Mom’s Day Off (Are you sure you want to do that?)

On Mother’s Day, I called home. True, it was less than my sister did—she was actually visiting home. The call was twice the fun, as I was able to talk with Mom and T through the miracle of speaker phone. Mom was enjoying a lovely leisurely late afternoon while Dad cooked the family dinner. In the middle of our conversation—or rather the end, as it turned out to be—Tali went outside to see how the preparations were coming. Yes, that’s right, outside. See, Dad was using dutch ovens (of which we have three) in his effort to give mom the night off. To give Dad his due, he cooks tasty dutch oven dinners and desserts. Well, as I chatted with Mom, I suddenly heard my sister screaming her head off. I mean, REALLY screaming. So, I asked what in the world was going on outside. Mom, looking through the window guessed, “It’s probably a bee.” T does react in a rather exaggerated fashion to the threat of flying insects, but the screaming continued and was joined by Dad, although I couldn’t make out what he was yelling. At that point Mom calmly (after all it was her special relaxing day) said, “T’s having an emergency; her pants are on fire.” Then the room went quiet. So there I was, a voice coming out of a little box just wishing I could look out the window, when, HARK! Who’s that there? “D?! Hello!? D?! Is that you?!?” D was walking through the kitchen, and I was able to use him as my eyes to get the following information: T was on the ground wearing charred, ripped up pants. I instructed him to have them call me back the minute they could (which I was sure T would do anyway). Here is what happened in her own words:

I was standing next to the dutch oven (which had been cooking for a while) to dump in the bowl of potatoes, when I realized that I was standing right on the pile of coals that had been sitting on the oven lid. I stepped off and saw some smoke and thought the bottom of my Adidas sandals must be melting. No big deal. I then saw that the bottom of my too-long jeans were black and smoking. I asked Dad, who was standing nearby, if I should be concerned, if I was going to burst into flames, if I should pour water on myself just to be safe. But Dad insisted I would be fine and was not the least bit alarmed. Of course, Dad is never the least bit alarmed. Not 30 seconds later, the bottom of my jeans burst into flames. I screamed, and Dad rushed over and started beating at the flames to put them out. It didn't work. I continued to scream, for I can't quite describe the panic of seeing yourself on fire. I mean, when fire strikes, there is no possible way to stay calm. Stop, drop, and roll didn't even cross my mind. My only impulse was to run around like a crazy person. I eventually did make it to stop and drop, but only because Dad told me to get on the ground by saying, “Get on the ground!" So, there I am on the ground, and by this time I can feel the flames burning my flesh. It was by far the most painful thing I have ever endured. It was only a few seconds of flesh-burning before he got the flames out, but not before a nine inch section of skin had been burned off the back of my left leg.

For any who know T, she adds that she is accepting “all kinds of well-wishes and cards and gifts and assurances that I might still be desirable [even with a disfiguring scar].” To the lessons she says she’s learned through this experience (1. If you are cooking with a dutch oven, do not wear jeans that are too long. 2. If you are cooking with a dutch oven and you must wear jeans that are too long, at least make sure you are not wearing your favorite pair. 3. If you are cooking with a dutch oven and you must wear jeans that are too long and they happen to be your favorite pair, hose yourself off at the first sign of smoke.) I would like to add a few observations. First, things happen FAST. To be sure, this was not entirely a case of spontaneous combustion; however, once your clothes light up, there is really no way to prevent injury entirely. Having a hose sitting near the pit of coals is nice for putting them out when you are all finished and have the time to walk around the house and turn the water on, but an “off” in-case-of-emergency/only-you-can-prevent-forest-fires hose provides a false sense of security. I advise having a waterbottle or bucket ready for REAL emergencies—the kind in which something needs to be put out fast. I intend to do this at all fire activities from now on. You just never know, and when something happens, it happens fast and the result is painful and ugly. Second, events like this, though tragic, make great fodder for Mother’s Day tributes. Mom takes the night off, the kids catch on fire and pandemonium ensues. We want Mom back!

(Photo above taken a week after the incident. Ouch!)

