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?

Some thoughts on Elder Bednar's talk

Ok, so I'm back, but I shan't get give you the next installment of my March of Dissipation today.

I've been thinking about Elder Bednar's Conference talk. Conference, by the way, was lovely as usual. I gladly trade the usual three hours in the Church building wrestling the youngsters in high heels, for 8 hours in my yoga pants in front of the TV, watching the GAs. (To be clear, I'm the one in the heels, but perhaps if I put the kids in heels and I wore Nikes, everything would be more pleasant and I wouldn't scowl.)

Anyhow, I was talking with my sister not too long ago about how the Spirit works for us personally, and then after that discussion, I started asking the same question of some other friends and family. And I was interested to hear that all of us were being taught somewhat differently.  I explained to them how the Spirit works for me: pray, then wait until I feel peace about my way forward. But many times my answer is no answer because the decision doesn't really need to be made yet. I feel sometimes that the Lord is telling me not to plan too far ahead, but to fill this time with what I already know I should be doing, keep my options open, and wait for further instruction, or for new, completely different things to be thrown into my path. Sometimes I feel like there are many ways I can go, and many of them acceptable to the Lord. Sometimes when I finally do get the calm, peaceful  feeling I'm waiting for, and move forward, my steps are still tentative. I don't always feel sure until I'm up to my neck in it. The Spirit also tells me when someone speaks truth because I feel tingling and pressure in my head (often I end up in tears). It confirms all truth, whether I am learning spiritual things, walking through some Indian ruins in the Painted Desert, watching a show about black holes on the Discovery Channel, or chatting with a friend. And also, very, very occasionally, I have heard an actual voice inside my head that is not my own, that gives short, meaningful instruction and intense comfort.

As I explained this to one friend, she seemed to think I was being a little laissez-faire, and needed to run a tighter spiritual ship. She said she needs more timely, specific revelation, and she gets it.

Another woman gets very strong spiritual confirmations for many questions she has, answers that leave her without doubt. She even has the Spirit tell her when someone else is struggling, or will soon struggle, many times with deeply personal issues. Sometimes these people are near-strangers. She feels the burden of acting on this knowledge, even though many times she doesn't really know how, because she doesn't know if anyone else will know to help.  She said she knows this isn't how it works for most people, that it some sort of spiritual gift, and she hasn't always had it.

Another friend told me she feels a burning in her chest, and thought everyone else did, too.

I don't know what exactly to say about all this, because I already understood that our communication with the Lord is a personal one, and so I shouldn't be surprised at the differing ways the Spirit communicates with us as individuals, but I guess I was...fascinated by the variety. And Elder Bednar's talk further clarified my thoughts. His analogy about light and the Spirit (most of the time the Comforter is slow and nearly imperceptible, like the rising sun, although it is occasionally intense and dramatic, like flipping on a light in a dark room), resonated with me. It reminded me that the voice of the Spirit, for me, and for most people, most of the time, really is still and small.

How does the Holy Ghost speak to you? (Feel free to post anonymously).
Is there a Conference talk you are still thinking about?

March of Dissipation

So I pretty much haven't sat down since March 11. Which was the last time I was here at Nun-a-ur-beeswax. Can't really remember what happened: it was just like, Ostrich Festival, blur of days and nights that became weeks, and then I woke up this morning with a actual mountain of laundry on my family room couch (is Everest of clothing),  four Three Musketeers wrappers on my nightstand (mint flavor), six extra pounds wrangled into my pants, and BANGS. Plus the broccoli and one strawberry in my garden are ready to be harvested, I found a palm sized wolf spider (inside) and a scorpion (outside), and Tommy apparently spent the night in a cowboy costume from two Halloweens ago?


And my phone tells me it will be 97 degrees tomorrow.


And I don't think it is an elaborate April fool's prank. I think it is real.  Which means that Spring is over, and I should go get some extra deodorant. Because I will be sweating unceasingly for conservatively 7 months. And I won't be able to pull my hot, damp hair off my face because someone gave me BANGS.


I feel sort of disoriented and nervous, like I missed something important.


This all reminds me of the girls in my freshman dorm, who would come to the study lounge to kvetch and cry about whether they did or didn't the night before:"Whadaya think? I'm pretty sure I was too drunk to have been able to retie this complicated knot in my belt all by myself, but maybe I should go to the Health Center just in case?" Then they'd moan a bit and throw up on the carpet.


