Eden's Children

Let's set aside the fact, for a moment, that I don't know from memory all of my nieces and nephews' birthdays or, necessarily, their middle names.

I want to talk about my friends' children.


I have friends with children. (Note: This is a partial list, designed to target a specific subset of friends, my former Eden roommates, whose whereabouts and burgeonings I'm really, I'm realizing, behind on.)

Some I knew about:

Henry
http://autumnandbarrett.blogspot.com/





Jacob
http://mommytheo.blogspot.com/







Adri
http://jackiwalker.blogspot.com/







and, of course, Sam and Kyle's famous Kate and Owen
http://kylemillerfamily.blogspot.com/






Some, however, I did not know about:

Laine??
it turns out--see http://autumnandbarrett.blogspot.com/ but you have to scroll down a few entries






Emma??
http://philwebbfamily.blogspot.com/
(See ridiculously beautiful picture at top of blog.)

And some are predicted but not yet arrived:

Vera Jewell
http://philwebbfamily.blogspot.com/

The Bun
http://smylie.wordpress.com/

AND Jasmine and Arthur's GIRL! (This is news to me. Thank heavens for the peer pressure that Jasmine succumbed to.)
http://vanwagenen.blogspot.com/

This is what I want to say:

I think that we should seriously consider some kind of forum for us to gather these children together and let me meet them (and, for instance, meet Arthur and, too, re-see some of you, aka all of you, I haven't seen since, for instance, I got bangs). It's true--do you remember?--that BYU has some sort of a pretty baby contest each year as part of homecoming festivities. (Doesn't it? Did anyone ever go or pay attention to that? I always figured it was a No,-Wymount,-you-really-are-part-of-this-community sort of activity.) But I'm thinking it's time for us to have our own baby beauty contest.

To make it a fairer fight--let's be honest, so-and-so's baby really is the cutest--we can add other categories. Frothiest Gurgling, Realest Fake Laugh, Looks Most Like His/Her Mom, Longest Stay-Awaker, Best Kisser. Something. I'll take suggestions.

And to judge, we can maybe have those of us who still don't have children (read, single aka situationally barren) do the judging, since we're dispassionate, independent, and, the good men tell us, needing to serve.

What say? We can gather in Utah. (Everyone still has family there, yes?) Or crash Sam and Kyle's place in Las Vegas (to take advantage of the stays-in-Vegas cheap hotel rates). (Sam and Kyle, you do still live in Vegas, yes?)

And, while we're trying to sort this all out (yes, Juice, you can come, too, despite your not having ever visited us in Eden--or did you? Phil, Rebecca, your spouses--you all count, too), I want us to consider the irony/appropriateness of this: We lived in Eden. We left. Some of you got pregnant. Which thing the prophets foretold. See 2 Ne 2:22-24, Moses 5:11.

(Also consider: You used to come home to me, and now you come home to them. It's true, I don't have a lot to offer you that's better than they are so as to fight for a place to stay in your heart. I, like them, may have kept you up with my crying, may have asked you to wash my undergarments, may have spat Cheerios and apple sauce your floor (sometimes we would laugh and eat at the same time, remember?), may have wanted you to open an Otter Pop for me and scratch my back. But in all the time we lived together and/or have been friends, I have never, never, never required that you suck the mucus out of my nose with one of those squeezy tubey things. I'm just, just saying.)

From Belize, Part III: San Antonio.

We teach in a school on the side of a jungle valley. It's misty in the morning, it's smoky and hot in the middle of the day, and, in the afternoons, the valley is taken up with the sound of the bus as it honks its way to town.

The school we teach at is San Luis Rey R.C. Primary School. (R.C. means it's Roman Catholic, like most of the schools--and, thereby, school teachers--in Belize.) We started today. We teach three classes: two small ones with small children who sit happily in our very small desks. They are going into Standard Five (which would be like sixth grade, except they're so little, it's like teaching 10-year-olds). We teach one class of Standard Six, and they are bigger--but still little--and they are a little more willing to talk. A little. They are all Mayan. The girls' names are Myra, Maria, Sharla, Juana, Francelia, Ardelina, Everista, Apolinaria, and Amy. The boys' names: Santos, Silvio, Diego, Jeremih (he says there's no A), Macario. They speak quietly--all of them--and the girls wear shiny, satiny dresses or 90s florals, and the boys have slicked down hair.

For lunch we walk to the home of the principal, Mr. Honorario Rash. Mr. Rash is a small man (of course, he's Mayan), with smoky spots on the skin around his nose and eyes. His hair is almost buzzed like a boy's in the summertime, and he wants us to sign in each day in his teacher's register. He is very kind. He arranged for his wife to cook us lunch everyday: $5 BZ per person per day. (That's $2.50 US.) I paid him for all of us for the next two weeks with one $100 bill (they have been hard to use), and I was grateful to get the $20 BZ change back. For lunch we had rice and beans and fried spam and one slice of avocado ("pear") each. And to drink, a super cold and beautiful tang-like drink that was, for sure, made with water right out of the tap; I drank it anyway. We never saw his wife.

We have two periods before lunch, one period after, and we have half an hour between school and the 2:00 bus, which takes us the 45-minute dusty, bumpy, jungle ride back into town. After school today, we hit the creek. There's a creek at the bottom of the San Antonio Valley that widens and pools just under a low-branching tree. There were four boys in shorts swimming there today. Two Saturdays ago, when we went, there were grown men. Annette and I waded in, and Peter walked the tree but declined to backflip into the water as the boys were doing for show. Tomorrow we're bringing our suits. We'll shutter our classrooms, change in the dark, and head to the creek. IcannotsayhowexcitedIam. Today, I happily sat the bus ride home with a wet skirt.

In short, in short, we're done with school in PG. My students wrote their last letters. They read the ones you sent (those of you who so kindly sent them--I'll try to get you the pictures we took; the kids were quietly, delightedly starstruck) and, finally (after an assembly, a cake, and some gifts to us) they went. Mr. Nolberto, the principal, invited us over to his house on Saturday, where we made an authentic Garifuna meal: mashed plaintains with fish-and-coconut milk gravy. We made fresh lime juice and drank the coconut water from coconuts he cut down from the trees in his backyard. It was, all by itself, an email, a chapter, a book. (Mr. Nolberto is a Catholic, but he's active with his Garifuna religion, which means he dreams dreams and sees visions and sings during the animal sacrifices--which he doesn't like--at the nearby Garifuna temples.)

On Sunday, we got up at 4 to take a 3.5 hour bus ride to church in Dangriga. We found the church and went. "You enjoying the weather?" a boy on a bike asked as we walked in the half-rain. We took a 3.5 hour bus ride home and spent the afternoon/evening hiding our heads in Gilmore Girls (except Peter, who's very conscientiously reading the Bible). And we were delighted to find out that, despite the misinformation today, from here on out we can take the 6 o'clock bus to the junction and not the 5 o'clock bus, which either means one more hour of sleep or one more episode of the Gilmore Girls, depending on which of us you're asking and how reckless we're reeling it in. Or out.

It's a good life. A good living. There are people in the jungle, and they read and write and spell and say things like "I am thanking you that you come to our village. I am so happy to be in school of the year." And, who knew?, they kick trash at unscrambling the word "football": OTFOBLLA. (Among other things.)

I'm thankful for the goodness in my life and am happy (and hopeful) re the goodness in yours.

Note: I am not surprised that they can unscramble FOOTBALL. They love football (meaning soccer); this is why I chose it as a word for them to unscramble. What I am surprised at is the relative swiftness of their unscrambling of it. I wrote it on the board and, whammo, multiple kids called out "FOOTBALL!" (which is kind of amazing because they're Mayan, and they don't do much calling out at all).

From Belize, a Web Special: Mom asks, Sarah answers.

Mom sent Peter and me an email today, asking us a series of questions. These are my answers (I'll let Peter answer for himself). I figure that if Mom is wondering these things, then maybe the whole world is wondering. (Maybe.) Also, I'm trying to be more public and more regular about both (a) my travel and (b) my writing. La. Here we are.


Does everyone speak English or English and Spanish?
Everyone speaks English, and some speak Spanish. Peter is getting to use his Spanish just a little bit, but I think he would like to be able to use it more. More people speak Creole and English (There's a Creole sign for a chicken place we pass every day to and from school: Dis da fi wi chickin! We're not sure what it means.), and we have to ask our students to repeat themselves until they drop the Creole and speak in English. There are a surprising number of Chinese here, too. Our classes actually look very Valley Stream-esque, without the Europeans, of course. And no Middle Easterners.

