to her, through gritted teeth. Even he couldn't resist responding to her toothy grin.

A couple of minutes later, he was on the phone with his mother, and his attitude changed tremendously.

“Hi Mom," he said in a soft, syrupy voice. "The plane just landed. See you in a bit.”

I wondered if the inevitable, upcoming visit with Mom was the true source of his agitation.

In conclusion, Airline That Will Fly Me to Europe, all I ask is that you allow me the simple pleasure of reading. If you can't guarantee my bags will arrive on time or that I will have time to eat a proper meal during my layover or that I will be able to lean back in my seat without sending someone's gin and tonic sprawling into his/her lap, at least allow me to read in peace.

Sincerely,

Becky Duggan

National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #2
National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #3
National Duggan's European Vacation Episode #4

My Collegiate Self Rears Its Head Again

2011-07-23T08:00:00.001-06:00

At the beginning of July, I went back briefly to Boise State University and took Orff Level I to be certified in the popular music education methodology inspired by composer Carl Orff. I say I "went back" to BSU because, even though the course was only two weeks long, I still had to apply to the graduate college, buy a parking permit, and - my personal favorite (note the sarcastic tone) - pay fees and tuition. I felt quite collegiate again, spending two weeks on campus complete with the SUB (Student Union Building), University library, and school of such and such buildings.

It has been three years since I received my Master's Degree and ten since I received my Bachelor's. Needless to say, I reverted, once again, to my obsessive, anal college ways.

"What do you mean 'revert?'" Dan said. "It's not like you're any less anal now that you're out of college."

Despite my husband's opinion, I did regress into my former, type-A personality, academia-centered, college student self. Some might go so far as to just call me a nerd.

I was scared of getting into trouble with my professors. I wanted stickers (A+s) on all of my assignments. I had fairly extensive homework every night. I couldn't get my handwritten musical notation to look quite right (no, we weren't allowed to use Finale or Sibelius), and I spent a lot of time erasing and rewriting, reminiscent of my undergrad self hunched over staff paper, composing the perfect 12-tone serialist piece for Music Theory IV.

During a philosophical discussion in class, my collegiate self made a comment about music being a core academic discipline by Plato's standards.

One of the professors taking the course later asked me, "Do you have your Master's Degree?"

I told him I did. Actually, my collegiate self probably phrased it like, "Why yes, indeed I do."

"I thought so," he said, adding that he figured I had taken an educational philosophy/theory/whatever class.

"I think I just picked that knowledge up somewhere along the way in my professional reading," I said in my most scholarly tone.

What college course is complete without that annoying student who questions, contradicts, tries to "catch" and correct the teacher, and tells everyone else what to do? No, it wasn't me, even though I have made my collegiate self sound rather snooty. But there was one student in the class who fit that description (this is the time when I warn everyone to be nice around me because you could end up in my blog).

I thought I was the only one who had noticed this super obnoxious behavior until a fellow student, who seemed habitually calm and collected by nature, whispered during an activity, "She drives me crazy."

At the end of the course, we received our certificates at a mini graduation ceremony. We were music teachers after all, so our graduation consisted of recorder, dance, and Orff instrument performances. Our families were invited, and a classmate and I joked about our two supportive, engineer husbands sitting in the middle of the room, arms crossed, watching the proceedings stoically and silently.

One of the instructors invited our family members to join a folk dance. Dan made eye contact with me and shook his head subtly. He eventually joined the circle when realized he would have been the only one sitting out. It's all about blending in with him.

I was assigned to one of the more technically difficult xylophone parts in the Orff piece, and I was quite nervous about this, being a vocalist by trade and not a percussionist. I was so distracted by my xylophone-playing anxiety that I only played about 10% of the time in the recorder ensemble. But I nailed the xylophone part in the end.

As Dan and I left campus that afternoon, my collegiate self made one last comment before vanishing to boring Academia-La-La-Land for another few years.

"I'm going to frame this and put it on the wall," Collegiate Self said, admiring the certificate, "and then I'll have more diplomas than you."

In Which I Discover the Perils of Hiking During a High Water Year

2011-07-15T14:30:00.000-06:00

Over July 4th weekend, Dan and I hiked Norton Lakes near Ketchum, a hike that we have taken so many times that the doomsday anxieties and inhibitions that often accompany my outdoor excursions didn't even cross my mind. Turns out, I was too hasty to throw caution to the wind.

To get onto the Norton Lakes trail, you have to ford a creek at the trailhead. Typically, it is a fairly narrow, fairly calm creek with lots of large rocks to hop across. But because of the unusually abundant amount of snow runoff and precipitation this year, the narrow, calm creek more closely resembled a fast-flowing river complete with whitewater rapids right where Dan was insisting we cross.

"It's not a river!" Dan shouted at me, not out of anger, but because he had to talk loudly in order to be heard over the rushing water.

"It's the freakin' Mississippi!" was my rebuttal, as I stood in the creek, foamy water lapping at my shins, its current threatening to push me over at any moment.

By this time, people were starting to stare. For some reason, the trail was busy, and it appeared that no one else was bothered by the rambunctious state of this so-called "creek." In fact, parents were allowing their children to ford the creek, albeit a little further downstream, leading me to believe that there might be a calmer section somewhere.

Two thirty-something hikers watched Dan and me as we attempted to cross the creek. They made little effort to hide their mirth as they applied their sunscreen.

Another family watched us curiously as I stumbled across the slippery rocks, falling onto my husband who essentially ended up dragging me through the water as I hung onto his shoulders.

At the base of one of the mountains, we came to another wider-than-usual creek crossing.

I watched in envy as two hikers (coincidentally, the same couple Dan and I had entertained at the trailhead) easily walked across a fallen tree trunk, hopped to a separate stump, and bounded over a narrower part of the creek to the other side.

The fallen tree turned out to be too high for me, a sufferer of severe acrophobia. I found another log, wobblier than the first option, that crossed about three-quarters of the creek.

I began by lunging onto log, keeping one foot behind me on the dry land - kind of like that scene in Elf where Buddy (Will Ferrell) takes a department store escalator up in a low lunge position, scared to ride such a strange contraption due to his lack of experience with escalators at the North Pole.

Dan, who had followed the other two hikers swiftly across the creek, was looking on, slightly amused, from the other side.

I scooted across the log on one leg, dragging the other leg behind me through the water.

“Come on, ballerina,” Dan said, referring to my 14 years of classical ballet training (which obviously is not of any use whatsoever when fording a raging body of water.)

"I can’t be graceful when it’s a matter of life and death.”

“It’s not a matter of life and death. The creek's not deep enough.”

“Okay," I conceded, "a matter of life and embarrassment to death.”

At the end of the log, I splashed to the other side of the creek quite un-gracefully and fell into Dan's arms.

I came up with a personal definition of "fording a creek" that afternoon:

Part of Speech: Verb . . . totally

Definition: "Lurching over underwater rocks with enormous splashing, forcing Dan (the loving husband who has remained relatively dry to this point) to venture back into the water as I fall into him, and he drags me out of the creek the rest of the way."

“I don’t know why you crazy, outdoorsy types don’t die more often with your high-risk behavior.”

"This trail isn't that treacherous, Becky," said Dan.

At that moment, we encountered a group of kids (very loud kids who seemed very unconcerned about the danger of this dark and dusty trail) on their way to fish in one of the lakes.

“See, even those little kids can do it!” Dan said encouragingly.

Fortunately, I made it back to Boise alive. And on our return to the trailhead, we found a calmer and safer spot to cross further down the creek.

"Why didn't we cross here before?" I asked.

"You want to go back over and try it again?"

"No, thank you. One outdoor adventure per day is enough for me."

Let Me Tell You 'Bout the Birds and the . . . Squirrels

2011-06-25T08:00:00.002-06:00

Let me introduce you to the squirrel that shows up in our front yard every year and eats the seeds out of the bird feeder hanging from our pear blossom tree.

Last summer, I asked my Facebook friends, "How do I keep the squirrel from climbing onto my bird feeder and spilling the contents of that feeder, aside from running out the front door, clapping my hands, and yelling, 'Squirrel, that's not for you!'?"

I received several suggestions: Put the feeder on a metal pole, buy a bird feeder with a squirrel guard, shoot it with a BB gun. (This last tip prompted a healthy discussion on gun control, pacifism, and vegetarianism.)

I took none of the advice. I did, however, buy non-germinating bird seed.

This summer, like last summer, I filled the feeder and waited for the myriad of exotic birds with multicolor plumage - as promised by the bird seed package - to light daintily on the edge of the cedar perch. Until . . .

"Squirrel, that is not your food! And you look fat this year! Have you been eating all of this bird seed?" By this time, I was standing in the front yard, shouting up the tree, and clapping my hands at the squirrel wildly. "Look at how much seed is on the ground! Did you do that?"

Squirrel, as I so affectionately call him, did not answer me. But the neighbors walking their dog furtively crossed to the other side of the street.

I did not refill the bird feeder, deciding that the birds (and probably Squirrel) should eat the seed off the ground first. Eventually, once the seed disappeared, Squirrel took to gnawing on the wooden feeder instead. We now have a large chunk missing from the feeder's side and perch.

The cute, colorful birds, that occasionally outsmart Squirrel, are not innocent players in this summertime cat-and-mouse (or squirrel-and-bird) game.

Last summer, when I wasn't looking, a bird built a nest in one of my fuchsia plants, hanging on our front porch. Before I got around to removing the nest, the bird had already laid her eggs. I couldn't in good conscience destroy her babies, so the nest stayed and consequently killed my fuchsia.

But the babies were adorable, their miniature beaks flailing in the air when their mama would fly to the nest to feed them, their squeaky chirping, their tiny, fuzzy heads poking above the fuchsia leaves.

One day, I came home from work, and the babies were gone.

"Dan," I said, almost in tears, "the baby birds are gone. The nest is abandoned!"

"That's what happens when birds grow up. They fly away."

"I feel like I helped them grow into independent, self-reliant creatures. And now they've disappeared, without even a goodbye! I'll miss them."

"Okay . . ." Dan said. "We're never having kids."

The birds left behind a nest full of droppings and a dead plant.

As much fun as I had hatching baby birds last summer, I decided I wanted my plants to survive this year. So we removed the nest as soon as it appeared in our fuchsias. About a half-hour later, Dan had to remove another one. And a half-hour after that, yet another nest magically manifested.

This time, it was my job to dispose of the nest. All of a sudden, I heard a fluttering of wings and a nasally squawking from the tree. There sat an extremely agitated female bird, glaring at me with such animosity that I thought I might have been warped into the middle of a Hitchcock movie.

"It's okay, birdie," I cooed calmly. "I just want my fuchsia to live. You're going to have to find another nesting area."

This remark was greeted with more violent wing-flapping.

I ran inside with the nest.

"We have to do something, NOW! That bird wants to kill me."

Dan decided we should stick sharp objects in the plants to prevent the birds from landing.

"I don't want to kill the birds. I just want my plants to live."

We compromised. Dan armed the soil with plastic forks and knives instead. While he prepared the plants, I stepped out onto our front porch. Up on our roof was the soon-to-be mama bird, her mouth full of twigs and dead grass. A colorful, presumably male, bird was "supervising" the operation. They looked around, bewildered as if to say, "Where did you put my potential nesting location?"

"Ha ha! Not so smart now, are you?" I said to the birds. "No nest here for you! Not in my fuchsias! You'll have to go somewhere else! "

"And you wonder why our neighbors don't talk to us," Dan said as we hung our plants back up.

It worked. Our hanging plants are nest-free. We still have beautiful birds that visit our feeder when Squirrel is not around. A few weeks ago, we even had a Chukar in our driveway. Dan was so excited, he recorded a video of the bird waddling around and making strange noises.

Now if I could only figure out how to keep my little summer creature friends from eating my sunflowers! That may be a story for next year.

A Memorial for Grandma

2011-06-18T08:00:00.001-06:00

About a month ago, in my post "A Mother's Day Tribute," I wrote about how the floods in southern Illinois prevented me from attending my grandmother's funeral. Last weekend, my family and I made the journey to Cairo, Illinois, a town of Mark Twain fame, where the Ohio and the Mississippi meet, a town hit hard by poverty and now by devastating floods. My mother and grandmother both grew up in Cairo (pronounced Care-o - as in I "care" about you - as opposed to Cairo, Egypt or - as many non-Cairo residents say - Karo Syrup). Several generations on my mother's side also hailed from that Missouri/Kentucky/Southern Illinois region. Because Cairo is so close to Kentucky and Tennessee and sits on the Mason-Dixon line, it feels more Confederate than Yankee sometimes.

“Here’s what we’ll do," Aunt Alice, my grandmother's 93-year-old sister, said over a phone conversation before we left Idaho. "I’ll have Charles [her son, my second cousin] barbecue the pork shoulder on Friday night. Then y'all get here at noon on Saturday, and we’ll have the pork shoulder and then chicken spaghetti that night.”

I hung up the phone, a little bewildered, pretty certain we were going to have two huge, home-cooked meals on Saturday alone.

"I didn't have the heart to tell her I'm a vegetarian," I told Dan. "I don't think they have vegetarians in Cairo. I guess I'll just have to take one for the team."

Of course, there's nothing better than barbecue in that region of the country, even for a (semi) vegetarian like me.

We did, in fact, eat two huge meals with Aunt Alice on Saturday, complete with two desserts - Rainbow Angel Food Cake in the afternoon and . . . well . . .

"It's Lidy's recipe," Aunt Alice explained. "She calls it her Better-Than-Tom-Selleck Cake," then she added, "Better-Than-Sex Cake."

As we were leaving Alice's house that night, she stared at my husband for a minute. Then she said, "You sure don't talk much."

And with that, we headed back to our hotel in Sikeston, Missouri to prepare for the memorial service.

I sang a solo at my grandmother's church the next morning. Cairo Baptist (renamed Mighty Rivers Worship Center) was also the church in which my mother grew up. The minister there married my parents. Every time we have visited Cairo, I have been asked to provide special music. And every time I sing in that sanctuary, I get the feeling that I kind of grew up there too, maybe vicariously through my mother, maybe because I'm sure my grandmother talked me up to her fellow church members. To Grandma, I was the Ninth Wonder of the World (she and her siblings and their Vaudeville act being the Eighth Wonder of the World).

This time, before I sang, the pastor said, "Helen [my grandmother's name], I hope you're listening."

At the memorial that afternoon, we arranged pictures of Grandma around a bouquet of flowers My brother, Steve, told a story about playing Old Maid with Grandma. She would stack the deck so that she would always end up with the dreaded "Old Maid" card, and Steve would win. My father talked about my grandmother always wanting dessert first and connected this metaphor to the enjoyment she gleaned from life.

"I hope she's up in heaven, surrounded by dessert," he ended.

My father also invited the congregation to tell Grandma stories.

One of her fellow choir members, a gentleman about my age, said, "I am the tallest choir member [he's well over six-foot], and Helen was always the shortest [she was around 4'9"]. Sometimes I couldn't find my robe, and I'd say, 'Helen, are you wearing my robe again?' And she'd laugh and laugh."

Then, I sang "I'll Fly Away."

Aunt Alice, my strong, tough 93-year-old great aunt who had not shed a tear, started to cry.

"She always wanted that song sung at her funeral," Alice said. "And we just couldn't do it because of the flood."

"Well," I embraced her through tears, "we did it."

WHERE I’M FROM
(the tribute poem I wrote and read at Grandma's memorial service on
Sunday, June 12, 2011 the day before her 99th birthday)

I am from Grandma, the self-proclaimed “T.V. Dinner Queen,”
from pecan pies and Shemwell's barbecue on toasted bread.
I am from Aunt Alice and Uncle Bud,
from distant stories of Great Aunt Lucille – she quacked like a duck – and Great Grandma’s Halloween costumes and neighborhood haunted house.

I am from panty hose and high heels, even at age 80-something,
from phone calls on Sunday nights and “Good Night” spoken as an interjection,
I am from the Dunn Children Vaudeville act, the 8th Wonder of the World,
and me, the 9th Wonder of the World,
from being the center of attention and loving every minute of it.

I am from the Big Wheel pedaling down Pine Street,
from chasing lightning bugs on humid, Midwestern nights.
I am from snapping many, many photos of family living far, far away.

I am from Murder She Wrote and paperback mysteries,
from Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy.
I am from sending my brother into Grandma’s attic, just to see if there’s anything cool up there.

I am from black-eyed peas on New Year’s,
Brussels sprouts on Thanksgiving,
marshmallow date logs on Christmas.
I am from Christmases spent in Cairo and fancy dinners at Alice’s and answering the phone, “Christmas Eve Gift!” on December 24.

I am from a mother who is no longer able to say goodbye to her mother, but I am here, and I am from beautiful memories of a grandmother, a mother, and a daughter.

The Perfect Birthday Mix Tape (or - er - Playlist)

2011-06-08T12:00:00.003-06:00

Last weekend, I asked Dan to make me a "mix tape" for my birthday road trip to Sun Valley. I suppose the term "mix tape" is obsolete and has been replaced by "mix iPod playlist," but that doesn't have quite the same ring to it. I had no idea that Dan would put so much pressure on himself to make me the best mix tape/playlist in the world, worthy of High Fidelity standards ("That is such a good movie," said Dan with a sigh).

Dan made my birthday playlist Saturday morning, right before we left for Sun Valley, but he was reluctant to let me listen to it.

"What's the point of making me a birthday playlist if you won't let me listen to it?" I asked.

"You might not like it."

Within the next few minutes, Dan told me not to play it all; then he told me to look at it first; then he stopped me from looking at it because it wouldn't be a surprise; finally, he let me play it. No, I didn't look at the list first. I wanted it to be a surprise too, and it was my birthday after all.

After a few songs into the playlist, Dan said sheepishly, "It's mushy."

Ummm . . . here are some examples of the songs from my birthday playlist: "El Scorcho" by Weezer, "Check the Rhime" by A Tribe Called Quest, "This is Love" by P. J. Harvey - it might have "love" in the title, but it opens with, "I can't believe life's so complex/When I just wanna sit here and watch you undress."

"Real mushy," I said.

Of course, the song selections were also some of my favorites, proving that Dan knows me pretty well. I guess you could say that's a little mushy.

For instance:

"How did you know this is my favorite Incubus song?" I exclaimed when I heard the first few bars of "Love Hurts." "You must listen to me!"

"It's pretty hard not to when you say over and over, 'I like this song,' every time it plays."

When "Fell in Love With a Girl" by The White Stripes came on, Dan reiterated, "See, it's mushy."

Dan confessed he couldn't figure out which Green Day song to include so he finally settled on "21 Guns." The title may send up red flags to anyone who doesn't know the song. (I can hear it now, "He made you a playlist for your birthday and included a song about guns?)

But first consider the lyrics: "One, twenty-one guns/Lay down your arms, give up the fight." It's the perfect song for a closet liberal, pseudo hippie pacifist (Am I describing myself? You decide).

I think Dan actually chose this song, not because of political or violent implications, but because we saw American Idiot last summer on Broadway, and this song was part of the stage production. And of course, our journey down New York memory lane was completed with Jay-Z's "Empire State of Mind."

Dan took his creation of the perfect birthday "mix tape" very seriously. He made sure every song on the playlist had some sort of significance either to me personally or to our history together. I'm not sure what that means when one of the songs on my birthday playlist turned out to be "Paranoid Android" by Radiohead. But I've never really tried to hide my neurotic tendencies.

"Do you want me to make you another one?" Dan asked as the last song ended.

Don't worry, Dan. You'll get your chance again next year.

"The making of a great compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. It takes ages longer than it might seem. You gotta kick it off with a killer to grab attention. Then you gotta take it up a notch. But you don't want to blow your wad. So then you gotta cool it off a notch. There are a lot of rules."
-- Rob Gordon in High Fidelity (2000)

Fast and Not As Furious As I Should Be

2011-05-22T12:00:00.003-06:00

I believe my IQ dropped significantly after Friday night. My husband convinced to see Fast Five, the fifth installment of The Fast and the Furious franchise. In truth, it didn't take much persuasion. He even gave me the choice between Pirates and Fast Five, but, alas, I chose the latter. And I'm not even sure why.

Maybe it's because I have (sadly) seen all of the other Fast and Furious movies, and I had some neurotic impulse to complete the cycle. Perhaps I thought if I saw something extremely masculine, Dan would be more likely to take me to Jane Eyre on my birthday in a couple of weeks. Or it could have been some unexplained void that only sweaty versions (and I mean, dripping off the body like molasses) of Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, and the Rock could fill. (There - how do you men like being treated like some objectified piece of meat?)

I was also just plain curious. The film, unlike its predecessors, has been garnering critical acclaim with high scores on both Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes. (What is the world coming to when a car-racing movie - sequel number five, no less - scores higher than Water for Elephants?)

Vin Diesel was quoted in Time as saying, "I wouldn't be surprised if there is some Oscar talk around this."

Ummm . . . okay.

I don't know that testosterone-laden stare downs qualify a movie as Oscar-worthy.

Every time beefy Vin Diesel donned an especially intense mien and made a comment like, "Change of plans" or "Big mistake," my husband, Dan, would lean over and whisper, "Now that's an Oscar-worthy performance."

Nonetheless, the Fast and Furious movies have always been one of my guilty pleasures as contradictory to my nature as that may seem.

I've never enjoyed such a blatantly sexist set of films in my life. We're talking scantily clad women galore with lots of cleavage . . . and not just in the pectoral region. Even the weapon-wielding token female characters, who are apparently the male characters' equals in toughness, use their sexuality to get the job done. And the ratio of women (supposedly with brains, but that's debatable) to men on the Fast Five crew is about 2:9.

And the line that elicited the most laughs?

"Sexy legs, baby girl. What time do they open?"

The response?

"They open at the same time I pull this trigger (she pulls a gun on him). Want me to open them?"

Throughout my two-hour swashbuckling theater experience, I found myself wondering how much carbon was emitted into the air during the making of this movie. Every time the characters smashed a vehicle through a building or took out a bank or a concrete wall, I thought, "Who is going to clean up that mess?" And this was a source of great anxiety for me during the film because of some irrational fear of mine that I, in fact, would be the one cleaning up everything in the end.

I don't make it a habit to go to movies where the audience members interact with what is happening on screen. But during this flick, there was an outburst of (most definitely male) hoots and hollers every time there was an explosion or a fast-moving car making hairpin turns.

"But did you like the movie?" Dan asked me as we exited the theater.

I said I really enjoyed it, especially the heist story, "But don't tell anyone; it might ruin my reputation as a self-sufficient, chauvinist-hating feminist."

