Training for Italian Marathon, Anne Taylor the pants genius, slip and fall, giving up on the Twelve Caesars, shoes and a neck pillow

So when I got off my treadmill the other night, I announced to Jake: three and a half miles tonight! I am going to be ready for the Italian Marathon. (The Italian marathon includes walking from an enormous Church full of famous dead people and Renaissance art to a pizza place to a museum full of marble nekkid people, to a gelateria, to a big pile of rocks that used to be something really important to a some fellas named Caesar, then taking a taxi to dinner. My apologies to the real Italian marathon, if there is one, and its actual athletes).
 
So Jake said: great, now get up and do it again at 3 a.m., and it will feel just like Venice.

I'm sure midnight treadmill riding in Phoenix is nothing like Venice. In Venice I plan to ride around in boats while I eat my pizza and ice cream, reclining lazily on crushed velvet cushions. I don't know if there are really any velvet cushions; maybe I've watched too many movies about the 19th Century Grand Tour. Now that I think about it, there might not be any parasols around, either. The good news: I won't have to get my lady's maid to loosen my stays after the pizza and gelato binge. I've bought myself some large and stretchy pants! (Anne Taylor Loft has got a size 12 that will accommodate a slim sumo wrestler. Are even bigger than Banana Republic.) 

Moral of this paragraph: You can learn a lot from your Baedeker's,


 but you can also learn a lot from Nacho.

So, about a month ago I sprained my ankle. 

I was skiing in Switzerland. Totally not embarrassing.

Or, maybe I slipped in the shower, old lady style. As I lay there on the shower floor (shower is weird design that is huge like football locker room, so there is plenty of room for sprawling) and stared up at the etched glass windows with the desert scenes which I hate, but do not include howling coyotes or kachinas, which I could not tolerate, I thought, it has really happened! I've fallen and I can't get up! And I'm soggy, and naked, and already bruising in so many odd and painful places! But after a cursory inspection, I found both my hips still firmly in their sockets, and my head not cracked open.

A silver lining, indeed.

Anyway, so I've been babying the ankle and wearing flat shoes to Church (a real hardship), and when I got on the treadmill the other night, I was afraid I'd mince along for like 15 minutes, then fling myself on to the nearby bed, apply ice and pant for 30 minutes more. But I didn't. Is good news.

Okay, so my Italy reading list might be a little ambitious. I started reading the Lives of the Caesars with Tiberius. I don't think it is the beginning, but he did have to divorce his pregnant wife, who he liked, and marry Augustus' daughter, who was a real tramp, and maybe a shrew. So that was sad and interesting. But I'm not sure I'm really getting the big picture. Might need to read faster, and skim all the parts where they fight the Germanic tribes or murder fellow Senate members.

I also read a Rick Steves' Europe 101: History and Art for the Traveler book I found at D.I. It is from 1985, so it is probly a first edition and worth like ten grand. So it's old, but filled with timeless jokes like this one, about the dawning of the Renaissance, and the labor shortages created by the plague: "Serf's up!"

So hotels are reserved, train tickets bought, and even booked us our own guides at the Vatican and Colosseum/Forum/Palatine Hill. One nice thing about traveling with seven people is getting your own guide is nearly economical. I made us reservations to see the Uffizi and David in Florence. I've got my eye on a social history walking tour about medieval Florentines. But my Dad's got his eye on another about banking and the Medicis, so there might be a walking tour standoff. (I foresee this will end with me and my Dad going to see the bankers, and everyone else going shopping.)

I bought a suitcase and some packing cubes. I know Inkmom recommended the MLC Patagonia, but this one spoke to me (with its cheap price tag). It is the Ebags Mother Lode TLS Weekender Convertible. I bought black, to be practical, even though I really wanted green.

And finally, my friend and travel guru, Kari, who goes all over the world, but never blogs about it, told me that my Joseph Seibel walking shoes (black, but with some tasteful velcro) would not be acceptable in Italy. That Italian women wear stilettos to the toilet in the middle of the night (she might not have said this), so I was going to have to step it up. So I got these, and Kari approved them:

Cole Haan Air Penny Tantivy Driver. There's Nike Air in there!

