A Cautionary Tale

If you've been in my car you have probably met Ruby St. Germaine - Former lounge singer and fallen woman.  She's a little doll who used to sit on my dash board, underneath the wee disco ball that hangs from my rear view mirror but through a series of tragic events she has ended up in my cup holder - bitter and burned out.  A cautionary tale of the seedier side of show business.

Life in the cup holder has not been good to her.  Her hair is mussed, her dress is fraying, she has lost her microphone (although has still held on to her jewelry).  And her face looks like she's had more than one hot chocolate spill on her.  She's a tough cookie, but today I saw how bad things have gotten.  This morning I ate my breakfast in the car on my way to work and I left my spoon in the cup holder with Ruby.  This is what I found when I got back in:

Rudy is holding the spoon which has some sort of white substance on it.  This can only mean one thing:  heroin. 

Ruby, nooooooooooo!!!!!!  You have so much to live for!  Looks like someone is going to rehab.

One of the many perks of working for a podiatrist is when you walk in limping he can ask, "Is something wrong with your foot," and you can reply, "I don't know.  You tell me."  And he can!  And more so, he can do something about it.  Which is how I found myself today getting an injection of some legal controlled substance into the soft tissue between a couple of toes.

If you haven't had this done I'm going to give you my thought process so you can be prepared.

Hmm, not bad.  Just a little pinch, like he said.  Maybe a little more painful than giving blood.  Okay, now he's wiggling it around.  Still manageable.  There's a bit of a burning sensation, he must be injecting it.  Gosh, I'm grateful I got that pedicure last week.  But now I'm wishing I got the callus remover, even though we all know it's a scam.  How can he handle touching feet all day?  Because all those 90 years olds are not getting pedicures, that's for sure.  This is taking longer than I expected.  But it's not asSWEETLANDOFLIBERTYKNIGHTSFOCOLUMBUSFORTHELOVEOFALLTHATISGOODANDHOLYOOOOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been hobbling all day, just like all those 90 year olds, and the pain is significantly worse than the pain the injection was supposed to help but I've been promised that in a few days I'll be as good as new - able to return to my carefree, frolicking ways. 

Dinorific!

My dear friend and personal patron, Hannah, got married and moved to Washington.  Boo - I mean to the WA part.  Married - hooray!  And I couldn't make it to her wedding because it was during girls camp.  Double Boo!  And to prove what an extreme sacrifice it was to not be there I will just tell you they had live band karaoke AND a taco truck.  To say that I was heart broken about missing it is an understatement.  Not only because of the tacos but mostly because Hannah has been one of those friends who just lightens up your life.  We bonded over our shared love of The Blue Castle (you've read it, right?  RIGHT?!) and it has been nothing but unicorns and felt stockings every since.

So when she asked if I would make her cake topper I had to say yes. 

Some background:  1.)  Hannah has been a firm and faithful believer in the funny things I make out of felt. 2.)  She and her husband wear glasses.  3.)  He likes dinosaurs.  A lot. 

This is what she requested and I was thrilled to do it (let's not talk about the crappy nature of these photos):

Love you Medici!  Remember that felt is cheap to ship.

The New Me

If you're reading this on a reader head on over to the actual blog and have a look at the makeover.  HURRY, HURRY, HURRY!!!  Because it's awesome!

Some time last fall I asked Angela, my dear (internet) friend from way, way, way down south, if she'd be interested in making my blog a header.  She was.  But she needed a picture of me and as those are hard to come by she patiently waited.  And waited.  And waited.  Until lo, a few appeared.  And within a day the magic was done.  Plus a button, if your so inclined (see sidebar).  And I love it.  Well, Tyra is there.  How could I not love it?

Thanks Angela!!!  You are kind and good.  The next time I'm in New Zealand I'll give you a hug.

The advent of summer

1.  Happy Summer!!!!!!!  I love the beginning of summer above all other seasonal beginnings because it feels so open and full of potential.  It's a bit of wild card season.  You know in the fall there will be school and in the winter will be Christmas and in the spring you'll have allergies.  But summer is so full of surprises and possibilities.  It is when your friends are most likely to call you up out of the blue and say, "Hey, I'm heading down to the beach to ride bikes.  Wanna come?"  I celebrated the advent of summer with a little shaved ice and am now ready for adventure.

2.  Does the rest of the world have Funeral Potatoes, or is it just the Mormons?  This afternoon I was helping out at a dinner after a funeral for a man who was a Mormon, long, long ago, but his family was not and we had, naturally, 3 pans of Funeral Potatoes (a casserole made of cream of something soup, sour cream, cheese and potatoes) and none of the mourners had ever seen them before.  I suppose it could be called other things, but Funeral Potatoes are what it's called around these parts because, well, we bring it to funerals.  It's easy to make, it feeds a lot of people, and it is the epitome of comfort food.  At the end of it all I was chatting with the man's daughter, who was marveling at the amount of food we brought, and I had to explain that Mormons only know how to feed very large groups of people.  I believe it's our pioneer spirit that warns us that the crickets could come and eat all our crops and we'll starve come winter and we'd better fatten each other up just in case.

3.  After the funeral, I got to play the piano for one my primary kid's baptism.  He comes from a very big family so I was expecting a crowd.  What I was not expecting was that they'd all be early.  I am notoriously late to things I have to be early to.  I have nothing to blame but my optimistic sense of time.  But tonight I arrived 15 minutes before it was about to start and I was super proud of myself - until I discovered that I was the very last person to arrive.  I'm giving myself an A for effort.