But unlike most of the 10 keg frat parties of 1991, there seems to be photographic evidence of my MARCH OF DISSIPATION. Which I will share, because if I get up from the computer, I will be forced to fold clothes.


And just for fun, I think I will go backwards, so that when you see the ostrich chariot racing, you'll know we have reached the beginning: March 11. And don't get antsy. This might take a few days.


 Last but not least, we have an explanation for the cowboy get-up:

Friends and family night at the Rockin' R Ranch (is about 100 yards from our house, yet the kids had never been.) So we grabbed some friends and some family and headed over on Monday night. Big Jim and Sweet Mary Robson run the place. They also go to Church with us. It was fun to hear Jim bless the food with his fake cowboy voice. I wish he would pray like that in Sacrament meeting someday.

Snake oil salesman-slash-biscuit maker-slash-outlaw

Mom and my brother Ryan

Saturday night was the prom. Remember how I never went to the prom and this had stunted my emotional growth and might have cost me thousands in therapy if I had remembered to go to therapy? No? Well, Jake finally asked me. And I said yes. And we went to a fake prom thrown by 17 very sensitive thirty-something North Mesa Men (including Jake's sister Jane's husband Todd) for their lucky ladies at one of the fella's airplane hangar at Falcon Field. And we got invited along, too. 

I got ready for three hours. Most of that time was spent:


1. Trying to figure out how to make my new bangs only look a little bit like Farrah Fawcett,
2. Making Jake a boutonniere out of plants I found in the backyard (orange blossoms) and black electrical tape,
3. Attempting to get my falsies (eyelashes) to stay in place, 
4. Trying to get into the tiny black taffeta I borrowed from my sister (I got it over my head, but then it got stuck at my shoulders. I had to enlist Jake to yank on it for awhile, during which time he grumbled a lot and made rude comments about how the prom date's responsibility is only to get the girl OUT of the dress, not in. And there may also have been some ridicule about triple spanx (but jokes were undeserved, since was only in a single girdle. Plus some tasteful fishnets.)

Jake finally found somewhere to wear this tux he found abandoned in an old rental house. He says it is too big around the middle, but he's willing to grow into it.

So we had a good time, but we didn't get named Prom King and Queen, which was sad because the king and queen got a ride in the helicopter that was parked inside the hangar (along with the airplane, two Harleys, and the adult tricycle, which one woman, in a short white formal, rode around at top speed).


But Jake did get a text from my Mom warning us not to have sex, which was nice. But then she retracted it, saying it was probly too late for such admonitions, because she'd remembered about the five kids we already have.


And I also thought that maybe I should throw my own prom someday. And only play music that they used to play at the ASU Institute dances in the early 90s. This would include: That super annoying 500 miles song by the Proclaimers, and Blister in the Sun by the Violent Femmes. That's all I've got so far, so it is going to be a short prom if you don't help me out. If you were at an institute dance or perhaps at some club like The Palace or The Edge in Provo during this time, you might be able to help. But not if you were at the University of Arizona Institute. Because that deejay was super old and played Footloose. You Wildcats are all disqualified.


So I haven't gotten very far back into March, but I have to go pick up my children. There is so much left! Pinewood Derby! A tea party complete with clotted cream and orange curd and lots of ten-year-old girls! Jane Eyre! Trips to the optometrist! A really bad hangnail! The baby emptying out my nail polish drawer ten times a day to play with his favorite toy, the PedEgg, which he likes to suck on, even though it sharp and full of revolting bits of dead heel skin!

What did your March of Dissipation hold?
What songs should I add to my prom playlist?

Ostrich festivities! And also, bugs are like Fen-phen.

So Spring Break has come early to the Beeswax household. Sam and Tom are home today, and two of the caterpillars we agreed to caterpillar-sit for Teacher Jeanne's preschool class have already become chrysalides, and the ladybug pupa are molting, which sounds nearly as gross as it actually is.

So there are lots of bugs on the kitchen counter. I'd spin myself into a cocoon, too, if I were trapped in a plastic cup half-filled with my own feces for two weeks. Once they are all safely wrapped up, we can take them out and safety pin them to the pop-up butterfly habitat, then wait 7-10 days before they emerge, painted lady butterflies, and we can feed them orange slices and take them back to preschool, where they can be ogled and prodded by four-year-olds until they are sickly, but not quite dead, then released in the park. (You know, the life cycle, exactly how God intended it.)