So anyhow, one Lewis 'n Clark brand original neck pillow (was famous neck pillow they took with them to explore and map the American West), and a few free Italian phrase apps for my ipad (My kids keep yelling things at me in Italian, and they all sound like come-ons, so they must be doing it right), and that's it. I'm ready.

Except for my house.
And my laundry.

I should go do that.
Instead of blogging.

Any last words of advice?

Reading list for Italy?

I just made my first Listmania list. I don't think I'm going to get through it before I leave for Italy. (Especially if I start with The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, in six volumes.) You have anything I should add? Or detract?

(This is what I do instead of booking hotel rooms. )

It's not a dry heat. But that's okay because I'm leaving.

Last Friday I was out in the heat, doing stuff, as I do. It was a hot heat. A wet heat. The van's brand new air conditioning couldn't make any headway, it was nearly powerless against the brick wall of steam. I was sweating so hard my wet hair was stuck to my wet neck and a moderate stench of mildew was coming off my sopping wet t-shirt (not the sexy sort of wet t-shirt), or perhaps my underwear (do not leave clean clothes in a front loading washer for even an hour in this weather, or you will regret it). I felt defeated. I kept fantasizing about San Diego, and cursing all the people who live there and drive up real estate prices. And I thought, I can't do this for another two months. I will do something criminally insane, and then they will send me to a nice, air conditioned asylum where I can spend the remainder of my days in a Land's End maillot and a microfiber straight jacket. Which doesn't sound bad, except that my children don't brush their teeth enough even when they aren't motherless. The dental and asylum bills will bankrupt us.


So, Friday turned out to be some sort of record: 117 degrees plus all kinds of monsoon humidity. And I felt better, because it validated my concern that people can't and shouldn't live in this kind of heat. Because normally, it is only like 110 with humidity. And if it is 117, it is usually dry.


So maybe I can make it to Halloween. If temperatures return to their normal ranges.

Or maybe, if I take a couple weeks off and go to Italy.


I hear the weather in Italy is a lot like San Diego. Only in Italy, I'm told, they have way better architecture, ancient Roman stuff, pizza, frescoes, huge statues of naked people, and ice cream. At least, that's what I heard from watching my Rick Steves Travels in Europe Italy DVD like 100 times.


I spent most of yesterday on the internet trying to decide if I want to buy Rick's backpack and silk money belt for my trip. Rick says polyester money belts can get very sweaty. And you can imagine, sweaty is the last thing I want to be on my Italian vacation. 

Yes, I understand that I sound a little nerdy and a little Rick Steves stalkery. But I swear, it was my sister Jen who googled him yesterday and found out he's divorced his wife and found himself a young Asian girlfriend.

Have you been to Italy? Watched a lot of the Travel Channel? Read A Room With a View? (Or seen the old A Room With a View film, which included a young Bellatrix Lestrange and Minerva McGonagall, and all sorts of surprising dangly bits? Or even the 2006 version, in which Wormtail puts on a good show, but not nearly as good a show as all the 1985 dangly bits, if you know what I mean?) I need your help. Got ideas for what to see and eat and where to sleep in Rome, Venice, Pompeii, or Florence? None of us (except sister Jen) has ever been, so we'll need to be pretty touristy, but also, I will feel a failure if I bring less than ten pounds of pasta and gelato home in my haunches, so we will need to make time for that, too.


Bon voyage to me!
(What? Maybe I need to stop looking at suitcases and start looking at Rosetta Stone Italian?)

Thinking about (other people) having babies. Also thinking about pie.

I just spent 3.5 hours cleaning my car. I don't normally do this sort of thing, especially when it is 112 degrees outside. Okay, fine, I do it when I am 9 months pregnant. I make the other patrons at the self service vacuum area of the Dolphin Car Wash very uncomfortable as they watch me grunt and wedge myself into the back seat, but I feel DRIVEN to clean.


I am not 9 months pregnant right now.
As far as I know.
Although, it would be pretty great if I were, and had no idea, like those ladies on I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant, because hey, I get a baby without nine months of bleeding eyeballs. But honestly, I can't imagine a world in which I didn't know I was pregnant (since I can usually start barfing even before the early pregnancy tests come back positive), and I suspect all those ladies are totally faking it to get on TV.