"I did get a little bored during car chase scenes," I added, "but I guess those were to be expected."

"Duh. It's a car movie."

(These are a few of the cars from The Fast and the Furious film franchise. They were on display at Universal Studios in Orlando when we visited in 2004.)

Going Gray (Un)gracefully

2011-05-15T07:30:00.001-06:00

Personally, I think thirty-four is too young to start going gray. Unfortunately, the biochemical pigmentation on my scalp does not share this opinion.

I have held off on dying my hair, reluctant to introduce unnecessary chemicals into my system. Or perhaps I have refrained for reasons of vanity, plagued by distant memories of my hair taking on an orange-ish tint when I attempted to dye it once in college. Besides, I am kind of partial to my natural hair color, despite those pesky gray hairs that have appeared in recent years.

To make matters worse, my gray hairs are shorter because when they first started showing up, I plucked them. Now those wiry little suckers stick straight up as though I have a chronic static electricity disorder.

My husband, Dan, enjoys tormenting me about my new hair follicle additions.

“I only see them when I’m standing right over the top of your head," he says to me. "If you weren’t so short, I wouldn't even be able to see them.”

One afternoon, I was having issues with our computer, and (as is my custom) I was blaming Dan, Software Engineer Extraordinaire, for all of the technological problems in the world.

“Watch out. You’re giving yourself more gray hair,” he said, peering at the top of my head.

“You can't possibly see them. I covered them with mascara," I retorted, proud of the quick remedy I had just read in a magazine.

“You didn't cover that one, or that one, or that one, or that one . . .”

Then I chased him around the house, snapping him with a kitchen towel while he laughed in hysteria. He had truly amused himself.

Later that evening, Dan touched the top of my head and said, “Gross. You hair is stiff. It feels like you have mascara in it."

Then he broke out into belly-bouncing laughter again.

Dan caught me checking my hair - specifically the gray hairs protruding from my scalp - in the car mirror one weekend. He snickered.

When I glared at him, he said quickly, “This is a funny song, huh?”

“It's about the death of his father.”

"Oh . . ." Dan pursed his lips sheepishly.

I remember admiring a family friend's newly highlighted hair at a picnic one summer.

"Once I started going gray, I realized it was easier to go light rather than try to stay dark," she told me.

I didn't give much thought to her hair color philosophy until recently. That is probably the reason my husband's hair still seems to so closely resemble his natural color - blond hair hides gray better than brown.

Just you wait, Dan. Your day is coming. Blond doesn't trump gray forever. Of course, as a result of our gender-biased society, you will simply be referred to as a "gracefully aging, distinguished older gentleman."

A Mother's Day Tribute: Mrs. Helen Watkins (1912-2011)

2011-05-08T10:41:00.011-06:00

My grandmother died at age 98 on the evening of Tuesday, April 26 right in the midst of the flooding of the Mississippi and the Ohio. While most of the residents in the town of Cairo, Illinois evacuated, I spent the week trying to figure out how to get down there in time for her funeral (either by plane or, if necessary, by boat). I was unsuccessful.

My grandmother stood at about four-foot-eleven; by the end of her life, she was probably closer to four-foot-nine. She never left the house without wearing pumps and pantyhose, even well into her eighties and nineties. She prided herself on looking good for her age.

"Nobody can believe I'm 93," she would say. "Everyone says I don't look a day over 80."

Once, when we were eating at Lambert's Cafe in Sikeston, Missouri, a pretty waitress with a southern twang kept a vigilant eye on our table. We thought it was because of my athletic, early-twenties brother, Steve. But we soon realized, as my grandmother chattered to the waitress about the events of our day, that Steve wasn't the big draw after all.

"Oh, you're soooo cuuute!" the server cooed. Then she turned to us, "Isn't she just soooo cuuute?"

My grandmother never met a stranger. From store clerks, to restaurant servers, to auto mechanics (my grandmother also drove her own car well into her nineties despite her cataracts), she would talk to anyone and everyone as though they were lifelong friends. And people loved her for that.

During one visit to Cairo, Steve and I were waiting for Grandma in the drugstore, passing our time looking at toothbrushes, while she chatted with one of the pharmacists.

All of a sudden, we heard from behind us, "Woo-wee! She still looks good, doesn't she?"

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see two bent-over elderly gentleman, wearing trucker hats and sitting on folding chairs against the store's side wall.

"She's got to be ninety-something now. Her sister lives over there on Washington. She's almost ninety too. But she still looks good."

"Yeah," the other man answered. "She looks good."

"Helen, that's her name."

I punched my brother on the arm. He had also heard the conversation, and we watched incredulously as one of the men creaked out of his chair and waddled over to Grandma.

"Helen, how are you doing?" he asked, and my grandmother started to tell him all about her grandchildren visiting and how we were going to have dinner at Alice's tonight and how we all lived in Idaho.

Steve and I stared, sharing the same wide-eyed expression.

"I think she's flirting with him," I said, observing the extra flounce in her gait as she made her way to the front of the store.

"Weird . . . "

My grandmother's love of attention probably originated during her Vaudeville days. The Dunn Children (my grandmother, her sister, and her brother) had an act that they performed around the Midwest circuit. Grandma enrolled my mother in dance and piano, hoping to instill in her that same passion for the stage, but my mother soon tired of this. Imagine my grandmother's delight when I was born craving the spotlight.

Any time I played a role in a theater production or an opera or danced or sang in a recital, my grandmother would say, "The papers called the Dunn Children the 'Eighth Wonder of the World.' I think you must be the Ninth Wonder of the World, Becky!"

My grandmother was endearingly quirky, to say the least.

One of my brother's and my favorite home videos of my grandmother is one where she is holding a newborn Steve, shaking a little stuffed duck over his head. She keeps shaking it and shaking it, not getting any sort of reaction from the calm, stoic baby Steve. Pretty soon, she starts bopping him on the forehead with it over and over and gurgling in his face. Steve just lies there, motionless while Grandma has loads of fun bopping him with the stuffed duck.

Grandma was also known for bringing a slight bit of levity to solemn occasions. The Phantom of the Opera had just been released in theaters the month my mother died. After the funeral, my whole family - my brother, father, husband, grandmother, aunts, and uncles - piled into a couple of cars and headed to the movies to relieve some of the tension. My grandmother fell in love with the little, cymbal-clapping, toy monkey in the Phantom film, and she would start clapping like the monkey at random times throughout the rest of her trip. When my family members would laugh and egg her on, she would clap even faster - always the performer - and say, "I just loved that little monkey."

The presents she would send us were always interesting fodder for conversation. In one of her less politically correct moments, she sent Steve a cartoon about a little girl with long, black braids. "It looks like Pocahontas," she explained in a note she had taped to the video.

She shopped in the juniors department and bought two sets of each outfit, one for my mother or me and one for herself. We knew this because she would mail us a photograph of herself the following week, donning her new clothes. Once, she sent me a bright blue and white polka dotted sleeveless body suit with matching leggings trimmed with lace. Surprisingly, we never received a picture of her in that outfit.

My grandmother sent my mother newspaper clippings about once a week. When my mother died, I inherited the duty of newspaper clipping recipient. One such clipping reads, "One (more) for the money: Elvis sellout accelerates." In the margin, my grandmother has scrawled in blue ink, "Your Mom loved Elvis! Ha ha."

My grandmother sent me one thing frequently throughout the years - the sheet music for the song "I'll Fly Away." Starting at the age of twelve, I have received a different choral octavo every few years (usually an arrangement from the collection of the Cairo Baptist Church Choir, of which she was a proud member until entering the care center). At the top of the music, Grandma would write, "I want this song sung at my funeral."

My grandmother sent me an "I'll Fly Away" arrangement only once more after my own mother died. Grandma included a note that read, "I can't stop thinking of what a beautiful Christian she [my mother] was. Know I'll see her someday and probably won't be long." This time at the top of the music, Grandma had written, "My Favorite."

"Some glad morning when this life is o'er, I'll fly away.
To a home on God's celestial shore, I'll fly away."
-- "I'll Fly Away" by Albert E. Brumley

It's Not Easy Being Green: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (Obsessively and Without Apology)

2011-04-22T07:00:00.001-06:00

I had no idea that the 3 Rs (reduce, reuse, recycle) could be so controversial. I mean, I thought most people would agree that American consumers, in general, are wasteful creatures. We buy what we don't need, throw away what we don't want, and pay little attention to what actually happens to our waste and filth ("As long as it's not in my backyard . . .").

I grew up in a home where empty cereal boxes, aluminum cans, and plastic milk jugs were left out on the kitchen counter. In fact, my father would dig through the trash can just to make sure we hadn't thrown away anything that he deemed recyclable. When I left home, I discovered that not everyone shared these habits and that some people actually had a moral aversion to these practices.

In college, I met people in my dorm who refused to recycle their aluminum cans. So, being slightly passive aggressive, I would sift through their waste baskets whenever I visited their rooms and pull out all of their soda cans. The recycling chute was only a few feet down the hall. It wasn't a matter of inconvenience. They were simply taking some sort of political stance.

"We're not tree-huggers," these dorm-mates said.

"Neither am I," I replied. Then I paused for a moment and added, "At least, I don't think I am."

Every once in a while, I walked by someone's room and heard, "Hey, Becky, look at where my soda can is going!"

Then a can would sail through the air from the top bunk and land swiftly in the garbage, which I would proceed to retrieve from the basket. I would then dash off and throw it down the recycling chute before they could catch me.

After college, I became a bit more assertive.

"You should recycle that can," I told a teenager once as he threw a Coke can into an already overflowing waste basket.

The kid smirked at me and said, "Yeah, and the tuna I ate yesterday wasn't dolphin safe either."

The most opposition I ever received, however, was from a colleague who chased me into my classroom after I had made a snarky, under-the-breath comment about recycling cardboard boxes instead of throwing them away. This colleague waited until our meeting was over which was at least 30 minutes after my (what was supposed to be a) "joke." I guess I had really touched a nerve.

He spent most of the afternoon pontificating about the horrors of environmentalism. I learned all sorts of (biased, out-of-context) statistics and "facts" that apparently dispel myths that the hippie wacko environmentalists have tried to perpetuate. I heard all about some man who predicted that a landfill, 35 miles on each side, could hold all of America's waste by the year 3000. I heard all about how detrimental recycling is to the environment. I heard all about fast-growth tree farms and how we will never run out of virgin lumber for as long as we live.

"Recycling is just there to make you feel good about yourself," he concluded. "So are you still going to recycle?"

"Nothing's infallible," I said. "I'm still going to do my part to reduce my impact on the environment. Part of that is advocating for responsible recycling practices."

That response didn't satisfy him (translation: he kept talking), but luckily someone else entered the conversation, and the subject was changed . . . quickly.

In my home, discussions about the environment take a very different turn. That's why, after describing this encounter to my husband that evening, I wasn't surprised to hear him exclaim, "But I read in an article that some people actually go by the 4 Rs now! Refuse - as in, refuse plastic bags and other wasteful materials - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. You could have said that."

"I don't think it would have mattered," I sighed.

I still promote the 3 (or maybe 4) Rs in my classroom regardless.

One student, who was eating during a lunchtime rehearsal in my room, tried to throw away a juice can in the garbage. I blocked his way to the trash can and pointed him toward my recycling bin.

The next week, during the lunchtime rehearsal, he made his way to the waste basket with a sheepish grin and said, "Don't worry, Mrs. Duggan. I don't have anything that can be recycled."

This year, I taught my students Pete Seeger's “It Really Isn’t Garbage,” and we discussed various ways (including but not exclusive to recycling) to take care of the Earth.

One of my second grade students showed up at school with a huge pile of plastic bags the day after our 3 Rs discussion.

The little girl, obviously misinterpreting our Earth Day sing-along, told her classroom teacher, “Mrs. Duggan said she needed them.”

Interesting "Going Green" Tidbit:
A recent article in NEA Today states, "Green schools are easier on natural resources, on student health, and on the taxpayer’s pocketbook. If all new school construction and school renovations went green starting today, energy savings alone would total $20 billion over the next 10 years."

It's Not Easy Being Green: Making a Difference or Making Myself Feel Better?

2011-04-16T19:00:00.005-06:00

"I'm starting a compost pile," I said, carrying an old planter filled with vegetable scraps and orange rinds.

As Dan watched me walk by, his brow furrowed in confusion, I added, "And I don't care what you say."

"We don't have a garden," Dan said.

"We have herbs and flowers and houseplants," I countered. "And I might start a garden someday, especially if I have a compost pile."

"That seems a little backward," Dan said with a resigned sigh.

A few evenings later, Dan approached me with an apple core and a plateful of cherry tomatoes.

"Should I compost this?" Dan asked.

"You sound kind of excited about my compost pile now, Mr. We-Don't-Have-a-Garden."

"I mean, do you want me to compost this?" Dan asked again.

And that's just one way I adjusted my wasteful ways and attempted to single-handedly help out the environment.

I suffer from tremendous guilt - a byproduct of being raised a Baptist preacher's kid - in just about every aspect of my life; my impact on the Earth's gradual destruction is no exception. If you were to ask me, I would probably take personal responsibility for the melting of the polar ice caps and the Gulf oil spill.

So I am constantly making minor (but not too inconvenient) lifestyle changes, thinking I am playing a major role in saving the environment. Then I read or hear about someone else making more significant sacrifices than I, and the guilt returns until I've taken on my next pet project.

A few years ago, Dan and I started swapping out our incandescent bulbs for fluorescent even though the aura in my house now resembles a high school gymnasium. (Only 2 percent of American consumers recycle fluorescent lights which results in the release of the dangerous neurotoxin mercury into the atmosphere from U.S. landfills, another issue to consider when making the switch.)

We have been using reusable grocery bags for a while now. Then one day, Dan announced that some study had found that it takes more energy to manufacture a reusable bag than a plastic one.

"Of course," he continued, attempting to appease me as I started to hyperventilate, "if we use our reusable bags for a few decades, it should pay off."

Dan's favorite environmentally/socially conscious phrase is, "We're voting with our dollar," an appropriate comment for my quiet husband who likes to remain as inconspicuous as possible.

So, taking his statement to heart, I turned into an anti-technology zealot who would not allow her poor techie software engineer husband buy an HDTV or a smartphone because of the prolific use of conflict minerals in the electronics industry. Then we bought a camcorder at my request, and my hypocrisy reared its ugly head once again.

"It's for my students' programs," I rationalized.

As an act of contrition, Dan and I spent an entire afternoon researching companies that had signed contracts agreeing to recycle electronics responsibly instead of shipping them overseas to be dangerously disassembled in developing nations.

We have also been buying locally and organically as much as possible (or when convenient). Once we watched Food Inc. and read Mark Bittman's ominous statistic that 18% of greenhouse gases are caused by factory farming, Dan and I began eating (almost but not quite) vegetarian. (Dan admits he is the world's worst vegetarian.)

So the question is, do my seemingly insignificant lifestyle changes make a difference, or do they just make me feel good and possibly (but hopefully not) smug about my contribution to the Earth's posterity? For every positive change I have tried to make, I have encountered naysayers who say my lifestyle choices don't make a difference at all. Some have even gone so far to say that my attempts at environmentally friendly living might actually be detrimental.

But I keep making small, slightly neurotic choices in the hopes that indeed (as eloquently stated in an article at ecology.com), "every large-scale social change begins at the grassroots level with individuals who are willing to change their own behaviors as a model for others."

Still to come:

April 22: I'll talk about my obsessive recycling habits and how those have caused me (mostly good-natured) derision from fellow Idahoans on more than one occasion.

It's Not Easy Being Green: The Introduction

2011-04-10T11:22:00.009-06:00

When deciding whether or not to write Earth Day-themed posts for the next couple of weeks, I struggled with the implications that might accompany this task.

“I don’t want people to think I’m a liberal,” I said to my husband, Dan.

Now, I realize I have written this same statement in my blog before. That's because this comes up a lot in discussions with my husband. I live in Idaho, a state plagued by ultraconservative ideals, and many of my family members and friends whom I truly respect adhere to these conservative ideals. So, I go on with my life, a closeted, oppressed Idaho liberal.

Dan responded, as he always does, with: “You are a liberal."

“I just try to do the right thing.”

"Actually, you do the left thing, but the left thing is usually the right thing,” he said.

And that's when I discovered that Dan, too, is a closeted, oppressed Idaho liberal.

It's unfortunate that in deciding whether or not to write about my (possibly futile, occasionally silly) attempts at green/socially conscious living, I feel like I have to consider the fact that I might offend some of my more conservative friends and family members. I mean, shouldn't taking care of the planet just be a given, regardless of political/religious background?

I guess not. I recently heard an anecdote about a missionary who didn't think we should be concerned about taking care of our environment because Armageddon is on its way. (What the . . . ?)

Not every Christian shares this man's opinion. At my church, our minister said one Sunday that Christians should take care of the Earth out of respect for God's creation.

So what I'm saying is that my next two blog postings will focus on my efforts to decrease my so-called carbon footprint (whatever that means) and the ridicule (much of it brought on by my own silly ideas) I have had to endure as a result of my (somewhat) socially conscious living.

Next Week: I'll talk about the little changes I've made in trying to be socially and environmentally conscious and the question I ask myself on a daily basis: am I really making a significant, positive impact on our planet, or am I just doing it to feel good about myself?

April 22: I'll talk about my obsessive recycling habits and how those have caused me (mostly good-natured) derision from fellow Idahoans on more than one occasion.

Spring Break: My Battlestar Galactica Pilgrimage

2011-04-02T16:00:00.001-06:00

Dan and I visited Seattle over spring break. One of the main attractions, in case you didn't catch my sci-fi nerd post, was the new Battlestar Galactica exhibit at the EMP /SFM.

"Are you going to dress up like the characters when you go to the museum?" a second grade teacher asked after I had explained my spring break plans to the entire lunch crowd in the faculty room.

"No, but only because my husband's too shy. If he weren't so reserved, we probably would have had a Star Wars wedding. I would have drawn the line at walking down the aisle in double buns and a metal bikini."

We left early on a Saturday morning, even though we only planned to drive a couple of hours to Baker City, Oregon that day.

"Becky, I already locked that door," Dan called to me from the driver's seat after I had made him stop the car so that I could double check all of the locks.

"Your neuroses are cute," Dan said when I finally let him back out of the garage. "I just have to keep reminding myself of that."

And we were off.

DAY 1

Baker City, Oregon

We visited the Oregon Trail Museum I had found in our AAA tour book while we waited for the hotel check-in time.

We stayed at the Geiser Grand Hotel, a historic turn-of-the-century hotel. It is rumored to be haunted, a fact that Dan failed to mention until after checking us in. That night, the hotel was conducting a special Ghost Hunters evening from 9 p.m.-2 a.m. The "expedition" cost $50 a person which lessened the appeal for my husband (fortunately).

I told Dan that we were going to attempt an offline vacation, meaning limited cell phone use, no Facebook, no e-mails, no computer games, etc. I allowed Dan to bring a laptop so that we could watch movies or T.V. shows on Hulu and so that we could look up driving directions or make dinner reservations.

By the time I checked my phone messages that night, my dad had already texted me a few times and left a voice mail message.

Then I caught Dan on Facebook.

"I'm not communicating with anyone," he said, "just looking."

"You never communicate with anyone. How's this any different?"

That was the extent of our offline vacation attempt.

Day 2

Leavenworth, Washington

That morning, we ate at a local diner in Baker City where the customers, servers, and cooks all seemed to know each other. One proud grandfather carried a bright-eyed, smiling baby, sprawled out tummy first, from table to table.

"Say 'hi,'" the grandfather instructed the baby as he approached each table.

Eventually, the older gentleman and baby made their way over to our table and paused for a moment, trying to decide what to do; we were obviously the only non-locals in the restaurant.

"Say 'hi' to them too!"

After a brief stop and cider tasting in Cashmere, we arrived in Leavenworth, a Washington ski town created in the image of a Bavarian Village.

"It's hard for the locals to go to the Leavenworth," the cider mill clerk in Cashmere had said. "But you've got to go there if you're a tourist."

We stayed at the Icicle Village Inn and Resort that night and ate at Andreas Keller, a Bavarian-inspired restaurant with live accordion music.

"Why am I always so hungry, especially after just sitting in the car for hours?" I asked my husband as I wolfed down a platter of Käsespätzle.

"You just talk so much that you burn off a ton of energy," was his reply.

Day 3

Seattle, Washington

The next morning, we spent some time in Leavenworth strolling through the shops, but pretty soon, we got Seattle-antsy and hit the road for the Emerald City.

As we approached the city, we realized we hadn't quite timed our drive around rush-hour traffic. Dan glanced longingly at the carpool lane.

"We need to pick up a hitchhiker," he suggested.

I didn't look up from my book but simply shook my head and mouthed "no."

That evening, after dining at Place Pigalle, we spent some time browsing in the Westlake Center across from our hotel. Dan stopped abruptly in front of one of the store displays.

"I should wear that," he pointed to a blue t-shirt that read, "Relax, I'm hilarious."

Day 4

Seattle, Washington

After breakfast at Lowell's Cafe (our favorite Seattle breakfast spot), Dan and I toured the historic underground at Pioneer Square. We spent the rest of the afternoon in the Capitol Hill District and at Volunteer Park. Dan convinced me to climb an uber-number of steps to the top of an old water tower, and I, in turn, convinced him to spend the rest of our time in a greenhouse at the edge of the park. I love plants and flowers and vegetable gardens, and Dan - well - Dan loves me.

We saw Billy Elliot at the Paramount that night.

"Are you going to the theater tonight?" our server at Il Fornaio asked, apparently reading our minds.

When we said yes, he did a little tap dance in front of the table - "But that's all you get from me," he said and walked away.

Day 5

Seattle, Washington

I woke up the next morning, melancholy because I knew we would have to leave the next day.

"We haven't even done what we came here to do," Dan said.

I stood outside the bathroom door still dressed in my pajamas, toothbrush hanging out of my mouth.

"Battlestar Galactica!" I exclaimed in a throaty stage whisper.

"So get ready, and we can actually go."

We made it to the Seattle Center without much mishap. Dan did try to turn the wrong way down a one-way street. ("I would have figured it out eventually." "Yeah, with all the cars racing toward you.")

At the BSG exhibit, I overheard one of the employees (who must have also been a fan) trying to explain the differences between humans and Cylons to a couple of middle-aged women who had never seen the show.