Also, Sam turned eight. We are going to the Chandler Ostrich Festival today to celebrate, because Sam has a serious thing for ostriches. He is excited to shop for ostrich memorabilia and see the ostrich races. We are also cleaning our house, because Sam is getting baptized tomorrow and people are coming over for lunch afterward. This might mean we have to move all the bugs and their excrement/molted skin out of the kitchen, even though I find them an effective appetite suppressant. Proof? There is a bag of mini Snickers bars right next to the caterpillars, and I've only eaten like 10.

What I learned by watching my Mom do my homework

Yesterday I did a second grade science project. See, when you wait until the very last day to do it, you pretty much have to do it yourself, because you can't really say to your barely-eight-year-old, "well, son, I know your parents haven't actually mentioned any of this to you, but you sort of generally knew you had a science project due, right? I'm gonna slap some love and logic on you real hard tonight and tell you 'Oh, so sad! What are you gonna do about this'?" because it is more than he can do to organize this sort of thing at all, and he certainly can't do it in an afternoon. Heck, it was more than I could do in an afternoon. That's why I started it yesterday morning, right after I dropped him off at school.

So what have I learned from this experience? I mean, besides the fact that no one could tell the difference in taste between regular and low fat string cheese and regular and low fat peanut butter? I have learned that if I want him to do his own work, we cannot procrastinate a la my usual fashion.

But really, an even better question: What has Sam learned?

I pray, enough second grade science that he will be able to do his own childrens' projects, about 20 years from now. It seemed to work for me.

See, doing all this homework has made me reflect on my own education; specifically, how I learned to write. And so I'd like to take this opportunity to send out a special thanks to my Mom, who wrote that Etiquette report for (with, next to, instead of- let's not be picky about our prepositions) me in 5th grade. It was really good and interesting. I mildly revised that thing over and over again, turning it in a total of 5 times. It  reached the apex of its career in 1991, when I turned it in to a Pierce College psychology class (which I was taking so I could get out of high school early in the day, to free up my afternoons for eating In-n-Out burgers and watching The People's Court and Days of Our Lives) in 1991, where it received an A+. (It only got a B- in my sociology class at the University of Arizona, and I was afraid to try it out again at BYU, for fear someone would turn me in for honor code violations.)

I'd also like to thank her for the buffalo and crab reports, the Germany project, the three poems that won prizes and were published in the Granada Hills High School Literary Magazine, and the college essay that got me into UCLA (a real tear-jerker about how I desperately wanted to be a teacher. Even though I didn't want to be a teacher.).

At some point, though, our parasitic writing writing relationship became more symbiotic, and then, I learned to actually write for myself. See, sometimes I would procrastinate so long that I was writing my papers at lunch, and they were due 5th period. And I noticed that I got good grades. A literary bird flown the nest. And my Mom almost never writes this blog for me anymore.

So maybe I should have stayed in Education, because I've got this revolutionary theory that doing your kid's schoolwork for them occasionally might actually be good parenting. (Or it might have been my sister's revolutionary theory, but either way, we both graduated from the same Mareen Layton Literary Course.) The theory is this: that watching the process- being involved in the brainstorming, trying out sentences and watching them be revised, spending 15 minutes throwing out words, trying to find just the right one for the third line in the second stanza,  realizing how much time and effort it takes to produce good work, in addition to what a quality product really looks like up close- are all skills you don't learn in the classroom.

They are learned by watching your Mom do your homework.
(And maybe you get some of it by reading one trillion books, just for fun. Using time you might have spent going to a party, out on a date, or being a cheerleader, all of which you forgot to do. So you really hope all the books were good for something.) 

Do you agree? 
Vehemently Disagree? 
Are you going to call the cops?

How did you learn to write? 

**Update: My my just called to tell me she'd read this, and she only had a couple small changes she wanted made.

78 and sunny.

Fort Beeswax

200 square feet of veggies (plus some strawberries). I've got lots of dirt under my nails.

Nothing smells better.

Superstitions

Herbs. Say your H, like Martha does. Who doesn't like a pretentious gardener?

Time to get out the ladder

What's better than February in Phoenix?

March!

What's better than March?

Nothing!

(Except maybe November.)

What's your favorite month?

Happy March to you!