Simple joys

01 October 2009

1. I get sick with the flu every year around Christmas time so I am now classically conditioned to get the same excitement and anticipation from a fever and chills and that slimy youreabouttothrowup feeling as I get from the smell of gingerbread and Christmas candy (think Pavlov's dogs crossed with the King Singer's Christmas Album). I am always a happy feverish kid.

2. On a different note: I love the radio scan function because I never like what's playing on the radio, but I don't like driving in silence, so instead of listening to every lame song for 5 seconds and then changing the station, the radio does it automatically for me.

3. On the same note: At 5:00 pm, every 3rd station in Utah valley is playing Taylor Swift.

Campsite 22: part ii

21 August 2009

Daddy brought the the older kids up after dinner. Something about a photo shoot and work in the physics lab had kept Christian and Lolly at home in the morning, and Isaac and Dad were delayed, in Texas I think. The boys needed little encouragement to stoke the low fire, and as the little ones pulled on pajamas and sleeping bags, we huddled closer to the crackling sticks and branches and sang along with my guitar:

Well, I'm in love with a big blue frog
And a big blue frog loves me.
It's not as bad as it may seem
He's got glasses and he's six-foot-three.

Ghost stories are for girl's camp, so we related our real-life adventures; Isaac tried to whisper as he dramatized snorkeling with sharks, and the rest of us tried, only half-heartedly, not to interrupt with our own summer exploits.

Well I'm not worried about our kids
I think they'll turn out neat,
They'll be good lookers 'cause they've got my face
And good swimmers 'cause they've got his feet.

Chorus
Well, I'm in love with a big blue frog
And a big blue frog loves me.
It's not as bad as it may seem
He's got rhythm and a PhD.

Mom and Dad went to bed before the fire had crumbled to ashes, but we kept right on laughing, singing, joking and alternately coughing on the thin smoke that still streamed from our fire pit.

Well I know we can make things work
He's got a good family since
His mother was a frog from Philadelphia
His daddy an enchanted prince.

Chorus again!

Too many s'mores raised our collective blood sugar to a dangerously giggly level, and we could hear Tommy complaining from his tent compartment, "Stop laughing!! You keep waking me up!"

This unfortunately was made only the more hilarious my parent's stifled snickers; apparently we were keeping everyone awake.

The neighbors are against it and it's clear to me,
And I'm sure it's clear to you:
The value on their property will go right down
If the neighbors next door are blue.

Another Rousing Chorus!

When it got too dark to even see eachother's laughing faces we finally pulled off our tennis shoes on the welcome tarp and climbed into our 10-man tent. Lolly and I tried to crawl over half-sleeping Mariah while the boys made shadow plays on the walls.

Camping is not particularly comfortable, but what could be more comfortable than piling with your sibling in a heap of sleeping bags, in the middle of your family tent, in the middle of the lovely mountains?

Well I'm in love with a big blue frog
A big blue frog loves me
I've got it tattooed on my arm--
It says P-H-R-O-G,
that's frog to me
P H R O G!

Of holly berries and celebrations

26 December 2008

December 25th is Christmas because of the traditions that have made it so for hundreds of years: St. Nicholas with his red robe and gifts, the manger scene with kneeling shepherds and adoring angels, Christmas carolers out in the snow, and a Yule log in the fireplace.

My family celebrates with variations on the theme beginning with yards of popcorn-cranberry strings and four days of caroling to everyone we know in the valley. On Christmas Eve, after clam chowder dinner, we produce a spectacular Christmas pageant (complete with all the regulars plus King Herod, four or five sheep, a chorus of angels and usually a couple of Marys). We kids give the parents a talent show (the price we pay for our years of music lessons) and then everyone takes turns opening their new Christmas pajamas.

The kids pile into one (often small) bedroom to watch movies and wait for Santa to visit. At the appointed hour (always hours and hours before I'd like to be awake) Mom and Dad come in for Jesus' birthday party. We sing Happy Birthday and eat cake while we discuss our new-year's-resolutionesque presents to Jesus and decide on new gifts to give him in the coming year.

Then we open presents. The aforementioned traditions were established, for the most part, by our dear loving parents and are based on decades of their own family traditions. So we the children have decided to create a few traditions of our own.

The electronic whoopie cushion was first given to me by my brother Isaac, and has since been regifted to various members of the family. It is a delicate matter as to who will next receive the revered EWC because they must be old enough to know better than to open the box and use it but young enough to recognize the importance of passing on the tradition. Thus far, my parents have never been gifted the EWC; we are not sure if they qualify in either respect.

Isaac introduced the tradition of giving alternatives to current technologies: A few years ago, he gave me a real-genuine-imitation cell phone which doubled, for a week or two, as an edible banana. It came with instructions on convincing your friends that it was, in fact, a real cell phone. This year he gave me an i-pod (see fig. 1).

I'm not really sure how the tradition of movie-marathons developed but this year we carried it on with the Mission:Impossible trilogy beginning at 11:30 pm Christmas Night and culminating in six children sleeping through hours of explosions and intrigue.

I've decided we should make a tradition of sleeping all day on the 26th.

Picture print by currier & ives

28 November 2008

I love Karen Carpenter. She is the voice of Christmas. In fact, it's not Christmas until the day after Thanksgiving when Mom turns on the Carpenters. I hear, like herald angels announcing the season, those first notes: "It cayme upon a midnight cleeer!" And thus the season is ushered in, safely after we have Given Thanks.

This year though, I had a change of heart and Christmas began a little early.

