Because I love you.

It's time for my annual holiday public service announcement:

If you have to go to Target for any reason during the next five weeks, DO NOT under ANY circumstance wear a red shirt.

You're welcome.

P.S. I'm back home with regular internet access and no NaNoWriMo restrictions so I'll be prowling your blogs with abandon and fistfuls of snark.

Wait, does this make me a hippie or hipster? I'm confused.

I would have blogged more this week but we're staying with family that has no TV and so the kids have taken over my laptop for a non-stop marathon of Yo Gabba Gabba DVDs. I think it might be the same as back in the old days when the moms stuck whiskey in the baby bottles to knock the kids out. Now the whiskey comes in a non-alcoholic puppet form that has the same effect.

I have watched myself transform into something nearly unrecognizable on this vacation. For example, I spent three hours last night playing Settlers of Catan. I'm worried I've endangered my right to mock my husband for his shady Dungeons and Dragons past history.

I hugged a tree. It's a hazard of traveling in Northern California, I guess. But in my defense, we were in a redwood forest and my kid wanted to know if we could surround the tree while holding hands. So it was forced hugging, but I think it technically makes me a tree hugger. I feel very used by the redwoods.

I've been eating mostly organic food. And um, it's pretty good.

I have to go now because it's time to chant Kumbayah while crafting corporal representations of tree spirits out of twigs. Or else it's lunch. Time is a weird blur here.

Oh, I'm next at the twig station. See you later. . .

I'm singin' out, sistahs!

Thanks to MGM, my family history is totally getting done. Well, in oral form. My husband caught the family history bug a couple of months ago and spends his Sundays tracing family lines and emailing with distant cousins he's never met about long-dead cousins none of them ever knew. He has a lot of fun with and it's fun for me to see.


Now, I come from a line of avid genealogists on my dad's side. You know the kind. (They have a wink and a handshake deal with their local Catholic diocese to dig around in their records whenever they want. They wrote a book. There are boxes of pedigree charts.) That kind.


I do family history stuff, too. I just uh . . . well, I have a slightly different approach. On Sundays lately, we've been watching old musicals. Singin' in the Rain, The Music Man, Mary Poppins. And as we watch them, I tell my boys stories about growing up watching the same movies with my parents. They died a couple of years ago, so my oldest remembers them well but my youngest never knew them. I tell them about how Singin' in the Rain was my dad's favorite movie of all time. He checked out a book from the library about it when I was a kid and I learned all kinds of trivia about it each time we watched it together. Which was a lot, by the way. I saw that movie more than any other in my childhood. Did you know that Gene Kelly's famous scene where he actually performs "Singin' in the Rain" was performed in one take because he was running a fever of 103 and knew he had to nail on the first shot? Or that the rain in that scene is actually water mixed with milk so it would show up better on film? I know what seem like a million tidbits like that from my dad and I share them bit by bit as I watch it time again with my sons, same as he did with me.


I tell them about how Uncle Jamie always cracked up during "Make 'Em Laugh" and how we both loved the "Moses" song. And how my dad always kind of thought Donald O'Connor was a better dancer than Gene Kelly.


When I finally get my hands on Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, I'll tell them how my girlfriends all wanted to marry Benjamin and how we would laugh ourselves silly at whoever had to play Dorcas when we re-enacted the movie.


I tell them how the very first tape my brother ever bought was the soundtrack for The Music Man and that we used to perform the "Shapoopie" song with my cousins because we thought it was so funny.


I know it's not on a flash drive somewhere or printed out to hand down to my great-great-grandkids, but my children are learning important lessons about where they come from.


And I totally have to get West Side Story. My oldest is going to love Officer Krupke. I did, when I was a kid, because my parents made sure I saw it and my kids will see it too.

Name that tune

I live on Lake Street. I have lived on Laurie Lynn Drive, Brightside Lane, McAllister Street and Van Buren Boulevard at different times. And of course, in Utah there were a whole bunch of those soulless streets labeled with numbers instead of even a glimmer of personality. Of those, the street that best fits my situation in life right now would be Brightside Lane.

If I could make up my own street name to describe my life right now, it would be . . . Bliss Way. Yeah.

Anyway, I was walking down my actual street, Lake, and a snippet from one of my favorite movies ran through my head. I have often walked down this street before, but the pavement always stayed beneath my feet before...