How many children are in your classes?
We have three classes, each with between 15-20, depending on how many kids come and when and whether or not the kids who are doing the soccer camp across the street and our classes decide to go to soccer or, for instance, reading. (You can guess which one they usually choose.)

What is the teaching the last week in another place?
We'll be teaching exactly what we're teaching now for two weeks (M-Th, then M-F) in San Antonio, a village of 3,000 people scattered across a little jungle hillside about an hour's bus ride from PG, where we're staying. We went in today to see if we could find the principal and make arrangements for our transportation (buses in the morning only go 2/3s of the way there, to the junction ("the Junction," they call it) where the highway turns). So, we hopped an old, green and yellow painted school bus, paid our $1.50 per person, and jumped and stopped and sped there. It was beautiful. Idyllic, almost. And so cool. Now we have one week left teaching here in PG (it feels like forever and also like three seconds) and then we'll have 9 teaching days of 5 am morning buses (5 am), and then we'll teach from 8-11:30, 12:00-1:30, and we'll take the 2 pm bus home. Shorter teaching day, longer day. But I'm hoping to do some swimming, maybe just after school, in this milky, shady river/creek that's at the bottom of the hill San Antonio's set on. There's a tree that reaches out low and over the water, and today on our way back, we saw 20-something-aged men diving from the tree and treading in the water. It was great.

What are you eating and drinking? (Can you drink water and eat fresh food or not?)
We spend a lot of our time negotiating food, as you can imagine. Peter is usually the one who spearheads this effort, asking right after we've eaten one meal, what we're planning to do for dinner. We buy bottled water and drink that. (There are a lot of little groceries around.) Annette brought a cool water purifying system, and we purify water through that and use that to mix with Kool-Aid (Drinki, it's called) or juice concentrate or powdered milk. We eat out once a day, usually for lunch, and we eat at any of the little shack-type restaurants that line our street. We just had fry jack and black beans and banana shakes. Fry jack is just deep-fried puffy dough, we dipped in this black bean paste (like really smooth refried beans but made of black beans) that we find in a lot of dishes (burritos, for instance). We love the black beans. We made french toast for dinner last night, splurging on margarine we used to grease the bottom of a pot (we have a little gas stove/oven). Peter bought this great brown sugar for cheap, which he used to make syrup Mom-style. It was so tasty--thick and brown and sugary. This morning, while we lounged, Peter went to the market and came back with a giant bag full of fruit we're excited to eat--fresh stuff. Bananas, papaya, mangos, watermelon, limes. But we will, likely, keep eating a lot of canned beans and canned tomatoes and canned corn, etc. But we've been eating well--very simply--and enjoying it.

What is the Church situation?
We're trying to figure out church right now. The nearest church is not, as we thought, close by. Apparently, it's across the water in Guatemala. A 45-minute, $30ish roundtrip boat ride. The problem is, the boat only leaves at 9:15 and returns at 2. There is a church in Belize, which is Dangriga, but that's a 2-hour bus ride. Also, we don't know where that is or at what time. This is our goal for the evening. We'll see what tomorrow brings, but part of me is excited either way. Traveling here feels so easy--just sit back and look at the beauty and newness and strangeness and miles we're passing. It all makes me feel more loving and older and wider-eyed.

What are your rooms like?
Our apartment is this little cabiny type suite at the third-floor of our hotel. It's very cute and clean. We have a front room, with small plastic table, fridge, microwave (which we haven't used), gas stove and oven we have to light with a lighter. Then we have two bedrooms off of that. Peter has one, with a double bed. The girls and I share the other; Michelle and I share a double, and Annette has a twin/full. Both rooms have air conditioning, but Peter's better than ours. I'm not complaining though; they're great. The fourth quadrant of the suite is a rather large bathroom, bigger than any we have at home. The toilet paper dispenser is a very cool, thick wooden fish. The bathroom is not scary at all. It is nice to go home. We live in apartment #3.

Is there anything we can do to help you?
We're doing great. I wished I'd brought an assistant for each class, so Michelle and I could have a Peter, too. We should come down here as a family. It's so easy, comparatively, and there's no reason the girls couldn't be helpful. In fact, they would be great helps to us, I think. It's a beautiful world, and it feels close to home--much closer--than Ghana in large part, I think, because we're on the same side of the same ocean. There's really only land between us and Dallas is just a few hours away.

From Belize, Part II: We go swimming.

After school today, as a little boy (age 12, but small) named Wilford closed the metal blinds on my windows, I asked Gwen Usher, the St. Peter Claver teacher who's come to be our heavy, where I could go swimming. "Where can I go swimming?" I asked her. Belize is known for its beautiful, clear water, its incomparable diving, its rainbow-glittery snorkeling, but not for its beaches. It's the kind of country you boat out from.

It's true live at a particularly non-beachy part of the country. The silt run-off from jungle rivers pours down into the Gulf of Honduras, on which we're located (my roommate Annette tells me), and makes the local waters muddy, brown, tumbly, and great for fishing. (I actually don't know if that makes them great for fishing, but they are, apparently, great for fishing.) Apart from the color of the waters nearby, everything else about our cute town is island, coastal-rific.

Ms. Usher said, thinking about my question, "Hm, a good bathe. Where are you staying?" I told her Charlton's Inn, at the end of Main Street, and she said people usually go to a good spot about a mile up the road that lines the coast. Go up from our hotel, make a left at Texaco, and head on until you hit beach.

So, after work, we did. We taught our first 7:30-3:15 day today (with two 15-minute breaks and an hour and a half for lunch, as is the norm here), and that third period (the last period) was hard. Our feet are sore from too many teacher hours in flip-flops and Chacos. My voice was tired from saying again and again and again (teaching--teaching is a career that centers on repeating the same sentence 900,000 times at day): "There are TWO correct ways to write a date: MONTH SPACE DATE COMMA SPACE YEAR ORRRrrr DATE ORDINAL SPACE MONTH SPACE YEAR." (This is a small teacherly fiction I picked up from our school's principal; in English, it's so nice to teach rules that are hard and fast that I find myself pharisaically holding onto them). And we were ready to leave our apartment to do something other than scour the local, dimly lit, and dusty shops for cans of something something, small plastic bowls, and something to eat--anything--that was fresh and appetizing (chocolate milk is the closest we've come so far, but a fermented orange juice was a disappointing second), that we all wrapped up in beach wear and headed off down the highway.

It was rush hour, it was a highway, there were no sidewalks, and we spent most of our time dodging locals on bikes, who'd pass by with children or Honey Bunches of Oats or, in one instance, an electronic keyboard leaning on, hanging from, or strandling the handlebars of their bikes. We briefly considered hitchhiking.

The water was choppy and brown, but we found a wharf and a coast of rocks and put our feet in. It was so warm, sometimes I couldn't feel the water. But Annette and I were hoping for more than foot baths. We left Peter and Michelle sitting on the wharf and walked down to a corner of the beach where the sand turned into the water, and there was a little boy in boxers doing cartwheels. (His mother was watching.) The water was a little more than a foot deep, and I could lie down in it and be rocked towards the shore with only a waveish now and then on my face. Salty, dirty, and so nice.

Annette and I left the water when she began to be nibbled (we're thinking crab?), and we picked up Peter and Michelle and walked back into town (past two more of these mysterious and ubiquitous hand-painted signs: "This way to Earth Runnings"), where we ducked back into a little shop and bought a small can of salsa, another can of black beans, a can of stewed tomatoes, and, for the others, a 50 cent package of chocolate-flavored chocolate cookies. At home, we had two pounds of fresh corn tortillas we'd bought at lunch hour from the tortilla factory across the street. These all would be dinner.

As I'm writing this, we're two hours post-dinner, three hours post-swimming, and I can still feel the wet of my suit through my shorts and sweatshirt. My ears have dirt in them, and I have swimming hair. It's time to read my scriptures, time to watch The Office, maybe time to plan a lesson.

It's lovely here.
Sarah

P.S. I'm going to send another email that will have a number of pictures attached to it, as I'm not sure I have time for Picasa before the Dreamlight closes. But you can delete it or not open it, if that would be helpful. Also, it might not go through. We'll see.

From Belize, Part I: In which I take four airplanes in three days and meet Brother John.

