Tell You [a] Little Story

This weekend we are hosting (in order of stress-inducement level, from least to most): --three kids I'm babysitting. They are easy and it's for a short time. --Steve's brother. He is easy and self-sufficient and fun to have around, but in serious danger of being bored out of his mind . --the beloved truck of a guy we know who is out of town. He is paranoid that people will break into it if it's left at his apartment complex, and is only slightly less paranoid that it will be harmed "by the neighborhood kids" while parked in front of our house. Irony ensues: no car has ever been damaged while parked in front of our house before, until this morning when Steve noticed our van has egg residue all over one side of it. (What? Why?) --a dog while a friend goes out of town. Our friend's admonition: "The only thing is the dog has to sleep in bed with you." Steve's and my identical responses, given at separate times upon hearing this admonition: "...

The day started with a bang when my 2-year-old woke me up asking for his "baba." I went to the fridge and poured him some milk, but he grabbed a glass bottle of Orange Fizzy Lizzy and it slipped out of his hands onto the floor. I, half-asleep, barefoot, with blurry vision, disturbed the sleeping household: "STEPHEN!! Wake up! I need help. I'm bleeding! Wake up!" Shards of glass everywhere, orange soda with no added sweeteners or preservatives, also everywhere. My foot, victimized. My husband, rudely awakened. Then--all of us still clad in pajamas, and me trying to arrange a last-minute cousins' gift exchange--the cable guy called. "I'm running early. Can I come over to fix your internet connection now?" Um, give us ten minutes. Eight minutes later, dressed, but just barely, we opened the door to find the cable guy AND the cabinet guy who was popping in for some last minute touch-ups. Wow, everyone was working on Christmas Eve, and really early...

We're 16, going to see U2. We're 17, doing what we do best at Sunday night get-togethers. We're 18, with a funny hair sticking out. We're 19, yo. We're 20, and we live on different continents. We're 21, one week before we get married. We're 22, and pregnant. We're 23, and it will take us six and a half more years to get rid of this ugly couch. We're 24, and living in Tucson. We're 25, with larger-than-life Christmas lights. We're 26, and you can call him Esquire. We're 27, and expecting Boy #3. We're 28, and this is the only picture I could find. We're 29, and I am one lucky girl. We're 30! Happy birthday, Stephen! I love you!

Good: My first fishing trip ever! (Not counting the time my mom took us kids to a stocked lake at Neil's insistence. Don't remember catching anything. Or the time last year Steve decided to start fishing with the boys so we bought licences and gear and went to an urban lake in Tempe and the boys' attention span lasted about 5 minutes. Didn't catch anything.) Good: Very fun extended date with Steve and our funny, classy, wonderful friends David and Jami. Very good: David and Jami did all the hard work--planned it, made reservations, drove, prepared lunch. It was heaven. Good: Knew our kids were in good hands. (Thanks, mom.) Good: Fun game night in a great little two-bedroom apartment hotel room. Good: An entire, lazy day on a river in a stunningly beautiful Arizona canyon. Bad: An entire day on a river when the air temp did not get above 39 degrees. Good: My fabulous sister let me use her really warm ski clothes. Good: Once in a while the sun came out. Good: Our fishing ...

Eating peanut m&m's. Lots and lots of peanut m&m's.

preschool p week unpreparedness presents popcorn playdough? picture frame ornaments poetry playtime perseverance pictures pretty please prayer parents pulchritudinous prevail perfect place police officer perchance parade (p)russian chocolate prevention pa-a-a-a-r-ty

I like to think that if I were to ever run into a famous person, I would totally give that person his space and privacy and not be all rubbernecky and pointing and whispering. Not so. I am a complete pointer and whisperer, as pathetic as that is. This summer, I saw this man in the Prado in Madrid: Only he looked older and maybe had some facial hair and he was wearing a baseball cap. Having never in my life seen a complete episode of any crime drama, I did not know who this person was, just that he was getting a lot of attention from the Spanish school children. I pulled some of them aside and asked, in English, if this guy was on tv there in Spain. Si, si, was their answer. What is the name of the show? Casi Miami was the response. Hmm, that must be some local Spanish show. Clearly this guy with the red hair giving out autographs is an American. If I get the chance, I will strike up a conversation about how that is being an American acting in a Spanish tv show. I almost got the chance....

In the "winter," Stephen gets all geared up every night and sleeps with a ski hat pulled low and a warm sweatshirt. He piles on extra comforters and pulls them up to his chin. We live in Arizona. Our heat is set at 72 degrees. It is not cold in our house. Simply adorable.