You know it, right? It's from My Fair Lady. I love the song. The only thing that bums me out is that it's that poor sap who's in love with Eliza who sings it. I don't know why I can't remember his name right now. (Yes, I do: pregnancy hormones blocking brain function yet again.) I bet it's Reginald. Poor saps in old movies are always named Reginald. Oh, wait. Nope. It's Freddy. Freddy sings that after delivering Eliza safely home. I always kind of wished Professor Higgins sang that song, but he's not a poor sap, so why would he sing it?

Anyway, I can't remember why I'm posting this other than that I was happy to be on my street the other day. And I had that ear worm. And now I'm going to go write. More. I'm going to go write more. And probably walk down my street again. And sing.

Something rotten in the state of . . . Glasgow?

You have to stink pretty bad to be able to smell yourself. I know exactly what it takes for me to get to that point: traveling overseas for thirty-six hours, including eight spent sleeping on the floor with a bunch of stranded Estonians.

A few years ago when Kenny and I had been dating for about two months, his band went on a three-week-tour through the UK. Being in that stage of "I-can't-live-without-you-for-two-days-much-less-two-weeks" in our love, he flew me over to join them for the last week. It just so happened that the week before, a major terrorist plot to blow up planes flying between the UK and the US had been foiled and the airport security was insane. That's where the limit on liquids in your carry-ons came from. Remember that?

Anyway, it made my flight out of LAX late, which made me miss my connectinon in London Heathrow which made me miss my connection to Dublin. I cried until they put me on a plane and just when I thought I would land in Dublin to make my last connection to my final destination of Glasgow, the plane pulled back in for another hour for some other security related stuff. I landed in Dublin to discover there was no way I was getting into Glasgow until the next day. I was exhausted, having already traveled nearly twenty four hours with very little sleep. I was hysterical when I finally got in touch with Kenny, literally barely able to speak through my sobs. I didn't want to try to take a cab to find a hotel and mess with them accepting his credit card over the phone and not having any cash of my own or being able to make it back to the airport in time for my flight, etc. . .um, I was frazzled.

It was one of those things where paralysis set in and I just stayed in the airport. I tried to sleep but a recorded security announcement interrupted me every fifteen minutes. I had managed to secure an uncomfortable bench but it was better than the floor the Estonians occupied, smoking and conversing boredly. But they kept eyeing my bench and I didn't dare get up for a potty break because I knew I'd be out one bench when I came back.

So it was a long night. I was delirious by the time my Aer Lingus ticket counter opened. After explaining that in NO WAY was missing ANY of the flights MY fault and I would not be waiting until the evening to take the same flight as the day before, I got on the first flight of the morning.

Kenny was waiting for me in the Glasgow airport with a poster he had made by borrowing tape, crayons and blank paper from a little girl. He whisked me away to my hotel and while I collapsed in exhaustion, I wasn't so delirious that I didn't realize I smelled . . . pungent.

Embarrassed, I pulled back and said, "I'm sorry. I stink, don't I?"

He smiled and pulled me back into his hug. He said, "Nah. You smell like you, only . . .more."

That night he told me he loved me.

Four months later we were married. How do you not marry a guy who smells you at your worst and tells you he loves you, anyway?

The art of (t-shirt) war.

The other day I was at Disneyland and in the crush to get through the security line, some guy and his wife decided to cut in front of me.

ME.

Let's put aside that it was ME and why would you do that to ME? I'm cute and nice and stuff.

Let's add in the fact that I am VERY visibly pregnant and I was pushing a two-year-old in a stroller. Why would you cut in front of HIM?

The best part of it all? The line jumper was wearing a BYU t-shirt.

Nice.

Now, I'm a huge LSU fan and I wouldn't have cared if someone in an LSU shirt did this. And I graduated from BYU but that's not why it bothered me. It's because everyone sees "BYU" and thinks "Mormon." What if I didn't happen to be a nice Mormon mommy who knew better? Maybe I'd think, "Oh, those Mormons are RUDE."

So I stewed about it for a while and then Baby G and I rode the Dumbo ride and I pretty much healed my inner psychic pain after that. So that was good.