"And the actor who played Gaius Baltar is on a new Syfy channel show called Eureka. And he made a comment in one of the episodes about seeing a woman in a slinky red dress. That was so funny. It was, of course, a reference to Battlestar Galactica . . ."

"That's nice," said the women politely.

The pathetic thing was that Dan and I knew the exact Eureka episode and BSG inside joke to which the nerdy, sci-fi fan/employee was referring.

After adequate time admiring the displays of costumes (yes, the slinky red dress was there), Vipers, Centurions, and Raiders, we spent the rest of the day hanging out in bookstores and record shops until dinner at Chandlers Crab House on Lake Union.

Day 6

The Road Home

On our way out of Seattle, I played the ________ or ________ game, neglecting my duties of navigating Dan's way out of town.

"Seattle or New York?" "Silver Platters or Easy Street Records?" "Billy Elliot or American Idiot?" "Capitol Hill or Greenwich Village?"

"Wait! You need to take I-90 East!" I yelled, interrupting the fun travel activity I had just created.

"I thought we stayed on I-5 longer," Dan said as he swerved across the forked interstate road.

"Your butt's I-5."

Dan sighed, "I have such an intelligent wife."

When Your Little Brother Gets Married

2011-03-20T14:00:00.001-06:00

My brother and sister-in-law, Steve and Kali, are celebrating their first year of marriage. In honor of their inaugural anniversary, I am exploiting - - I mean, devoting this week's blog posting to their merry nuptials that occurred one year ago today.

Like any dedicated older sister who moonlights as a humor blogger, I took notes in the midst of all the festivities last year and then proceeded to misplace the notes which led to a minor freak out a few days ago when I had finally decided to write about my sister-of-the-groom experience. Fortunately, I found them tacked onto the back of a 2008 journal entry that had nothing whatsoever to do with the wedding.

So, lucky you, here it is: my first official wedding blog post, through the eyes of the older sister.

I arrived at the rehearsal to find out that several members of the wedding party were suffering from various ailments. I had just gotten over a head cold. My father, who was officiating part of the ceremony, had been battling laryngitis; both of my stepsisters had colds, one of them had even caught strep throat; and Kali, the bride, had also been recently diagnosed with strep. One of the bridesmaids was on crutches, and the flower girl was at home throwing up. That's how the wedding weekend commenced.

The restaurant for the rehearsal dinner had been double-booked, and the banquet room that my father had supposedly reserved was unavailable. Instead, after a discussion that ended with profuse apologies from the manager, the hostess sat us in several booths and tables that were grouped together in the middle of the restaurant. (I should mention that every time my father steps foot in that restaurant now, he is instantly recognized and gushed over. And he has since received a few free meals as a result of the ordeal.)

We spent the evening laughing, sharing family memories. Steve's childhood friend, Luke, entertained everyone with his animated storytelling just like old times. Aunt Rita and I relived stories about my 4-foot-9, 66-pound, 97-year-old grandmother. Dan refused to smile for the candid photos ("You will smile tomorrow in Steve's wedding pictures, even if I have to tickle you," I warned) and then he applauded when, during a rare moment of speechlessness, I announced, "I don't have anything to say!" My point in sharing this snapshot of rehearsal dinner anecdotes is simply to illustrate that the minor wedding mishaps did not succeed in dampening anyone's spirits.

The next morning, we were taken by limousine to the Boise Train Depot to have our pictures taken. The wind was in a rather uncooperative mood, obviously not understanding that all of the bridesmaids were wearing hot pink, sleeveless spring dresses and had already collectively put on their make up and styled their hair. And my skin turns purple when I am cold, so I figured I would end up looking like a purple and pink Popsicle in all of the photographs. It also occurred to me, as I tried to squeeze my body into a corner of the depot's outer wall to block the obstinate wind for a moment, that I was being placed at the end of every line. Even in my 2 1/2-inch heels, I was still the shortest.

But not as short as the organist whose feet barely reached the pedals . . .

She ended every sentence with "honey" even when addressing the minister: "Okay, honey." "I'll play that in E-flat, honey." "That song comes after the unity candle, right, honey?"

And the wedding coordinator?

A nice lady, graying hair, probably in her mid to late sixties, she showed up at the church in a wide-brimmed, Titanic-era hat, with a huge flower hanging off the front. It was hot pink.

"I found the perfect hat to match your wedding colors!" she told Kali excitedly. "How do you like it?"

"It's very nice," Kali attempted politely.

I entered the bride's room to find my stepmother, Kali's mother, and a few bridesmaids huddled around the bride trying to figure out how to put up the bustle for the reception.

"No, that doesn't look right," Kali kept saying in futility as everyone kept prodding and poking at her rear-end trying to find the ever elusive hook.

I was reminded of a similar scene in my own pre-wedding dressing room almost seven years earlier: an already jittery bride, crowded by the entire female wedding party, hunting for one little button on which my entire mobility at the reception relied, a task that did not seem all that complicated but had, in fact, proven to be rocket science.

Eventually, an exasperated Kali sent everyone away from her - as I had seven years before - resigned to the fact that her wedding train just might drag behind her on the floor all night long. (Luckily, the photographer was able to fix her bustle later that afternoon.)

The wedding ceremony - complete with the tiny organist, the hot pink hat on the head of the wedding coordinator, the bridesmaid on crutches, and the flower girl who had recovered from her stomach bug - went quite smoothly. My father, in typical form, worked in some sort of baseball metaphor when talking about Steve's marriage to Kali. I was just relieved he didn't say anything about getting to first base (or hitting a home run that night).

At the reception, Kali surprised Steve with a St. Louis Cardinal penguin wedding cake. Besides Kali, penguins and the St. Louis Cardinals are two of Steve's favorite things in the world.

Apparently, the D.J. had strict instructions from Kali not to play certain songs at the reception ("The Chicken Dance," "The Electric Slide," "YMCA," etc.). But Steve's friend, Luke, requested every song that was on Kali's do-not-play list. Of course, these are the songs that drew the most people to the dance floor.

Imagine my amazement when my father, the Baptist minister, showed up on the floor to dance to the "YMCA." I had never seen my father dance aside from the one time I tried to give him lessons for a charity ball when I was about six. I tried to teach him how to box waltz to one of my Sesame Street records. I don't think he learned much. Dan, the anti-dancer just sat and stared at me, relieved I was not forcing him onto the dance floor. (Between my father and my husband, this explains why there was no dancing at my wedding.)

So the evening ended, and my brother was happily married off.

Anyone who knows my family at all knows there was one part of the puzzle missing. But I think my stepmother, Emmy, said it best at the rehearsal dinner the night before.

"I am privileged to be a part of this. But I want everyone to remember that Steve had a wonderful mom, and it's such an honor for me to represent her."

Missing, but not forgotten . . .

A Brief Exposition on My Grocery Shopping Habits

2011-03-12T17:00:00.002-07:00

I am a rather unusual grocery shopper. Not only am I extremely neurotic, but I often suffer from open-mouth-insert-foot syndrome. I try to keep this ailment in check most of the time except when I get behind a grocery cart.

Before going shopping, I make a list every week from my monthly menu grid which is color-coded according to the season. I then number each item in the order of the supermarket aisles, and I put a dot next to the items for which I have coupons. I draw a cloud around some of the produce items. The clouds mean that those particular fruits and vegetables are traditionally the most pesticide-ridden and that I need to buy the organic versions. After I am sufficiently organized, the fun begins.

Here is my "grocery list" of some of my most infamous remarks during the weekly act of supermarket hilarity.

"See those strawberries? They are much redder because they have pesticides all over them." (I saw a fellow shopper put down the carton he was holding as I loudly made this remark.)

"Should I start dressing older now that I’m getting gray hair?" I asked my husband, Dan, as he bagged (organic) apples. Of course, I was standing by the bananas which were at the opposite end of the aisle. In other words, not only did I ask Dan this question, but I asked it of all the other Saturday grocery shoppers as well.

"Think again!" I said, giving my husband "the teacher look" as he tried to sneak donuts into the cart.

Dan always wants to “help," but when I send him after fresh ginger and crackers, he will say, “Ginger is not really on the way to the crackers.” My husband is a shortest distance between two points type of person. He doesn't like to backtrack.

One week, I finally said to him (I think I remember my own mother saying this to me when I would "help" her with the grocery shopping), “You said you’d go all over the store for me. So I’m sending you all over."

"Fine, I won’t buy tortillas!" I said, tears welling up in my eyes. "Why does everything contain partially hydrogenated oil?"

"See if you can find any - " I paused, glanced around warily, and lowered my voice, " - Fair Trade spices."

"Why are you whispering?" Dan asked.

"So people won't think I'm liberal. We are in Idaho, after all."

"Should I buy these biodegradable tampons and pads? They cost more than Tampax and Stayfree, but they are packaged with less plastic."

It was the first time Dan refused to acknowledge my existence as I followed him around the produce aisle, my arms overflowing (no pun intended) with three large cardboard boxes of feminine hygiene products.

"Why won't you answer me?" I asked him.

There you have it. If you hear someone making odd, random statements during your weekly trip to the supermarket, look down the aisle. You could be witnessing the grocery shopping habits of one of your favorite bloggers . . . me.

Flashlight Man: A Story of Neighborly Espionage

2011-03-06T14:30:00.000-07:00

As of Monday night, my husband Dan and I unofficially joined the ranks of the Neighborhood Watch, inevitably trading in our edgy, progressive, quiet-young-couple-on-the-block status for a new role: the nosy, responsible, suburbanites who could be watching you — yes, you — through binoculars from a perch in the kitchen.

The evening began innocently enough. We were watching Castle, starring our friend Nathan Fillion (big fans of his ever since Firefly, just in case you forgot we are sci-fi nerds) when Dan saw a beam of light shining from the house diagonally behind us.

After rejecting my idea that there was an alien abduction occurring in our backyard, Dan noticed the beam of light was protruding from a dark figure circulating our neighbor's house. Dan concluded that the dark figure was carrying a flashlight.

I, in turn, concluded, "He's trying to break in!"

The dark figure was actually a middle-aged man, dressed in a polo shirt and jeans who looked as though he was checking out the siding and the second floor window frames. Why he was doing this at 9:00 in the evening rather than during daylight hours was a mystery to us. And that also begged the question, why, if he was a burglar — a very preppy burglar — would he be trying to break into the upper story windows?

“Should we yell at him?” I asked Dan.

“What would you say?”

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Call Paul," he suggested, referring to a neighbor friend and an active Homeowners Association member. "He knows everyone. He’s probably watching this guy from his own house.”

Dan flipped on our porch light. It didn’t get Flashlight Man’s attention, so I started flicking the light on and off.

“What are you doing?" Dan said. "Sending him Morse code?”

I kept flicking until Dan put his hand over the light switch.

“Don’t do that! That’s just stupid!”

By this time, I had thoroughly amused myself and was practically rolling around on the floor laughing at my poor mortified husband.

Dan left the kitchen for a minute and then returned, motioning to me excitedly, "Come in here. You can see better from the bathroom window!"

The only way to see through the window in our master bathroom is to stand in the bathtub. So the two of us climbed into the bathtub, making sure to keep the lights off, lest Flashlight Man discovered us on our clandestine mission.

Flashlight Man circled the entire house. At times, he looked as though he were measuring the windows and examining the side panels. If he was casing the joint, he wasn't being very sneaky or inconspicuous. He was also shining the flashlight right by the house's lit-up living room, which made me think our neighbors were actually at home. In fact, it finally dawned on me, maybe Flashlight Man was our neighbor, and this was his house.

Eventually, Flashlight Man went back into the house through the unlocked garage door, simultaneously turning off the porch light.

“He wouldn’t have the porch light on and casually walk into the house through an already unlocked door if he was trying to break in, would he?” I asked Dan.

Dan didn't answer. He was too busy watching Flashlight Man, who had just appeared inside the house.

“What’s he doing now?” Dan whispered. “He’s getting into the fridge.”

“And now he’s picking up a T.V. remote," I said. "And now . . . I think he’s looking at us! Can he see us?”

“Probably, especially after you used our porch light as a telegraph.”

“Eeeek!” I squealed, and I clambered out of the bathtub, giggling.

That night, when we were getting into bed, Dan climbed back in the bathtub and looked out the window longingly. (I think he may have pictured himself as a skinny Jack Bauer in an episode of 24.) Then he gasped.

“He’s got the flashlight again!" Dan said, a little too eagerly. "Oh, never mind. It’s just a reflection from someone's living room light.”

And that is the story of how Dan and I became our neighborhood's most voyeuristic couple. Good thing nobody knows about this self-appointed covert operation of ours . . . yet.

An Unsuccessful Attempt to Launder Pillows

2011-02-28T17:00:00.007-07:00

Spring is right around the corner. And that means, so is spring cleaning. I like and want my house organized and clean. But because of a few minor deficiencies in my ability to properly use large appliances, my forays into spring cleaning often turn out more complicated than necessary.

Take last year's attempt at spring cleaning. I decided that I needed to wash the pillows. I chose this course of action one afternoon while washing our pillowcases and realizing that the naked, yellowed and stained pillows were creating an eyesore against the khaki green duvet. For my final load of laundry that day, I threw the pillows into the washer.

About ten minutes later, I heard a loud thumping coming from the laundry room. It's not that unusual to hear a bump or two in the washer, maybe from a heavy winter coat or a pair of Keds thrown in with a load of whites. But this particular bumping reminded me of those scenes in B-movies when everything is silent and all that is heard is the distant, rumbling footstep of an ominous creature approaching with painstaking deliberation, each thump causing a ripple in the lake or a shake in the trees. That's what my washer sounded like that afternoon.

I cautiously opened the door to the laundry room and felt the linoleum vibrate underneath my feet. The washer had walked away from the wall and trembled every time the pillows hit the bottom of the machine.

Curious as to how pillows could be so heavy to cause a washing machine to walk to the opposite side of the room, I tentatively opened the washer door and found that the pillows had metamorphosed into water-filled sandbags. I tried to wring them out but that proved futile, and I just didn't have enough upper body strength to hold up the pillows-turned-sandbags for the amount of time it required. So I threw them into the dryer with another load of clothes instead.

After an hour, the load was still thumping around at the beginning of the "More Dry" cycle. Worried about my excessive use of the earth's resources and my ever-increasing carbon footprint since my fateful decision that morning to launder the pillows, I opened the dryer and found the pillows stuck to the top, showering everything with water.

The pillows had burst like oversized water balloons, and all of the other clothes in the load were saturated. I grabbed the four pillows and ran into the master bathroom, a trail of water trickling behind me. I threw the pillows into the bathtub where they stayed for the next 24 hours.

It took a while for the rest of the load to dry, but eventually our clothes were wearable again.

Meanwhile, I made the bed sans pillows.

"You made the bed without the pillows?" my husband asked that afternoon. "What's the purpose of that?"

"I need some sort of consistency in my life, something in balance, something not as messy as those crazy pillows drying out in the bathtub."

Dan laughed at my philosophizing.

“I never worry about washing pillows because you just put pillowcases over them,” he said.

"Too bad you weren't here to tell me that a few hours ago," I muttered.

Wonder Dan Turns Me Into a Sci-Fi Nerd

2011-02-20T13:00:00.001-07:00

Just in case you missed my last entry, in honor of the Month of Looove, I am dedicating February's postings to my fabulous husband Wonder Dan. Today's title is slightly misleading. Wonder Dan did not exactly turn me into a sci-fi nerd. He merely rekindled my enjoyment of the genre. My father had actually planted the seed several years earlier.

My mother didn't like science fiction. She didn't even like the Star Wars franchise, a bit blasphemous during the era in which I was born. By the time I was able to walk, I was my dad's "date" to anything science fiction (kid-friendly science fiction, of course) - Star Trek, Star Wars, Starman, Stargate, Tron. We would watch Earth 2 and Deep Space Nine while my mother cooked dinner and washed dishes. My younger brother, Steve, who became an enthusiastic X-Files and Twilight Zone fan, was eventually included in the fun. Steve was in elementary school when he was initiated into the Sci-Fi Nerd-dom. My father took the two of us to Jurassic Park. Unfortunately, Steve kept insisting that he had to go to the bathroom every time a Velociraptor appeared on the screen, and my dad missed about 85% of the movie.

In college, I occasionally watched Mystery Science Theater 3000 and kept up on The X-Files when I visited my family during holiday breaks. But for the most part, my "close encounters of the sci-fi kind" were limited in my early twenties.

Then I met my husband Dan. Where I have inspired in him a broader appreciation for all things musical (specifically, all things musical theater), he has re-inspired in me a love for all things science fiction. I have a sneaking suspicion that he somehow sensed my latent sci-fi passion, and this is one of the reasons he married me.

"A girl who likes sci-fi!" Dan probably thought after he took me to Star Trek Nemisis. "What a catch!"

Then he proposed.

Now that we are an old married couple, our weekends usually consist of watching V, Fringe, Eureka, and Warehouse 13 on the DVR. Every once in a while, my husband will exclaim, "He was on Star Trek Enterprise!" or "That's so-and-so from Voyager!" It is at those moments that I realize we watch way too much television.

Some of my sci-fi experiences have touched me deeply, maybe even changed my life although that sounds awfully melodramatic.

I cried through the entire final season of Lost. And I must not leave out my strange attachment to Battlestar Galactica (a.k.a. BSG - the most recent series, although I am certain we'll get around to watching the 70's version soon). We had been watching Caprica, the prequel to BSG, but sadly it was canceled this season which elicited tears from me once again.

I watched 2001: A Space Odyssey with Dan a few years ago. It was my first time - I was a Space Odyssey virgin - and now I find myself half expecting a soothing male voice to come out of my computer from time to time and introduce himself as HAL.

Of course, Dan's influence on my sci-fi obsession isn't limited to movies and television. Since we have been married, I have read the C.S. Lewis Space Triology and have re-read Madeleine L’Engle's Wrinkle in Time Quintet. Somewhere on my (very long) must-read-before-I-die list is Brave New World and The Handmaid’s Tale.

Recently in Seattle, Dan and I bought tickets to visit the Science Fiction Museum and Experience Music Project (EMP/SFM). Remember, I'm a music teacher, and I just love the EMP. But guess who had a hard time tearing herself away from the Sci-Fi Museum that afternoon?

"Becky, we'd probably better go," Dan said, "or we won't have enough time to eat dinner before the show tonight."

"But look! It's the little robot from Buck Rogers!"

This just in: EMP/SFM is currently featuring a Battlestar Galactica Exhibition. I might have to make another trip to Seattle soon. Now that's sci-fi nerd dedication for you.

Wonder Dan Falls in Love With Musical Theater

2011-02-12T16:42:00.009-07:00

With Valentine's Day looming around the corner, I decided to dedicate the subject of my February blog postings to Wonder Dan, my fabulous husband. Much of my blog is spent "teasing" (a euphemism, he would say, for "making fun of") Dan and discussing the dynamics of our relationship. In honor of Valentine's Day, I thought it would be extra nice of me to focus on the many positive attributes of my husband. I've even chosen a nickname for him - Wonder Dan the Super Husband.

When Dan and I first started dating, he had no idea that he was also going to be forced into a relationship with musical theater. An Idaho native, raised in a rural town by an avid hunter and fisherman, Dan could not predict that he would be spending most of his married life watching theater productions. We go to an average of about twelve shows a year, and that doesn't include the must-see tours that come to nearby cities; Jesus Christ Superstar and Wicked in Seattle, Spring Awakening and The Lion King in Salt Lake are just a few examples.

Now would Wonder Dan have discovered this "passion" for musical theater without me? Probably not. But I think he secretly loooves it.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that often times I am the one performing in the musicals. He can spend all evening staring at me because - in reality - it's me that he loooves, so much so that he's been willing to develop an appreciation for a pass-time that he would never have otherwise considered.

Wonder Dan first saw me perform in a local production of Oliver! We had only been on a date or two by that time, but he came anyway and sat in the audience all by himself. After the show, he was waiting for me in the parking lot.

"Good job," he mumbled shyly, looking down at the asphalt. Then he waved goodbye and sauntered off to his car.

Since then, he has had to sit through many musicals and operas. If I am one of the performers, he always shows up with a bouquet of roses.

We go to all of the local community theater events together - Boise Little Theater, Boise Music Week, Music Theatre of Idaho, Opera Idaho, Idaho Shakespeare Festival, Boise Contemporary Theater. We even go to the Live in HD Metropolitan Opera showings at our local movie theater.

Eventually, I convinced him to buy season tickets to Broadway in Boise a few years ago, and the only production he missed due to a work responsibility was 42nd Street. That's when I realized Wonder Dan was actually started to like this crazy theater stuff.

Last summer in New York, we bought tickets ahead of time to three Broadway shows without any protestations from Wonder Dan.

Our last night in NYC, it was Dan who suggested, “We’ve got one more night here. Maybe we should see another show.”

I think he has discovered that not all musicals are Rogers and Hammerstein.

Musicals like Spring Awakening, American Idiot, Chicago, Sweet Charity, and Promises Promises have elicited responses from him such as, “abstract,” “conceptual,” “postmodern,” and "Kristin Chenoweth sounds really good live.”

Most recently, we saw Sondheim's Company, after which Dan commented on the "cool lyrics."

"Well, duh. It's Sondheim," was my reply.

And remember that avid hunter and fisherman who raised Wonder Dan? Dan’s father, an outdoors enthusiast and a retired Fish and Game Officer, has even been known to drive all the way up from Rigby to watch me perform. I seriously doubt that I would have ever seen him in an audience of Beauty and the Beast, Into the Woods, Jekyll and Hyde, or The King and I had it not been for my influence on Wonder Dan's family. Pride in loved one's achievements must run in Wonder Dan's genes.

In a recent Fresh Air interview, Ed Helms (who plays Andy on The Office) told Terry Gross, "I think anyone who says they don't like Broadway musicals is lying or trying to be too cool for school or something because they're just unstoppably good songs."

As much as Wonder Dan tries to be "too cool for school," in his heart, I think he truly respects this great art form. And getting to see his wife strut around on stage occasionally (sometimes a little suggestively) is probably a definite plus.

Students Come First? (An Idaho Taxpayer's Perspective)

2011-01-31T15:00:00.001-07:00

Idaho Public Education Superintendent Tom Luna recently unveiled a controversial education budget proposal entitled "Students Come First." As an Idaho taxpayer and citizen, I am extremely interested in any legislation that impacts what I consider to be one of the most important social programs in our entire political system - the public schools. Much of his plan looks attractive on paper and uses appealing rhetoric. However, The Boise School District asks, “Are there elements of the SDE [State Department of Education] proposal that advance our students’ preparation for college and career?” At what expense do we blindly accept this proposal of reform to our public education system?