Last weekend Bryan and I stopped by SmartCookie for some dessert. It was still days before Thanksgiving, but ice cream shops all over Provo were already breaking out the eggnog and peppermint flavors. Of course, I would never pick a Christmas flavor before the official inauguration of the season, but something suddenly over came me and I heard myself asking for "two gingersnaps with peppermint, please."

What? Blasphemy!

The girl handed me the ice cream sandwich, and for a moment I stood stunned by my sudden rebellion against all that is holly and ivy.

But gingersnaps are my favorite, and the peppermint smelled so much like childhood...

One taste was all it took and I became a forever-changed woman!

"This tastes just like Christmas!"

By the time we climbed into the car and cranked up the Christmas carols (I love Karen Carpenter!), I couldn't quite remember why I had whined for all these years about pre-Turkeyday Yuletide Joy!

Moral of the story: I love Karen Carpenter. Did I mention that?

Pumpkin pie and the friendship-day present

27 August 2008

Once upon a time is a good beginning for a story, particularly a Pumpkin Pie story, which this is, because it’s a story about Pumpkin Pie.

Pumpkin Pie lived with her mother and father, her three sisters, Peach, Plum, and Pecan, and her brother named Chicken.

One day a new family moved into the house next door. They had a pet boa constrictor and a toucan, and books and books full of pictures from all the far away places they had lived. But most importantly they had a little girl just Pumpkin’s age.

Her name was Annabelle, and she and Pumpkin Pie became best friends right away. They had tea parties and played Monopoly. Annabelle taught Pumpkin how to sing songs in a funny language, and Pumpkin taught Annabelle how to jump rope double-dutch.

One day in school, Pumpkin’s teacher announced it was National Friendship Week. Pumpkin Pie ran home after school. She wanted to do something special for her best friend, Annabelle

“Mommy, It’s Friendship Week! Can we make a present for Annabelle?”

Together Pumpkin and her mother made a delicious batch of cinnamon rolls. They wrapped them in pink cellophane with a note: “Happy Friendship Week!” and tiptoed over to Annabelle’s house. They set the plate on the front porch, Pumpkin gave the doorbell a hard ring, and Pumpkin Pie and her mother ran back to their own house.

It wasn’t too much longer before there was a ring at Pumpkin’s door. She opened the door so fast, she caught sight of Annabelle running across the lawn. Pumpkin smiled, there on her front porch was a box that said “For Pumpkin, my best friend!”

Pumpkin carried the box to the table, and carefully lifted off the lid. Imagine her surprise when she found only a pile of mud in the bottom! Pumpkin Pie began to cry.

“Why Pumpkin, what ever is the matter?” her mother asked.

“I thought Annabelle was my friend, but all she gave me was a box of mud!”

“Oh, I’m sure she is your friend, maybe where Annabelle comes from it’s nice for friends to give eachother mud.”

“I don’t think so! I think she’s mean!”

“Maybe you should ask her, I’m sure Annabelle would explain.”

But Pumpkin Pie was so angry she didn’t even talk to Annabelle all day. Pumpkin dumped the box of mud out her window and she just sat in her room and sulked.

All week Pumpkin Pie wouldn’t talk to her best friend. She ran home from school fast before Annabelle could catch up. When Annabelle came by to play with her, Pumpkin Pie pretended to be busy. Pumpkin didn’t answer the phone, and she wouldn’t sit with her at lunch.

It wasn’t until the next Friday that Pumpkin Pie looked out her window and saw some little green seedlings growing out the pile of mud.

And it wasn’t until much, much later, when the small seedlings had sprouted into a bed of beautiful flowers, that Pumpkin Pie finally understood: there are many different ways for people to say “I love you.”

My mommy told me this story or something like it. I’ve been thinking about it a lot recently for a number of reasons; I hope I have changed much in the 15 years since Mom made it up the first time, but I’m still not sure how the story ends.

Accio butterbeer!

31 July 2008

For no particular reason, while standing at the top of the stairs, I suddenly remembered it was Harry Potter's Birthday. I noted it to Mariah and we shared a spontaneous Harry Potter birthday handshake.

I don't know why shaking hands seemed like the best thing to do. But it did at the time.

Happy 28th Harry!

Building sandcastles

04 July 2008

Fourth of July at the beach is the coconut smell of sunscreen, sand in your ears (and nose, eyes and hair), Grandma's giant bucket of licorice, and most of all my daddy's sandcastles. In our backyard we build tree forts, and on graph paper he sketches space stations, but on the Carolina coastline he turns sand into towers, walls and palaces: a fortress for an afternoon.

He started after breakfast. With the shovel and a few buckets-- "see, we'll carve out a channel here and the water'll sort of wash out to a delta over there... this hole we'll dig down to the water table and the moat can drain into here..."

A bridge, a tunnel, two fortresses with access roads, a giant hill in the dry moat-lake, and towers of drip castles on every level. Daddy took a lunch break, but just for a bit; low tide is the very best time for building.

He looked a bit like a kid out there, kneeling in the middle of his piles of sand, patting down the walls, and dribbling up the towers. I built up the battlements, the guard hills and towers. Jack got knighted Head Castle Protector and helped dig out the moat. Sussy and Brigham picked shells for decoration and the neighbors came by to stare.

"Will it be there tomorrow?" the little boy asked.

"We'll see." said his dad.

"Not a chance." I promised.

About dinner time the tide rolled in, just like it always will, and we finally stood back from our masterpiece and watched it slowly melt.

"You know, I was thinking we should've set up a camera and made stop-motion clips of it washing out."

"I was thinking the same thing! But we should show the whole thing build up first and then wash out."

"There goes the first bridge!"

"Yeah, didn't expect that one to last long"

Daddy chuckled, "Nothing's supposed to last long— it is a sandcastle."