I'm thinking about babies today because Jake's little sister is in labor with her first baby. And also because my little sister is pregnant with her eighth. EIGHT! (Her fifth pregnancy, she got three kids for free when she got remarried a year ago. Which is cheating, I hope she knows.) And she is so super sick, that looking at her gives me anxiety attacks.


Ross and Jane started school at BASIS Chandler. I like to grill them daily about how everything went. I grill Sam and Tom, too, but Tom refuses to give up any information, even under high pressure interrogation, except that the school day is MUCH too long, and that once he went to P.E., and there was a Frisbee involved. Then he clammed up and looked embarrassed that he'd said too much. Sam just tells me he didn't get into any trouble. Which is probably a lie.


So on the first day, Ross and Jane met some new kids. But, Ross announced, something weird happened. Kids kept coming up to me and saying, Hello! I'm so-and-so. It's nice to meet you. Then, the kid would put out his hand, and want me to shake it! It happened three times. But one kid, Winston, is from India. I think they do things different there. 


Jane said, Yeah. That happened to me, too. Shaking hands! Super weird.


I asked Ross if he feels like the work is too hard. He told me:  
Well, I think I'm ahead in some subjects, like English and Spanish. But I think I'm behind in science and math. Like, at lunch time, Winston asked George if he knew the sorts of Cretaceous dinosaur birds indigenous to Central America (or something like that. I can't be expected to remember this sort of question). And then, George told Winston he was really sorry, but he was only familiar with the South American varieties.


At lunch one day, Jane was eating Keira's lunch because she'd left her PB&J in Jake's truck. Luckily Keira had the largest and best lunch in the world.  


She had an extra Capri Sun, and cherries, and even a tiny pie from England!  


Oh? I asked. (The only thing more exciting than a pastry is a British pastry.) Tell me more. Where did she get it?


In England. They just got back this week. But you know what's funny? Divia was sitting with us, and she didn't know what pie was. She's never heard of it, or eaten it. She's from here, but her parents are from Pakistan. She also didn't know what blueberries or bobby pins were, and she has to buy all her meat from a special store.

Are your kids coming home with any good school stories, or do they refuse to talk? .Do you think I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant is for real? Are there other 'reality' shows you feel are suspect?

Retrenchment. Again. Plus, my kids went to school and I spent the day on iTunes.

Ok, so I went to step class this morning and it was super hard. I haven't been all summer because I've too been busy eating and not moving and gaining ten pounds. About 45 minutes in, right after the 'party track' (is masochistic misnomer), a friend from like 15 years ago says hello, and instead of thinking: is so good to see you! I was thinking: you couldn't have let me know you were right behind me? Had I known, I would have tried harder not to flop around and wheeze like an asthmatic AARP member. And maybe I wouldn't have have lain on my belly while the rest of you were doing that yoga thing.

I'm not proud of myself.


Last week, I started a post about how I don't care a wink about my ill-fitting pants (you'll recall I went to California and ate VG Donuts and Hula Pie and Mr. Frosty dipped cones). I wrote all about the medium-sized purple muumuu I bought myself at Target for my birthday. (Muumuus run large. Is smart thinking by muumuu makers.). And then I prattled on about how muumuus are the best because they keep people wondering: what's going on under there? Is she a lingerie model? Is she great with child? No one can tell, and guess what? It is none of their business how many apple fritters I'm smuggling around in my lovely lady lumps! I got the wearable-pup-tent idea from my sister, who already had the same dress. So since we both wore it almost every day of our vacation, sometimes we went places with all of our combined 12 children, looking like some sort of matchy-matchy Polynesian sister wives.


Anyhow, like I said, that was last week. From the black night of unhealthy (but delicious) denial has dawned a new era of self-denial. Retrenchment. Which started today. And I'm only telling you so I can't wriggle out of it. So now I'm sitting here eating raw carrots with no ranch dressing, still wearing my stinky yoga pants. You can leave your condolences in the comments.


But just because I can't eat anything good doesn't mean I can't buy myself stuff on iTunes, right?


The Decemberists most recent album, The King is Dead, might actually be better than doughnuts.  This record sounds like Mary from Peter, Paul, and Mary married Michael Stipe and had lots of bearded children, who then died and formed a choir of hipster angels. (Except for This is Why we Fight, which sounds like the Cranberries.) Listening to them makes me want to get the old band back together (the band being me and my sister, my sister mostly against her will), to sing my original, four-chord dirges, inspired by boys who didn't know I liked them and British Royals of the middle ages. Take a gander at my playlist over right, if you like folk music. (Or Weird Al. Because I bought his album, Alpocalypse, too.)