If students truly come first, these are the questions that should concern us - the taxpayers, the parents, the students, the general public - the most.

Luna's proposal includes increased funding for technology. Sounds promising. But these funding "efficiencies" are contingent upon raising class sizes and requiring online courses.

Raising the Average Student-Teacher Ratio

Luna states on the SDE website, "Fact: When you take a comprehensive look at all the credible research available, you will find no substantial correlation between class sizes and student outcomes. The studies referenced in Tennessee and Texas have been dispelled by more in-depth studies in California in [sic] other states."

I have not seen the "in-depth studies" alluded to by Superintendent Luna which were apparently conducted in California and in other states. I also did not find links or parenthetical references to these studies on the SDE website. But I am not a master researcher, just an Idaho taxpayer.

However, I was able to track down several research articles, including a few studies that occurred in California regarding the positive impact of smaller class size upon student learning and achievement. Refer to http://classsizematters.org/research.html and "The 7 Myths of Class Size Reduction -- And the Truth."

On the January 20 broadcast of Idaho Public Television's Dialogue, Luna contended that most of the average student to teacher ratios in surrounding states surpass Idaho’s ratio. Idaho actually falls somewhere in the middle. If the student-teacher ratio is increased to the proposed 19.8, Idaho will have the second highest compared to the surrounding states.

Does raising the average student-teacher ratio “advance students’ preparation for college and career?” Probably not. Unless raising class sizes (via the average student-teacher ratio) has a positive educational impact on our Idaho students, comparing these numbers to the surrounding states, as Luna does, is inconsequential.

Mandating Online Courses

Luna states on the SDE website, "Fact: Under Students Come First, the state will just require that just eight of the 46 credits a student must take to graduate are online. That means of the six courses a student takes each semester, one will now be online."

Point of clarification: According to the January 20 broadcast of Dialogue, Luna has tweaked his plan. Students will now be required to take six courses online (as opposed to two per year) between grades 9-12.

Many districts already offer online courses for students who need to repeat coursework, free up electives, and take courses that they can’t fit into their schedules. But online coursework is an option, not a mandate.

Mandating online classes limits a parent's and student's ability to choose the method of delivery and instruction. The plan inhibits the amount of personal interaction between a teacher and his/her students and replaces it with a virtual model.

An interesting side note: Luna received a $25,000 campaign donation from the political group Idahoans for Choice in Education. The money came directly from the for-profit Virginia-based K12 Management Inc., a private corporation that provides curriculum for Idaho’s Virtual Academy, an online charter school that often services home schooled families. Which begs the question: Is Luna's online course mandate motivated by political donations or purely by the needs of our Idaho students?

For more information regarding the impact of private corporate dollars on our American public school system, see Diane Ravitch's The Death and Life of the Great American School System.

If the implementation of mandated online courses does not specifically “advance our students’ preparation for college and career,” (as opposed to allowing private corporations to steer the course of public education) then should it be considered?

Conclusion

A public school reform proposal should promote equal education for the masses. If technology is the answer, perhaps we should provide equal access to classroom technology in districts that lack interactive whiteboards, projectors, high-tech calculators, lab probes, school computers, educational software, and clickers (which have been mentioned as part of the SDE proposal). I do not dismiss the importance of technology in our public schools, but it should not be dependent upon increasing class sizes and reducing teaching positions.

And anyway, will our Idaho students - most of them already fully equipped with technological expertise - acquire 21st century knowledge and skills by simply being handed a laptop and being forced to take a few online courses?

Please contact your legislator to voice your opinion on this matter: http://www.legislature.idaho.gov/howtocontactlegislators.htm

Postscript: How Arts Education Will Fare Under Luna's Proposal

Several Idaho parents, students, and educators, who had experienced the elimination of various arts programs across the state, testified at the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC) public hearing on Friday, January 21. One Hansen mother tearfully proclaimed this to be the first year that the senior class would graduate without the school band's accompaniment of "Pomp and Circumstance."

Let us remember that the SDE has established Humanities Standards (Dance, Music, Theater, Visual Arts, and World Languages) which are rarely - if at all - being met in our public schools.

Arts programs face further danger under Luna's proposal. As currently written, only salary and benefits will be negotiated under Luna’s plan.

In some districts, this could mean the elimination of prep times. Prep time is often covered by music and/or P.E. instruction, especially at the elementary level. The absence of mandatory prep time would reduce the need for those classes (at least in the eyes of our bureaucratic system). Whether or not they provide prep time, the arts are imperative academic disciplines with cognitive, emotional, and cultural benefits that should never be dismissed.

"Music making not only supports the development of math skills, but of all skills, for all kinds of students (Catterall, et al. 2000)" from Eric Jensen's Music with the Brain in Mind (p. 35).

If the state of Idaho truly wants a competitive education system, as Luna's current proposal purports, arts and music education should be reinstated immediately in the public schools throughout the state.

For further reading:
Jensen, E. (2000). Music With the Brain in Mind. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
Jensen, E. (2001). Arts With the Brain in Mind. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Podcasts: A Thirty Hour a Week Job

2011-01-28T07:00:00.008-07:00

I have recently discovered yet another time-sucking activity involving the wonders of technology - podcasts. I realize that podcasts have been around for a while, but you have to understand that I am from the generation that was just on the cusp of the technological boom.

So, although I am not a total Luddite, I am a bit slow to embrace all of the technological advances circulating around us. I am much more likely to use a new device if it promises to make my life greener (such as eliminating paper statements or junk mail), more practical, or more efficient. I find myself much more reluctant to jump on the technology bandwagon if its only value is that of pure leisure and entertainment.

It began innocently enough. In one of my more impractical moments, I started subscribing to a podcast discussing the television show Lost. My husband, who often introduces me to my more unproductive activities, got me hooked. Pretty soon, I was devoting an hour every week to listening to the theoretical and philosophical aspects of the popular ABC show.

"What are these things you call podcasts? They are so interesting," I said to my husband one Saturday afternoon. "Can I subscribe to more of them?"

Dan proceeded to show me how to search for podcasts in iTunes, which incidentally is exactly like searching for music. Before I knew it, I had subscribed to NPR Music Interviews, NPR Books, Fresh Air, On Point Books, All Songs Considered, and This American Life. Eventually, I added an explicit “progressive” radio show that advocates all sorts of liberal ideas about corporate greed and socialism. I believe the latter to be some subconscious, latent act of rebellion against my somewhat conservative family.

Now I am stuck with getting through several hours of talk shows, interviews, and news stories throughout the week. Did I mention I also download public domain audio books?

I listen to podcasts in my car, at the grocery - like some teenage punk - on road trips, and occasionally during breaks at school. Remember, I am a music teacher, and I hardly listen to music on my iPod anymore.

The other day, the assistant principal thought I was rocking out during my lunch hour. I explained to him that I was listening to a music podcast. He was impressed, obviously believing that I am a nerd and that I am always looking for ways to develop my craft. These are all true suppositions.

But I was also glad to get through my three hours of podcasts before going to bed that night.

Aunt Bocky and Uncle Dennies

2011-01-21T07:00:00.011-07:00

My husband and I have an interesting effect on children. Since we are not parents ourselves, we rather enjoy handing kids back to our friends at the end of the day, hyper and hopped up on sugar. It's kind of like being the irresponsible and hip aunt and uncle.

As a music teacher of 500+ students, I spend all day keeping children under control. And I think Dan is just a big kid himself. So when we interact with other people's children in a social setting, we let our immaturity flags fly.

One evening, Dan and I went on a bike ride with some church friends, mostly adults. One of our friends had brought along her nephew though.

The three of us - Dan, the young boy, and I - rode ahead of everybody else. Once we were out of ear and eye shot, Dan started popping wheelies, bunny hopping, and riding with no hands - "Look, Ma!" - as we pedaled down the greenbelt. Pretty soon, our little friend was mimicking Dan's mad biking skills.

Dan and the boy rode down the path in silence, side by side. Dan would hop up on his bike, and our friend's nephew would hop up. Dan would let go of his handlebars, and our friend's nephew would let go of his handlebars. Dan would pop up on his rear wheel, and our friend's nephew would pop up on his rear wheel. At one point Dan was so consumed with flaunting his bicycle trickery that we almost lost the kid. He soon caught up with us, not be outdone by his new biking buddy. I felt much better when I heard the little boy admonishing the BMX riders we passed for not wearing helmets.

"At least we didn't completely corrupt him," I said later to Dan. "He still believes in wearing a helmet."

Our less-than-adult influence has also extended beyond Idaho. Dan and I visited some friends in Ohio one summer. They had two children at the time, both boys. I am afraid we might have left them completely wound up by the time our stay ended.

The oldest boy, a preschooler, called me "Bocky" (imagine a glottal stop on the 'ck') and Dan "Mister" or "Dennies" depending on his mood. He was so excited that he would repeat everything three or four times.

Dan and I encouraged his constant chatter. I laughed at everything he said because it was soooo cute, and Dan would periodically put his sunglasses on the back of his head, prompting fits of giggles and a loud "Mister!" from the little boy.

One time, while we were in the car, Dan was sitting between the two boys and was too busy goofing around with his sunglasses and the preschooler that he failed to notice the youngest boy was sticking his fingers down his throat.

"Dan, I think he's choking!" I exclaimed.

"Oh, yeah," my friend said calmly from the driver's seat, "he chokes himself sometimes. Don't let him do that. He makes himself throw up."

That afternoon, we were in a gift shop with my friend and her two boys. The oldest really, really wanted one of the Thomas the Train DVDs.

"We can't get it today. It's too expensive," my friend told him.

"Okay," he said. "C'mon, Bocky!"

He ran over to me, grabbed me by the hand, and dragged me across the store, all the while proclaiming (as all the women in the store grinned at him and murmured about how funny he was), "It's too 'SPENSIVE! We have to go, Bocky! It's too 'SPENSIVE! C'mon, Bocky! It's too 'SPENSIVE!"

Of course, my friend had other devious, motherly plans. As soon as she could get her little boy to let go of me, she handed me some cash and whispered, "Would you mind going back and buying the DVD in secret? His birthday's in a few days."

I did gladly. Being the cool aunt-type is fun when you get to take part in the clandestine missions that only parents know how to orchestrate.

I am pretty sure life went back to normal for our friends after we returned to Idaho. But Bocky and Mister Dennies left a trail of hyperactive energy in our wake. Hopefully, we didn't cause too many sleepless nights.

Communion for Dummies

2011-01-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

Lately, at church, Dan and I have found ourselves being asked to participate in a more adult capacity. When we were in our post-college twenties, people left us alone, probably figuring we were career-fast-track DINKs (Double Income No Kids). But once we hit our thirties, the calls started rolling in.

"Can you lead a small group?"

"Can you at least be in a small group?"

"Can you cook sausages for the youth breakfast?"

"Can you help at the food bank?"

"Can you serve on the mission/leadership/you-fill-in-the-blank board?"

Once my husband was asked, "Don't you want to pray about it first?" to which he replied, "No" and hung up the phone. (The following Sunday, not wanting the poor caller to think we were upset or offended by her request, I explained to her that my husband was a man of mostly one word answers, and we were flattered she even thought of us.)

I don't know what happened when Dan and I reached our thirties. We are still DINKs, still in the midst of a wild, fast-paced lifestyle, consisting mostly of watching Battlestar Galactica on the weekends. Maybe people think if you haven't had kids by the time you hit thirty, it is because you want to devote all of your time to church work.

Anyway, our church wants to bestow upon us more adult responsibility, but we are just not ready for it. We discovered this after we finally gave in and agreed to serve communion.

Baptists like their communion to move along. We don't go to the altar pew by pew to dip our bread and kneel and pray. We pass the bread while the minister talks a little bit about the body; then we pass the tiny plastic cups of grape juice (no alcohol - we are Baptists, after all) while the minister talks a little bit about the blood; then we're done. There was a lot of pressure on Dan and me to perform this task like . . . well . . . adults.

The first week, we were stationed at the front of the sanctuary. I could almost see the motors cranking in Dan's engineer brain as he tried to figure out how to get the two of us back up to the front, each of us carrying a plate.

In our attempts to serve communion scientifically, I ended up making a little old lady scoot all the way across an empty pew to pass the heavy plate along when I could have just held it for her.

"Maybe I should have made that little old lady on my pew scoot too," Dan told me later as I lamented my inconsiderate behavior. "Then it would have worked out."

At the next pew, thinking I had learned my lesson, I started to take the plate back from another elderly woman in an attempt to prevent her from having to pass it herself. But Dan gave me a subtle shake of his head indicating that this did not fit into his formula. That little old lady also had to scoot down the pew with a heavy tray of grape juice in her hand.

A few rows later, Dan started to pass the plate but quickly yanked it away as the person attempted to grab a cup ("Give me five . . . Too slow, Joe"). Then Dan gestured to me to pass the plate from the opposite side.

Despite our efforts, Dan still ended up carrying two plates, and I ended up with zero. And we snickered our way through the entire ritual which has to be some sort of heresy. We were pretty certain we would be banished for life from communion service.

But the next month, we were still on the roster.

"We don't know why we keep getting asked to do this," I told the minister before the church service. "We really suck at it." (I realize this is probably not the most reverent phrase to use while speaking to a minister about communion.)

"Maybe you should write a book on how not to serve communion," he said, laughing at my apparent anxiety. "You could call it Communion for Dummies."

Later, when he was making his way up the aisle, he leaned over and said with a smile, "Now don't be nervous about communion, you two."

That was the week Dan was worried about serving the minister and the musicians. He had talked about it all morning, wondering if he should serve them before, during, or after the prayer or if he should serve them before the rest of congregation.

After serving, we are supposed to wait in the middle of the sanctuary until someone (usually the tallest person) nods his/her head. Then we return to the front, the perfect time to serve those behind the pulpit.

But Dan broke away from the rest of us and raced up the aisle toward the musicians and minister. I started off after him whispering, "WAIT!"

I stopped as soon as I realized people were staring at us and, like a good rule-following former preacher's kid, stood patiently until given the signal to return to the front.

Surprisingly, we still weren't fired.

But we were stationed in the back the next time.

This time, Dan forgot to take bread with him into the sanctuary.

“What are you doing?” I called after him, just above a stage whisper.

He stopped at the door and glanced around, trying to figure out what he was forgetting.

"You forgot the bread!" I said. "What are you thinking?"

“I was raised in a small church," he said, snatching the bread tray out of my hands. "We only needed one plate for the whole congregation.”

Dan and I still have not perfected the exact science of serving communion. But for some incomprehensible reason, we keep getting asked back.

In fact, last communion Sunday, the communion coordinator pumped our hands ardently and said, "Boy, am I glad you two are here. Thank you so much."

I almost said, "Are you sure? Have you ever watched us serve communion?"

Victory in 2011: The Blue Trail Conqueror

2011-01-07T07:30:00.000-07:00

When you first read about my cross-country skiing exploits (refer to Adventures in Cross-Country Skiing), you might have noticed that I was a bit of a chicken. I never ventured off the green trails except for the few times my devious husband would say with feigned assurance, "You'll be fine. The sign says 'More Difficult.' It's not like it's a black trail."

Then I would unintentionally prove him wrong as my body rolled down a hill or as I descended the slope on my bottom or occasionally my stomach.

"That will show him," I would think to myself as I climbed out of a snowbank. "I am indeed not fine at all."

But 2011 has transformed me into a reformed cross-country skier. Say goodbye to the yellow-bellied "I-Only-Ski-Green-Trails" chicken. I am "The Blue Trail Conqueror!"

My story carries with it a universal theme that I think all archetypal heroes experience at the beginning of their quest, the disbelief in their calling, self-doubt.

Last year, during one of our Nordic skiing outings, Dan said, "I think you are getting better at this. Would you want to try some blue trails sometime?"

"Absolutely not," I said indignantly. But I didn't stop there, "Just because you’re an adrenaline junkie doesn't mean I am. You knew that about me when you married me. That’s why I chose cross-country skiing; otherwise, I would have taken up snowboarding. Some people like leisurely activities without a lot of risk. This is a hobby, not insanity. The compromise is I do some of your activities at my own pace . . ." And I continued that way for the rest of the trail.

When the trail (and my tirade) finally ended, Dan's response was, "At least you ski faster when you're angry."

Eventually, I began to consider taking more difficult trails, but I never actually skied any of them. During one particular incident during this stage of my heroic epic, I was standing at the bottom of a hill, surveying a trail.

"It's not the going up I'm worried about. It's the fact that I wouldn't be able to stop on the way down, and I could die," I said. (A fellow skier laughed as she passed me, most certainly having heard my philosophizing on her way down the hill.)

This year, we happened to choose the perfect day for our first cross-country ski trip - a calm, overcast day, fluffy, powdery snow, a beautiful gray mist over the lake. And it was early in the winter break, so there were not many people on the trails who could crash into me.

Dan convinced me (“The powder will slow you down. And it’s softer when you fall.”) to climb a hill I had refused to attempt before. Usually, I would make it about halfway up and then turn around and ride down the gentle incline.

I had tried this same trail when we were first married (the self-doubt era of my epic journey). I had attempted the entire uphill and the descent on the other side that completed the loop. I found myself flying down the hill, gaining momentum, yelling at the other skiers, “I can’t stop!”
But I did stop (and drop and roll) right at the bottom of the hill (my heroic descent into Hades). Hence, my trepidation on this particular trail.

This year, however, the downhill did not seem nearly as steep as I had remembered it.

“Here’s the part I was talking about,” I would mutter . . . then, “No, never mind. It must be the next part of the hill that gave me such a hard time.”

“Uh oh, here we go," I would say, preparing once again for the free fall. "Um, never mind . . . that was fun.”

I continued that way down the entire hill until I made it gracefully to the bottom.

Dan took me on one more blue trail, a nemesis trail of mine that I had tried a few years ago and on which I had fallen as was my usual custom.

“There’s no way this is a blue trail. This is too much fun . . . They must have rerouted it since last time . . . It’s way easy. They must have it marked wrong . . . It can’t be done already. We didn’t even get to the hard part," were my responses throughout the trek.

“The powder must be slowing me down,” I said as we reached the end of the trail.

“I think you’re just getting better at this,” Dan said.

So that was how my 2011 commenced. I emerged from my quest victorious, The Blue Trail Conqueror!

What was Dan's response to my accomplishment, you ask?

"Do you think you'll want to try black trails sometime?"

Confessions of a Failed Gift Wrapper

2010-12-29T16:19:00.010-07:00

I am the worst gift wrapper in the world. Most of my gifts are wrapped in pieced-together paper. My excuse is that I am recycling scraps of wrapping, but the truth is I just have a habit of underestimating the amount of paper needed.

My husband is a gift wrapping master. I think it has to do with his engineer brain. That meticulous, patient, visual-spatial brain that allows him to spend hours staring at computer code also transforms him into the Martha Stewart of gift wrapping at Christmas time.

"Look at the fancy design I made with this ribbon," Dan says proudly, holding up a perfectly wrapped present, topped with a cutely looped red bow.

I admire his work and smile at him encouragingly, thankful that he has so eagerly completed this task which means there is one less item on my holiday to-do list.

Dan and I barely made it through our first Christmas together as husband and wife before he started taking on all of the gift-wrapping assignments. Whenever we have to wrap gifts for family or friends, Dan immediately volunteers his talents before I can even offer.

His gifts are the only gifts I am permitted to wrap anymore. A typical Christmas morning finds Dan examining his presents from me - the wrinkled paper, the scraps of jagged wrapping on those troublesome ends that have to be folded up like a paper airplane (I was never very good at making those either), the gobs of tape with bits of hair and rug debris stuck to the bottom.

"That looks pretty good this time . . ." he says, furrowing his brow.

Not only am I the worst gift wrapper, but I am also the most conspicuous gift wrapper.

First of all, Dan knows exactly where all of his gifts are hidden, and it's only because of a strict code of honor that he does not go looking for them (and because he already knows what he is getting year after year since he closely monitors our credit card statements - another byproduct of his engineer brain).

"You'll never find them. They are hidden somewhere you would never go," I boasted this Christmas.

"You mean under the bed in the doll room?"

It didn't help that when I went to hide his presents this year, I slammed the garage door and ran past him in a blur, shouting behind me, "Stay where you are!"

Along the same lines, when I go to wrap his gifts, I hop over to wherever he is in the house and say in a sing-song voice, "Don't follow me . . . I'm doing something secret . . . I'm locking the door . . ."

"The doll room doesn't have a lock . . ."

"Shoot!" I say. "Well then, don't come in any closed doors . . ."

By contrast, Dan disappears (which doesn't alarm me at all because Dan disappears quite often - refer to my blog post entitled, "My Husband, the Ninja"), secretly emerges a few minutes later, and sets his elegantly wrapped gifts under the tree.

Once, I told Dan a story about one Christmas during my early college years when my mother forced me to volunteer at the Salvation Army. I was spending a lot of time sitting around the house, whining about my weight and my appearance, and my mother was tired of my self-absorbed ramblings.

"You are going to spend some time helping others who have real problems," my mother said.

She sent me to the Salvation Army. I was assigned to gift wrapping duty.

“They actually let you wrap gifts?” my husband asked incredulously.

"That’s not the point. My mother taught me a lot about the detriment of self-pity that year."

“Still," muttered Dan, "they let you wrap gifts . . . Did they see the finished product?”

Sometimes the Holidays Are Not So Joyful

2010-12-24T06:07:00.004-07:00

One of my dearest friends lost her mother to pancreatic cancer yesterday, the day before Christmas Eve. In light of this terrible tragedy, I decided to postpone my typical witty repartee and dedicate my Christmas blog to my friend and my friend's family. It hardly seemed appropriate that I would write about my lack of gift-wrapping skills or the blue trail I conquered on my last cross-country skiing trip when my friend is suffering such terrible heartache right now.

My own mother died from cancer six years ago this January. The holidays are an excruciating time for anyone who has suffered loss, whether it happens in April, June, July, or December. But when we hear about a loss right before Christmas, it resonates deeper with us for some reason. Perhaps that is because Christmas is inherently a holiday about birth and renaissance. But death occurs when it occurs, oblivious to our cultural celebrations.

Our society handles death so strangely. At funerals, people will say you were "so strong" because you "didn't even shed a tear." That is called being completely numb and in denial - not unhealthy or abnormal, but it's still a manifestation of grief. Standard bereavement leave is about three days. We are told the grief process takes about a year, when that is just barely enough time for the shock to wear off. Then we are expected to be back to normal, when, in reality, nothing is ever "normal" in the same sense again.