For archiving purposes, I thought I would post the email updates I'm sending to a smattering of recipients re my trip to Belize. No need to read if read you already have.

We're here. We're here in Belize, specifically in Punta Gorda, Toledo District, Belize. The sky: blue. The water: large and muddy and blue. The buildings: red-roofed, aqua or white painted, flat-fronted.

After a three to four-hour delay in Dallas yesterday, my two friends (Annette and Michelle) and I finally made a plane down to Belize City, where we met my brother Peter (who'd flown through Houston on another airline). He was waiting for us just inside immigration, reading Foreign Affairs, waiting for us to arrive and tell him where we were staying in Belize so they would officially let him into the country.

Our plane's delay had made us miss our connecting flight to PG (a 1-hr, 3-stop flight on the littlest plane--imagine flying inside of a fish), so we stayed in Belize City last night. We lucked out. We were choosing between two hotels--the Global Village Hotel, which was some indeterminate (but short) taxi ride away and the Embassy Hotel, which was "right across the parking lot" from the airport (or so said the guide). It was dark and humid and, total, we had eleven bags to roll, so we were feeling (and were, I'm sure) conspicuous. Belize City is not know for its safety. But we saw a building that seemed Embassy Hotelish, took off across a parking lot, and prayedprayedprayed.

Prayers answered.

What we found across the parking lot was the funniest--the funniest, nicest thing. It was a giant, multi-floored sort of ramshackle building. The Embassy Hotel is run by a man named John, whose humor centered on delivering obvious information in a deadpan fashion ("You can turn on the light with either hand, right or left, it doesn't matter.") and his wife. (John: "My wife is a concert pianist. She's also an ex-Dallas Cowgirl. She's just just a little bit prettier than I am but not much." His wife, from another room: "He has to say that because he knows I'm listening." She smiled.) They are Christians, and the sign in front of the hotel said "HAVE YOU READ YOUR BIBLE TODAY?" They're Americans, who live down in Belize, running what seem to be various hotels and service programs for church and college groups. ("I'm not retired; I'm just tired.") We got two rooms, with AC, showers, and free dinner and breakfast (John: "The cook is out, so the food is on the house." John's wife: "Not on the house, John. It's dark. They shouldn't be up on the roof. [To me] I have to give him his own humor back."), which was made for us by a middle-aged American Airlines mechanic named Bobby, who was talkative and lonely and happy to call us by name. I would love to see John and Grandpa Hoggard chat together. They'd be--I wouldn't know what to do with myself.

This morning we skipped like a stone across the surface of Belize, stopping for a moment in Dangriga (both g's are hard, I learned), in Placencia, and then, finally, in PG. The town is small. There really is only one main street. And everything is on it. We live at one end, the school we'll be at for this week and next is at the other. We met the principal, saw the classrooms, decided on an extended day (7:30-11:30, 1-3:30), and are gearing up for tomorrow.

This will be--such, such a delight.

The world is so accessible, it turns out. Saturday, DC. Sunday, DC, NY. Monday, NY, Texas, Belize. And here I am, zip zoop, on the edge of the ocean and a jungle.

Come visit. We have a couch you can sleep on.

With love,
Sarah

P.S. Belize City is a 2-hour flight from Dallas. I'm just saying.

Fantasy Heroine Baseball (Plus)

Jeanette and I were driving down from my sister's new house in Syracuse (the almost idyllic village of Fayetteville, actually) yesterday and, on hour 6 about, we started playing car games. We played two: fantasy heroine baseball and cartoon home teachers. Weigh in: who do you think won?

Fantasy Heroine Baseball

Choose a baseball team of nine (we weren't sure how many people are supposed to be on a baseball team, but we thought we could handle nine) entirely comprised of heroines (female characters) from literature.

Jeanette's Team

1. Anne Shirley from Anne of Green Gables
   
2. Main character from Their Eyes Were Watching God
   
3. Tonks from Harry Potter
   
4. Nancy Drew
   
5. Emma from Emma
   
6. Jael from the Bible (Admittedly we stretched the category a little bit for this one, but the Bible is literature, too, and Jeanette couldn't pass up the power of this kind of woman.)
   
7. The third daughter (the one who stays in Africa) from The Poisonwood Bible
   
8. The sister-in-law from The Jungle
   
9. The mother from The Good Earth
   

Sarah's Team

1. Elizabeth Bennet from Pride and Prejudice
   
2. "Hetty" (the sporty daughter, whatever her name was) from All-of-a-Kind Family
   
3. Hermione from Harry Potter
   
4. Beatrice from Much Ado About Nothing (We're guessing she would be the MVP.)
   
5. Turtle's mom (whatever her name was) from The Bean Trees
   
6. Dagny Taggart from Atlas Shrugged
   
7. Raskolnikov's sister from Crime and Punishment
   
8. Laura Ingalls Wilder from Little House on the Prairie
   
9. Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle from Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle (would definitely play catcher)
   

Three things of note:
1. This was actually pretty hard. After Anne of Green Gables and the Austen books, we had to push ourselves to think of other female characters. Oh! I just thought of a great one! Petra from The Ender's Game. She would be the BEST!

2. We discussed but both rejected Scarlett O'Hara as an option. She does have tenacity, but neither Jeanette nor I wanted her brand of fierceness on the team. Would be bad for morale, we thought.

3. #2 was especially true when we revisited our lists to see whom we would want to work with. Nancy Drew didn't make the cut there. Too nosy, we decided. Or maybe kind of a time-waster. But I'd pick Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle again in a heartbeat. I picked her for my visiting teacher (companion: Elizabeth Bennet). Jeanette, on the other hand, picked Tonks for everything. Everything. Visiting teacher, visiting teachee, best friend, mentor. Jeanette = wants to be Tonks.

. . . . .

We also played cartoon home teachers, but I think we both won this one. Who would you choose?

Cartoon Home Teachers
Choose two cartoon characters (must be nominally male) to serve as your home teachers.

Jeanette's Home Teachers
1. The Donny Osmond character from Mulan
2. The monster from Monsters, Inc.

Sarah's Home Teachers
1. John Smith from Pocahontas (Was I the only one who loved that movie? John Smith--seriously, what a good-looking cartoon.)
2. Merlin from Sword and the Stone

The Airport Parking Model of Happiness

The following is an essay I wrote and referenced in a February 2006 blog entry. After much delay and little revision, here it is.

We say “fine.” We’re a society of fine-rs. We pass someone we know-ish on the sidewalk between Meyer Library and Moonbean’s, and he, that guy from that one class with us, says, “How’s it going?” And we say fine. “Fine.” Even though, as it turns out, it maybe isn’t going so well. I mean, we got enough sleep last night, unusually, because we went to bed so early. Around midnight. (The internet was slow.) That’s fine. But we did just realize that we missed the deadline to sign up for those job interviews. We’ve decided to attend that national conference, which may be fun, but we just found out that the airplane tickets we bought but really couldn’t afford, we bought for the wrong weekend. This is not fine. And then, too, there’s that general sense of malaise that’s cast a dark and semi-permanent shadow over the general course of mirth in our lives ever since Alan went away. Alan. What a good cat.

I ask people sometimes why they say fine when I know that in reality they’re not feeling fine. That, in fact, they’ve just been crying to me, on me, about a heartbreak, about heart ache, about being so tired and feeling generally run over. Usually, good people justify this “fine” response because they believe that the “how’s it going?” person just meant well, just meant to say “hey,” and doesn’t actually want to know how it’s going. Doesn’t actually want to know about how sometimes life is specifically hard, here, in first person.

But (a) I think people do want to know those things, or at least, have a sense of them, of what the true state of our lives is like, even if they can’t change the situation or wait around to hear us tell them about it. If I know that the girl who sits next to me in constitutional law is having a hard day, then I can try to treat her tenderly, more tenderly than I might otherwise. Or at least, not make her find her own chair when I’ve stolen the only one left in the row. And (b) I think there’s a way to let people know how we’re feeling, how we’re really feeling, without overburdening them with the gross weight of our current emotional excess. This way relies on one of the first theories of daily living that I ever crafted. I call it the Airport Parking Model of Happiness.

There are at least three levels of human emotion (or happiness—it’s true this theory might be better called the Airport Parking Model of Emotion, but I was young when I named it and the name irrepressibly stuck). The three levels are long-term parking, short-term parking, and departures and arrivals.