What else should I buy on iTunes? 
What did you do with your first day of school? 
What's your favorite doughnut?
(I like buttermilk old-fashioned with chocolate ganache.) 

The old 'dead raccoon in my irrigation pipe' metaphor

Before we start, I would like to point out that in this metaphor, the part of the irrigation pipe will not be played by any section of my lower intestine.

See, it has been nearly a month and half since I've been here. And it isn't for lack of stuff to say. It just got busy, and then we left town, and while we were out of town, I wanted to tell you about doughnuts and fireworks and how I've got a crush on Utah, but I couldn't because then some of you who are sketchy might break into my house and steal my 7 year old Apple computer, or my Tivo that only holds 15 hours of shows, which is barely enough to keep me in House Hunters International and Good Eats.

But now that I'm back, I can't seem to get going again. And it is hard to explain, unless I tell you about the dead raccoon.

See, my friend who lives around the corner, but also out in the country, where everybody has two acres, a goat, and some chickens, went out to water her lawn. Now where I'm from (Los Angeles), and where I live now (around the corner from her and 50 years in the future), we just set our magic boxes and the sprinklers turn on automatically, but she's got some sort of grandfathered-in water rights from like a hundred years ago when her grandfather probably kicked some peace-loving Pima Indian off his land (the Apaches didn't want it, or they would have taken it), and that Pima took it from some long ago (yet mysteriously) vanished Hohokam fella.

What it comes down to is lots of cheap water in the desert, if you're lucky. But you've got to take your turn, even if it is in the middle of the night, or the whole street floods. And then, maybe you go to jail. But probably not, because that's what I thought when I first saw the flooded yards: someone is going to prison! But no one does. In LA, we were more careful with water, and sometimes we weren't even allowed to flush our dirty toilets . If it's yellow, let it mellow. If it's brown, flush it down.

Anyhow, my friend and her husband are out in the backyard at 3:47 a.m., or whenever, and they flip the switch, or turn the faucet, or whatever happens (I'm a city girl, remember), and something goes wrong. Water is coming out, but only a little, and at very high pressure. They get a flashlight and peer into the pipe. Inside is a dead raccoon. He is stiff and wedged sideways across the opening in such a way that he is blocking the flow of water. They try to pry him out but he doesn't budge. Finally her husband gets inside, and grabs the raccoon with both arms and yanks him free. The dammed (not damned) up water shoots out and soaks his red velvet lounging coat and matching slippers, (I wasn't there. But this is how it goes in my head) and he and the raccoon land on the grass in a big soggy pile.

So anyhow, I am hoping that this post about an actual dead raccoon will be my figurative dead raccoon, and now that he's out of my pipes (remember, this has nothing to do with my bowel regularity), pulled from my brain and onto the internets (however stinking, wet, and possibly rabid he might be), the flow of writing to follow will be free and clear and rapid (and probably include some truly original photos of my children clutching shovels and torturing sand crabs on the beach, that don't look anything like the ones of your children at the beach, or the ones you've recently seen on every other blog in the whole world. Here's a little something to wet your whistle:

July 24, 2011. Salt Lake Temple. Happy Pioneer Day!

So, see you soon! I've missed you all!

p.s. I just had my son Ross preview this, and he just said Mom, that's weird. But I like the part about the lounging coat.

If only I had a barn to raise them in.

Sometimes raising boys is a great pleasure.

Like when little Sam had an imaginary hermaphroditic friend. Kaner got his/her own ornament on the Christmas tree in back in '06.

But then, sometimes it's not as much fun.

Like last week, when I found my five-year-old son using my favorite houseplant as a toilet.

I'm not sure if its now imminent demise can be attributed to the urine, or to the sunscreen he sprayed on it the week before, but either way: 

go toward the light, little umbrella plant. I hate to see you suffer so.

I do believe that hearing stories of your children's uncivilized, destructive, immoral, sacrilegious, and possibly feral or felonious behaviors will comfort me at this time.

Please share.