Updates for the Faithful

1. (Entry "Check it OUT!") I have been informed that the elusive $50 grand prize for Penny-A-Page has, indeed, been earned on not one but TWO occasions, both by the same dedicated reader, D. As an update to this update, I have also learned that, interestingly, D no longer participates in the program. He now fills his summer with less lucrative pursuits, although we all recognize that there are many interesting and worthy activities with which to fill our short vacations. Here’s hoping he’s doing some of those.
2. In an effort to protect the innocent, I refrain from using names, preferring to use first initials instead. This has caused some confusion in the past and produces a degree of ambiguity that I would avoid if it could be done without compromising what little anonymity the people I write about possess. I apologize for the confusion. I would also like to add that it was reported to me that a certain someone’s first name was written in full more than once in a single post. I have considered looking for this post and changing it, but I have begun to think that maybe he isn’t so innocent after all… A warning to the people who believe they have been featured in my posts: Your days of anonymity may be dwindling.
3. (Entry "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.") The locks at my office have been put on a timer. They unlock at 8 AM and lock at 5 PM. I am still free [forced?] to entertain myself 7 hours every day (not including my hour lunch). Business as usual.
4. (Entry "Gramma Nut") The flyer I made for my “professional editing service” actually worked! I put it in just 4 buildings on GT campus—a pilot study, if you will. A couple weeks later I was contacted, and I completed my first job last Saturday. It’s kind of exciting!

Check it OUT!

Penny-A-Page is in full swing. I always look forward to it so much. I do enjoy reading—and getting paid—but I think it’s the elusive $50 maximum reward that makes me so excited that I begin scheming weeks before the contest actually begins. (For anyone unfamiliar with Penny-A-Page, it is a summertime reading incentive program, funded through a generous grant from mother N. Each participant records the titles and number of pages of all the books they read throughout the summer, and at the end of the summer receives 1 penny for every page! You won’t get rich with this program, but if you like reading recreationally anyway, why not end the summer with a little spending money? There is a cap at $50, although no one has ever reached it.) In order to reach $50, one must read 334 pages per week, or, approximately 56 pages per day (not including Sundays). Certainly possible, but making comebacks is difficult. A strategy—or reading list full of books you know you’ll like and finish (no payment for pages read of a book that wasn’t finished)—is necessary. It's fun to keep tabs on what others are reading and how high their page count is. Every year I tell myself, “THIS is the year! I won’t let the $50 get away!” And every year I end up solidly in the $20’s. And yet, I always believe and am always determined that this WILL be the year! So, in spite of the fact that I must admit I have already slipped behind in my fail-proof reading list, I just know that THIS really is the year! $50 will be mine! The early success story of this summer, however, goes to B. This is B’s second Penny-A-Page season. Last season he ended at just $1.19. This year he has more than doubled that amount already! He turned in a list of books to me, which I order from our city library system. I love libraries; just the idea of them! They have more books than I would ever have access to otherwise; I can “try-out” books, rather than having to buy them and later realizing I didn’t want to read them in the first place; I don’t have to store tons of books at my house that I only read once; if you have a big library system (like we do) you can get ANYTHING, almost any book or magazine and tons of movies; they give homeless people a place to go; and, it’s all for FREE!

"Bra-VO, Washerwoman!"