4.  I am thinking of becoming a super model.  Behold.

Moth Attack!

Girls Camp is over and I think we should all celebrate by taking naps.  Long naps in our own beds with no moths trying nest in our hair.

Oh, those moths.  One night I was the last one up, writing letters in the lounge across the hall from my bedroom and when I opened the door to walk the three steps to get to my room I found (and I know from time to time I am prone to exaggeration but THIS IS NOT ONE OF THOSE TIMES!) thousands of moths.  There was a wall of fluttering, spastic moths and it took me about 5 minutes to convince myself that I would be fine and to just be brave and step out into the hall and get to bed.  But then I tried it and as soon as I got into the light THEY SWARMED AT MY HEAD!!!!!!!!!!!  And I ran back in and decided that death-by-winged-insects was a horrible way to go.  Fortunately there was another door and I slipped out that one and ran downstairs and turned on every single light in the entire lodge and found the can of bug spray and did battle with them for 20 minutes.  The bug spray didn't kill them, by the way.  It only made them kind of mellow.  But mellow enough to where I could turn off the hall light and wait for them to leave the hall and I made it to my room where I whimpered myself to sleep.

Other highlights include:  attempting to demonstrate canoe dancing to the girls I was paddling with, teaching the girls how to french braid, going from cabin to cabin each night and singing to the girls, hanging out with really great and funny women all week, 2 water balloon fights, a dance party, less crying than I expected, less drama than I expected (100 women and girls with bad showering facilities and too much sugar = drama), and nobody died.  Success!

How hard can it be to accidentally be shot into space?

1.)  Remember how I told you that my niece was cuter than your niece?  I meant it.  She is Miss Eliza Jean the Beauty Queen.

2.)  In other news:  KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS, COULD PRIMARY HAVE BEEN ANY MORE OF A MAD HOUSE TODAY?  To say that being both the Primary president and the stake girls camp director was kind of a big undertaking is like saying the Grand Canyon is kind of a big hole.  But for the most part they have only converged slightly over the last 5 months and I've had a lot of help from very wonderful people and it's been manageable as well as miraculous.  So it just figures that on the day before I leave for camp we are short eight people - EIGHT PEOPLE - in primary and the kids seemed to have OD'd on lunatic pills.

3.)  In other, other news:  I watched Space Camp the other night (jealous?) for the first time in years and found myself a little let down that I'm not an astronaut.  It was my dream as a kid to go into space.  The first time I watched that movie at a cousins' slumber part at my grandparent's house I vividly remember thinking, "Those kids are SO LUCKY to have been accidentally shot up into space."  And I was desperate to go to space camp because, you never know, maybe I could be so lucky.  Who wants to join me in my letter writing campaign to NASA to 1.) reinstate the space shuttle program (let's not talk about my heartbreak over that) and 2.) institute a new Writers of Humorous Anecdotes in Space program.  Also, did you know that Joaquin Phoenix is in that movie?  As a young lad?  When he went by the name Leaf?  Crazytown.

Aack!

I have a lot on my plate right now.  Girls Camp is next week, Primary needs some major attention and stuff has been happening at the Pod that make me want to hide in the super secret hidden room they have there with a pillow, a blanket, and a James Taylor CD.  Plus, I've been going through it all while suffering a bout of the old PMS which means I have a very full plate with a side of tears and bloating.

Which is how I found myself in the grocery story this afternoon putting about 20 pounds of snack food and chocolate back on the shelves after it mysteriously appeared in my basket.  It was as if my rational and composed self was abducted by aliens and was replaced by a Cathy cartoon.

My niece is cuter than your niece, and other important stuff

My niece is cuter than your niece.  It's true.  She has a blonde mohawk and two dimples, people.  It's not even a contest.

I spent the weekend basking in her cuteness, as well as the cuteness of the Blessed Nephews.  And laughing with my brothers and sisters.  And not thinking about Girls Camp, which is in a week.  I have a very long list of big and small things that still need to be done for it but I'm trying to have some perspective.  Like, it's not going to matter if certain things get done before I leave.  I just finished chatting with my friend Amanda, who has her own major stresses right now, and I gave the advice to make a list and prioritize it and put "cleaning your house" at the bottom of it, because we'll all survive if the bathroom sink doesn't get the thorough scrubbing it probably needs.  I'm warning you that I'm going to take my own advice on that one so if you come over to visit between now and next Saturday, there may be a few strands of hair lurking near the faucet.  I know that you're a kind a generous friend who won't judge me for that.

More Pink

Tomorrow morning (oh, so early) Camille and I leave for a weekend in Utah to meet the new niece, Miss Eliza Jean.  Ever since finding out that a niece would be arriving I have purposely been avoiding the wee little clothing sections.  Primarily to save my bank account.  Because I've only had nephews and, let's face it, boys are boring to shop for, clothes-wise.  It's nothing but stripes and teddy bears and fire trucks and sports themes. During the colder months you can buy sweater vests but other than that, it's a dud.  But little girls have so many pink ruffly things and I knew that if I wandered into that territory I would buy every cute frilly item I saw.  So I stayed away, until today, when I found myself in Target clutching pink rompers in both hands.  Who's genius idea was it to put babies in rompers?  I need to find out so I can shake their hand.  I nearly died from the cuteness.  Hooray for the Niece!