The long-term parking level describes the general course of your life, how you’ve been feeling the last few months, years, decades, etc. If you’re clinically depressed, it’s depression on this level. If you’re chronically hyper, it’s an excess of energy on this level.

The short-term parking level describes how you’ve been feeling today, the last few days, the last few weeks. When people say, “How’s it going?” or “How YOU doin’?” they’re usually referring to your short-term parking level of emotion.

Departures and arrivals refers to how you’re feeling right now, this moment. You just ate a good orange, you stubbed your toe, that boy is cute, it’s stuffy in here, that joke was funny, etc. These moment-to-moment emotions quickly come and go (and sometimes circle around) like the cars coursing through the departures and arrivals lanes at the airport.

The theory is this: If we have at least three levels of emotions operating at all times, then we can (1) respond from any one of these levels, or (2) respond from multiple levels. I specifically advise the latter.

Let’s say I’m having a bad day—a really bad day—and someone unfortunately makes the proverbial “how’re you doing?” inquiry. In response, I can say, “You know, I’ll be honest. It’s been a bad day. But, this southwest chicken salad from Tresidder gets me every time. It’s so good.” Chances are, from my experience, that said questioner will laugh and nod and walk away. Then I can cry in my southwest chicken salad with peace of mind, knowing I’ve been true to the complexity of my experience while doing my part to share some of the human condition.

Or, if worse comes to worst, and you can’t bear to even mention the bad and true stuff of your current life to that guy from your class who says “how you doin'?”, change the status of a parking level. Take a moment and think of the pretty trees you're standing under and answer from departures and arrivals: "It's a seriously beautiful world." Remember that yesterday your roommate made you waffles, your mother sent you heart-shaped notes, and the prayer you said last night felt real and true and fine. You can say, from your short-term parking level, “You know what? Things have goodness about them.” Or, if you need to, if you can, buy yourself a new cat, pray yourself a testimony, and improve your long-term parking. Then you can say fine, fine, fine, as consistently as you like.

The world may not know the difference—may still you think you’re copping a copasetic façade in the face of disaster—but you will. You’re telling the truth. And that should feel fine.

International Human Nights: A Poem

Elizabeth is in Chile.
Live from a mountaintop.
She studies the stars.
Giant telescopes
mounted on mountainsides
worked
by night scientists
working with small computers.

She wrote me today and said
Orion IS upside down.

Later, in class, the European diplomat
guest lecturing,
saying words like “conwinced” and “blackleest,”
is talking about the 700 years of federalism
about the tragedy of landmines
and child soldiers, child trafficking,
the Maoists being demilitarized in Nepal,
and I find myself trying to imagine

two shoulder points
three studs on a girded belt
(Would they hang on the same rakish angle
left to right,
or upside down,
does it slip up his hip, right to left?)
two star-spangled boots,
like Dolly Parton,
kicking it up on a stratospheric stage

all hanging, upside down,
upside down.

Orion is—

“So ven you say you want to beeld a fentz between the Youess and Mehico, I say, as long as one tzide of the fentz has an eight dohllur a day wage and on the ahther tzide of the fentz has an eight dohllur per hour wage—you can beeld a fence one hundrred meetrs high, and peeple will alwayz find a way.”

Sarah and Company (Has Company)

A friend (a good friend) asked me to help her name her blog. I'm not good at these things, actually, on demand. (Though, it's true, I did come up--and on the spot-- with the name for the back page of The Collegiate Post--BYU's academic fortnightly--that was intended to showcase the lighter, funnier side of the paper. The name I came up with? The Posterior. I've always felt a little sheepish and a little pleased about that.)

The point is--she asked me to come up with a name for her blog, and I tossed one off ("Levi's Spouse"--her husband's name is Levi, of course), and today I was writing her an email, asking her if she'd made her blog and what she'd named it.

What I'm trying to say is--that as part of my email, I told her that I "kept googling" "Levi's spouse" and came up with nothing, which wasn't quite true because, though I'd tried "levisspouse.blogspot.com" at least twice (and came up with nothing), that isn't quite googling (what would you call that? bloguesstimating? (see--not that good)). And, because I didn't want to have to come up with a name for whatever it was I had done (trying to get URLucky?), I decided to blog "Levi's spouse," thereby at least making my statement minimally true. And I came up with nothing.

But then I thought--what if personal blogs don't typically come up with a google search for their title? So I decided to google my blog name (sarahandcompany, of course; but I actually wrote "sarah and company"), and guess what came up?

http://www.sarahandcompany.com/

!

So anyway, there's a handbag company in South Dakota, started by a woman named Sarah (Sarah Sola), and it's called Sarah & Company.

And you know what? The bags look pretty beautiful.

http://www.sarahandcompany.com/sarah/handbags/signature.php

(See the "black and white waffle stitching." And the polka dots, which are very much in.)

That's it. I'm just pleased. Delighted and pleased. That's what I was trying to say.


Addendum: You know what? If you google "sarahandcompany," you get two links for sarahandcompany.com and then, ta dah--

Sarah & Co.
Pork Loin and Cheddar Dill Scones. These recipes are provided courtesy of Karren, as part of my ongoing feasting series (see The Feasts of Christmas at ...sarahandcompany.blogspot.com/ - 53k - Cached - Similar pages

Dve stvari

Today, via email, I was asked these two questions:

1. Little DMV question for you. If the little stickers on my license plate say "NOV" and "2006" have I been tempting fate for three months or am I good for 9 months? The DMV hasn't sent me anything in a while, and I forget about details like this.

2. Gchat. I think I had my first gchat equivalent of an awkward conversation with Karen today. I was so shocked by the novelty of it all, I guess, that all I could think to do was rephrase whatever she had just said. It was like a freshman first date. If I sign on again and Karen's little circle goes grey, is that the gchat equivalent of "That sounds like fun, but I'm getting my nails done that night…"?

I thought I would share my answers. In case you were wondering, too.

My Answers

1. DMV: I think you've been tempting fate. I'd take a stand and soon. My trip today wasn't too bad. Redwood City, pretty close, easy to sit and read while you wait for your number to come up. Pretty cute to be near such a cross-section of the population: the muslim couple in front of me with three ridiculously cute kids running around; the white teenager, his dad, and his lawyer who were near me until they stood up to see, who I presume was some kind of a judge, on what sounded like a drunk? driving charge (the lawyer to the officers they came out of the office with: "On behalf of the boy's dad, I want to thank you for getting him off the road. He was a danger to himself and to the community. You did the right thing. He's a good kid, he just made a mistake [laugh, laugh], as we all do."); and the guy who stood at the counterspace next to me (window #9) who said, "I have a 2002 corvette that I forgot to register..."). Awesome. I'd recommend it.

2. As per Karren (two r's there; it's actually a last name from a progenitor) and her gchatting, she likely just had to leave and leave quick. The gchatting formalities are pretty low. Most of the time, people are in and out of their accounts without much fanfare (going from a colored dot to a grey dot, for instance, means you've signed out or shut down your computer) and without any announcements. Unless you're having an extensive one-on-one chat-to-chat (pretty intense; pretty obviously a real conversation, like a good phone conversation), and then that kind of greying out would be like the phone cutting off, with the same attendant questions and rules of etiquette, etc.

Man, it turns out I have a lot to say about this. My fingers are cold, but it's okay because I'm done with what I need to do today. What's left: brushing my teeth, putting on my pajamas, reading my scriptures, and, if I want to, reading some of the Joan Didion book I began reading last night ( A Book of Common Prayer). (The book blurb didn't sound like something I wanted to read particularly, but everyone says she's a good writer. And you know what? From paragraph three I was sure of it. Man, she is a good writer.)

--

I give you that advice, as I give you my love. Freely.

Pork Loin and Cheddar Dill Scones

These recipes are provided courtesy of Karren, as part of my ongoing feasting series (see The Feasts of Christmas at Melville). Good goo, they're delicious.

Pork Loin

The pork loin is easy to prepare:

Rub entire piece of meat in olive oil, then rub lemon pepper into the fat portion.

Broil fat side up for 20 minutes at 450 F. (This sears the meat so that it does not get too dry.)

Adjust oven temperature to 325 F. Continue baking until internal temperature is 180 F (use meat thermometer to monitor).

Remove from oven and let it sit for about 15 minutes to finish cooking.

The sauces are by American Spoon and can be purchased at Williams-Sonoma.