Of Burgers and Bras

Last night I ate a Kobe burger with sauteed wild mushrooms and Maytag Blue cheese, double truffle fries, and a bananas foster shake for dessert. Zinburger is over at the Biltmore, so you might think it is a long drive for a hamburger. But I used to drive to Las Vegas from Provo just for a Double Double Animal Style, so it doesn't seem like such a sacrifice to me. Plus, it was very delicious, and very near Last Chance (that's where all the stuff from Nordstrom Rack goes to die), and after you spend five times what you normally would on a Big Mac, you might be able to spend a few pleasant minutes sifting through a giant bin of cheap Wacoal bras, purchasing three for less cash than one fancy-pants Japanese-cow burger. And then, when you get home, you might discover, to your pleasure, that two of them even fit. 

My dear hermanita Jen, I am going to need like 6 more Fox Concept Restaurants gift cards like the one you gave me for Christmas.  We want to go to The Arrogant Butcher (New Orleans), North (Italian), Olive & Ivy (high-heeled lunching lady, goat cheese, free range chicken type food), and the Mexican place at the Borgata. Plus, I'm going to need a couple more Zinburgers. Thanks in advance.

Love,
Kelly

What are you eating lately? Should I be eating it, too?

Breaking every rule of good blogging

A post, so long it could be a novella, about nothing in particular, but including videos of babies (boring to everyone but the baby's mother), bragging on my oldest child's academic prowess, many extra words and sentences that are mostly in here because I can't edit anything, birthday party photos, and yet another video, this time low quality concert footage of a band that was hip 20 years ago, a bit of misused latin, inserted mostly for the sake of pretention, and finally, a link to swimsuit photos of a mother of five.

Summer vacation. Past eight a.m., and the only person awake is in her robe, blogging and eating tortilla chips (and the salsa she made from her very own roma tomatoes, so is very healthy breakfast. Perhaps even a Wheaties-style breakfast of champions? Should quick email Bruce Jenner to ask, perhaps, but do not want to bother him as he is probably pretty busy cuz the last time I saw him he was holding a live chicken on reality TV and fighting with some Kardashians).

Well, the last few weeks of school got real crazy, I ain't gonna lie. I even started to write about it, but then gave up because I got into a dither about something else. It went like this:

End of school stuff is stressful. I am not good at remembering and coordinating stuff. Is the reason I carried all my books around in my backpack through all of seventh grade, and never used my locker. (The other reason is I was super nerdy.) Is also one of the reasons I changed my major in college from Elementary Education to History. In history classes you've got like three tests and a paper, no hoops to jump through, no meeting three times a day in small groups to discuss the best way to make bulletin board borders, no learning how to call an all-female square dance. (Other reasons I switched my major included not being a very a good teacher and finding out the holiday-themed light-up earrings irritated my lobes.)

So anyway, my May calendar is full, and full in like a 6 point font full, which is like, super full. It takes two parents to get everywhere the five kids need to be, and sometimes one kid is supposed to be in like three places at once (mostly Jane. She's a joiner.) Last Thursday evening, for example, was Jane's ELP invention and balloon popper exhibition, my brother Ryan's Special Needs Institute talent show (literally one of the highlights of the year), and then book club (we read Hatchet by Gary Paulsen). I got home at 1:30 a.m., and was in my step class at 8:30 a.m. (because remember my vow to get bigger pants or a smaller rear? Well, I've opted for both. My rear IS too big, but perhaps my pants are also just unreasonably small?) And I know some of you, with houses full of teenagers, are laughing at me, and you're thinking:  just wait, it gets worse. Pretty soon the only way to do it all is to let your 12-year-old start driving carpool. And for heck's sake, lady, take off those 4-inch white suede platform sandals go to Target and get yourself some stretchy jeans! No wonder you can't get anything done. What exactly are you trying to prove?

So anyhow, I am looking forward to summer. Which starts next Thursday! Which is when we (me and Jake and my new bigger shorts) get back from going to visit Kari and Bono in Utah!

So that was May. Tommy turned five, which is a big one, so there was a countdown for like three weeks and then we had a swimming party on the one day in the recorded history of May in Gilbert when it has ever rained, at least since white men started keeping records; but I bet if you check the Hohokam petroglyphs, it will tell you the same thing: you should always be safe having a May swim party in Phoenix. But kids don't really care, so that's good.

Joey learned to walk. And dance.