When my mother died, I was so frustrated with the pat answers I would receive (especially from Christian friends). The other night when my friend called me after learning the devastating prognosis, I wanted so badly to encourage her that I am afraid I might have fallen back on some of the standard grieving jargon. For that, I apologize profusely.

The three most profound comforts when my mother died were snapshots that didn't require words at all. I remember my brother, Steve, and I sitting on either side of my mother waiting for the mortuary to take her away. I was seated on her right, Steve was on the left. We looked at each other and sighed wearily, almost in relief, in that brief moment clearly understanding what the other was feeling. I remember one of my best friends Tara hugging me at the funeral reception, her daughter in her arms, silent tears in her eyes, no words exchanged, just shared grief. And I remember my Aunt Rita and Aunt Jan helping in the kitchen and around the house, cooking, cleaning, taking care of the things my dad, brother, and I were too tired to think about.

I would get (and let's be honest, still get, because grief doesn't ever leave us completely) so angry - at God, at Dan my husband, at friends who didn't call enough and when they did call not actually wanting to talk to them, at the woman at church who was supposedly dying of cancer and everyone kept trying to get us to do this and that for her family and for her. But she hadn't died yet, and there I was dealing with death in its realest, most absolute form, not with some predicted death in the far off future.

And no matter how many friends or family members surrounded me during the days leading up to and following the funeral, I eventually found myself completely and utterly alone, in solitude and darkness, unwillingly encountering yet another wave of the human grieving experience.

Death never leaves us. There is always a void. Nothing is ever the same again. Especially during the holidays. Even when Dan and I fill our season with fun Christmas-oriented activities or we spend time with our new family, I still miss . . . something.

But eventually, there are moments of solace and consolation. My mother was an author and a journalist, and because of this, I still have record of my mother through her writings and her old diaries. Sometimes, I can hear her voice so vividly that she seems to be standing in the room with me. And in spite of my theological skepticism on the issue of ghosts and spirits, I could swear she was watching me during my performance of Anna in The King and I. Maybe these are God's ways of assuring us that He's still there even when we don't believe it. And, my dear friend, there may be times when you won't believe it.

Remember my friend, my sister, I love you.

A "Sew-Called" Feminist

2010-12-01T13:14:00.006-07:00

When my mother died, I somehow inherited her sewing machine. I am not exactly sure why anyone would think that I would be interested in owning a sewing machine. I have been quite vocal throughout my lifetime about my disdain for stereotypical gender roles and, as a result, refused to learn how to sew - that is until I was an adult and, out of necessity, had to figure out how to sew on a button.

However, I never learned how to sew on a machine. My mother tried to teach me once or twice when I was a child, but I soon lost patience and spent my sewing lessons playing with my Barbies instead (because Barbie is not about stereotypical gender roles at all . . .).

For some reason, my brother didn't want the sewing machine, and my father's wife already had a machine - probably a newer model than my mother's 1960-something Signature from Montgomery Ward.

"We had it tuned up for you!" my father exclaimed proudly as he carried the machine into the living room, holding it from the bottom - like an over-sized box - since the plastic handle was broken. Apparently, sewing machines are like cars and require tune-ups every now and them.

"What do I do with it?" I asked.

My dad shrugged. He was just relieved to get it out of storage.

The sewing machine lived in our garage for a few years. Sometimes it would catch my eye when I was getting out of the car and I would say, "I should do something with that thing."

"No you shouldn't," the pseudo-feminist voice in my head would say. "Just because you are a woman doesn't mean you need to know how to use a sewing machine."

A few months ago, I was in a theater production where I had to sew curtains. I could either spend hours hand-stitching the curtains, or I could run them through a machine in about half the time.

So my husband and I dragged the sewing machine into our house, wary of inconspicuous spiders that may have made their homes in this odd contraption we were introducing into our abode.

We gathered around the thing, owner's manual from approximately 1968 in hand. Upon opening the manual, I was overwhelmed with words like "zig zag" and "monogramming" and "overlock," and I promptly handed it over to Dan.

I soon discovered that engineers make much better seamstresses than . . . well . . . me. Dan sat down and threaded the machine with a dexterity that I had not previously realized he possessed. And as you have probably guessed, Dan is a lot more patient than I am which is a necessary attribute for a skilled seamstress.

"Loosen the hand wheel," he said in soothing tones. "Now put the thread through the tension discs. And pull the thread through a hole in the bobbin - "

"What the heck is a bobbin? Is that really a word?"

Dan held up a little round metal object with multiple holes on the top and the bottom.

"This is a bobbin. You have to get the thread from that - " he pointed to something (that I now know is) called a spool "to this -" he pointed to the bobbin.

"How do you know all of this?"

"It's in the owner's manual," he said. (Finally, a man who reads the instructions.)

The first time I attempted to "wind the bobbin," the spool flew across the room.

"Is it supposed to do that when the bobbin is full?" I asked.

Dan frowned and picked up the empty spool.

"I don't think so. But that was pretty cool."

I also jammed the bobbin case in the machine when it didn't lock into place as quickly as I thought it should.

"You have to be gentle with it," said Dan a half-hour later, the amount of time it took him to undo the damage I had caused.

And with that, he petted it, murmured softly to it, and swiftly popped the case into the machine.

"You're the Sewing Machine Whisperer," I said, a little in awe of my husband's newly found talent.

Eventually, I was able to stitch straight enough to sew curtains. At first, while working on those infamous curtains, my thread kept snapping, and a nice woman at the theater fixed the tension on the machine (whatever that means). But I did finish the job and even accomplished it in less time than it would have taken me to hand-stitch.

Where is my sewing machine now, you may ask? Is it still in garage? No, it now sits in one of our guest rooms, right next to my miniature dollhouse. Has it been used since my curtain-sewing days? Well, no. After all, I wouldn't want to be forced into any sort of stereotypical gender role, especially not one that requires that much patience.

Start Spreading the News . . . and All of the Other Clichés Surrounding the Big Apple

2010-08-09T15:39:00.001-06:00

"I can't write a blog about my trip to New York! I'm not trendy enough. What am I thinking?" I wailed from my television-viewing perch in our midtown Manhattan hotel room.

I was watching a show on NYC nightlife, one of those cable access-type shows that are broadcast in hotels to entice tourists into businesses and shops and restaurants and nightclubs in the hopes that we tourists will spend lots of money, drink lots of alcohol, and thereby stimulate the local economy.

Obviously, I knew nothing about participating in nightlife since it was 9:30 p.m. on day two of my excursion, and I was sprawled out on the bed (despite the onslaught of bedbugs in New York hotel rooms as reported on the Today Show that morning), living vicariously through the twenty-somethings on the T.V. screen who were getting their groove on at some hip hot spot in some random area of the city.

In fact, I got the impression that I did not know the first thing about how to truly experience the city. Dan and I opted to cram our days full of sightseeing activities that centered around "educational" experiences - cultural tours, museum visits, hop-on/hop-off bus rides, etc. Quite often, we were the only North American tourists on these ventures.

"Americans must just come to New York to party," Dan observed.

By the time we came back to the hotel from our pack-as-many-activities-into-24-hours-as-we-possibly-can missions (which has always been Dan's and my modus operandi when traveling), the last thing I wanted to do was go back out on the town and party. And I couldn't use old age as an excuse. Those women on Sex and the City are all older than I am. (Later that week, we saw four Broadway shows which made me feel a little more connected to the city's nightlife.)

Our New York vacation had gone smoothly so far, and NYC was definitely a unique city, crowded and fun, never lacking in entertainment, each day full of incessant energy. I am assuming most people feel the same way about the city, hence the nickname "The City that Never Sleeps." But prior to our visit, we encountered some leery skepticism that overshadowed the widely publicized positive aspects of the city and planted a few preconceived notions in our minds.

When people found out Dan and I were planning a trip to New York, I received all sorts of warnings from fellow travelers about avoiding pick-pockets and muggers and how to figure out where not to go. Never had I heard so many cautious travel tips when preparing to visit St. Louis, Chicago, Washington D. C., San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, or any other large U. S. city.

"Always carry your purse in front of you."

"Get a money belt . . . with a padlock"

"Walk like you know where you're going, and don't ask for directions."

"Don't make eye contact with anyone."

"Don't expect people to be friendly."

"Don't take pictures. They will know you are tourists."

"Don't carry around a map (which was going to be excruciating for my husband who reads maps for fun on a daily basis). They will know you are tourists."

When traveling, my mantra has always been, "Be smart . . . and don't get ushered into any unmarked cars like in the government espionage movies."

Was NYC really going to be that different from any other metropolitan area? Was I going to have to revamp my whole way of thinking when it came to travel? Was I not going to be able to document any of my experience by snapping the occasional picture or picking up a touristy brochure here and there?

As it turned out, Manhattan was not any different from any other city as far as its safety or friendliness. In fact, it felt safer and seemed cleaner than most places I had traveled. And half of its population is made up of tourists anyway, so we weren't the only ones snapping pictures on the street or asking questions.

What I did find is that people are just people. Some people are friendly; some people are mean. Some people are honest; some people are deceitful. Some people are vegetarian and eat at local organic delis; some people still buy fur at Sax Fifth Avenue (you can decide which is the more humane option). Some people like to party at Manhattan hot spots; some people like to take walking tours in Greenwich Village (that would be me).

During my first couple of days in the city, I ran across a political group handing out fliers about voting Republican in the next election. I saw a man wearing a t-shirt that read "Welcome to America. Now speak English." I heard a tour guide say "I just love the working class! They are so friendly."

"I feel like I'm in Idaho," I grumbled.

I guess people are the same everywhere.

Only one of my preconceived notions was proven to be true - the notion that New York drivers are erratic. This cliché became part of my New York paradigm after watching the movie Elf. "The yellow ones don't stop," Will Ferrell says, referring to the taxi cabs. Earlier in the movie he had been hit by one. (Pathetically, Dan and I spent much of our Manhattan trip quoting dialogue and looking for landmarks from Elf.)

The yellow ones really don't stop. Neither do the sedans or the buses or the vans or the shuttles or the pedestrians for that matter. Who needs traffic lights or crosswalks? Just dart across the street between cars when there is a slight break in traffic. Did the light just barely turn green? Honk your horn just to make sure the person in front of you saw it. Do you need to talk to one of your passengers, Mr./Ms. Shuttle Driver? Go ahead and turn around, and don't worry about keeping your eyes on the road. Those brake lights shining on the cars in front of you are overrated anyway. And you have terrific reflexes.

During one of our tour bus rides, a taxi passed us on the left side of a narrow street, boldly driving into oncoming traffic.

"They think they own the streets. But if they hit us, they are goners, and we just keep right on going," our guide smirked.

Dan and I just laughed, finally desensitized to the insane traffic in New York and accepting that, yes indeed, the bus probably would keep right on going.

Rather than regurgitate a daily activity log which would probably be the length of a novel (as I said, when traveling, Dan and I try to accomplish as many activities in every 24-hour period as possible), I'll just highlight some of my most interesting Big Apple observations. Some of my encounters left me saying, "Only in New York . . . " Others just reinforced my belief that sometimes people are just people.

CBGB is now a John Varvatos boutique that sells pants somewhere in the neighborhood of $800. You may not appreciate the tragic incongruity of this, especially if you are not familiar with CBGB. Don't feel bad. Dan and I were the only two people on the New York Night Tour who knew what our guide was talking about. Look it up on Wikipedia. Then you too can shake your head at the materialism in our capitalist society.

Also in the Bowery (if I remember the location correctly), there was a Halloween store displaying the face of a devil right next to a church.

We ate lunch in a deli, and our table was next to three gorgeous, model-type twenty-somethings. They chatted throughout their meal, but when they finished eating, they pulled out their phones and spent the next fifteen minutes texting in silence.

I broke down crying at the World Trade Center Memorial Museum. A woman walked over to me with a Kleenex. "The tissues are free, honey," she said. Her son had died in the 9/11 attacks.

We got stuck in a downpour while visiting the Statue of Liberty. While waiting in line for the Ellis Island ferry, the wind started blowing pretty fiercely. From behind us, we heard children squealing and someone yelled, "Hurricane!" A father was attempting to protect his baby by putting a plastic sack over her head (hmmm. . .). When the ferry pulled up to the dock, there was a stampede toward the boat. One lady shoved her way in front of us, slamming her open umbrella into my face. "I'd hate to see these people in a real emergency," I muttered to Dan.

When touring Lincoln Center, our guide asked everybody where they were from. "Australia," "Milan," "Brazil." "Idaho," we said a little sheepishly. "Idaho?" the other tourists said, almost in awe, probably supposing it so obscure that it must be exotic. "They are from America," the guide explained. "Idaho is a beautiful state. It gives us the most wonderful potatoes."

There was a chain link fence, an impromptu 9/11 memorial, in Greenwich Village that was covered in tiles decorated with artwork from all over. "It was such an act of hatred, yet all of the artwork on these tiles is about love and peace," our guide said as we perused the memorial. It was true. Not one tile pointed a finger of blame or even hinted at anything negative. The tiles were illustrations of hope and rebirth and peace and community. Then she turned to Dan and me and pointed to a tile in the center of the fence, "Where did you guys say you were from? Here's one from Iowa."

At the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Dan, upon viewing one of Jackson Pollack's masterpieces, said, "I could splatter a bunch of paint all over a canvas." To which I replied, "And you wonder why American tourists have such a bad reputation."

So I guess I could write a blog about my trip to New York after all because my experience didn't have to be about clubbing all night. It didn't have to be about designer handbags or $800 pants. It didn't have to be high end or trendy. As I heard one local say, "Go ahead. Get out there and make your own New York."

Two Flat Tires and a Family Picnic

2010-06-10T12:47:00.007-06:00

For some reason, Boise had very few nice spring days this year. Let’s put it this way – it snowed at the end of May. So when Mother Nature finally decided to bestow upon us at least one day of warm, temperate weather a few weeks ago, Dan and I decided to take advantage of it. We skipped church and attempted our first long bike ride of the season.

I wasn’t feeling adventurous enough to go mountain biking but wanted a change of scenery from our typical greenbelt ride. We compromised and tried a dirt trail that followed a creek behind one of the city parks.

We had been riding for all of ten minutes when Dan said, "Is my back tire flat?"

It was, the culprit - a goat head. Having learned our lesson two summers ago when Dan's tire went flat on the way to the Lucky Peak Reservoir, we always carry a pump with us and our tires are full of neon green gloop. We own a patch kit, but when deciding whether or not to bring the patch kit on our rides with us, this is how our conversation typically proceeds:

Becky: "Aren't you going to bring the patch kit?"
Dan: (Sigh) "I don't know."
Becky: "Don't you remember when your tire went flat on the way to Lucky Peak? You said (in my best Dan the man voice) 'We need a patch kit.' So you bought one. Why don't we bring it with us?"
Dan: "It's just one more thing to carry."
Becky: "It's not that cumbersome."
Dan: "I would need the tools to take the tire off too."
Becky: "What's better - a few extra tools or a flat tire?"
Dan: (Sigh) "We're not going that far."

And never mind trying to get him to bring along an extra bike tube, even though I've heard from reputable sources that this is a necessity during long biking excursions. Who needs a tube when you have got magical green gloop?

There we were, Dan pumping and spinning the tire (apparently that helps the gloop seal the puncture), green slime oozing out of the sides, while I held the bike steady.

"Psst . . . " the tire hissed as Dan pumped air into it.

"I don't think that's a very good sign," he said.

We gave up and headed home.

A couple of hours later, after Dan had replaced his bike tube, we were ready to give it another try. We decided to ride the Boise Greenbelt, a paved trail, more likely to be void of goat heads - or so we thought.

"Is my tire flat?" I asked after the first twenty minutes of our journey.

Indeed it was.

We pulled over and attempted, for the second time that day, to pump and spin. An enormous goat head nestled comfortably in my front tire, sinking its prongs in between the treads, oblivious to the nuisance it was creating for us, oblivious to the fact that the we had already encountered its equally irritating brother or sister a few hours earlier.

Having no luck with the pump and spin method, Dan took off for the car - a twenty-minute bike ride away - and I walked my defunct vehicle of transportation to a nearby park, which was fortunately only five minutes down the greenbelt on foot.

"Do you want me to fix your tire?" an older gentleman dressed in multicolored, logo-plastered spandex asked as he rode up behind me.

"My husband already tried. The green gloop's not working."

"Do you have a tube?" the biker asked.

I shook my head.

"You should always carry a tube."

Determining I was safe after I explained to him that my husband was going to pick me up at the park, the man pedaled away satisfied that he had imparted his biker wisdom on me and that I would never venture onto a bike path without an extra tube again.

In the park, I found a shady spot where I perched myself, cell phone in hand, futile bicycle beside me. I also had a full view of the strangest family picnic I have ever experienced. I discovered I could watch the entire scene underneath my sunglasses without the observed party knowing what I was doing. I even set my head forward for part of the time, making it look as if I was gazing straight ahead, while watching them from a side glance because, quite honestly, any one of them probably could have taken me in an instant, and I had left my pepper spray at home.

The picnicking family consisted of about six adults, three females and three males, and many, many scantily-clad children under the age of four. I assumed they were family because several of them resembled one another, and all of them seemed to possess similar linguistic knowledge.

"If you don't sit down, I'm going to kick your [expletive]" said the woman - who seemed to be in charge of the food - to a man, the only one with (and who could afford to have) his shirt off.

"Why's she [expletive] crying?" said another man to a lean, fair-skinned woman who was carrying a baby on her hip while the "[expletive] crying" child tottered after her.

"Because he went to the [expletive] playground without her. She wanted to go," the woman - presumably a mother of sorts - explained.

"Mommy," a child of about four called out to the lean, fair-skinned woman, "does she want to come play?"

"Oh, now you come get her," she remarked (now the baby on the hip was crying). "Thanks for thinking of someone else for a change."

I'm guessing this was "he" who had gone to the "[expletive] playground" without the crying child.

The correct response would have been, "Umm, Mom, I'm four. By definition, I don't think of anyone else but myself."

Before he could reply to his mother, the shirtless man started to chase him around, which prompted the woman in charge of the food to spout off a string of words that I probably shouldn't have been hearing, much less the four-year-old being chased by this woman's source of distress.

Finally, she ended her tirade with a dramatic "I can't do this!" and sunk onto the picnic bench in a (rather large) heap.

Meanwhile, a stocky bearded man threw his hands in the air and stomped away from the picnic, followed by a red-headed woman shouting, "Where the [expletive] are you going?"

"Do you [expletive] hear her? She's always like this!" the stocky bearded man yelled. "I can't deal with it!"

"You can't [expletive] go anywhere," the redhead said. "I signed you out. Your [expletive] is my responsibility. Please," she begged (my heart twinged a little), "just try to get along."

For a split second, I wanted to mediate and help model proper communication skills, but that's when I noticed the lean, fair-skinned woman and the woman in charge of the food were about ready to fight. And yes, the baby was still crying on the fair-skinned woman's hip. I thought it best if I stayed out of it. Plus, the stocky bearded man was stomping my way, the redhead in tow, and I still didn't know from where or what he was "signed out." At that moment, Dan arrived to rescue me from my flat tire.

I had two thoughts as I piled my bicycle onto the back of our 4Runner: 1) It would have been funnier had children not been involved and if it had been a movie and not people's lives I was watching unfold and 2) Were all of their family functions like this? Or did I just catch them on a bad day?

"You know," Dan said as we drove off, "we did skip church this morning. Maybe the two flat tires was God telling us we should have gone to church."

"You don't believe in a punitive, retaliatory God," I pointed out.

"I know, I'm just joking . . . kind of."

"Well," I said, the family picnic I had just witnessed still fresh in my mind, "whatever it was, Someone has an interesting sense of humor."

My Attempt at Spontaneous (a.k.a. Bohemian) Travel

2010-04-12T20:30:00.001-06:00

Some prior thoughts . . .

When Dan and I decided to vacation in Oregon over spring break, I managed to convince him that we should be spontaneous. A little background information - spontaneity is not one of my many virtues. I have three to-do lists - one at home, two at school - and about 5 calendars. I make up a monthly meal grid from which I draw my meticulously detailed grocery list. Every evening, I hang my clothes for the next morning on the bathroom door. This may not seem that unusual except that I also lay out my Monday morning outfit every Friday evening.

In other words, I wasn't surprised at the reactions I received when I told my family and friends that I would be taking a "Bohemian" journey through Oregon.

"If we were really Bohemians, we would be crashing on strangers' couches, and we wouldn't have spent so much money on tickets to the Shakespeare Festival or the Muse concert," Dan pointed out. "Besides, Bohemians aren't members of AAA."

So what if we had a AAA Tour Book and a couple of pre-planned events in specific cities? This was my version of a non-drug induced On the Road. The fact that we had no hotel reservations and no itinerary (at least for the coast part of our trip) made me feel creatively impulsive.

"You won't be able to handle it," my brother, Steve, said.

"You'll be in tears by the second day," my dad said.

"You will hate Dan by the end of the trip," Steve concluded.

"Oh ye of little faith!" was my response. "I'm doing this for the writing material."

A couple of evenings before we left, I found Dan in our Hybrid, reclining the driver's seat as far as it would go.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking to see if the Hybrid is comfortable enough, in case we have to sleep in it," he replied.

The night before we left, I caught Dan acting very un-Bohemian - looking up road reports, Googling maps, checking hotel availability.

The morning of our venture, Dan decided (after spending an hour researching Oregon's weather forecasts) that we would take the 4-Runner. I felt slightly sorry for him. He had been looking so forward to taking the Hybrid on its first road trip.

He handed me several sets of road directions printed fresh off the Internet.

"I know this isn't very Bohemian," he said, "but you don't even have to look at these. Just pretend like they don't exist."

We crawled into the SUV and plugged in Dan's iPod.

"At least the 4-Runner's seats are more comfortable for sleeping," Dan observed.

Monday, March 29, 2010 - Bend, OR

We had just pulled out of our neighborhood when Dan asked me if he had shut the garage door.

"I didn't see."

"I'm pretty sure I did."

"You had better go back."

He turned around.

"We're turning into your parents," he said.

All of my family vacations began with my mother demanding that my father drive back by our house before leaving town to make sure the garage door had shut properly.

"Except you're almost as OCD as I am," I said.

After we were what seemed to be about an hour outside of Ontario, Dan asked me to pull out the maps he had Googled.

"You were supposed to take the Weiser exit," I told.