I felt married for the first time in my life on Friday. That’s the day I came home to a washer and dryer all hooked up in our closet, just like they’d always been there. I think I like them; it’s simply a little shocking that I own them—more so than, say, cars and tables and couches and curtains…wait, I don’t own curtains... I haven’t done any laundry in these machines, but B has. Hmm…yes… I’m going to LOVE them! We’ve talked about getting a set many times. But, like most big-ish decisions, we both think it’s a good idea at different times. For example, B thought we should get a Wii when we first got married, but I wasn’t so sure. I kept thinking it over, considering the benefits, and eventually I agreed that a Wii would be an excellent addition to our home and our game collection. Only, there was no one to agree with, because by that time, B had decided that we really didn’t need one and wouldn’t use one. Although a bit let down, I talked myself right out of wanting one again. Sure enough, a while later it seemed like a good idea to him again, but I was no longer interested. For better or worse, this yo-yo phenomenon plays out repeatedly with us. And while “worse” may be obvious, I’d like to state that in terms of “better” not only do we avoid bad decisions indefinitely (ok, and good ones too), I also get to sing the song “Yo-yo Man” in my head. And that’s fun. So, who was the impetus to Friday’s purchase? Well, maybe me, I guess, but it definitely came as a surprise to both of us. I believe it was an act of Providence, albeit a very long, drawn-out, and complicated act.
It all started a couple months ago when I noticed my car wasn’t running very well. It felt like it had absolutely no power. Finally, it got to the point that something had to be done, but without B around to take it in and lend me his car so I can go to work, I was having a hard time figuring out how to get it to a shop. Then last week, when I was really starting to get worried, I received a safety recall notice from Nissan. I called the dealership and was informed that there were actually two safety recalls on my car. So, I arranged to take my car in Thursday, and they said they’d provide me with a rental. I can’t believe the timing of it all! My car was sick, I couldn’t find time to take it in, I put off having it seen, I get a RECALL, my car gets a bunch of work done for free, and now it’s fixed! The hitch in the undertaking was that the rental company was [conveniently] out of compact cars, the size that Nissan reimburses them for. I feel this is a scam, and it will certainly used as evidence in a future post on suspicious business activities. I ended up with a truck. A truck with a back seat. I did manage to seem unhappy enough that they lowered the difference between what Nissan pays and what the truck costs so that I would only have to pay about $3 per day (plus the extra gas, of course). Good enough. It was a nice truck, even if I DID have to call someone from my office to come down to the parking lot and show me how to get the key out of the ignition. When I told B about it, he said, “Is there anything we need to move?!” I said no, but I thought of a washer and dryer—not because I wanted one, but because they are the only thing we don’t have, and last I knew, B wanted them. For the record, I have been content washing our clothes in the apartment laundromat. There was one time I was interested in getting a nice pair, but that opportunity passed. B has gone back and forth, but since I do the laundry anyway, convenient or not, I get to make the final decision, and, like I said, I don’t mind the laundromat. So, we have a truck…and I decide to just look at Craigslist and see if anything catches my eye. Of course, it’s unlikely that anything will work out—which is fine. After all, I’d be picking B up at 5 A.M. the next morning, so the pick up would have to take place between 6-7 A.M. I sent a couple emails anyway. When I told B what I had done, I found that the pendulum had swung back in the weeks since we last discussed this. Oh well. That’s fine with me; I don’t need one either. I’ll just tell the people I’m not interested if they call. Well, they called, and they happen to live in our apartment complex! What are the odds?!?!?! Obviously, it was meant to be! So, at 5 A.M. I pick B up and let him know! [He laughed, as though I’M the crazy one. I’m so sure!] Then at 6 A.M., as I had arranged, we pick up a friend and take him to breakfast as thanks for agreeing to help move the washer/dryer at 7 A.M. Fabulous. The car got fixed, we got a washer/dryer, and we went out to breakfast. We are so blessed.