I'm giving up sugar. For now, to see if I can do it. Today, Sunday afternoon nap, I dreamt about chocolate cake and tootsie rolls. Tootsie rolls . I am not a huge fan of the common tootsie roll, but, admittedly, I have been eating a lot of them lately as we made the unfortunate mistake of taking our kids trick or treating at the mall . Last week I had an unusual experience with the common tootsie roll. I grabbed one out of the bucket of candy and sat down at the computer to pass some time (read: procrastinate folding laundry). It was one of the big ones, with ridges (knobs? rolls? indentations?). It was gone before I knew it, and I needed another one. Must have another tootsie roll. So, being the slave that I am to my sugar addiction, of course I ran into the kitchen and got another large, ridged tootsie roll. This time as I ate it, I got an immediate fix. Sugar coursing through my blood. That may have been the first time I have had such an instantaneous and physical reaction to su...

I have a neighbor who is obsessed with me being pregnant. Which I'm not. Which, I have not even discussed with her the possibility of such a thing happening in the near future, except for that time last week when she came up behind me at her son's birthday party, stuck her face over my right shoulder and said point blank, "So when are you going to get pregnant again?" and my answer was, "It will happen when it happens," by which, of course, I meant, "This is none of your business. I do not wish to discuss it with you" and which of course she interpreted as, "Emily is taking no action to prevent pregnancy." So today, she sees me get out of my car wearing workout clothes. She crosses my yard and says, "Exercising, huh? Trying to get in shape before the stress of the baby?" "Um, what?" I ask. " What baby?" "My husband and I have been trying to guess if you're pregnant. I have been wrong a few times befo...

While I was reading Kacy's blog, I was reminded that Thanksgiving is great because it reminds me to use a wonderful expression that ought to be much more widely circulated and understood than it is. And Amy June ought to get a nickel every time someone uses it. The expression is: Indian Feather. Now, I love my Native American brothers and sisters and I mean no disrespect. "Indian" is a politically incorrect term, and wearing Indian feathers on a paper headband to celebrate the first Americans and their contribution to our harvest celebration is not exactly kosher. And let's not forget the enigma of why the LDS church teaches children to pantomime pejorative actions to a song in a minor key and a steady beat about the Lamanites. That doesn't seem very nice to me, and thank you, Dennis , for pointing that out to me a long time ago. I cannot endorse any of that. What I do endorse is the practice of identifying Indian feathers and calling them on it. That said, India...

Did anyone catch NPR's All Things Considered story yesterday about transorbital lobotomies? Riveting, disturbing, gross, fascinating, and messed up. That's all I have to say about that.

At school, Elliot has a group of friends with whom he plays chase at recess. During this game, Elliot is a monkey--as in, he channels the powers of a monkey to help defeat his opponents. What are these special gifts? A monkey is "smart, well-skilled, and a free spirit," so says he. How do these apply to the real E? Yes, yes, and sort of. I would say he is less of a free spirit and more of a worrier. But we all agree he is a monkey. In fact, there is another monkey that comes to mind when considering Elliot's unique gifts. Elliot is curious. Let me illustrate. Elliot spent his two weeks abroad this summer exploring an all-too-often overlooked aspect of the beautiful Spanish landscape: trash. He spent his days with eyes on the ground, looking for treasures to collect in his overflowing pockets. At the end of any given day, I would empty said pockets and discover treasures, indeed: broken luggage wheels, rocks, rocks, and more rocks, broken glass, spent subway tickets, busin...

So now I know why countertop dude is ignoring me. I just found out that I have written thirteen thousand dollars worth of bad checks. I paid lots of people with obsolete checks that no longer connect to our money market fund. I had run out of checks for this account and found some in the back of a desk drawer. Oops! Come to find out, my money market account managers have changed banks at which they hold my funds and these old checks went to the old place, where my money isn't. Ahhhhhhhhh! Sorry, my friend the ceiling guy. Sorry, my friends the cabinet people. Sorry, countertop dude--but you should have called. I still blame you. Tears. Lots of tears.