Cheddar-Dill Scones

2 large eggs
1/3 cup plus 1 tablespoon buttermilk
1/3 cup minced fresh dill
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup unbleached all purpose flour
1 cup yellow cornmeal
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon pepper
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons (1 1/4 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into pieces
1 3/4 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese (about 6 ounces)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly butter two 9-inch pie pans.

Beat eggs, buttermilk and minced fresh dill in medium bowl to blend. Combine flours, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, pepper and salt in large bowl. Add butter to flour mixture and cut in until mixture and grated cheddar cheese. Stir to mix well. (Dough will be stiff and crumbly.) Knead gentrly until dough just holds together.

Divide dough in half. Pat each half into prepared pans to 1-inch thickness. Using long knife or pizza wheel, score each round into 6 wedges. Bake until toothpick inserted into each center comes out clean, about 30 minutes. Transfer pans to rack and cool scones slightly. Cut into wedges.

Another Meal Commemoration

It's the day before classes start up again, so I've been (as I told Jackie B.) trying to be productive while simultaneously taking it easy. This lifestyle.

As part of that, I ate a great lunch, which as a nod to my youth spent reading Farmer Boy while lying hungrily in my bed, I will now record.

Hot pieces of peppered pastrami, with thin-sliced sourdough bread, and spicy, grainy mustard. Steamed caulifower, no salt, no butter. Pieces of cheese from last night's cheese-eating: provolone, black diamond white cheddar, french gruyere, sharp cheddar. Halved cherries in plain yogurt, the brand Karren says is the strong kind. Water (again, poured from a glass pitcher). And a small dessert of leftover pear gingerbread pudding and cold milk.

I'm feeling like I should open a restaurant. That's a seriously good meal. (But oddly old man-ish, I think. Are my tastebuds getting more masculine as I age?)

The Feasts of Christmas at Melville

I wrote this for my own notes, and to relive the goodness of the food of today, but with such teasing tonight (and the reminder that this blog exists), I decided just to post it. Unless there are objections. It was such a good day--my roommates and I celebrated Christmas today (we live at a house we call the Melville House). Among other things, we ate so well. Dickensian well. And I'm feeling a particular need, of late, to sing the praises of the good things in my life.

For Christmas at Melville breakfast, we had cinnamon rolls made by David C (Karren’s dad), reheated until the creamcheese frosting was melting off the top. We each had a bowl of degreened strawberries and half of a banana, still in its peel. Next to each plate was a bright navel orange. I served crumpets, with clotted cream (brought by Nate in an ice-filled bag in his car from Georgia to South Carolina, then by Mom in our car from South Carolina to New York, then by me in my suitcase to California; this afternoon I found some at the Milk Pail), and two kinds of preserves—peach and strawberry. We had a glass—our small orange juice glasses—for water, which we poured out of my clear glass pitcher. And Karren served us Ghirardelli hot chocolate, with real whipped cream, and rainbow dot sprinkles on top, in little coffee cups and saucers she got as a Christmas present—in soft rainbow colors with multicolored polka dots. And when we drank the hot chocolate, the sprinkles stained the whipped cream. We talked for over two hours at the table, and ate everything but the oranges, which we each cupped or rolled or held until it was time to clean up, at 1, and begin the day.



For dinner tonight, on Christmas at Melville day, we invited Chris and Reed, who was in town, and Karren’s brothers, Gordon and Stu. We ate pepper-crusted pork loin with plum and ginger and mango curry sauces. Spring greens salad with craisins, walnuts, pears, and crumbled blue cheese. Red potato chunks baked with green peppers and red onions. And cheddar cheese and fresh dill scones, on which (at Karren’s suggestion) I put my good spicy mustard, which I’ve been craving. To drink, grape and apple Martinelli’s and water. Reed provided a post-dinner, pre-dessert snack—small, Halloween-sized packages of Toblerone and those good hazelnut chocolate balls, totally famous but the name of which I’ve forgotten right now. I served dessert—a warm mixed pear and gingerbread pudding (baked) and cold, new (newly bought) milk. The pears had been soaked in honey, and the molasses was full flavor, just like I'd hoped.

Pear Gingerbread Pudding
from canadianliving.com

Ingredients

• 2 pears, peeled, cored and cubed • 2 tbsp (25 mL) liquid honey • Gingerbread Topping: • 1/2 cup (125 mL) butter, softened (or 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce) • 1/2 cup (125 mL) granulated sugar • 1/4 cup (50 mL) fancy molasses • 1 egg • 3/4 cup (175 mL) all-purpose flour (or wheat flour) • 1 tsp (5 mL) each ground ginger and cinnamon • 1/2 tsp (2 mL) baking soda • 1/4 tsp (1 mL) ground cloves • Pinch salt • 2/3 cup (150 mL) hot water

Preparation

Spread pears in greased 8-inch (2 L) glass baking dish; drizzle with honey. Set aside. Gingerbread Topping In large bowl, beat butter with sugar until fluffy; beat in molasses and egg until combined. in separate bowl, whisk together flour, ginger, cinnamon, baking soda, cloves and salt; stir into molasses mixture alternately with hot water, making 3 additions of dry ingredients and 2 of water. Pour over pears. Bake in centre of 350°F (180°C) oven until pudding is bubbling, but cake tester comes out clean. Serve warm.

Nutritional information

Per serving: about 357 cal, 3 g pro, 17 g total fat (10 g sat. fat), 51 g carb, 2 g fibre, 79 mg chol, 271 mg sodium. % RDI: 5% calcium, 13% iron, 16% vit A, 3% vit C, 12% folate.

Wiki for R.A.C.

R.A.C.
From Wikipedia, the free* encyclopedia

R.A.C. (or Brother) (born 1981, Oakland, California) is/was a child prodigy and is soon-to-be newly graduated (with an MA, making his ma proud) from what is sometimes known as the Country Club School of Performing Arts .

R.A.C.'s family is in the United States, having not needed to flee the Soviet occupation of Hungary. R.A.C. wishes he, too, could visit the National Air and Space Museum during his lunchbreak, though he is glad that, at present, he doesn't have a job requiring him to take a lunch break. He can, he notes, eat lunch whenever he wants, which is often or, even sometimes, all the time. If he were to visit Sarah in DC, he would likely fly into Washington Dulles International Airport, where sometimes they house large aircraft. Also, Dulles has a new annex named the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center, named after who may or may not have been R.A.C.'s former home teachee's father.
[edit]

See also
List of best wedding cake makers
List of possible cross country road trip companions
[edit]

External links
Forbes.com: Forbes World's Good Lookingest People
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.A.C.

*faux

The Penguin Game

Tonight I was introduced to the Penguin Game.

(All of this blank space is to indicate silence/a reverential lack of words to describe the experience/novelty.)

The Penguin Game
http://www.bigideafun.com/penguins/arcade/spaced_penguin/default.htm
That is a not a working link.

Play it. Love it. Let it change you.

For Jane, Wherever I May Find Her.

Restaurants with Booths, An Expeditionary List

I'm still working on my Wet Jell-o Theory article, at some readers' requests (interestingly--mostly requests from married persons), but I wanted to say a thing for humanity about restaurants with booths.

I'm for them.

Today, I was going to have dinner with a beloved friend who's daily trying to do a specifically hard thing, and I decided that it would be nicest if we could eat in a restaurant with booths. Booths are, I think, sympathetic but cheerful. I don't think I've ever left a booth feeling sadder than I did when I sat down in it. The same cannot be said about regular restaurant tables or couches, even. (One of my undergrad houses, Eden, had a breakfast nook. That was booth-like in its appeal, form, and comforting properties. "The Interstice of the World," I called it.)

But as I eat out about every day and a half (and fairly often with this particular friend), I was looking for a place I/we do not readily think of. But close. Fast. Reasonably priced. With booths.

And so, for you someday, in your need:

Eateries with Booths Near Stanford, CA
This list is only as comprehensive as I am.

Antonio's Nut House
Shady bar/pool place/burrito restaurants (but with a surprisingly good piped music selection, including, while I was there, Paul Simon and someone else great). Where Kimball B. told me he was for overcommunicating. (Turns out I am, too.)

Brix
The coupons! The Unofficial Guide to Stanford has this section of coupons to local restaurants, and I've had a goal to use a coupon in the book at each restaurant that offers one. This was a coupon find, and it's surprisingly satisfying, despite being just a hole in the wall burger place. Furthermore, the booths are short but cute (and possibly sticky). And there are always old people eating there. It's reassuring somehow.