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

What do I really DO at work? I mean, for the company? Well, booking flights, hotels, and cars for everyone in the company working at our U.S. offices and jobsites takes up most of my time (45 minutes/day). I also coordinate conference calls for all of our U.S. operations (30 seconds/day). I receive all FedEx/UPS deliveries (10 minutes/day [spent chatting with the delivery people]). I am the office fire warden (2 one-hour-long meetings and 1 fire drill per year [TODAY’S THE DAY!!!! But nobody knows…hee hee…any minute now…]). Finally, I provide conversational therapy and boost office moral. Everyone has to walk by my desk, and I’m always happy and willing to listen to them chat or complain, I tell them funny stories and explain the news (since I have all the time in the world to read up on it), and I occasionally hold multiple choice office polls! Sometimes (1 hour/week), coworkers (the ones who know just how bored I am and how much time I have to fill with whatever I want) ask me to do favors for them, like printing labels, ordering baseball tickets, and stuffing envelopes. I love it when they do this and I always readily agree to help out—so far anyway. This may soon change; I have a new responsibility now.
See, after our office was robbed a few months ago, the powers that be decided to upgrade from a simple lock-and-key door. Now we will get in and out of our office suite with access cards. I am in charge of activating and assigning access cards. As they are used, information (time and user) will be stored on my computer. I don’t know what this really does to prevent further theft unless it is suspected that one of our employees is the thief (highly unlikely, as a different office on our floor was robbed the weekend after we were…). Cameras are also being installed at all three doors, and somehow this information is supposed to be accessible at my workstation as well. This all really won't add anything to my workload and I should still have about 7 hours per day (not including my hour lunch) to entertain myself. The responsibility (and annoyance) is that everyone who doesn’t work here (delivery people, copy machine repair men, clients, even our own people who are based out of other offices) will need to be let in. Enter “the buzzer.” Yes, I will now have to push a buzzer to let everyone in! Everyone. Probably even my coworkers who are on their way back in from lunch or from a bathroom/smoke break. Our own people walk in the door hundreds of times a day. Even the people who are not "our own" generally know us and what they need to do here, so they don't need me to notice or help them—I don’t work at a doctor’s office. I would much prefer a keypad (or a retina/fingerprint/voice scan!) so that people who work here and constitute 99.98% of the door traffic can always have their access ticket with them. The craziest part is that the buzzer is also an intercom system. Like I’m going to stare straight out the glass doors at someone and say “Yes? What do you want?” “Is he expecting you?” “Ok, you’re clear. [BUZZ]” I’m so sure. Of course everyone gets to come in and may be shooed away personally if they happen to be here by mistake (or be unwelcome). This really never happens. I guess I can harass people leaving work early as they wait for the elevator. And I can say things like, “I am the great and powerful wizard of Oz!”
So, now that we've been wired for sound and video, this is my full time job: pushing a buzzer. I’ve said all along that I’d love to actually have something to do for the company, but now, after learning what that something is, I think I may quit. I must not be cut out to be a full-time working woman. [sigh] Anyway, if they really do expect me to use the intercom and to interrogate people before letting them in, they should have at least installed a trapdoor. Then I’d really have some options.