I wish I could have my kitchen sink. And my dishwasher. Why won't countertop dude return my calls? Steve said something funny tonight: "Our countertop dude's last name is Loya. I feel like calling him and saying, 'You're not the only Lawya around here.'" Speaking of lawyas, we went to a lawyer's house tonight who lives on top of Phoenix. This gentleman, in his opulent digs, says his house is higher in elevation than any other house in the valley. It's just too fitting to argue with. Of course he lives at the top of Phoenix. He lives at the top of the world. Anyway, we met a senator and an Arizona chief justice at this house tonight. We saw many an original piece of artwork--this fellow has a corner on the Greg Olson originals market. We ate steaks that were rarer than we prefer. We came down the mountain and got lemon sorbet and ameretto ice cream at Cold Stone and talked about if we ever want to be that rich. The answer is not so much a definitive...

Ten years ago I would have been too cool for this book club. Back then I was sassy, savvy, opinionated and passionate. I inwardly rolled my eyes at things other people said or liked or did because they were too boring/conformist/ignorant/bourgeois/elitist/racist/judgmental/materialistic/ uninteresting/sappy to make a connection with me. I would have been bored to tears by the discussion of this book: How important are friends to women and to their growth in life? Are you a ten-cow wife? Does life get better as we age? Pul-lease!! Gag me with a pre-printed list of book-club discussion questions. I would have found a way to disassociate my book discussing habits from this collective group of womanly "them." You know, "them," like the "them" that eagerly read every word of every nightly 50-page assignment in high school AP history, and eagerly answered every question while "us" sat in the distant corner and wrote limericks and made up new languages ...

There were a few tense moments during testimony meeting yesterday. It's really a liberal policy, if you think about it. Once a month set aside a block of time in your worship service during which anybody can and does stand up and say anything at all. Supposedly the bishop or other presider has the responsibility to monitor and intervene and clarify, if things get out of hand, but have you ever seen that happen? I haven't. Actually, I was secretly hoping it would happen yesterday. Although I was sending prayers heavenward like the next guy that such-and-such wouldn't go on and on for 25 minutes, like she could very well do, and so-and-so-the-inactive-dude-wearing-t-shirt-and-jeans-and-tennis-shoes (although last week it was a three-piece suit, so you never know with him)-and-who-waxes-bizarrely-philosophical-at-every-opportunity wouldn't pontificate ludicrous doctrine, or swear from the pulpit--sometimes there's nothing better than a really bad run-on sentence--I wa...

This one goes out to the one I love . Woo-hoo, my first html experience ever !

If ever you find yourself in need of a new mom, might I suggest mine. Just a sampling of what she could do for you: --drive across town four nights in a row to help you paint--or rather, paint for you--buying needed supplies and refusing reimbursement --arrange and pay for tickets for you and your husband to see an off-Broadway show instead of going herself --come to your house to babysit while you are at show because it is easier for you --take kids to a birthday party while you go to a meeting, then fearlessly brave the dreaded sports picture event at Peter Piper Pizza with a zillion people everywhere and three children begging for tokens --spend $5 to appease the begging children despite horrendous restaurant noise and crowds --work her grandmotherly magic to make your youngest fall asleep when you can't do it --compliment your choice of paint color, when you're starting to doubt yourself --put your kids to bed --restore calm --clean your house --love your children abundant...

1. If you're cool and you blog (wait, are those two mutually exclusive??), you gotta have a Halloween post. 2. I am inexplicably drawn to, possessive of, and willing to fight for the Butterfinger bars in the kids' giant tub o' loot. I do not eat Butterfingers at any other time of the year. 3. If you go to the mall for trick or treating, you better like Tootsie Rolls and stickers. 4. Tootsie Rolls + decaying crowns and/or cavities = not a good idea. 5. Painted hermit crabs from the mall kiosk that have been abandoned in apartment complex hallway will attack if approached. 6. Creative costumes are overrated. 7. Sixteen-year-olds who trick-or-treat need to get a life. 8. Sixteen-year-olds who dress up as suicide bombers and push the buttons on the timers strapped to their chests and threaten to blow up your house after they have just taken candy from you are irresponsible and in extreme need of getting a life. (What, you don't like Sweetarts?) 9. Six-year-olds who...

Aaron is a sun beam and a Sunbeam. He knew his part for the Primary program the first day he got it. He was ready. Although he's on the wild side sometimes at home, his teachers know him to be among the most reverent in the class, and when the big day came, they sat him in the seat farthest away from them. Naturally. They had Lindsay and Joseph and Katrina to worry about. And don't forget Brooklyn. Aaron would be very well-behaved on his own, at the end of the row. And he was. He said his part flawlessly and Steve and I beamed from the third row on the left. He only knew some of the sign language for "Teach Me to Walk in the Light" and he was behind a beat or two, but that was cute, he was trying. He was making us so proud. Poor Joseph cried through his speaking part because he couldn't see his parents, and Brooklyn stared off into outer space with her mouth open. I'm sure their parents still loved them, and all, but clearly, Aaron was ahead of the curve in te...