Buca di Beppo
Glad to say that here in CA, I've managed to visit this overpriced restaurant for only part of one birthday party, leaving before I drank anything but soda water. (But, if I recall, there was an oversized birthday party in a booth behind our more oversized birthday party at an yea extended table. The booth is the point.)

Celia's
First noticeably successful booth experience and site of one of my birthday celebrations this year. Great booths. Good food. Fine coupons. (Steaming fajita fixing on those metal, handled plates is always transfixing. How can one order something else?)

Cheesecake Factory
Oh my heavens. I've only eaten here twice in CA, but in Austin, my roommates and I made many, many excuses to eat salads at Cheesecake Factory (specifically the barbecue chicken salad--such a thing. Such a good, good thing). But there are booths, which can help to counteract its usually feeling loud, clangy, chattery. Heavens, such good salads.

Chili's
I was convinced to go to lunch at this chain restaurant with three male classmates one Friday a few months ago. I had this greatest peppercorn/pepperjack/peppersomething burger. The booth was little and not particularly welcoming, but the hamburger made up for what the booth may have been lacking. No coupon. Great, great burger.

The Empire Room*
I just read about this for the first time today, looking for a boothed restaurant for dinner. Looked too woowoo for a fast 45-minute dinner, but the booths are reportedly only exceeded by the fine American cuisine. (Okay, it's actually called the Empire Taproom and Grill, or something, but I'm getting braver at eating at places that explicitly sell alcohol. I actually had dinner with some classmates/friends at a full-on sports bar on Valentine's Day. I forgot that divorced men need a place to go on Valentine's Day, too. So, so sad. But mostly by inference.)

Olive Garden
It's standard. And the booths have treated me well. (Especially one particular booth, which I've sat in at least two times thus far.) I went with Reed Criddle (friend/brother-in-law's brother) and some friends for Reed's inaugural visit last Friday. Something about being with someone seeing Olive Garden anew was great. Maturing, almost, like something had come full circle. (Though I did decide, perhaps forever, that OG breadsticks are, sadly, only good when they are hot hot, butterbuttery, and garlic-salty. But that sausage/potato/kale soup. Holy kamoley. I think I'd dream of that if I were stranded on a deserted island. Especially if that island were super rainy and served salad family-style in those mottled clear plastic bowls with whole peppers and parmesan cheese.)

Peninsula Creamery
Booths. Good shakes.

Pizza My Heart
Coupons. (In fact, Pizza My Heart put a coupon in the book for a free slice of pizza. But all of the student guides I got--all eight of them--had this coupon cut out of them, though they arrived to me, by the grace of a friend, in otherwise pristine condition. But I've used the coupon for a free salad with a large pizza.) Note: I went to Pizza My Heart in the afternoon the other day. I don't know why. But with the light coming in that wall of full west windows, it was so, so beautiful. It was almost idyllic, in this dark-wood, wide booth, faded surfing memorabilia on the walls kind of way. Also note: Its pizza is controversially good. Some people hail it as the All-Palo-Altoan pizza. Others find the mention of it nauseating (due to its "sogginess"). I like it fine. Of course.

Taxi's
What's to be said? It's on University. It's why it stays in business, I would guess. (And booths.) (But it did have chili when what I wanted was chili.) (It's been raining a lot here.)

Thai Garden
Is a restaurant connected to a bowling alley on El Camino. Some law students in my dorm encouraged me and some friends to join them there for dinner, hailing it as their bread of life, and it was this funny old restaurant with cheap decorations and cheap Thai food. I laughed almost my whole way through the meal. But there were booths, I'm told, though we sat a table extended for the occasion.

The Treehouse
Turns out there is seating (including deep, college-eating-type booths) in the back past the pick-up window and condiments. This is new to me. There are no windows back there, but there is a TV and the wood is warmish. And it's the Treehouse. It's open at 1 am, which has only saved me once, but then, that drizzly, brief-writing night, it was so, so nice.

Zibbibo*
Ben P. says (a) this is nice, (b) it's expensive, but not too ($15-$20), (c) there are booths, and (d) it's so, so good.

The diner at the Stanford Shopping Center
Closes at 11 on the weekend. Surprising (except not, because for some reason Stanford/Palo Alto doesn't count as a college town and everything eateryish closes earlyish, even on the weekends. I've ended up trying to buy dinner at Safeway at midnight more often than I would ever, ever like.) But I sat post-adult-stake-conference in one of their chrome and shiny vinyl booths (was it blue? I remember it being something easy to forget, like blue) and drank a fat shake with DB and Eric B.

*I haven't eaten here, so I can't actually confirm the existence of the booths.


What's mildly appalling is that I've eaten at each of these establishments myself (except the asterisked ones), some of them more than once. (Six of them more than once. And some of those more than twice.)

And that's my story.

(Oh, for tonight, we went with Brix, for the good boothness and for the location/ease-in/-out. And yes, there were old people there, but some families and college-aged students, too. It worked (again) for me. And we couponed, which is consistently satisfying.)

Sidewalk Theorizing

The Stanford Daily was advertising for a graduate student to write an opinion column. I read the sign hanging in my dorm hallway everyday, but I didn't do anything about it until three days after the official deadline. Alas, the spot was filled. I'm okay.

Below: A description of my column idea and a list of column ideas. These are all theories I've created over the past few years, as many of you can attest. I didn't realize I was a theori(zer/st) until one day at a dinner party, a former roommate in Austin said, "Sarah, tell us one of your theories." And I realized, "Wait--I have theories." And la, here there are.


I have theories about things. Not eery, sci-fi, conspiracy theories. But theories about how we live, how we interact, and maybe how we should or could think about the world. I find them helpful, and I try to operationalize them. Each column would probably present a theory that I’ve developed over the past few years (and from, you know, last week), weaving these theories out of my experiences and into potentially helpful, illuminating, controversial, or entertaining expositions.

Sidewalk Theories
At some point, we each become sentient. It’s then that the work begins. (An introductory/explanatory column about the column theme as a whole and the value of sidewalk theorizing. Possibly, a short history of my brain and its tendencies to theorize about daily living. I probably wouldn’t have it be the first column, though.)

The Airport Parking Model of Happiness
There are at least three levels of human emotion: long-term parking, short-term parking, and departures and arrivals.

The Mickey Mouse Head Model of Two-person Relationships
Imagine a simplified, three-circle version of Mickey Mouse’s head: that’s one of your relationships. And it’s not going well.

The Theory of Reciprocal Communication
She could call you. She could text you. She could email you. She could, I suppose, write you a letter. Or she could wait until she casually runs into you at Tres Ex. The question is: how are you going to respond?

The Advisable Double Standard AKA The Tennis Ball Model of Happy Living
There’s a double standard that we should live. Turns out, it’s not in our favor.

The “Just Say That” Theory of Honest Communication
When people come to me, not knowing what to say to so-and-so-and-so, because “it’s complicated,” I usually have one piece of advice: just say that.

The Wet Jell-o Theory of Human Imperfection
Our parents will scar us. We will scar our children. The point is: do as little damage as you can. (This column will mention jell-o.)

The “Third Time’s the Charm” Test of True Friendship
If you won’t say a thing or make a noise three times in a row at a friend’s request, you’re not really friends. You two have issues.

The “Walt Disney and a Big Gun" Theory of Big Dreaming and Career Happiness
To find a career and a meaningful life goal, maybe all you need is Walt Disney and a gun. A theoretical gun.

Decision-making in Pairs: A Theory that Could Revolutionize Your Dinner Plans
Finally, a way to decide where to eat or whether or not to go see that movie. Caution: some math involved.

Sage Advice from Past Loves
“Loves” may be stretching the point. But I’ve dated some smart men. And they’ve said some sage things.

Other people’s theories
I assume that other people have theories, too. This would be a column to explore them.


And to incorporate a Limon style of blogging, I will ask: do you have theories? What are they? Post them below in no less than four lines. Be sure to include a name (for the theory) and a description. Happy theorizing! (Note/caution: I've begun to use exclamation points. I know, I know--I vowed I never would. But (a) I'm trying to avoid saying "I refuse to blank" in my head and (b) it's about societal norms. Exclamation points make people feel good: another theory.)

Things I Googled This Week

And by "this week," I mean "since Sunday." (It very much feels like a late Thursday.)