The One-Eyed One-Horned Flying Purple People Eater

That was me yesterday—all but the purple part. It all started with a Saturday-morning notice from our apartment complex stating that pest controllers would be fumigating our homes on Monday. In preparation for this event, we were instructed to move EVERYTHING in the bathroom and kitchen that isn’t nailed down...somewhere else. All cupboards, countertops, and drawers must be empty. Additionally, nothing may be placed next to a wall. This proved quite a task for me, occupying nearly the entire weekend. Now my house resembles a mountain range—three peaks in the living room (in the general area where the couch, table, and desk once were), two in the bedroom (where the bed and dresser once were), and one in the bathroom (hidden behind the shower curtain)—and no, that’s not all our stuff. Our closet [which, truth be told, should be called the second bedroom] is still half full (the stuff on the floor has been moved from the edges) and B took a carload of stuff with him when he left that morning for the internship in Orlando. Still, this project took me till midnight Sunday/Monday to complete, and if I don’t smell poison when I get home, people will be eaten. But, looking on the bright side, as one-eyed one-horned flying purple people eaters tend to do, this has kick-started my “spring cleaning” efforts. I’m suddenly ready to vacuum against walls and wash baseboards, cupboards, and drawers. Many of our regular weeknight activities are on hiatus for the summer, and without B around, I intended to use many of my free nights cleaning and organizing everything we have. Now it will simply use up fewer free nights. Also, this exercise has proved once and for all that even WITHOUT any of our furniture, we will not be able to leave Atlanta in anything less than a moving truck—and I’m willing to leave the house as it is now in order to prove this point to certain unbelievers. I do wonder though how people, knowing they need a truck, determine the size or [mercy!] the NUMBER of trucks they need, as I suspect they do not regularly pile everything they own in the middle of the floor (although they may think they do). It's really a very educational exercise.
So, Saturday afternoon, after my workout and in the midst of ransacking the bathroom, I got a call from B to tell me that he was almost there and that he had just realized he forgot something important: his clothes. [silence] Not his workout clothes; he had brought those clothes. But he was not going to Orlando to work out; he was going there to work. I have no words to describe how I felt about this. These forgotten clothes have been selected over the last month on several shopping trips. They are not only meant to cover the body, but also to make a good first impression. But nothing could be done to get these clothes to him in time for church or for his first day, so B did a little desperation shopping. I helped out by making a mad trip (in more ways than one) to the FedEx pick up point late Saturday afternoon got a few items winging their way “overnight,” which isn’t really overnight on a weekend.
Sunday morning I threw in my contacts as I was heading out the door. They didn’t feel right and everything looked blurry. Rather than wait for everything to clear up and become comfortable, I throw a bottle of eye drops in my bag. On the way to church the blurriness didn’t go away, and I determined that it was in just one of my eyes. It was so severe that it was almost like not wearing a contact—which is exactly what was going on, in that eye anyway. How could I walk out with only one contact? Half way through church when the other eye went back to being uncomfortable and went from clear to blurry I realized that I had actually put both contacts in the same eye. I'm amazed that for about an hour the double contacted eye had been clear (during the times that I covered the blurry eye with my hand). I had no idea that could work. Sometimes I feel better about the real story being the one in which I actually put both contacts in the same eye—sometimes I don’t. Finally, last night I had some stuff to take to the garbage place. There was quite a large pile of trash outside the compacting conveyer contraption leading to the enclosed dumpster. Among the trash there was a perfectly good very tall rolly set of Sterilite drawers! Perfect for organizing something, which is what I’m about to be doing for the next few weeks. I wanted it, but I don't normally (or ever, in my memory) pull things out of the trash, so I was too embarrassed to wheel it across the parking lot. I decided to take the top two drawers, and I planned to come back for the rest later—with the car. 11PM seemed like a good time. But, it was gone. Now it's back to the dumpster with these two drawers. Ah, what might have been.

The Most "Humane" Award

STORY 1: Years ago, when I was in college, a kind acquaintance in my neighborhood often complimented me on my hair. One day while walking across campus he realized that I was walking a little way ahead of him—or rather, he thought that I was walking a little way ahead of him. So, he hurried to catch up and when he had, and could see that I was indeed who he thought I was, he greeted me with “I thought that was you, Jenny.” Um…not Jenny. Likely, he really did know who I was and had simply said the wrong name, but it was possible that he hardly knew “Jenny,” just like he hardly knew me, and actually thought that he was talking to someone else. My plan was to correct him (which I figured was the kindest way to handle either scenario in the long run) when he added, “I’d recognize that hair anywhere,” followed by, “It’s gorgeous.” These remarks changed everything. If, in fact, there exists a Jenny whom he thought he was complimenting (scenario 2), I was not her and correcting him not only would have embarrassed him, but also me—the “not Jenny.” Better try to masquerade as Jenny till the encounter ends—as quickly as possible. Or, assuming that he knew all along who I was and simply had had a slip of the tongue (scenario 1), correcting/embarrassing him right after his compliment would seem extremely harsh. So, I thanked him and we headed separate ways. Awkward encounter ended. He never used the wrong name to address me again; in fact, soon after this experience he moved away from the neighborhood. TO BE CONTINUED…
STORY 2: We attended an “engagement party” on Saturday night for a couple who will be marrying in another state. We had purchased them a gift off their registry, namely, a blender. The next day after church I was waiting for B to get out of a meeting when the groom-to-be saw me and came over to thank me. Being a VERY “people-oriented” sort of person, he began the following conversation:
HIM: Thanks so much for being there last night!
ME: Of course!
HIM: And thanks for the GIFT!
ME: Oh, you’re welcome. We’ve gotten a lot of use out of ours.
HIM: You know, of all the things we registered for, the one thing I really hoped someone would get us was the waffle iron!
Um…not a waffle iron. What is one supposed to do in these situations? I don’t think there would have been any reason to correct him even WITHOUT the added bit about the waffle iron being the only thing he really wanted. After all, people get a lot of presents, who really cares if he got it wrong. But I think correcting him might have been possible (if one were so inclined) had he not rhapsodized about the desirability of the gift he incorrectly thought we had given them. So, I owned up to the waffle iron by simply saying:
ME: We were given a waffle iron for our wedding too. Actually, it was from a really good friend of mine and I was quite happy to receive it as well.
TO BE CONTINUED…
STORY 1 [CONTINUED]:
Three years later (yes, I was still in school), my roommate mentioned that the guy she had met at a conference in New Orleans (and hoped to begin dating) knew me. I didn’t recognize him by name, but a couple weeks later he came over, and I recognized him immediately as the old acquaintance who used to like my hair (and Jenny’s?). They did start dating (two years later they’re still dating). The funny thing is that my roommate happens to be named “Jenny.” Her hair? Black, and straight as a board.
STORY 2 [CONTINUED]:
I changed the topic of the conversation to ask where they would be living, as most places close to the bride-to-be’s school are located in a different ward. That part of the conversation ended with me offering to have them come over “anytime” to look at our apartment complex. They chose that very evening for their visit, and I forgot until it was almost too late to tell B that the groom-to-be believes we gave them a waffle iron and that I had let him believe it, thinking it would never come back to haunt me. Crisis narrowly averted. If he had walked in and begun thanking B profusely for the waffle iron, as he is wont to do, B would certainly have corrected him, making him embarrassed and me EQUALLY embarrassed for having done the humane thing in the first place. The only thing left to worry about was the bride-to-be. Would SHE remember who had really given them the waffle iron when her fiance began mistakenly thanking us?