What color to paint the kitchen? Our cabinets look like this, with a dark brown finish: The countertop is this: The appliances look like this: and: Nearby walls are grayish-blue, taupe, and a greenish-brown. So my dilemma is: do I play it safe with another drab neutral and then later maybe cover it with faux brick a la Monica's kitchen on Friends or do I paint it a real color (I'm leaning toward a masculine-y grayish-purple) and risk it looking really tacky and having my sister Sarah say, "I told you so" ? Please give your input. On a related note, anyone who comes to help paint will be invited to one fabulous dinner cooked in above-pictured range. Mom....?

He eats sand. He alternates saying, squawking, and shrieking "hi!" to every passerby. He mimics. He picks on his older brothers. He dances. He beams. He climbs. He fears nothing, except an occasional dog. He calls every man on a bike "dad". He prides himself on getting out of the crib during naptime. He vomits. He entertains. He hangs with his mom at the Grand Canyon. He unrolls a whole roll of toilet paper to blow his nose. He makes us happy. He looks like his dad. He laughs. He rocks.

Who woulda guessed? Spam has become high-class Seoul food: South Koreans can't get enough Barbara Demick Los Angeles Times Oct. 23, 2005 12:00 AM SEOUL, South Korea - Stroll into an expensive department store and walk straight past the $180 watermelon with a ribbon twirled just so around its stem. Don't bother with the tea in a butterfly-shaped tin for $153, or with the gift boxes of Belgian chocolates or French cheeses. If you're looking for a gift that bespeaks elegance and taste, you might try Spam. While it might be the subject of satire in the United States, in South Korea it is positively classy. With $136 million in sales, South Korea is the largest market in the world outside the United States for Spam. But here, the pink luncheon meat with its gelatinous shell is deemed too nice to buy for oneself, and 40 percent of the Spam sold here is for gifts. Especially during the holidays, you can see the blue-and-yellow cans neatly stacked in the aisles of the better stores...

1. Eating chili fries, Superdogger, fried chicken, deep-fried cheesecake on a stick, taco dog, salmon burger, sausage on a stick, pork chop on a stick, anything on a stick, gyro, meatloaf, fried asparagus, fried Milky Way, apple-filled frybread, frozen banana, frybread of any sort, funnel cakes, deep-fried Twinkies, garlic mashed potatoes, deep-fried Mars, anything deep-fried, curly fries, turkey legs, bratwurst, carne asada, Polish sausage, nachos. 2. Participating in the World Grilled Cheese Eating Championship. 3. Riding the G-Force, "a 75-foot giant-swing with the head-spinning centrifugal force of four-Gs" after any combination of numbers 1 or 2. 4. Attending.

THEN: Wow! We have a respectable sum of money to put into the house. First we'll remodel the kitchen, then we'll get new carpet. After that, a new garage door, then paint, inside and out. With any leftover money, let's landscape the backyard. NOW: Forget the other stuff-- I hope we're going to have enough to finish the kitchen. Everything's costing just a little bit more than we'd planned. Okay, a lot. THEN: Our friend the cabinet guy is so amazing! It only took 5 minutes to measure our whole kitchen. I trust him completely! NOW: I wonder if we should have communicated with our friend the cabinet guy about what we wanted our new kitchen to look like. Hmmm.... THEN: We are so generous to offer to pay the guy raising our kitchen ceiling more money if it turns out to be a bigger project than he originally estimated. We are so nice, and giving. NOW: What were we thinking to leave an open-ended offer for more money?! He is sure taking us up on that! The price is quic...

I graduated from college without ever taking any English or math of any kind. Zero. Freshman English? Nope. Calculus, zip. No American Heritage either, which was a required GE credit. In fact, my bachelor's degree in International Relations may be technically phony due to a beneficent grade advanced to me by a certain anthropology professor. You see, I was due to turn in the write-up of my field notes from a study excursion in Namibia, and this professor agreed to let me turn them in post-graduation, promising that when I did he would change my grade from an expectant C to a satisfied A. It's been 8 years, and I'm not making a lot of progress on said field notes. I think about it once in a while, and I believe in following through with what you commit to do, so maybe one of these days, I'll resume the tedious transcription of the dusty tapes buried in a box in the garage that every so often I have to rescue from the garbage pile when my husband decides to spring clean. ...