I thought I would just list some of the things I've googled this week for the entertainment of the thing, but as I made the list, I realized that one could get a pretty good picture of my week just by seeing what I've been googling. And so, la la, my week in google search terms.

define discordant - Not an auspicious beginning to my week.

how make silk for clothes - Apparently, from a caterpillar, not an actual worm. (The vegetarian website I found that detailed the process noted that the caterpillars have to be killed before they emerge from their cocoons for the best silk.) Consider: the new shirt I bought is silk and rabbit hair.

J Reuben Clark student conference - In February. In DC. La, I'm going.

Lady Duff Gordon (aka Lady Duff-Gordon) - Was the defendant in a case we read in contracts. Also, a huge early 20th-century celebrity, fashion designer, businesswoman. And was on the first raft of people saved from the Titanic. (Her husband and her maid was saved, too.)

Elinor Glyn - First try

Elinor Glin - Sister to Lady Duff Gordon. Went from the English lower class to Hollywood elite by writing novels, especially trashy romance novels that scandalized the monarchy. Coined the term the "It-Girl."

GK Chesterton Quotes - Notably, "It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong." AND "Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese."

apply to be an astronaut - Because a new Stanford friend is actually going to apply when she turns 26 next year. (I can't any longer--I've had LASIK. I'm working through it.)

claustraphobia - claustrophobia

epicurious - See next entry

gourmet stuffing recipe - Because I'm getting excited for Thanksgiving. (I'm on Stuffing Detail.)

moxie pictures - www.moxiepictures.com > Directors > Jared Hess > the picture of the two crouching boys. Brother Nate pointed me here, and I've been directing friends to it (and inexplicably forgetting the actual URL) all week.


chicken soup dickinson - I have this theory that Emily Dickinson has a poem about everything. And I wanted one about or involving chicken soup.

poem "chicken soup" - Because I realized I needed to broaden my search and modify my theory.

poem "chicken soup" -soul - Because I wanted a poem that wasn't meant to warm teeangers' hearts.

set alarm - I didn't believe I would be able to wake up to my cellphone alarm in order to do work before class on Monday, so I looked for an alarm clock I could set online. I think I found one, but it was too smart for me. So I went to bed and took my chances.

comedy warmups - To prep for Monday's on-campus FHE of improv comedy games. The goldmine: The Shootout (a game involving tragic deaths and cowboy firearms).

capitalize LASIK - For some law school-related reason I wanted to know if LASIK needed to be in all-caps or if just a first-letter magiscule was more appropriate. I don't know what's right, but I do know a lot of people are "capitalizing" on things related to LASIK.

utah state teaching license - I was trying to figure out the technical name of my teaching license to put on my resume. I couldn't. I didn't.

words with all vowels - Like "facetious" or "abstemious" (which have all the vowels in order). Assuming we exempt Y (or add an adverbial -ly ending). And W. (Not strictly a vowel. At least, most of my section agrees. But Daniel Elizondo, he will hold out.)

magiscule - I couldn't even post this blog without googling. I'm hooked. See LASIK above.

What's Funny Is Funny

Jane, friend and Stanford undergrad, recently has begun feeding me stories wherein international power meets human quirkiness. The most recent deserves its own blog. Jane saiden:

So the President of Turkmenistan renamed all of the months after family members/national heroes. The month of April was "Mother."

This was done in August 2002.

Picture of Turkmeni President Saparmurat Niyazov:


Robespierre (whom I call 'Robie') also renamed all the months, didn't he? They look alike, actually... (white hair, dark eyebrows, same 'smile,' similar suit, white shirt underneath, etc)

Robie:


Oh, power. "We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority..." what, to rename the months of the year? Of all the things to do with power, HONESTLY. Have a pancake fest, or SOMETHING!! Crazy world, blast it all.

I've always like the word "Moabitish."

My Favoritish Books

Victor Monreal, Austinite friend, collects lists of people's favorite books. Recently, he requested mine with attendant summaries. I'm opening myself to all kinds of liability listing these for all the world to see. They're perhaps too sentimental, too Western, and too juvenile for an English major to conscionably list as her favorite. You should know, I also haven't read Moby Dick.

In the order I thought of them to write them down:

The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje
Perhaps the most beautiful book I've ever read. As I read it, I kept thinking, "I can't believe someone wrote this. I can't believe some one wrote this." About four people in Italy in late WWII after the Italian fighting was largely over. Feels, however, very WWI.

The Living by Annie Dillard
About 19th-century pioneers in Bellingham, Washington. Called a novel, but every sentence reeks of human detail Annie could not have invented. It's about the living--felling trees, eating food, digging wells, and about the living--those left alive. Super beautiful.

For the Time Being by Annie Dillard
Technically and effectively my favorite book. It's a collection of short essays about sand, clouds, birth, China, Jews, humanity, etc., that deal with what it means to be one of a billion billion things in the eyes of God.

The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Short, childlike. Very nearly a perfect book about a little prince who falls from a comet to earth and meets a pilot in the desert. Translated from the French.

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan
Perfect. Slim, simple. About Caleb and Anna, two children growing up on the plains, who must welcome a Maine woman into their home when their quiet widower father advertises for a wife.

The Blue Castle by LM Montgomery
Invariably the cover of the book will be terrible, like a trashy teenage Harlequi This is the only adult novel written by the author of Anne of Green Gables, "adult" meaning it has (a) a swear word and (b) no children. About a 29-year-old old maid who, when diagnosed with a fatal heart condition, decides to say and do the things she's always wanted, to the horror of her prideful and prim early 20th-century family. I read it yearly, maybe more.

The Island by Gary Paulsen
About a teenage boy who decides to move to the island of a small nearby lake, to think and read and write and draw.

Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card
The classic sci-fi novel about a brilliant child (Ender) sent to Battle School to learn how to save the world from the Third Invasion. The crux--in order to destroy something, Ender needs to know it as well as it knows itself. And as soon as Ender knows it well, he loves it but must destroy it. I plan on reading it every year until I die.

To McSweeney's, With Love

The following is from a Saturday email to a friend (who oft looks uncannily like Gilbert Blythe and others times--less oft but more recently--like a rebel beach bum without a cause), himself a master blogster: www.sweetlemon24.blogspot.com

(Note: I'm desiring enough to be a regular blogster that I'm going to steal from my own emails. Maybe just this once. Maybe again, too. I know--I never write, I never call, I never leave a message.)



Let's be honest. There's a good chance you've considered all of the following things. But I just had a moment, lying almost flat on my back in my bed in my room, with my head propped up on two pillows and chin resting on my chest, laptop on my lap, which was formed by my knees being propped and bent so-and-so (are you with me?), laughing. I laughed aloud, more than once, more than once.

So, consider.

http://www.ericdsnider.com/blog.php

(which I found from following your link to stupidramblings to his link to Eric Snider's blog)--the entry for Oct. 7 and its attendant link to

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/links/lists/30CraigRobertson.html .

Which is especially funny because today, when brainstorming with a friend for his Halloween costume, I came across the same website, different entry, and laughed and laughed. (Maybe I just laughed once.)

http://www.mcsweeneys.net/1999/10/31halloween.html

This entry I found because we typed in "halloween costume ideas" or something, and the first three or four pages were (a) silly and (b) the first three or four pages. (In other words, if he'd pulled a costume idea from these pages, and someone else in the ward had also googled for costume ideas and had seen his idea, then it would be a let-down, a disappointment, not a triumph.) So I picked a random high number in the page links (like 9 or something) and la la, McSweeney's.

Heavens, I'm sick. (Literally so.) Which is why I'm convalescing (and lying in bed) on a Saturday afternoon. Let's also ascribe said sickness to my lack of (a) coherence and (b) punch.

Ergo

A short story about the word "ergo."

Ergo is a word I like. I began to use it some time ago but didn't seem to notice much of a response from listeners and would-be listeners. This was okay with me in a singing-to-myself sort of way. One evening last summer, two or three hours into an LSAT prep session at Meridian High, I sat stretched out on an old blue couch in the German classroom where we met, and I said to my teacher (Brent Dunn, family friend and acelsat himself) with an entire class of would-be LSAT-takers as would-be listeners, "Something something something, ergo..." And when I was finished with my comment, Jeff, my would-be friend and erstwhile ride, leaned over to me and whispered distinctly and with an advisorial air: "Don't use 'ergo.' It's antiquated." I almost laughlaughed right then. But I didn't because he'd leaned so close to me, I would have laughed in his face.