"BEST WEDDING DRESS EVER"

Fewer and fewer things in my life seem to go according to plan. So, to bolster my spirits and convince myself that I still come up with good plans and that I continue to be in charge of my destiny the way I once was, I like to think about recent things—however small—that HAVE gone the way I intended them to as a result of my good decisions and planning. One of those was the successful sale of my wedding dress. I really don’t understand why more people don’t do it. Why wear something so costly once? Since I will never have the opportunity to recoup the full value of the dress by wearing it repeatedly (which, according to my rough calculations would take at least 1,323 wears), the entire cost of the dress is sunk. Plus, I don’t like to keep things longer than their use lasts. As for sentimentality, the dress really doesn’t matter—nor do the invitations, nor do the flowers, etc. The dress, which was optional to me in the first place, would have to go to make room for more useful things; and, if I sold it, I’d recover some of the cost too!
So, I did a little shopping. Surprisingly, although many of the dresses were “pretty,” I just wasn’t interested in wearing them for my wedding…until…I FOUND IT! THE ONE! It was exactly what I wanted—funny, because I hadn’t ever thought I wanted any particular things. Wedding over, the dress went on sale, and I felt just as good about it as I had when I thought the whole idea up—no, I felt even better; I had the smug satisfaction of knowing I had had the dress of my dreams [if my dreams had been of dresses]. Because I am no longer in Utah, where the dress is, the actual transaction and customer interaction was managed by T (for a nominal fee, naturally). After all, she IS an MBA…and a cutthroat. Who better qualified? Our business advertising strategy had two vehicles: 1. Craigslist [which proved to be the winning strategy]; 2. the BYU “board” [which did not generate any business despite catchy teases such as “HAPPILY MARRIED FOR ETERNITY—AND YOU???” and “NO ONE HAS TO KNOW IT ISN’T THE FIRST TIME” (courtesy of B—the think tank)]. Now the dress is gone. Someone else will get to wear it! Hooray! Then she can be as happy as I am when she thinks back on how lovely it looked and on how fortuitous it was that she found it...and that I sold it—that is, as happy as I am IF she sells it.