Dan pulled the 4-Runner over into a gravel pit ("See we're off-roading," he said. "Very rugged.") and glanced at the Oregon/Washington road map. He wanted to see if he could take an alternate route.

"Unpaved . . . huh."

He concluded we should turn around and head back to the Weiser exit.

"Bohemian," he muttered. "Whatever that means."

"I think we should use the maps now and not try to be that Bohemian anymore," I said.

Funny thing though. It turned out we were only 15 minutes outside of Ontario. It seemed I had miscalculated the time we had already been on the road.

Several "Lost" podcasts later (which had been eagerly downloaded by my techno-geek husband just for our road trip), we ended up in Bend, Oregon.

We walked into a cute riverside hotel for which we had no reservations; however, Dan did admit later that he had checked out room availability on the AAA website the night before. Like I said, I think he might be as OCD as I am.

"Isn't it fun to walk into a hotel and say, 'I'd like a room for the night?' " I asked.

"But then I have to talk to people. If I just make the reservations online, I can just say, 'Reservations for Duggan.' "

Day 1 Travel Details:

Lunch on the road at Austin House Cafe and Country Store (nestled in the Blue Mountains)
Dinner at Bend Brewing Company (Interesting fact: Humanitarian organization Rise Up International is currently displaying and selling local art on the restaurant's walls. Proceeds will help fund a Rise Up International school in Bihar, India.)
Lodgings: The Riverhouse Hotel and Convention Center

Tuesday, March 30, 2010 - Ashland, OR

We woke up to news reports of heavy snow on the Oregon highways.

"Make sure you are carrying chains," the perky meteorologist said. "Have a sparkling day in central Oregon!"

And almost on cue, snow began to float to the ground outside our hotel window. Dan decided to take a different road to Ashland so that we could stay on the less mountainous highway a little longer.

As it turned out, we drove through a few quick bursts of snow, nothing that was sticking to the roads, nothing that required chains or four-wheel drive.

"We probably could have taken the Hybrid through this," Dan sighed.

After lunch in Klamath Falls, Dan drove around in circles for a while, trying to figure out how to get back on the highway.

Eventually I said, "There's 6th street. That looks familiar. 6th street turned in 140, I think."

"Why didn't you tell me that?"

"I did when we came into town."

"You're supposed to be navigating."

"I'm being Bohemian. Besides, I can't read maps."

In order to pacify Dan, I pulled out the map.

"We need to find 97 South," I predicted.

"I don't know what happened to 97, but I don't want to go to Winnemucca," Dan shook his head. "I should just look at the map before we leave anywhere instead of depending on you. All I get from you is 'Find 140, 97, or 66 and flip a coin to decide which way to turn!'"

"66! Straight, no, turn!"

"Straight," corrected Dan.

"Turn."

"Straight."

"Look at the arrow!"

"Where do you see that?"

"No! Straight!"

"Ashland, 61 miles," Dan sighed with relief.

We arrived in Ashland safely in spite of my defunct navigational skills. We perused the copy of L. Ron Hubbard's The Way to Happiness next to the Bible in the dresser drawer. ("Preserve your teeth" is included as part of his moral code. He's absolutely right. I know I'm much more amiable when the dentist reports that I have no cavities.) Then we headed to dinner where we eavesdropped on the 70-something lady behind us who was predicting that the world would end in 2012 due to Earth Karma.

We ended our evening at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival's production of Hamlet. Purists may have gone into cardiac arrest at this contemporary presentation - Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were cast as women, the play within a play was set to hip-hop, sign language was used as a communication tool especially between Hamlet and his father's ghost - but by the end of the night, Hamlet was my new favorite Shakespeare production. And I consider myself to be literary purist of sorts.

Day 2 Travel Details:

Breakfast at The Riverhouse Hotel (complimentary)
Lunch at Nibbley's Cafe in Klamath Falls, OR (local diner, country decor, quilt hangings, creative menu with creative titles - i.e. "Charlie Tuna on an Inner Tube")
Dinner at Larks Home Kitchen (emphasis on Pacific Northwest cuisine)
Lodgings: Ashland Springs Hotel (nine-story historic hotel, built in 1925)

Wednesday, March 31, 2010 - Reedsport, Florence, and Newport

We made our way to the coast. This was our last night without a specific destination and without hotel reservations. The impromptu portion of our trip was almost over. We spent our time on the road listening to every Muse album ever released, preparing for Saturday's concert. Unable to live without my to-do lists (not very Bohemian, I know), I also jotted down a few Oregon Coast goals.

Becky's (not all that ambitious) Oregon Coast To-Do List
1) Find a blown glass float on the beach in Lincoln City.
2) Tour a lighthouse.
3) Track down a historic covered bridge.
4) Go whale watching.
5) Visit the Sea Lion Caves.

We stopped at the Dear Creek Elk Viewing Area on our way to Reedsport. A fellow elk viewer recommended we visit the Umpqua Discovery Center up the road, so we made our way there next. We hiked on a Dunes trail between Reedsport and Florence. Then we drove up 101 to the Sea Lion Caves. Check number five off my list!

We stopped at the Heceta Lighthouse, but we were too late to tour. Instead we walked to the lighthouse to view the ocean.

"This is like 'Lost,'" Dan said as we trudged up the dirt path. "I wonder if I will see my house in the lighthouse mirror." (Just a quick "Lost" reference that only fellow fans will understand.)

A little while later, when we were pulling out of the lighthouse parking lot, a truck made a sharp turn in front of us.

"Geesh," I commented.

"He's probably got a wife next to him saying, 'Turn here! Turn here!'" and I might add that Dan used his most high-pitched girlie voice on those last two exclamations.

By this time, I had started to get a little nervous about not having a place to stay and about not knowing how far we were going up the coast that night. The fact that all the quaint oceanfront inns and bed and breakfasts along 101 had signs out front that read "No vacancy" did not reassure me.

Originally, we had thought we might stay in Lincoln City so that I could search for my float first thing in the morning. But it was becoming apparent that we wouldn't make it before dinner. We decided to spend the night in Newport, and we did find a room with an ocean view.

That evening at dinner, I lamented that I was not a successful Bohemian traveler. Even without a definitive itinerary, I had managed to create a tour schedule of sorts with my Oregon Coast to-do list.

"We didn't even know we were staying in Newport tonight," Dan offered. "That's very spontaneous."

Day 3 Travel Details:

Breakfast at Ashland Springs Hotel (complimentary)
No lunch today. Too much snacking in the car.
Dinner at Georgie's Beachside Grill in Newport, OR (Northwest cuisine, almost every table in the dining room has a view of the ocean)
Lodgings: Best Western Agate Beach Inn (a little older - 70's/80's - both in decoration and structure, but has several amenities and beachfront rooms for decent rates)

Thursday, April 1, 2010 - Newport, Depoe Bay, and Lincoln City

Dan woke up saying, "What should I do to Becky for April Fool's?"

As we stood in line for the Yaquina Head Lighthouse tour (we had already visited the Chitwood Covered Bridge outside of Newport - check off number three - and the Cobble Beach tidepools that morning), Dan said, "I just thought of a great April Fool's joke!"

"Does it have anything to do with heights?"

Dan just laughed.

I must have been prophetic although it had nothing to do with Dan's elusive prank. I had no idea that touring a lighthouse would involve climbing a spiral staircase with 100+ holed steps. On my ascension, a nervous-looking 10-year-old passed me and said, "It's scarier coming down."

"That's what I was afraid of," I remarked as I crept on, gripping the railings on both sides.

I made it, even though I had to crawl on my hands and knees up the last four stairs. Surprisingly, I made it back down as well.

Outside the lighthouse was a whale watching viewpoint.

"Look! A gray whale!" Dan said immediately following it with, "April Fool's!"

"Was that it? Your big joke? You didn't even give me time to believe you."

We didn't see any whales, although we didn't spend a lot of time really looking for them (failed attempt at to-do list item number four). We did comb the beach in Lincoln City, but we arrived to town so late that I was pretty certain all of the floats had been discovered (failed attempt at to-do list item number one). We did find a few broken sea shells though before driving on to Portland.

Day 4 Travel Details:

Breakfast at Starfish Grill (hotel restaurant)
Lunch at Local Ocean Seafood in Newport, OR (fresh, local seafood on display describing how, where, and by whom the fish were caught, easy to make sustainable seafood choices)
Snacked on Tillamook Ice Cream at Snack City in Lincoln City.
No dinner which Dan regretted after he was reminded how cranky and sullen I get when I skip meals.
Lodgings: The Nines in Portland (very swanky, we'll discuss this later)

Friday, April 2, 2010 - Portland, OR

Dan and I stayed at a very swanky hotel in downtown Portland called The Nines. We checked in Thursday evening and were greeted in the lobby by music that sounded like it belonged in A Night at the Roxbury. I half expected to find a head-bobbing Chris Kattan and Will Ferrell waiting for us in the elevator.

A little starstruck by the glitz of the hotel, Dan and I had to run outside and stop the valet from parking our car twice so that we could retrieve items we had forgotten to bring with us.

Finally the valet said, "If you forget anything else, just call us, and we can bring it to your room for you." He took off before we had time to stop him again.

We also rode the elevator up and down a few times before we figured out how to swipe our room key and punch our floor number.

"Are you going up?" the other guests would ask us quizzically as the elevator opened on the first floor revealing us standing there yet again with our luggage slung over our shoulders.

"We're attempting to," I muttered.

The hotel featured contemporary art throughout its corridors and on its walls, two restaurants, an atrium lobby, and an extensive fitness room with personal trainers. Our room included an HD flat screen television, a clock radio with an iPod dock and remote control, a plush window seat, a refrigerator, and a conversation area with a beaded light hanging from the ceiling. The toilet didn't flush though. I guess nothing is perfect.

We spent our first day in Portland sightseeing. We visited the Nob Hill (or "Northwest" to the locals) and Pearl Shopping Districts.

In Nob Hill, I found a cute local food co-op. I love visiting local food markets and groceries when I travel. For some reason, my husband thinks this is an odd practice.

"You walk up and down the aisles like you are window shopping," Dan said. "It's a grocery. Most people go to groceries to buy food, not browse around."

Next, we toured the Chinese Gardens where I received the following fortune - "Your natural wit will be your fortune." Hmm . . .

Dan's fortune read, "A current problem will solve itself."

"I wonder if I am the problem mentioned in the fortune," I said. Dan's response was an evil laugh.

After the Chinese Gardens, we ended up in Powell's City of Books.

"It covers an entire city block!" I had exclaimed when I first read about it in our tour book.

"Great. We'll never get you out of there."

Dan was right.

Day 5 Travel Details:

Breakfast at The Urban Farmer (complimentary with gift card, hotel restaurant)
Lunch at Elephant's Delicatessen in Nob Hill (features local foods and produce both on its menu and in its adjoining market)
Dinner at Jake's Famous Crawfish (Pacific Northwest seafood, eclectic clientele)
Lodgings: The Nines in downtown Portland

Saturday, April 3, 2010 - Portland, OR

Dan and I spent a rainy afternoon at the Portland Saturday Market. Three people dressed up as the Easter Bunny, a Gorilla, and a Zebra held cardboard signs asking for spare change. A hemp goods store advertised "glass pipes upstairs." A busker played bongos in front of the vendor tents. One generous shopper gave gloves to the poor folk musician who was performing in the windy downpour that had plagued Oregon off and on all week.

Saturday evening was the Muse concert - our primary reason for this Northwest journey - and it did not disappoint. It was probably the best live concert I have ever attended, complete with laser lights, live video footage, skyscrapers, interactive art, and sci-fi/political/conspiracy theory-riddled music. In fact, I would need to write a separate post in order to do justice to this particular experience. It was the perfect way to round out our journey.

Day 6 Travel Details:

Breakfast at The Urban Farmer (complimentary with gift card, hotel restaurant)
Lunch at the Portland Saturday Market (Chicken souvlakia pitas)
Dinner at the Newport Grill across from the Lloyd Center (Pacific Northwest seafood)
Lodgings: The Nines in downtown Portland

Sunday, April 4, 2010 - Heading back to Boise

We left Portland Sunday morning still in a frenzy over the previous night's concert. We decided to head back to Boise via the Columbia Gorge. Dan was excited because he had been trying to take the perfect fern picture, and he was pretty sure there would be several patches of ferns along the Gorge. Dan had been obsessed with the ferns in Oregon. Ferns in Idaho (especially Eastern Idaho where Dan grew up) do not look as "prehistoric" (as Dan says) as the ones along the water in Oregon.

"Ferns!" I'd hear all of a sudden from the driver's seat. "Ferns on a rock! Lots of ferns!"

Dan pulled off into a scenic viewpoint and climbed out of the sunroof, camera in hand, in an attempt to get the perfect fern picture. Unfortunately, that picture didn't quite capture the lushness of the ferns that had beguiled my husband.

Multnomah Falls proved to be a fern Nirvana for Dan, and we were finally able to get a satisfactory fern picture. We also snapped a few photos of me standing on the very-high-off-the-ground Multnomah Falls (Benson) footbridge, just to prove that I had in fact ventured out onto that slab of cement.

Our last stop was at the Stonehenge replica in Maryhill, Washington.

"We can reenact the final scene from Tess of the d'Urbervilles when Tess and Angel Clare flee to Stonehenge after Tess kills Alec d'Urberville," I said much too enthusiastically. "The police find her asleep on the altar and arrest her. I'll be Tess. You be Angel."

And with that I plopped down on the "altar." Dan, slightly confused by my sudden excitement and probably hoping I would get up so as not to embarrass myself in front of the other tourists, shrugged and snapped my picture.

Feeling slightly guilty about not going to church on Easter Sunday, Dan (now with a sense of accomplishment after taking his fern picture) and I spent the last portion of our trip listening to Jesus Christ Superstar. After that album was over, we ended our vacation as we had begun it - listening to "Lost" podcasts. It seems that we had come full circle.

Day 7 Travel Details:

Breakfast at Starbucks across the street from our hotel (avoiding the Easter buffet crowd)
Lunch at Subway in Hood River, OR
Dinner at Sumpter Junction Restaurant in Baker City, OR (model train that runs through the restaurant, walls filled with historical locomotive photos and memorabilia)

The Token Valentine's Day Blog

2010-02-15T14:04:00.021-07:00

Part One: Using the Day of Love to Your Advantage

Valentine's Day is just the type of holiday I would normally oppose. This holiday, with its roots in the Middle Ages, was originally intended to celebrate something as noble as love and affection between cherished admirers. It is now just another example of Western World commercialization, in the guise of sentimental greeting cards, heart-shaped chocolates, and red and pink flowers. I like to think it's against my principles to enjoy the materialistic aspects of our consumer-driven American holidays, but I love chocolate and roses and being the center of attention. So I guess I'm a bit of a closet Valentine's Day fan.

In my experience thus far as a relatively young married woman, Valentine's Day is the one holiday when my husband allows me to make all of the decisions, from the restaurant to the movie. He even gives me a gift I want instead of the typical present I receive from him - a CD that does "double duty" which translates into a CD he knows I'll like but one that he also wants to add to his prolific collection.

How did I make Valentine's Day, in spite of all the cheesy cellophane-wrapped packages and gigantic heart-holding teddy bears, work for me?

1. Tell him to send flowers to your place of work.

When Dan and I started getting serious, I was very specific about what I wanted for Valentine's Day.

"You will send red roses to me at work every Valentine's Day. I don't want a CD. I want flowers."

"Don't you want to be surprised?" Dan asked.

"No. I want flowers."

I learned this not-so-subtle approach from my mother who used to say, "You have to train these guys. And don't just hint around. Beat them over the head with what you want."

At least Dan follows directions well. A friend of mine had told her husband for decades that she wanted flowers sent to her office and nothing more. He kept trying to get creative, sending her barbershop quartets, singing telegrams, and messengers dressed up in over-sized heart outfits. Eventually she gave up and told her husband not to send anything else to her work.

2. Choose the most sentimental chick-flickiest movie. No superheroes, aliens, or blown-up buildings allowed.

So maybe you love action movies with lots of explosions or horror flicks with violent torture scenes. If this is truly your choice and not his choice then by all means, watch all the blood and guts you want. Valentine's Day is about you making the decisions.

I try to choose a film that I would never get Dan to even consider any other time of the year. Throughout the other 364 days of the year, I see all sorts of movies that feature post-apocalyptic themes, gun-wielding FBI agents, superheroes from graphic novels, etc., etc., etc. On Valentine's Day, the only movies I will agree to see have titles like Steel Magnolias, Sex and the City, or anything with English subtitles.

3. Choose the restaurant, and don't worry if it's not his favorite place to eat.

Dan does not love fondue. He thinks it's too much work to go to a restaurant only to have to cook your own food. Guess where we go on Valentine's Day? Or sometimes I'll choose a restaurant with dishes that he can't pronounce.

The last couple of years, we have eaten dinner at the Ashley Inn in Cascade, Idaho. They have something even better than coq au vin - dancing! Dan promises me one dance every Valentine's Day. "So choose the song wisely," he always adds.

Part Two: Valentine's Day 2010

When I received my roses this year (which, by the way, were especially beautiful), the teachers had to remind me to open the card. The reason I had neglected this seemingly trivial action was because Dan writes the same thing every year - "Happy Valentine's Day. Love, Dan." He only says that much because I told him he has to write more than "From, Dan."

"What does it say?" they asked.

"I'm sure it just says 'Happy Valentine's Day. Love, Dan.'"

But this year, Dan had added "Looking forward to our trip together" to his message.

"Ohhhh . . . how sweet," my colleagues sighed.

"Can you have your husband talk to my boyfriend?" one teacher asked.

"I have the best husband," I said proudly, omitting the fact that I had established Valentine's precedents early in our relationship that Dan was expected to follow.

But I do have the best husband, and he takes direction very well.

The "trip" to which Dan referred in the card was a quick weekend getaway to the Ashley Inn in Cascade, Idaho. We decided to take the roses on our trip. That was an adventure in itself.

I suggested that we buckle the flowers in, but Dan had already put the backseats down. He decided to wedge the vase between our two duffel bags.

"That doesn't look very stable," I said.

"Let's see!" and with that, Dan peeled out of the garage and hopped the curb.

The roses hobbled and teetered and probably would have fallen over had I not grabbed them.

When I pointed out again that our arrangement didn't seem very stable and that the vase had been on the verge of tipping, Dan said, "It is either going to fall over or not. It can't almost fall over."

"Yes it can," I said. "It's not black and white, like being pregnant; if you're pregnant, you're pregnant, not a little, not a lot, just pregnant. A vase of flowers is different. It can fall, it can not fall, or it can almost fall."

Dan turned into the next neighborhood to readjust the flowers.

I spent the rest of the car ride worrying about the state of my roses. Every time Dan took a curve, I deliberately glanced back at the flowers eliciting "The flowers are fine" from Dan. Eventually I started to get carsick from riding backwards in the passenger seat, and I gave up.

Instead I would glance at the wobbly flowers in the rear view mirror from time to time until Dan said, "Why don't you hold them in your lap the entire trip? That way, you could really enjoy them."

We made it all the way to Cascade without a major catastrophe. I guess a small part of me was hoping the flowers would dump all over the backseat leaving a mass of petals, foliage, and dirty water just to prove my point. But, alas, it was not to be. My husband was right once again which, I hate to admit, is usually the case. And we were able to enjoy my beautiful intact Valentine's roses all weekend long.

Did You Write a Thank You Note Yet?

2010-02-07T12:56:00.006-07:00

The other day, my husband and I were discussing the art of thank you note writing with my father and his wife, Emmy, who were visiting from out of town. My dad made a comment along the lines of "Thank you notes are Emmy's responsibility (translation: the woman's job)." Dan, my typically silent husband, chose that particular moment to actually contribute to the joviality of the moment.

"What's a thank you note?" he asked with a little smirk.

Emmy and my dad laughed. I'm pretty certain my dad said, "Good one, Dan."

I rolled my eyes at Dan's comedic timing (and at my father's borderline sexist comment) and informed my family that a little over six years ago, Dan really didn't know what a thank you note was.

Perhaps he knew the definition of a thank you note. He just saw the writing of thank you notes as an unnecessary evil, an archaic practice implemented by the Establishment to turn us all into etiquette-conscious conformists.

When Dan and I were married, I introduced him to the correct way of writing thank you notes and somehow convinced him that, "Yes, we do have to write a thank you note for every wedding gift, even the ones we're planning on returning."

"Can't we just print out a generic note with a fill-in-the-blank for each item?"

"Emily Post says thank you notes should always be handwritten."

"Who?"

"Never mind."

We split the task of writing our wedding thank yous. However, when I discovered that one of his notes read, "Thank you for the towel. Dan and Becky," I realized I had better make sure all of his notes met my more-than-one-sentence standard before mailing them off.

I was raised writing thank you notes for everything. I had a grandmother and a great Aunt Alice who expected a thank you note the week after every birthday and holiday that includes gifts. Considering they lived in southern Illinois and I lived in Boise, Idaho, that meant I practically had to write my thank you notes on Christmas day.

And if I didn't get the thank you notes out in time, my poor mother would get the brunt of it.

"Well, Alice is mad because she hasn't gotten a thank you note from Becky." "I just don't know what could have happened to Becky's thank you note. Maybe it's lost in the mail. Should I call the post office?"

"Don't call the post office," my mother would say. "Becky always sends a thank you note. I'm sure she's just a little behind."

Then my mother would call me and beg me to hurry up and write my thank you notes. Sometimes, I would have to write two or three because my grandmother and Aunt Alice would forget they had received them.

Occasionally, when they were happy with my timeliness, they would spend their phone conversations with my mother reading her the thank you notes I had sent.

Now that I am the one who talks to my grandmother and Aunt Alice on the phone, I hear about all of the thank you notes they receive from my brother, from Dan, from my dad, and of course, from me.

About two years ago, my Aunt Alice said, "You have always been so good about sending your thank you notes out right away. You're just like your mother. She would be so proud." I think that was the nicest compliment I had ever been given, even if it did revolve around a silly archaic practice of societal conformity.

Here's why:

When I was seven years old, a boy named Jeremiah in my second grade class showed up at my front door with a vase of fresh cut flowers.

"You want these?" he asked, thrusting the flowers into my face.

"Sure," I said and slammed the door in his face.

My mother made me write him a thank you note. It was the most embarrassing thing I ever had to do during those first seven years of my life.

"It doesn't matter if you wanted the flowers or not. He did something nice for you. Now you need to show your gratitude."