But also, I got a fabulous idea. I think that anytime I'm majorly passionate about a political issue, I'm going to wear a shirt supporting the opposite side of the issue and then run around doing rude things. And I'm going to organize a grassroots movement of people who do the same thing. For example, I feel very strongly about these little fish thingies living in the Sacramento delta (I don't). And we have a water shortage in California due partly to environmental groups who successfully sued to protect those fish in that habitat. So now we have all kinds of water supply issues and watering is a very expensive proposition for farmers at the moment. But dammit, those little whatever-they're-calleds deserve to live! So I'm going to put on a "Down with the fishies!" t-shirt and then run around cutting in line, stealing parking spaces, littering, spitting out gum on sidewalks, and driving while talking on my cell phone--all while wearing that t-shirt. And I'm going to enlist all my California Facebook friends to do the same.

And you know what? I think everyone is going to turn against the anti-fish people because of their rudeness and the little fish thingies are going to live in undisturbed harmony forever.

Brilliant, right?

Why yes, I am delirious. Why do you ask?

A mother's prayer

I've been following the Fort Hood shooting with sadness and interest. I mainly just read the stories about the acts of heroism that have come out of that tragedy. I especially love the story of police sergeant Kimberly Munyer, a 34-year-old mother and civilian cop who took down the murderer with four shots to the torso while taking some bullets herself. She is well. She is a hero.

This article caught my eye today on CNN.com. It was about a local fire chief who rushed to the scene to help. He found Officer Munyer and stayed with her until she was transported for medical care. However, it was what he described doing when he arrived on the scene before he even found her that caught my attention. He said it was chaos when he got there. With no clear sense of what was going on but the well-trained instinct to dive in and help, the very first thing he did was pray. In his words:

Rhoads, who began as a volunteer firefighter 26 years ago when he was just a teen, took over the scene as incident commander. But first, he paused for a quick prayer. "I just asked the Lord to be with me, to give me the strength and the courage I need to do my job wisely and keep my people safe."

That really struck me. I realized that he was there as a first responder to save people's lives in that moment.

But I also realized that as a mother, that's a prayer in pretty much those exact words that I need to pray for my children, and their battle in a world that devalues morality, every day.

And so I will. I will arm them with truth and a love of Christ, a knowledge of good, with kindness and fairness and virtue. And then I will send them out at the start of each morning, and pray this prayer for them.

I have a million ideas percolating for blog posts. And by a million I mean two. But they're pretty good. In my head, they're pretty much written. But my butt and fingers, which are two main components of blogging, aren't cooperating in getting those out. Like the one about family history MGM musical-style. Or the one about how I need to be adopted.

But I don't want to sit still (butt) and type (fingers) long enough to make those posts happen right now. The mind is willing but the flesh is weak. Well, it's strong enough to get up and get ice cream. And also Swedish fish. But it's too weak to do the dishes or blog.

It's because NaNoWriMo (where you write 50,000 words in a month) is sucking up every spare energy cell I have. As my word count waxes, my blogging shall wane.

Maybe I'll drop in here later today with something fantastic. Or maybe I'll eat ice cream.

Hey, don't judge. We artists have to suffer for our work.

An apple for Teacher

So if you ask James's teacher or the school secretary, they'll tell you that I'm stingy and neglectful. But it's all James's fault!

It started with an interesting voicemail last week. Our district is experiencing a widespread lice outbreak. The message was from the school secretary. "Hi, this is Donna. I was just calling to tell you that James came into the office because he thought he had lice." No, James came into the office becase he was bored in language arts. "I checked him and he doesn't have lice." I know. I checked him, too. "He does have cradle cap." I know. It's right at the crown. I told him that two days before. "He'll need to scrub that hard--" Yeah, told him that, too. "-- and then use baby oil to help moisturize the dry area. Also, he says he doesn't have any shampoo, so that's just something you might want to look into."

James has shampoo. James picked out the bottle with me two weeks ago. James just can't ever remember where he puts the shampoo or to use it even when it's sitting right on the edge of the bathroom. MULTIPLE discussions about how to wash hair seem to have all bounced off his cradle capped skull except for the part that says "Rinse thoroughly with water" because that's all he does.

But really, try explaining that to the school secretary who handled your child that self-reported for non-existent lice.