And we went to the ward campout, which included an Eagle project where we cleaned up the graveyard for the workers who died building Roosevelt Dam (1905-1911). I was too scared to get a picture of the rattlesnake.

School ended and Ross got loads of awards at his 6th grade promotion ceremony (Jake and I were both underachievers, so we aren't used to fancy wooden plaques, crystal apples and the like, and were quite thrilled).

And we went to Utah and loved the concert and our friends and their lovely new house,




and I wore my Doctor Martins that I bought on Carnaby Street in 1994, because they seemed Rock n' Roll, even though I wondered if Bono would approve of my politics,

and I've given up worrying about my rear again (maybe I could muster more excitement for change if my butt was in the front, and I actually had to look at it every day?),

And then we headed to Payson, which was near the boy scout camp where Ross was in situ and Jake was teaching wilderness survival but ironically came down off the rim to stay with us at night in the air conditioning and spent his evenings with me watching Top Gear on BBC and a show called My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding which is super duper disturbing but I couldn't stop watching. I mean, 6-year-olds with spray tans? A pink light-up wedding dress with 21 layers of tulle, animatronic butterflies, and someone to walk behind her with a fire extinguisher in case her electrical goes haywire and she starts on fire? You should set your Tivo, if you have a high tolerance for tacky.




We came back just in time to make it to the free Gin Blossoms concert at Kierland Commons, where we sat in the front row and blocked a bunch of little girls. Jane came along, and she knew almost all the songs, even the ones from the new album, No Chocolate Cake, which Jake must be playing for her, because I'm more of a New Miserable Experience purist, even after all these years. And I have no idea who that woman in the video is. The one singing super off-key. You think she sounds just like me? I have no idea what you are talking about.



And now it is 9:30, and all the kids are up, except the baby, who sleeps in only when I'm up early, and Jane, who I couldn't find. But then I remembered she slept over at her cousins' house down the road, and I smiled. Because what says "I've got a laissez faire summer attitude" like forgetting where you put your children?

Oh! And I got an email a couple of weeks ago from a fellow blogger asking me to send her a list of my summer plans along with a photo. I wrote something up and hit send. Immediately, I was filled with remorse: Kelly, did you just send a picture of yourself in a bathing suit for someone to publish on the internets? And I had. I really had. And now it is published, at The Barrel of Blogs, along with some other, fully clothed bloggers with their summer goals. You can find my centerfold on pages 13 and 14.

Women's Conference, a sort of poem mostly concerning my intestinal maladies, plus some pictures of food and cousins and large fowl.

As it turns out,
when you eat like a 6 course meal over three hours,
including most of your college roommate Kari's vegetable Napoleon plus your own lobster bisque,  and three desserts,
then follow that up the next day with a pastrami burger and shakes (two) (only one good),
oh, and that mint brownie,
and that other mint brownie,
it is possible you might feel unwell,
especially if all your pants were too tight when you left your warm home in the desert,
where you can wear knit dresses all the day long,
and you fly to Utah where you are forced to wear pants because it is snowing outside.

You had your yoga pants along,
and you stared at them for awhile,
thinking how you'd like to wear them to the Marriott Center,
(Elder Bednar would have understood, I'm sure),
but then you'd have had to wear flip flops,
and since you were walking,
in forty degrees,
you decided to suffer your angry belly in Justin Timberlake's misogynistic straight-jacket-of-a-jean over possible frostbite.

And then if you go to a concert where somebody's granny kisses David Osmond on the mouth
It's okay! she says into the mike, I've been a widow for 26 years!
(It was not okay. It was super weird),
and then somebody (Kirby Heyborne) writes a song about Sheri Dew that made you snort aloud with mirth and pure joy,
you might forget about your discomforts,
if only for a moment.

Did I actually attend class, or did I spend all my time in line at the creamery sniffing warm waffle cones, and trying to buy a t-shirt in the bookstore that didn't include the word "Jimmer"?
Yes!
Some of my favorites were
Virginia H. Pearce "By Small and Simple Things,"
Dennis and Joyce Ashton "In the Quiet Heart is Hidden",
Julie Beck,
Susan Easton Black "A Small Beginning in a Grove of Trees,"
Gaye Strathearn and Cecilia Peek "Believe in Christ."
We also weaseled our way into the Carl Bloch exhibit at the museum, and checked out the Dorothea Lange stuff downstairs while we were at it.