I didn't tell my mom that when I handed Jeremiah the thank you note I told him that my mother had made me write it. And I didn't tell her that I gave him the note like I was 007 delivering a top secret formula for a nuclear bomb, lest some other second grader would see me and think I had a crush on him.

Later we found out he had stolen the vase from his mother's collection, and he had been chased out of one of my friend's yards for cutting flowers from her dad's garden. I probably wrote a thank you note for an item that should have ended up on the black market.

But that wasn't the point. The moral of my mother's lesson was one of self-sacrifice, doing things you really don't want to do in order to show a little kindness once in a while. And if writing thank you notes is the one way I can be a little less self-absorbed, I'll participate in that unnecessary evil any day.

Battling Smog and Smug

2010-01-24T19:04:00.011-07:00

When my husband and I purchased a hybrid car in October, all I could think about was South Park episode 141. I realize that referencing a South Park episode probably does not uphold the intelligence of this blog, but - sorry, scholars - "Smug Alert!" was the only thing on my mind.

For those of you who have better things to do than watch South Park on a regular basis (and I promise that I only watch the show on occasion - albeit frequent occasion), "Smug Alert!" was an episode dedicated to exposing the pious attitude of hybrid owners. In fact, the featured fictional hybrid was the Toyonda Pious which, of course, bore a striking resemblance to the Toyota Prius.

I will summarize the high (or perhaps low) points of the show and leave out the cruder moments, which deal mostly with bodily functions, a topic most unworthy of this post. For a complete synopsis, you are more than welcome to research it on your own.

Kyle's father (Kyle wears the green hat, for you non-South Park fans) buys a hybrid car, tries to convert all the people of South Park to do the same, and decides he needs to relocate his family to the more progressive-minded San Francisco. Stan (the character in the blue hat topped with the red pom pom) writes a song, convincing the people of South Park to buy hybrids in order to convince Kyle's family to stay. His efforts are in vain; the townspeople buy hybrids, but Kyle and his family move to San Francisco. Soon, the South Park kids find out that hybrid owners emit a complacent gas called "smug" into the air. Once the clouds of smug from South Park and San Francisco merge with the smug diffused from George Clooney's 78th Academy Awards acceptance speech, a cataclysmic storm of apocalyptic proportions will occur. And hilarity ensues.

All the way to the Ford dealership, Dan and I discussed this episode, vowing not to "emit smug" regardless of our environmentally conscientious purchase. After all, no one would even know we were driving a hybrid because a Fusion hybrid looks just like its non-hybrid counterpart. And we were keeping our SUV which obviously cancels out our smug footprint. I will admit, however, that I feel a lot less hypocritical about transporting my reusable bags to the grocery in a hybrid rather than in an SUV.

After our sale was finalized, we felt a little . . . hmmm . . . (not smug!) pleased with ourselves when the car salesperson thanked us for being so kind while purchasing our car.

"People have been pretty cranky lately," he said. "It was really refreshing to work with you."

Of course our self-satisfaction gave way to sympathy as we made our way to the parking lot where we noticed a plump lady wearing a white sweatshirt and a scowl. She was arguing relentlessly with one of the sale reps.

"I guess he's right," I said, pointing out the altercation as we got ready to drive our car off the lot.

Pretty soon, I discovered Dan had not wanted to buy a hybrid for smug reasons. A hybrid fulfilled some of Dan's unrequited dreams of starring in a sci-fi movie and somewhat fueled his latent competitive tendencies.

For the first couple of weeks of our hybrid ownership, Dan mimicked the sound of the car every time we came to a stop. "It's like we're coming out of hyperspace." Our car really does sound like an X-wing fighter from Star Wars when it slows down.

Dan also spent the first few weeks of hybrid driving with his eyes on the dashboard rather than on the road. That's because our dashboard tells us how many miles per gallon we are getting as we drive. Getting the indicator to stay at 60+ mpg became a little game for Dan, one that he was going to win every outing.

"I got 60+ on that last block! That's really hard to do, you know, drive at the same speed."

"Yeah, but you're driving five miles under the speed limit, and you're going to wreck my car if you don't look at the road every once and a while." I was ignored.

"Uh oh. I dipped below 40. Maybe we can catch up." "31.8 for that whole trip! That's awful!"

Now that the temperature outside has dropped below 32 degrees, I've started to notice that we don't turn on the heater when Dan drives the car.

"I got 50 mpg the other day when I turned off the heater," he explains.

I think my husband's miles-per-gallon competition with himself is not so much about taking care of the environment as it is about advancing to the next level on a video game. And I suppose I should be grateful that we - the newbie hybrid owners - are too busy playing games to emit a cloud of self-righteous smug-i-ness over our city.

Yes, Mrs. Duggan, There is a Santa Claus

2009-12-25T12:52:00.008-07:00

"He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy."

During the universal transition from childhood to adulthood, something happens to our perspective of the holiday season. All of a sudden, Christmas is not as much about magic and imagination as it is about braving the traffic by the mall or finding the last available "Zhu Zhu Pet" or getting the Christmas cards out on time. The hustle and bustle of Christmas, which fueled our childhood anticipation, often times produces stress and anxiety instead during our adult years.

But I am an elementary music teacher with 500 pairs of innocent eyes under my tutelage. And though the Christmas season can be a music teacher's worst nightmare, I am pretty sure I have the best job in the world at this time of year.

As a general music specialist who manages to squeeze 220 elementary school kids onto 17 risers every year right before winter break, I have the distinct privilege of reliving that childhood excitement through a musical collective consciousness that includes reindeer that really can fly and a jolly, plump, older gentleman who shimmies down our chimneys on December 24.

So, I've decided to share the experiences with my loyal blog readers (and I know there are several of you) that keep me tapped into my youthful side during the Christmas season.

In the month leading up to the Christmas program, my students lead me into all sorts of philosophical discussions with age-old questions such as, "What if you don't have a chimney? How does Santa get into your house?"

"Santa's magic," another student will reply before I can even think of a sagacious response. "He can make a magical chimney."

"How does he get down it if he's so fat?" another child will ask.

"He can squeeze himself into any shape he wants," answers one of his/her classmates.

"Like a liquid shape-shifter," I add, pleased with my wisdom and my somewhat Sci-Fi reference.

Usually, after I have offered my adult input, I am met with blank stares.

This year, my favorite Christmas program story revolves around one of my 1st grade girls. Let's call her Jillie. Two weeks prior to the program, Jillie suddenly decided to sing in a shrill, high voice that hung out about a perfect fourth above the actual pitches of the songs. She had never sung like this before. She had always matched pitch and had always been one of my stronger singers. All of the other children in her class started giving her strange looks out of the corner of their eyes. Then they would glance at me and surreptitiously point at her as if to say, "What are you going to do about Jillie, Mrs. Duggan?"

I quickly put a stop to the kids' reactions, vowing never to be that "horror-story" music teacher who traumatizes students into never singing again because she allows the class to make fun of them or tells them to sing softer or just move their lips.

When we started practicing in the gymnasium, Jillie miraculously went back to singing on pitch, but with a bit more oomph than I had remembered her having in the classroom. She could be heard above everyone else, even when all 220 kids were singing at once. The program could have been entitled, "Jillie and the Back-up Chipmunks Sing Christmas." During the morning program, she sang different lyrics than everyone else on Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer. By the afternoon program, she had remembered the correct words again.

“Do you think she has a future as an opera singer?” one of the 3rd grade teachers asked me the next day.

The day after the program, we held a school-wide assembly where the faculty performed for the students and led the kids in a caroling sing along. Our last song was "Santa Claus is Coming to Town" and in walked a perfectly timed Santa with a "Ho ho ho!"

"Santa!" I exclaimed, eliciting a laugh from my principal who was most likely amused by my childlike salutation.

I wasn't alone in my sentiments. One of the first graders stuck his head in every classroom on his way back from the gym proclaiming, "Santa is here! No really, he's here! Santa Claus is here at school! Did you see him?"

That afternoon, I returned to my classroom and found a homemade card awaiting me on my desk, "Dear Mrs. 'Dunean,' Merry Christmas! I enjoyed your Christmas Program. I hope you get a nice present. Love, Rosalia."

Well, Rosalia, I did get a nice present, as I do every year. Like I said, I have the best job in the world.

"No Santa Claus! Thank God! He lives and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood."

(Beginning and ending quotations from "Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus," by Francis Pharcellus Church, September 21, 1897.)

Uncooperative Turkeys

2009-11-27T11:30:00.004-07:00

This year, Dan and I had to stay in Boise for Thanksgiving. Typically on this gluttonous occasion, Dan and I spend one year with my family and the next with his family. But due to a previous commitment, we were unable to travel anywhere this year.

I didn't mind. I enjoy cooking although I don't think anyone else in my family believes I can. I didn't spend a lot of time in the kitchen with my mother when I was growing up. Instead, I entered adolescence complaining about our male-dominated society and being forced into gender roles and that I wasn't going to end up barefoot and . . . well, you know the rest. This may have left the impression that I did not have any desire to don an apron and impersonate Donna Reed.

But remember people, cooking is all about following rules. And even though I may talk about bucking the establishment and sticking it to the man, I'm an awesome rule follower.

When I moved away from home at age eighteen and had to cook for myself, I found that I kind of liked it.

Every year, I ask whether or not I need to bring anything for the Thanksgiving dinner. I have all of my mother's favorite holiday recipes and since my mother is no longer living, I would think that some of my family would want at least one of her dishes on the table. But my immediate family consists of only men now, and their stomachs are extremely adaptable to new traditions. If they are fed, they are happy.

So usually my question is met with, "Can you pick up some rolls from Costco on your way into town?" Or "No, I think we have everything covered."

This year, I was eager to finally be in control of my own Thanksgiving meal. (Control is very important to us awesome rule followers.) And I wouldn't even have a bunch of women feeling obligated (as I do every year) to ask whether or not they could "help" with anything in the kitchen.

When Dan asks if he can help, I usually say, "No, not right now. But you know what would be really helpful? If you do the dishes at the end of dinner." That's how the responsibilities are divvied up in my household. And then I don't have to deal with people under my feet in the kitchen - a byproduct of my control issues, which I am sure I inherited from my mother along with her Thanksgiving recipes.

Then I realized I had to cook a turkey. I don't know about other families, but my Thanksgiving schema consists of a haggard mother in a bathrobe rising at 7:00 in the morning to put the turkey in the oven, a starving household at 1:00 in the afternoon, and meaning-of-life questions such as "Why hasn't the thermometer popped yet?" or "Hasn't it been six hours?"

"My mother always had trouble timing the turkey too," Dan said as we stared at the red plastic thingy that hadn't popped yet even though it had been roasting for an hour over its supposed maximum cooking time.

But I was different. I had made a list! I had calculated every dish exactly according to the maximum roasting time for the turkey. I had meticulously delineated the time to begin preparing each dish so that everything would finish cooking at exactly the same moment. I knew that was much more anal than both my mother's and mother-in-law's cooking practices. But I still was defeated by the uncooperative Thanksgiving turkey tradition.

So we kept the food warm and ate our Thanksgiving meal about two hours behind schedule. And it was just fine. The world didn't end because my turkey had decided not to follow my carefully plotted agenda. Anyway, what would Thanksgiving be without uncooperative turkeys?

Taking the Facebook Plunge

2009-10-25T11:04:00.019-06:00

On August 9, 2009, I became a born again Facebooker. I had received several requests to join Facebook over the past year, but I had ignored those e-mails and lived my life ignorant of the Facebook-shaped hole in my heart.

I already had a MySpace account, mostly because my dad wanted me to spy on my brother Steve while Steve was in college. I had quit using it out of boredom. I only had four friends, one being my husband and another being my brother, who I was feeling a little guilty about having as a friend since I was supposed to be doing the James Bond thing with him.

"But Facebook is different. It's better," 30-somethings would tell me. "Trust us."

One day I decided to clear out my e-mail inbox and came across one of those Facebook invitations.

"I wonder what will happen if I click on this link," I thought. I clicked and entered a realm of cyberspace where I didn't even have to search for friends. They were already there, waiting to baptize me into the First Church of Facebook.

"Welcome to Facebook, Princess!" "It's good to finally see you on Facebook!" "It's been a long time!"

I felt so popular. People I hadn't seen in decades were showing up on my computer screen.

About five minutes later, my husband Dan sat down on the office futon with his laptop.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Joining Facebook," the software engineer replied, not to be technologically outdone by his wife's sick computer skills.

We spent the next few hours making comments such as, "Wow, he's gotten fat." "Where's all of his hair?" "Where's all of her hair?" "They have like 500 kids!" "He's gotten fat too."

Computer Genius Dan, impressed by the design of Facebook, then started talking in a language I didn't understand.

"This is so much better than MySpace. You don't have the hacked customization and the user interface is more elegant blah blah blah . . . "

I tuned him out until he said, "I just poked you," with a self-satisfied grin. "I don't know what that means, but I did it."

A few minutes later, I heard him exclaim, "Whoa! You're a lot better looking than that Becky Turner!" Apparently, he was looking up people with my maiden name.

Then he said to me, "Can you delete friends?"

"Who do you want to delete?"

"You."

"Why?"

"'Cause it would funny."

I must have scared him with my wifely watch-what-you-say look because he quickly responded, "I'll add you right back," with a nervous laugh.

He was sidetracked from deleting me from his friends' list, however, when he received another request.

"Why do these people keep wanting to be my friend?"

"Yeah, especially when you're deleting your own wife."

"I barely even know her," he said, referring to his new friend request. "Do I really want to add her as a friend?"

"So ignore her."

"Should I?"

"If you want to be mean."

While Dan entertained himself by looking at pictures of people he knew but refused to add as friends (he doesn't really like people), I found out my father had also joined Facebook a few days earlier. I added him as friend just before reading an article on the Time website about "What Happens When Your Parent Joins Facebook (http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1909187,00.html)."

The article refers to a website called http://myparentsjoinedfacebook.com/ which showcases embarrassing Facebook threads about Bengay, rectal exams, and intimate moments between parental units. The article also mentions that parents have been known to invade their children's privacy or act as the "grammar police" while on Facebook.

So far, my dad's Facebook Wall consists mostly of posts about the St. Louis Cardinals, Chicago Bears, and Boise State Broncos. Occasionally, he'll comment on the quizzes I take, especially the ones entitled "When will you get pregnant/How children will you have?" since the results are always, "Zero children. You're never getting pregnant." Of course, I haven't told him that those results are totally rigged . . . by me.

And as for acting as the grammar police, he would tell you that responsibility would most likely fall on my shoulders. (The alcoholic beverage is spelled "champagne," Dad, not "champaign." That's the city in Illinois.)

Dan and I have been on Facebook now for 78 days, 1 hour and 30 minutes (well, 1 hour and 35 minutes for Dan). I have 151 friends (I realize, by Facebook standards, not very many). Dan has 27.

"You're very social," Dan said on Thursday. "You have 151 Facebook friends. Me, I just ignored another person from my high school today."

"Those people want you to be social."

"Nah, I think they want to be able to say they have 150 friends or more. Under 30 is much better."

The moral of this story is go ahead. Join the First Church of Facebook. Even if you only have 30 friends, at least you can spend a lot of time finding out who's gone prematurely gray.

Now, that Twitter thing . . . I don't think I'll be doing that any time soon, especially not without my girl Miley Cyrus . . .

Match-a-phobia

2009-10-04T12:59:00.010-06:00

When it comes to my marriage, I am typically the neurotic half of the equation. I am terrified of heights, snakes, bears, spiders, going down steep hills on roller blades or cross-country skis, riding up actual mountains on my mountain bike, flying over water, touching door handles, setting my purse on the restroom floor, etc. And I silently sing "Happy Birthday" when I wash my hands to make sure I am lathering up for a full 20 seconds.

My husband Dan, who is the exact opposite of me in almost every personality trait, does not seem to have any of these issues. To the outside world, he's not really an issues person. He's collected, cool-headed, composed, or - as the young people would put it now days - he's chill. However, he does have one little hang-up I discovered fairly early in our relationship, a strange idiosyncrasy I like to call "Match-a-phobia."

I caught my first glimpse of Dan's "Match-a-phobia" during a local talent show at the Western Idaho Fair. We showed up, apparently an especially handsome couple, because a friend of ours said, "Hi Becky, hi Dan. Hey, you guys are really starting to look like you fit together."

"Really?" I responded, hardly noticing Dan's deer-in-the-headlights expression. "How so?"

"I don't know. You just . . . match."

Now, Dan has blue eyes and blond hair. I have brown hair, freckles, and dark green eyes. He's five-ten. I'm five-two. As far as physical looks go, we match about as well as Betty and Veronica. I suppose our friend was referring to our outfits. Dan must have assumed the same. His eyes were darting up and down and back and forth between his attire and mine. It wasn't like we were wearing "His" and "Her" shirts. At best, we were both dressed in similar shades of blue.

I took this comment as a compliment. (Yay! We match! How cute!) What I didn't realize was the amount of anxiety that this idea of "matching" would cause my poor husband over the course of our marriage.

It's not that Dan doesn't want to be associated with me. He just wants to forge his identity with the clothes - more specifically the color of the clothes - he's wearing. (Honestly, he dons a T-shirt and jeans most days of the week even in 20-degree weather.) I could be wearing a dress, but if it's at all similar to the shade of his shirt, back in the closet his shirt goes.

Sometimes he asks me, "Do you think we match too much?" because Dan also has a hard time distinguishing between certain colors and shades of colors. It's a tough life when someone with "Match-a-phobia" also has a slight case of color blindness.

I like to reply, "Why, no. Not at all," very innocently. It makes Dan's face funnier when someone mentions how well our clothes match.

Last August, Dan and I were getting ready for a wedding. I noticed Dan surveying the two of us in our bathroom mirror.

"No, we don't match," I assured him before he had a chance to say anything.

"Are you sure?"

"Positive."

That evening, as we were sitting down at the reception dinner, Dan's sister thrust her camera into my father-in-law's hands.

"Take a picture of them," she said, referring to Dan and me. "They're so cute. They match."

"Did you hear that?" Dan hissed.

I just gave him a wicked smile.

Name Tag Sunday

2009-08-04T16:33:00.009-06:00

Today I will be addressing a phenomenon that my husband and I were privileged enough to experience at our church a few weeks ago. This phenomenon, which I have so endearingly coined Name Tag Sunday, was most likely the result of an "Overbearing Christian Care and Compassion While Making Annoying Connections Committee" meeting where its members decided that the best way to make people feel welcome at our church was to make them all wear name tags.

And when I say all, I mean all. Try to sneak by the Starbucks-esque table stationed reverently in front of the sanctuary door and covered with blue and white "Hello, my name is . . ." labels , and you ran the risk of being hunted down and marched out of the worship service until you had properly applied the adhesive over your heart. Just in case you haven't read Exodus 20:1-17 recently, the Bible clearly states "You shall not neglect to wear name tags on Name Tag Sunday" right after "You shall not covet your neighbor's wife." It's that important.

How do I know all of this? Easy. My husband and I had the nerve to attempt to enter the sanctuary without filling out name tags on (gasp) Name Tag Sunday.

It was an honest mistake. Dan and I were running a little late, so we sneaked in the back door of the church rather than entering through the "Meet and Greet" door, where everyone gets a handshake or a hug, and we unknowingly bypassed the name tag table. As we were just about to sink into the back pew, relieved to have made it on time and before the first hymn, we were stopped by a woman with a sucralosely sweet smile, perhaps a member of one of those aforementioned committees, perhaps even the member who came up with the whole "Name Tag Sunday" concept.

"Can I get you to go out there and fill out a name tag?" she said with a sing-song, reproachful tone. "We're asking everyone to fill out a name tag."

She escorted us back out of the sanctuary, to the lobby, and stood over us as we obediently filled out our name tags.

"We're trying to get to know everybody's names," she said.

The conversation in my head replied, "And I'm sure forcing people to fill out one name tag on one Sunday is a great way to learn everybody's names."

In real life, I just nodded.

"Are you new here?" she asked us.

"I've been attending this church for 14 years," I said. "We got married here."

Dan and I attached our name tags and were about to tiptoe back into the service, which had incidentally started by this time, when she stopped us again.

"Wait. You didn't write your last name," she reprimanded. "What's your last name?"

"Duggan," I said.

"So, Dan and Becky Duggan," she said with deliberation as she read our name tags. "Nice to meet you."

Finally, we were released from this compassionate ministry that our church had so zealously taken on. We sheepishly slid into our seats, like children who had just been released from a time out. Ironically, the sermon had to do with thanking God for your spiritual family even if they cause you anguish. Of course, if my spiritual family causes me too much anguish, they end up in my blog.

As we were on our way home, Dan, who is never bothered by trivial matters, said, "If we were new to the church, would that really have made us feel welcome?"

I am pretty certain that I can make the distinction between the true nature of God and meaningless church frivolity. But what about people who are new to the faith, people for whom church parishioners are the only reflection of Christ? What exactly are we emphasizing here, church people?

Going Green (without causing myself too much inconvenience)

2009-04-26T10:59:00.010-06:00

Earth Day always manages to shed a light, a gigantic energy-efficient fluorescent light, on my hypocritical, liberal activist wannabe but don't wannabe inconvenienced lifestyle. If you have carefully followed my blog, and I know there are many of you (mostly family members) out there, you may have picked up on an overarching theme that encompasses the majority of my writing. Guilt. And Earth Day is my most guilt-ridden day of the year. I know we need to save our resources, take care of our land, air, and water, stand up for human and animal rights both globally and nationally. But am I willing to make drastic changes to accomplish those goals? Probably not.

I used to work with a teacher who really lived what she preached. She drove a fuel efficient car, supported fair trade, bought local produce, boycotted Nike, Con-Agra Foods, and Wal-Mart. She wouldn't even wear a diamond in her wedding ring because of the horrific diamond conflicts in Sierra Leone. Another colleague commented on her once, "She's an innovative teacher, but she dresses like she's going on a hike everyday. She doesn't look very professional."

When you truly stand up for your principles and refuse to buy sweatshop produced materials, that doesn't leave you very many options, a sad commentary on American society and our labor outsourcing practices. Personally, I still want to look professional and fashionable. Like I said, a sad commentary . . .

Every year around Earth Day, I spend the whole week at school teaching recycling and Native American Mother Earth songs. I mean, at least I can teach about recycling without feeling like a complete Pharisee. My husband and I are the Royal Family of recycling. In college, I would fish the aluminum cans out of my friends' dorm room waste baskets. Now, Dan and I hardly throw anything away. We keep paper grocery bags in our pantry filled with plastics, cans, glass, paper, and magazines, nevermind the fact that all of the discarded lids end up in landfills choking baby seals.