As if that weren't enough, Kenny let James take one of his handmade necklaces to school to give to his teacher, who loved it. She wrote a lovely thank you note to both Kenny and James. James was so pleased by this that he wanted to know if Kenny could make a barracuda necklace for his teacher's husband. Kenny said he'd see what he could do. Then James began to prowl through Kenny's inventory looking for other necklaces Kenny might not be so attached to. He found another one with a flower that Kenny said he could have. James wanted to give that to Mrs. Greyshock too but I told him not to because it wouldn't be seemly. It's a hard concept to explain to a ten-year-old with no thought of sucking up. He just likes that she likes his gifts.

When I mentioned this morning that his teacher had noted in response to his homework assignment that she also loves Calvin and Hobbes, he got excited. "I have a Calvin and Hobbes book that I finished. I'm going to give it to her!" I gently explained that it was best if he didn't. It's a vague notion in my own head why not, but I think I basically explained that I didn't want her to feel like he was giving her things just to impress her or get a better grade, even if his intentions were pure. I explained that there's a time and place for gift giving and maybe we could save that idea for Christmas or teacher appreciation week.

Tonight when I sent him up for a bath after a STERN reminder to scrub his hard WITH SHAMPOO, he said, "Oh, by the way, I told Mrs. Greyshock that I wanted to give her my Calvin and Hobbes book but you wouldn't let me. She was sad." Turns out, of course, that he didn't explain why.

I'm going to kill him.

Write Stuff.

I hit my first forty comment milestone today. (Okay, granted, the last one was mine.) All I had to do was write a post about lady parts. What is wrong with you people?

Moving on. . .

I apologize in advance for rambling. Just know, all these thoughts are loosely organized around the vague theme of "writing" because I started hatching a new novel on Monday.

Please note the emphasis on "loosely." I'm pretty sure I can't overstate that.

So I'm in love with this new novel so far but it's taken me to some strange places already. In the last two days, I've interviewed a lawyer about the nuances of the term "legal standing", the concept of a "term of art" and the conservative perception of private sector non-profit organizations. I've called City Hall to interview a council member about zoning hearings and used my best friend's connections to figure out where the LDS singles hipsters live and play in Washington DC. Oh, and I invented a gentrified neighborhood just emerging from urban decay that still needs a home somewhere in the District. Ah, the life of a writer. . .

Oh, I need to know what colors look good on a redhead of the Titian variety. Any ideas? She has blue eyes, if it helps. I have to dress her and I don't want to put her in something devastatingly stupid for a redhead to wear.

My husband has nightly rehearsals this week for our huge stake musical and so I'm using the quiet time in the evenings to get twice as much writing done as usual. It feels weird.

I found out that the word "booty" is acceptable to my publisher but the word "sucks" is not. (And Nancy cheers...)

I have characters named Sand Dollar and El Diablo. Oh, did I mention it's chick lit and not fantasy?

I'm feeling more sure that I'm still as funny as I think I am. I make no attempt to figure out how funny other people think I am. I'm good with making myself laugh because that's a very, very low bar.

I submitted my second manuscript first thing on Monday morning and now I get to sit and wait. I'm alternating between a fantasy where the evaluations come back with rave reviews and a nightmare where my editor revokes my contract. I tend to land on cautiously optimistic in between, though.

Also, Baby G has finally discovered his boy parts and is kicking it Al Bundy style all day. And that has nothing to do with writing. It's just part of the scenery around here.

This seriously happened. (Boys, be warned!)

So last Monday, I overhear two neighbors discussing their pregnancies and I wander over to join the conversation because I'm nosy friendly like that.

They each just found out what they're having so I ask my one neighbor (we'll call her Stacy because that's not her name) when she's due because she doesn't even look pregnant. This is how the conversation went between her, me, and the other neighbor I'll call Shannon.

Stacy: I'm due the first week of May but I'm going to have it April 30 because I'm a planner.

Me: Oh, so you're getting induced?

Stacy: No, I'm having a C-section.

Shannon: Lucky! I want one but my insurance won't cover it. I work for a doctor who has to repair women's vajangos after their lady parts fall out and I don't want to do a natural birth.

Stacy: I can't believe the insurance is such a pain about it. I told my doctor to put down that I have genital herpes so that I could get the scheduled C-section. It's not like insurance is allowed to check.

Shannon: That's a great idea!

Me: . . . (confused silence)

So.

Is it me, or was that weird?