What's that? Did I take any photos of my great good time over to the BYU?
Nay!
But did I take like a hundred of food, forks, and amorous peacocks.

Pea hens. Apparently there is a chicken/peacock half breed running around the place, but I didn't spot it.

When you start with four forks, you know your gonna have to pace yourself

Mom, Jen

Traci (known her since her diaper days in L.A., I even babysat her on occasion), Kari (college roommate, concert date, willing to drive thru Arby's in hurricane-style monsoon to get apple turnovers, and then when they were delicious, drive thru again 5 minutes later), Cousin Becky (only girl in family who is taller than I am), Jen (wearing fashion forward Sherlock Holmes style cape-let), Mom (thanks for dinner, and making us all laugh so loud we should have been thrown out), me, Cousin Lauri (why do you still look 16? You have a married daughter. Is a mystery).


Ah, Utah! 
I love thee. 
I shall be back soon 
(this month, actually, to see Kari and Bono and his healed back), 
and I shall be ready this time
with either 
a smaller butt 
or bigger pants.

Two things: I've started smoking, and I think Rod Stewart is sexy. (In his song, he called me sugar, and told me just to let him know.)

So, last Thursday night, round about 7, we ate a roasted chicken for dinner; at 7:30, I tossed her picked over carcass into a pot with some onions and carrots and water (we were out of celery), and then I climbed into bed, where I soon became catatonic, slipped into an Office coma, and then fell asleep. (In my defense, Will Farrell was on).

I began to have vivid dreams full of horrible stenches of all sorts: swamp gas, burning hair, medieval open sewers chock full of cholera. But I did not wake up until nearly 6 a.m., when the chicken was fully cremated (rest in peace, little bird), and every nook and cranny of my entire house was full of smoke.

So I spent the day ventilating, ionizing, febrezing, boiling vinegar on stove (don't recommend), and placing bowls of baking soda in all the bedrooms. My friend Hallie from 5th grade and California came in around 4 o'clock (by way of Albuquerque). She didn't say it, but I'll bet what she was thinking was: I never suspected my Mormon friend's house would smell so much like an airport lounge in the disco era. But what I was thinking, and actually did say, was: it smells like that bus ride I took from London to Edinburgh in 1994, on which everyone chained smoked a variety of tobacky, including cigars, Marlboros, and what I later learned were Turkish cigarettes, with all the windows tightly sealed against the frigid July night (it was Scotland). Only, at my house, we didn't have the perhaps 30 stops, where all the BYU Study Abroaders would lunge out into the clean, sheep-scented night air, and then hurry into the rural petrol stations, which all contained mountains of Cadbury chocolate (gained 20 pounds in two months), and aisle end caps full of Hoff paraphernalia. (Baywatch was in full swing, and the former Knight Rider was an INTERNATIONAL SUPERSTAR!) Also, my house smelled less like body odor than the bus, and more like hot vinegar. Which makes me hungry for chips.

So anyway, Hallie brought pie with her from some small Arizona hamlet (but not Pietown, which she did not have time to peruse, because we were on a tight schedule), which made me feel much better, because pie does that for you, in much the same way as a Cadbury Flake might.

So then we showered and picked up my brother Ryan, because TONIGHT'S (was) THE NIGHT, and we were gonna take a DOWNTOWN TRAIN, but the light rail takes a long time, so we ended up in the minivan. And we got to the Arena just in time to get our hot dogs and seats and listen to Stevie Nicks flap her arms about dreamily and start in with Rhiannon. Stevie was okay, but I wouldn't pay to see her again. She played a lot of solo stuff that I didn't know, because really, if you've been in Fleetwood Mac, you might as well give up, because you've peaked. (Don't tell this to Paul McCartney.) She looked and sounded okay, except Hallie pointed out that perhaps she was wearing a circa-1850-style bustle under her drapey, glittery black dress?