Every week, I take my reusable bags to the grocery and recycle the plastic bags that they still insist on giving me for one item when my environmentally-friendly bags are full. I am properly offended when they try to bag my remaining groceries in plastic, and I feel contrite all the way back to my fuel efficient -- er -- SUV.

In the first grade classes this year, I extended the lesson to musical activities about taking care of our Earth's animals.

"Some people kill animals, and that's sad!" one little future PETA member said.

"But they eat them! That's not bad!" another little future Fish and Game Officer said.

A chorus of little hunters chimed in, "It's not wrong to hunt! It's for food!"

I shared my wisdom, "Some people choose to hunt legally for sport, and they eat the meat and use the animal for survival purposes. But there are also other people who choose to eat vegetarian. They choose not to hunt or eat meat."

"Like the vampire on Twilight!" the PETA girl said. "He was a vegetarian!"

"That's not quite the same thing," I said and quickly changed the subject.

Dan and I have really tried to make small changes to help out the environment and boost our healthy lifestyle. We bought BPA-free water bottles. We quit microwaving plastic . We use dryer balls instead of fabric softener even though all of my skirts cling to the back of my thighs and my fleece coat has so much static charge that I refuse to wear it when I'm pumping gas for fear of blowing up the entire station.

And how can I forget? We replaced most of our light bulbs with fluorescent bulbs that cast a beautiful purplish hue over our entire house, like walking into a school gymnasium. I'm just waiting until "They" come out with some report that says CFLs are no longer prudent alternatives because of the unsafe levels of mercury, that "They" previously were unaware that such levels existed in those bulbs. Oh well, then we'll just make a few more adjustments that don't inconvenience us too much.

The Infamous Wisdom Teeth Extraction

2009-03-25T10:06:00.014-06:00

I finally did it, went under the knife and had all four of my wisdom teeth removed. It must be understood that my decision to have the surgery has been a long, desolate road lined with guilt and coercion that began a decade ago when those tiny extra molars were just a blip on an x-ray.

The dentist first tried to convince me to get them taken out when I was in my early twenties. He referred me to an oral surgeon and told me to check with my insurance company. At that time, I was still on my parents' insurance so I took the information home to my mother.

"These young dentists with their new ideas! They just want to take wisdom teeth out before they even cause any problems. His father (our former family dentist before his retirement) would have never recommended it! You shouldn't have to go through this kind of surgery unless there's something really wrong with you. It's not worth it!" And she threw away the referral.

Over the next few years, if I brought up the dentist's suggestion, my mother would dismiss it.

"That's ridiculous. Your father, grandmother, and I still have ours, and nothing's wrong with us. Don't let those young dentists guilt you into an unnecessary surgery." I didn't have the nerve to tell her that my guilt wasn't really originating from the dentist.

So I quit bringing it up. By my mid-twenties, my wisdom teeth still hadn't even broken through the gums, and I figured they just wouldn't ever come in.

Imagine my surprise when I turned thirty and started teething like a one-year-old. Even though my mother wasn't around anymore to play devil's advocate, her voice still rang out in my head.

"Who cares if they swell up and hurt every now and then, if it hurts when you go in for a cleaning, if they're impacted, if your bottom teeth are growing in at an angle? These young dentists and their new-fangled technology!"

By this time, both my father and brother had had their wisdom teeth removed, and after much guilt-ridden self-talk, I decided to take the plunge and become the next wisdom toothless member of my family.

The funny thing about announcing to the world that you're finally getting your wisdom teeth out is that you're all of a sudden accepted into a secret society with all sorts of weird horror stories about the wisdom tooth extraction experience.

"I woke up half-way through my surgery and tried to tell them I could feel everything, but they wouldn't listen to me. They just continued like I was some experiment in a sci-fi movie!"

"I was given this pill that I was supposed to take two hours before the surgery. It didn't actually kick in until after the surgery, and I felt the whole thing. I threw up all day."

"The surgeon couldn't get my teeth out, they were so huge. He had to put his knee on my chest to pull them out. They won't do that to you. You're too little."

All of these stories are followed by, "That was just my experience. You'll be fine."

Two weeks ago, the reading specialist at my school got a phone call at work. Her son had just had a heart attack.

"He went in to get his wisdom teeth removed," the kindergarten teacher told me, " and he had a heart attack when they administered the sedative. He was only in his twenties."

"I'm getting my wisdom teeth out in two weeks."

"Oh . . . well . . . that won't happen to you. You'll be fine."

I cried pretty much all day before the surgery.

Of course, I was fine.

"I hope Dan had time to get breakfast," I told the nurse as she led me to the recovery room. "It only took five minutes."

"You've been here for an hour."

"Whaaat?"

"Even if you don't feel like it, you need to eat something," the nurse said as she laid me down.

"Oh, I feel like it!" I said through the gauze stuffed in my mouth. "I'm starving."

Dan said I rambled on in the car about being lucid and knowing what I was saying so he wouldn't be able to make fun of me.

"Oh good. I still have a tongue," I supposedly said looking in the car mirror and touching it with my fingers.

I also kept making Dan look in my mouth to make sure they had taken out all four teeth. I couldn't believe they had taken them all out in just five minutes.

Eventually, the sedative wore off, and I became less giddy. I slept the next day, and I did get a little sick from the antibiotics. Once the doctor gave me permission to go off of those, I was fine. My pain was minimal. I didn't even need to take much of the "good stuff" they gave me.

My only complaint is that I was under the impression that the swelling that accompanies wisdom tooth extraction would look like "chipmunk cheeks" which sounds a lot more attractive than the jowels I developed. Instead of resembling a cute, forest creature, I look more like The Incredible Hulk, or as Dan has nicknamed me, "The She-Hulk. She was hot!" Real comforting husband I have taking care of me.

How My Husband Almost Ended Up in the Doghouse This Holiday

2009-01-19T14:35:00.027-07:00

This Christmas, I received a video that has been circulating the Internet entitled "Beware the Doghouse." Distributed by JC Penney, it is a four-plus minute advertisement promoting the department store's jewelry department.

The ad begins with a well-intentioned yet oblivious husband who gives his wife a vacuum cleaner for their anniversary. The wife sends him to the "Doghouse" where he encounters other husbands who have met a similar fate. One unfortunate confesses that he told his wife that her "mom looked hot in a bathing suit." Another presented his wife with an Abcisizer on Christmas Day, telling her, "Thought you'd want to tighten up that jelly belly!"

In the Doghouse, the men have to eat quiche and drink Chai lattes every night while awaiting their turn in front of a female review board. The clip closes with a photograph of the only woman who ever accepted her husband back. A close-up reveals a diamond necklace around her neck, apparently the husband's ticket out of the confinement. "Stay out of the Doghouse this holiday," the caption reads.

I laughed and laughed when watching this video for the first time . . . that is, until it became a reality.

On Christmas Day, my husband presented me with a Nintendo Wii Fit, a video game exercise program. This in itself was not enough to land him in the Doghouse. He knows I like to work out, and he has forever been trying to find Nintendo games for me, probably in order to alleviate the guilt that comes from spending many hours in front of the T.V. playing "Super Mario Galaxy" and "The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess."

I was in no way offended by the implication that a gift such as a Wii Fit may connote - that I was in need of exercise.

So we set up the Wii Fit, eager to try it out. My enthusiasm didn't even wane when I stepped on the little white balance board and heard an electronic voice say, "Ooohhh," like an elephant had just climbed on board. But when the Wii calculated my BMI and my Mii character, an avatar-like creature with bobbed brown hair and freckles, grew shorter and chubbier before my eyes, Dan's time out of the Doghouse became dubious at best.

I should also add that when Dan stepped on the Wii board, the electronic voice said, "Great!" and when it calculated his BMI, his Mii character became taller and skinnier. When my Mii stands next to his Mii on the screen, my Mii looks like a beach ball.

The balance board then took me through various activities to calculate my Wii Fit Age. With every activity, the board ridiculed me.

"Walking's not your strong suit," it said. "Do you find yourself tripping when you walk?"

Dan snickered a bit from his perch on the living room couch and responded, "Yes, she does."

"The Agility test is not your strong suit," the balance board said. "Do you find your body isn't responding the way you want?"

Then there was a drum roll while my chubby Mii stood in a yellow spotlight, and the board presented me with my Wii Fit Age.

"40!" the screen read as my Mii bent over and rubbed her back. "That's a difference of +9 years. Your body's a lot weaker than it should be!"

"Don't worry," Dan said hastily. "You just have to get used to the games. I'm sure I won't do much better."

And to prove his point, he too took the Wii Fit Body Test.

"26!" the screen read as Dan's Mii jumped up and down with childlike agility. "That's a difference of -5 years . . . "

I sank onto the sofa and burst into tears.

"Don't cry," Dan hopped off the board and hurried over to me. "Oh no, don't cry. This was supposed to be fun for you! You'll get better at it, I promise."

He paused for a moment.

"I'm in the Doghouse, aren't I?"

Things have calmed down a bit since my first experience with my Christmas gift. I made a conscience decision not to allow the Wii Fit Balance Board determine my self-worth. I've learned to ignore comments made by the Wii such as, "The Steadiness Test isn't your strong suit. Do your find yourself controlling your movements with your eyes?" or "Too busy to work out, eh, Becky?"

Dan managed to stay out of the Doghouse this Christmas, although he occasionally has to be reminded of his precarious position.

"What? 28!" He exclaimed yesterday as his tall, skinny Mii youthfully bounced across the screen. "Last time, my Wii Fit age was 26!"

Then he glanced at me. I raised an eyebrow. He turned his gaze back to the T.V.

"Nevermind," he mumbled.

The Meek Shall Inherit the Earth

2008-12-22T12:28:00.004-07:00

I am currently perched at a coffee shop in the Sun Valley Resort, happily surrounded by luxury that provides a rustic, back-country facade sans the effort of actually roughing it, observing children who have been coddled by their parents into believing that it's perfectly normal to climb and jump on furniture and throw tantrums when they do not receive a third cup on $4.00 cocoa.

It's hard to beat the Sun Valley ambiance during the winter season. And, let's face it, what better way to spend Christmas than in a place where condescension and superfluous demands are rewarded?

Just yesterday, a woman with a pointy nose and professorial hair cut entered Iconoclast Books and asked the clerk to help her find a book written in the last year by a female author. The clerk suggested the new Toni Morrison novel.

"I want a book that is, well, good literature, you know . . . " A minute later, after the clerk had made another suggestion, "That looked a little sappy to me. Where do you keep that books have been written in the last year or so?" A few minutes later, upon her husband's approach, I heard her sniff and comment that she was ready to leave, "I'm not making much progress here."

Perfectly understandable. I mean, come on bookstore owners. What good is your business if you can't employ workers who can read the customers' minds, detect their preferences, and meet their requests within minutes of contact? Talk about incompetence!

Last night, while Dan and I relaxed in the Lodge pool, we were interrupted by a hotel guest's tirade regarding a glass Perrier bottle that had been left at the edge of the pool.

"How inconsiderate!" she huffed. "I guess we'll just take it with us since it hasn't been picked up yet."

The sign does after all read "No Food or Drink in the Pool Area," I thought as I watched the noble woman pick up her plastic cup and take a swig of whatever she was drinking.

A few minutes later, a hotel attendant came out to tell all of us that the pool would be closing in eight minutes.

"Does that mean you're going to come back out in five minutes?" the same woman who had been so appalled by other people's inconsideration snorted. "By the way, you might want to throw away this Perrier bottle -- no not that one, that's mine. I can't believe it was left here. That's so dangerous!"

"I thought we were so concerned about being considerate. The way that woman is addressing that worker seems extremely inconsiderate to me," I said, a little too loudly since it solicited a nudge from my husband.

But I was mistaken. Aren't the attendants supposed to cater to the fortunate people who can afford to be there?

Eight minutes later in the locker room, I discovered that no amount of money could hide the fact that the insulted woman was aging and pudgy with pockets of lumpy cellulite on the backs of her thighs. I suppose that's something we all have in common in the end.

I implore you, outlandishly wealthy people, to consider using your resources this Christmas season to make the world easier for others. I implore you to travel to a locale like Sun Valley, not for the sake of prestige, but so that you may stand in awe of its sheer beauty at this time of the year. Instead of searching your soul for enlightenment and God in yourself (judging from the shelves and shelves of "spiritual junk" at the bookstores, there is a lot of this kind of introspection occurring), I implore you to focus that energy on treating others with respect and regarding those who "serve" you as equals. Maybe then, you'll find a portion of the path for which you so ravenously seek.

"I wish for just one time you could stand inside my shoes. You'd know what a drag it is to see you."
-Bob Dylan, Positively 4th Street

Mr. Fix-It

2008-11-23T10:53:00.008-07:00

Certain recent events in my marriage have transported my recollections back to that old Cosby Show episode where Cliff says to Theo, "Son, get me my tool belt," and Clair (Cliff's wife) and Theo exchange looks of dread and panic at the prospect of Cliff using his sledgehammer on the bathroom wall. I remember that while watching that particular episode for the first time in the late eighties, my mother snickered and pointed to my father as Cliff strapped on his belt, a belt comprised of all sorts of odd-looking contraptions perfect for exacerbating household repair issues.

I am rapidly discovering what my mother already knew. There is a little Cliff Huxtable in all men.

In order to illustrate my point, let me introduce you to my husband’s alter ego, Mr. Fix-It.

During the summer, our garage door began making a strange fog-horn-like sound whenever it was lowered or raised. Soon the garage door refused to move at all but still insisted on making the sound every time we would press the button. My husband, my Mr. Fix-It husband, reticent to call an actual garage door repair person, spent a good part of a Saturday afternoon “fixing” the garage door. According to Mr. Fix-It, only one side of the door was broken, and it appeared to be a simple fix, although it did take him most of Saturday afternoon to accomplish this.

About a week later, I opened the garage door, only to be greeted by the same fog-horn sound now accompanied by a crunching noise that sounded like the garage door was being run through a meat grinder. The door opened, so I didn’t think anything of it; however, the attempt to close it failed as I was pulling out of the driveway.

Mr. Fix-It spent a long time in the garage that evening, eventually coming to the conclusion that it was broken, this time on both sides. After a night of deliberation, he decided to call a garage door repair person who fixed it in fifteen minutes.

That same summer, Mr. Fix-It emerged again when he decided it was time to replace one of the broken heads on our sprinkler system. He spent yet another Saturday afternoon in the backyard before realizing he had bought the wrong size extender.

Upon this revelation, Mr. Fix-It entered the office, sopping wet, laughing with amusement. “I guess I did take a shower this morning after all . . . in the sprinklers – ha ha!”

That evening, while I sat on the living room couch watching a Great Performances special, Mr. Fix-It sat beside me fiddling with the broken sprinkler head and a screwdriver. He had decided to fix the old head before installing a new extender in the correct size.

“Isn’t that a ratchet sound?” he said when the sprinkler head emitted an unpleasant grating noise underneath the screwdriver’s rotation.

A few minutes later, he set the screwdriver and sprinkler head on the coffee table.

“I think I stripped it completely.” It was time to buy a new head.

Right before school started, I informed Dan that my car blinker was not working anymore. Enter Mr. Fix-It.

“That should be easy to fix.”

So he spent the first hour in the garage, taking apart the steering column, diagnosing the problem. When I asked him what was wrong, he replied, “I don’t know, but it’s broken.”

An hour or so later, Mr. Fix-It tracked me down inside the house, quite proud, holding the blinker and window washer switches in his hand.

“I’m going to fix it,” he promised.

He worked for another hour with the contents of his toolbox and random car parts spread out on the kitchen table.

Eventually, he did put the steering column back together. And excitedly, he demonstrated the properly working blinker, to which I proclaimed him a genius. A few days later, I discovered that my horn was no longer working.

“What do you want, a working blinker or a working horn?” Dan said. “It’s not that important for you to have a horn anyway. When do you use it?”

Needless to say, my car still does not have a functioning horn.

The other day, one of my 4th grade students brought in a toy car remote control. He announced that he was going to take it apart for talent day because that was his talent - he was good at taking things apart.

“Do you put them back together, and do they work after you put them back together?” I asked.

He nodded.

“Well then you’re one step ahead of my husband.”

You Have Officially Entered Bear Country

2008-09-07T19:52:00.007-06:00

My husband and I spent a week of our summer vacation in Yellowstone National Park. I had been to Yellowstone twice. Both times, I was passing through on the way to somewhere else, giving me just enough time to see Old Faithful, a few elk, and nothing else.

Dan, on the other hand, had spent many summers around the Jackson and Yellowstone area, and he took on the role of personal tour guide, treating our vacation much like our trip to Disney World (translation: He woke me up at 6:00 every morning in order to arrive at the park when the gates opened, and we stayed every evening until the gates closed).

Prior to our trip, Dan suggested we buy a can of bear spray since our plan was to do some hiking and mountain biking. I think Dan secretly hoped we would encounter a bear on an isolated wilderness trail.

Joe's Sports and Outdoors was sold out of the stuff.

“Boy, the bears must really be out this season,” the clerk behind the weapons counter said. I giggled nervously, glancing over at Dan. I knew he was thinking, “Cool. Bears!”

Cabella’s had a few 45-dollar canisters left, but we were told the same thing, that there had been a rush on the bear spray inventory that season. I immediately discovered that the majority of the bear mauling incidents as retold in the bear spray safety pamphlet had occurred in Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Park.

I braced myself for my summer venture into Bear Country.

Upon check-in at Togwotee Mountain Lodge, Dan and I were instructed to store all food in our room rather than in our car because “You are in Bear Country after all.” We also received a Bear Fact Sheet at the front desk that delineated what to do if we did indeed meet a bear.

“Three reasons a bear may charge,” the fact sheet read, “1. The bear is startled. 2. The bear is defending his/her territory,” and my personal favorite “3. The bear is hungry and wants to eat you.”

“Are you sure Yellowstone is a safe place to visit?” I asked Dan. “I mean, maybe we should just let nature be nature and not invade its living space.”

“That’s why we got the bear spray,” was Dan’s response. “It can shoot thirty feet!”

Everywhere I went in Yellowstone, I was politely reminded that I had infiltrated bear country. Bear warnings were posted at hiking trail pit toilets so that outdoors enthusiasts could read about the imminent threat of bear encounters while attending to their needs. Picture books in the resort stores taught children about the various wild bear scat found in Yellowstone. And just in case I had managed to forget that I could get attacked by a bear at any moment, all of the ornaments and magnets in the gift shops announced “Welcome to Bear Country” and “Be Bear Aware!”

So did I meet a bear during my summer outdoor adventure? Well . . .

Dan and I were stopped in one of the many traffic jams that occurs on the Yellowstone roads during the summer season. I had my camera in hand just in case a bison or elk walked by the car. All of a sudden, people were hanging out of vehicle windows, cameras clicking away.

“Becky, a bear!” Dan exclaimed.

There it was, beautiful black fur shining in the sun, sauntering past our driver’s side window.

“Take the picture!” Dan hissed.

“When?” I squeaked, frozen in my seat. “Should I do it now?”

“What now? Just take it!”

I didn’t take the picture, much to my husband’s chagrin. I didn’t even move the camera near my eye. But I did buy an ornament later that day that read, “You are in Bear Country.” I figured that was close enough.

Text Message: IDUWWCJUCSA

2008-07-21T15:20:00.004-06:00

There is a phenomenon sweeping across the technological world that makes using complex sentence structure a thing of the past. It's called text messaging. I bet you cannot figure out the title of my posting. That is because I have joined the ranks of the young and the hip. Now when I speak or write, it is not necessary for me to use actual words. In the young and hip text messaging universe, I am only required to divulge the first letter of each word in my sentences. And only young and hip people with super texting decoding powers can understand me.

I stumbled upon text messaging by accident. Dan and I were running some errands when all of a sudden, my cell phone let out the strangest doorbell noise I had ever heard.

"View now, view later," the screen said.

I pressed "OK" and there was a message from my brother Steve. He wanted to know when he could pick up his birthday cards from our grandmother and great aunt, since they refuse to send anything directly to him but always send any correspondence (birthday cards, graduation gifts, money, etc.) in care of me.

After making sure Dan, my husband and technology guru, wasn't watching, I tentatively put the phone to my ear just in case Steve was actually on the other end and that message was just the "subject line" to his phone call.

"Hello?" I whispered.

"Who are you talking to?" Dan glanced at me from the driver's seat.

"No one. I just got an IM (young and hip lingo for Instant Message) from Steve."

"That's a text message, Becky."

"That's what I meant."

Pretty soon, I started noticing odd consonant-vowel combinations popping up on magazine pages, commercials, billboards, in e-mails - BTW, BRB, LOL, LOLA, TTFN, and IYKWIMAITYD. Occasionally, I found out that what I thought I knew about the English lexicon did not always apply in the text messaging world. For instance, SOS does not always mean "help" in the world of text abbreviations. Sometimes it means - well, I'll let you look that one up. And WTF does not mean "Where's the food?"

Young people, this bizarre obsession you all have with locutionary brevity is nothing new. Let me introduce you to FDR and his New Deal complete with the FERA, PWA, and SSA.

Eventually, I knew I had to jump on the bandwagon when I saw my dad texting my brother during his college graduation. In fact, my dad glows with pride everytime he receives a text and goes to work replying to the message promptly.

I realized that if I ever wanted to contact any young people such as my brother or any of his peers, I would have to master the art of text messaging. None of the younger generation answers the phone anymore. Text message them, and you can expect an immediate response even if they failed to pick up your call five minutes before.

"You know how to text?" a teenager asked me one day a little too incredulously.

I had just picked up my cell phone and was punching random numbers that the phone somehow converted into letters on the tiny screen in front of me.

"Of course," I sniffed.

I turned away so that the kid couldn't see how slow I was typing.

"Let me do it for you," Dan always says when he sees me texting. "Haven't you ever seen the kids text? They can do it so fast!"

It's true. I am a very slow texter. It takes me a while to figure out where all the letters are and how many times I need to punch the number in order to arrive at the desired letter. Besides, nobody ever texts Dan, so he never gets to show off his mad texting skills. It's quite sad.

Now that I have been initiated into the text messaging universe, I have decided I can start using that abbreviated slang that only young and hip people know how to decipher. Did any of you figure out the title of my posting?

(Here's a clue for any of you elderly readers: I don't understand why we can't just use complete sentences anymore.)