I can neither describe nor explain how much I want to hold that sentence in my hands and show it to people. So sometimes I say it to myself as I lie down at night. I try to whisper it like Jeff did. "Don't use 'ergo.' It's antiquated."

The Pursuit for Professional: Part I: Luggage

There's a distinct possibility that, by week's end, I'll be the new owner of luggage, a suit, and leather heels.

I. Luggage

I bought luggage this morning. I got my first set of luggage (a forest green, $100 Costco set I loved) when I was 18. I felt like an adult having that luggage--matching, versatile, utile. But it died after twelve or so transcontinental Salt Lake-to-NY flights, and I've been pretending for the last three years that I can live without luggage. Can do without it. (See imaginarily attached diagram of garbage sack, canvas bag, Beth Hedengren-donated backpack, duct-taped boxed contraptions.) But I'm heading off to law school (tomorrow on a plane to see my best friend, Laura A. T. and co.) and to a new life. And I needed luggage.

I've traveled a lot this summer (see previous blog) and so have spent some moments--on beds, airplanes, trains, buses, ferries, and a moped; in beds, cars, taxis, subways; at baggage carousels and open trunks around the world--considering what my ideal set of luggage would be.

Four pieces: (1) giant suitcase, (2) normal large suitcase, (3) large duffel bag (similar size as normal large suitcase), and (4) roller-board carryon. All with pockets. All with wheels and straps and handles and zippers (strong, strong zippers). And red.

That's really all there is to my story, except the important part, which is to say I bought it this morning, with fake money I don't have but have budgeted for, on an impulse stop at Village Luggage (villageluggage.com, supposedly), which Mom and Peter and I passed on our way to donate blood. Apparently people do shop at those fairly easy-to-miss stores throughout Long Island. (Peter asked: "How do they ever make money?" And I said: "They've been open today for six minutes, and I just spent $300.") I did not, however, buy the roller-board carryon, which would have been an additional $80 plus tax. (Though I did get a compl(e/i)mentary tote.) And it's all monogrammed--SLO. S L O. Which will, I suppose, work better than my first plan, which was to identify my luggage by a faded blue and orange handkerchief (aka doo rag) from girls' camp of yore I was otherwise going to tie to the bags. Though, to be professional, I maybe could have convinced myself to purchase a new one. In silk.

I should be heading out AKA The Official Sarah Update

I. Justification & Background
It's 12:46, and according to mapquest, it will take me 5 h 40 m to get to Geneva, NY, where I will be an EFY counselor beginning tonight, tomorrow, or Monday at 11 am (depending on your rounding practices). What I'm saying is, I need to go.

But I've received two requests recently for blog updates (Jackie, m'love, and Victor) and two is enough for me. At least for now.

I've had some thoughts about the unhelpfulness of blog writing recently, about its dash-and-go flavors, its implicit though subtle reinforcement of our society's move away from encouraging reflection, craftmanship, etc etc. I acknowledge that these thoughts may serve primarily to justify my lack of consistency and to excuse myself for feeling slightly nauseated every time I read one of my blog entries. But if you know what I mean, you know what I mean. I'm having faith in the blogging whatnot.

II. The Update AKA Sarah's Summer/Life Plans

May 2005 Sarah finished the master's thesis (el these), uncreatively titled "Metaphor and Inquiry." 83 pages, or something.

May-endish Sarah graduated with an MA in Curriculum & Instruction from UT-Austin, Pres. Hinckley came to TX for the San Antonio Temple Jubilee, and Olson parents and Anika were in Austin for all festivities.

May 31ish Sarah flew to NY and then to England for to see Stacey Snider, former roommate and BYU friend, who was studying at the University of Nottingham.

Early-Juneish Sarah and Stacey flew to Ireland for six of the most beautiful, most relaxing, most most days of lovely Irish mostness of all time and most. So beautiful.

Late-Juneish Sarah flew to Austin.

June-endish Sarah took Greyhound to Denton, TX, to be an EFY counselor. Then, a week later, she came home.

July 3 Sarah flew to Seattle to visit Stacey Snider (newly returned from the UK). Sarah and Stacey, the next day or the next, visited Friday Harbor and Bellingham and one of the great grocery stores of all time.

July 5thish Sarah and Stacey met up with Ryan Gee (boyfriend) and family in Seattle to poke in the Old Curiosity Shop and hand Sarah off.

July-middish Sarah and Ryan and Gees attended the Sis. Gee family (Arvidsen) family reunion in Oregon, in the forest, in the rain, in the mud, near the waterfalls.

July-middish Sarah's family arrives in Oregon, visits with the Gees and the Arvidsens for an hour or so, and Olsons and Sarah and Ryan head to Eugene to meet with up with the Sis. Olson family (Hoggards) for their family reunion. The Hoggards head to Florence, OR, to spend two days on the Oregon coast, playing the super cold water, wearing their "Hoggard's Yardbirds" polo shirts, and eating (eating) eating food.

July-midmiddish Sarah and the lesser immediate Olsons begin cross-country trek that will be its own blog, if not its own essay. They hit Boise, Salt Lake, the Four Corners, Albuquerque, Austin, Tyler, Birmingham, Atlanta, the entire midatlantic coastal states, and end up in NY. Almost 5,000 miles in 8 days, or something.

This morning, July 23 at 12:15 am The Olsons arrive home intact.

Today, July 23 Sarah is off to Geneva, NY, for one last week of EFY, which departure is being delayed by the writing of this blog.

But no more. Well, a little more.

Sarah will return to Valley Stream for the month of August (with a week to Austin for Martha and Abdul's wedding and such), before heading to California on August 29th to begin her (miracle, miracle) years at Stanford Law School. La la.

(P.S. Did you notice how I changed tenses and points-of-view in this blog? Blogging. Like writing on fast food napkins. Without the self-effacing charm.)

From Inside Sarah's School Head

After a phenomenal dryspell (and more cross-country driving than an episode of the Partridge family), I am using my blog for two ends:

(1) to remind myself that I can post things and live a virtual and actual life simultaneously
and
(2) to regroup before I meet with my master's thesis advisor at 2. In 18 minutes.

So, to cut to the chase:

I have a master's thesis advisor named Dr. Colleen Fairbanks. We don't know each other at all on a personal (or professional level, really), but we met two weeks ago to get started on the year (I'm taking a 3-credit thesis writing independent stuffstuff course) and to get me working towards actually completing this project in time for May graduation.

She asked a few questions, and we talkedtalked. She suggested books, and I wrote stuff down. And we parted.

And this is what I did in the middle--I read most of Children's Inquiry by Judith Lindfors (who turns out to be a UT professor--or was) and read a few chapters from Curriculum as Conversation by Arthur Applebee (who, as it turns out, is married to another eminent English teaching scholar/academic, Judith Langer. Exactly.). Additionally, I did hours (brief hours, but hours nonetheless) of research to find articles about both student questioning and metaphors/education, primarily for an annotated bibliography assignment I had to complete for one my classes. But from all of this stuff, I learned the following:

1. I don't think I'm interested in students' asking questions, at least as far as my thesis goes. I really am more interested in the use of metaphors pedagogically, or, at least, in the classroom. And not as part of a lesson on figurative language. But as part of how we make sense of the world around us.
2. I think I'm interested more in explicit metaphors than in implicit ones (as made famous by Lakoff and Johnson's Metaphors We Live By, which exposed, apparently, that most of our language and consequently, our conceptions of the world, are (in)formed by metaphors and metaphorical thinking).
3. I am interested in explicit metaphors but, more specifically, the creation of them as acts of inquiry, as tentative explorations of things we almost know but don't quite.

In short, I think that I want to begin to think about my thesis in terms of metaphors and acts of inquiry. I don't know if this is legitimate, but maybe I can take the research (Lindfors' especially; her book was very much something I would like to write, but a little technicaler than I want to be) that discusses inquiry--defines, categorizes, and encourages it in classroom use--and discuss how metaphor, and not just questions and not just authentic interests and not just problem-based learning, can be (is! is!) an act of inquiry. And, consequently, is something we should help students learn how to craft. Or, at least, it is something we need to inspect more closely.

Something like that?

The thesis will be theory. This excites me. But I may, too, need some texts (of students and teachers discussing/using metaphors) to analyze. Will I have to collect them myself? Will I have to get human subjects approval? Does that change my timeline?

It's 1:53 pm. These are things I'm thinking about. These things and, as always, fajitas.