A Much Stronger Player

Sometimes I play chess. I’ve never been formally taught about strategies—or rules, actually. But I know how each piece may move and what the ultimate objective is. In my early days as a chess player, my strategy was to try to kill one of my opponent’s pieces with every turn. It didn’t matter which piece. There was no focus on the ultimate objective—just a steady whittling away of the opposition. Eventually, everyone will have been killed and I will be the winner. As I have matured in my playing ability, I have begun to construct more intricate plans involving forced choices for my oponent (who is usually running defense against my miriad of assassination attempts), and I have shifted my focus to the king.
I would wager that I outplay my worthy opponent a good 75% of all the time we spend playing. The trouble is that I don’t win 75% of the games we play. In fact, I don’t even win a disproportionate 50% of the games we play. The injustice of it all has caused extreme frustration and has led us to carefully consider whether I am emotionally “up” to the challenge before opening the game closet. A lost game will darken my mood for about an hour, and on one particularly bad day (which is never a good time for a game of chess) a defeat left me in tears. I enjoy playing most of the time, and knowing how “well” I play convinces me that I WILL win this time…I mean I should, after all. So the frustration continues—and grows.
When my mom called on Sunday, I had just completed a chess game in which I did not come off conqueror. I did not tell her this; just casually mentioned that we had been playing. She asked in her mom way, “Are you and Brett both good sports?” which is to say either “You had better both be good sports,” or “Are YOU being a good sport?” I wanted to answer, “Yes,” because by and large I do consider myself a good sport. I don’t believe I am one of those people who HAS to win any and all matches of each and every game. I will certainly try to win, and if I can win, I’ll do it. But I knew, as I considered the recent chess match, that I had not been a good sport on this occasion. Generally, when I don’t win at chess (which is generally) I am not a good sport. Of course, I maintain that if I could just win my fair share of games based on my cool moves, killing ability, and lack of stupid errors, or at least win an amount of games approaching my fair share, I am certain I would be a gracious loser. But clearly, in answer to Mom's question, I am not a good sport SOME of the time. I thought maybe I could tell her that I am a good sport when I win! That counts for something, right? But, I am not a good sport, even when I win. The match we had played two weeks earlier was a stunning victory for me, and I gloated about it for days. I stalled on the phone as I considered all of these things, “Umm….er….well….,” and finally, “Brett is a better sport.” Whew.
So, I’ve decided that something needs to change. I either need to change the way I react, or I need to change what is happening that is causing this reaction. In other words, I need to be content with whatever happens when we play, or I need to start winning more so that I AM content with what happens.
I have started reading up on chess moves.
Two CAN play at this game.

Ya' mean men are learnin' how to dance?

Seven months ago I enrolled us in a square dance class. I know from a semester of square dance instruction during my freshman year of college that it is not only really, really dorky, but also really, really fun! B, on the other hand, is opposed to dancing in any form, but I suspect that since we were newlyweds he agreed to join (not so much because he was THAT in love with me, but more because he probably didn’t know me well enough to know that if he gave me the go ahead, I really WOULD go through with finding a club and getting us all signed up [and purchasing the “belt buckle” he demanded before he would step foot in a dance hall]). Knowing that B is not a dancer, I felt that square dancing was our best shot, although the “dorkiness” factor makes the choice a little counterintuitive. All style judgments aside, B had the highest likelihood of success as a square dancer because he is an engineer—(ok, maybe even with the style judgments, depending on one’s opinion of engineers). This means he can count—very important in many forms of dancing but emphasized in square dancing with calls that include numbers and fractions in their names. A military affinity also helps, as square dancing requires the dancers to follow orders (thereby eliminating one anxiety-causing aspect of dancing: the dancer’s own creativity!). It looked a good deal like marching when we started, but now, we’ve really got some…flare! Finally, it’s lots of fun—including and especially spending time with our dancing friends. The average age of the dancers in our club is probably 72. Many have things like hearing aids and pace makers and “new” knees and strokes and 56th wedding anniversaries, and all are universally apologetic that we have to hang out with “a bunch of old people.” But really, the only thing we DON’T like is hearing them apologize that we have to spend time with them. They’re wonderful. They really do dote on us, and I suspect one or two have crushes on B. How could they not? He is precise in his timing and in the execution of moves (see? the counting thing again) and has more hair than most of the rest of the men in the group (on this point B is probably at least as pleased as the ladies!). We are looking forward to Friday’s graduation dance, and, yes, we’ll be wearing the outfits!