Jake, Ryan, Kelly

Ryan, Hallie

But let's talk about Rod Stewart, okay? Because Rod blew my mind. I sort of knew he was a ladies man, and that he'd been busy fathering all sorts of children with models and other lovely young things for the past 50 or so years, but I never really understood what the big deal was. Well, I am here to tell you that Rod Stewart has got it. I know, I know, you're wondering, how can he be so old and so sexy at the same time? I don't know. Because it is a mystery. But when he came out in his skinny black pants, patent shoes, and shiny yellow dinner jacket, looking like some sort of crazy-haired 1950s dreamboat, I nearly swooned. Some of the more mature females around us (nearly everyone but us and some well-dressed boys in pairs were card carrying AARP members) were purring like cats. Meowing, I say. And he put on quite a show, complete with other suit-wearing band members, and back-up singers/dancers that looked all 80s in that Price-is-Right-model sort of way. They were so talented they could have put on their own show. But you couldn't look away from Rod for long, because you didn't want to miss him loosen his tie and starting doing lunges (the quads of a 20-year-old, I say!), or kick soccer balls into the stands, or change into the blue shiny jacket, or then into the full purple suit, in which he sang his encore of "Do ya think I'm Sexy?," which had us all on our feet screaming, because yes, Rod, I do think you are sexy. How sexy do I find you? So sexy that I bought this $45 dollar tee shirt to remember our night together:

Afterward, Jake chatted up this back-up singer by the tour buses,

then we went home to our reeking pool-hall-of-a-house,
and then on Monday I went to GATE camp with Sam,

and Jake stayed home and fed the kids fresh fruits and vegetables and such:

then I came home and my house still smells funny one week post chicken-incineration, but more like an ancient Denny's now, which is better, and today is my Dad's birthday and the only idea I've got for a present is to give him some squash, which seems like a lame gift even if it is from the garden.

So that's it. Smoking, Rod Stewart. Squash.

Have you ever had a horrible kitchen accident? Know any old, hot guys? Have idea for my Dad's birthday present?

P.S. I am genius. I needed to get my Dad's present while driving carpool with seven kids in the car, which limited my options. So I went on a drive-thru frozen Custard tour of the east valley, getting him quarts of Culver's, Freddy's, and Neilson's Custard, so he can have himself a taste test. We've been taste testing ice cream since he went to work at Carnation Co. more than 30 years ago.

City Slickers

While on the hay ride at yesterday's preschool field trip to Superstition Farm:

Charlie, you see those huge, giant, long nipples on that cow right there? That's where the milk comes out.


No way, Tommy, Charlie retorts, pointing in the direction of the uncomfortable-looking heifer, his voice with edged with disdain. It comes out of that hole under his tail.


Tom considers for moment, then replies:  
 Oh. That makes sense. 




I didn't correct them. Is like last week, when Tom was listing all the bugs he'd seen in the garden: a cockroach, a bee, a spider, a bug I didn't know, and three holy molys. When Ross started to speak, I evil eyed him 'til he quit.

Sneaky QT adventure, birthdays, and a tea party

So last night, after the kids went to bed, Jake and I snuck out. We rode our bikes down the canal over to the Quick Trip, where we returned our Blockbuster Express movie, and I got myself a soda, which sloshed around in my wicker basket all the way home. It was fairly exciting because it was very dark, except for the blinding lights coming from the second floor rooms of homes, so that we couldn't see the ground in front of us and had to be careful not to plunge into the canal.

SO where was I earlier? Ah, yes. March 25!

Pinewood Derby! Sam got the award for fastest truck.

March 22. Joey is 1. Question: Has a happier, more pleasant child ever been born? Answer: seems unlikely, but can't be sure.

March 20. Jane is 10.

March 18. Afternoon tea for 12 10-year-olds and two Grandmothers.

Tom wasn't invited. Jake took the boys out for Mongolian BBQ.

Daffodils $1.29 a bunch at Trader Joe's!

Grandma Taylor's wedding silver and tea cup collection.

Jane with first course of finger sandwiches: Egg salad, ham and Boursin, cucumber with cream cheese and lemon mint.

The girls made their own hats as they arrived

Grandma Gini Beeson

Grandma Mareen Layton. I'm wearing one of the lip gloss rings we used for napkin holders. Those things are very handy.

Second course: Scones, clotted cream, orange curd (I don't have a lemon tree anymore!), and jam.

Third course: coconut macaroons, tangelo shortbread, and tiny eclairs

Guess which were the most popular?

I spent the entire day in the kitchen, but it was so much fun, I want to do it again: this time, for my friends. Who wants to come?