Beneath the Wraps

It’s been a couple of months since I took Jenna and her friend to see The Mysterious Happy Life of Brown Bag by Greg Near. I honestly did not know what it was about – but it was playing at the library and gave us something to do for free. It started out cute and funny.   Jaime, Trume and I all laughed.   Towards the end though, they both got bored with it and I don’t think they realized what had even taken place.   The one act play had taken me from laughter to tears in just a matter of seconds.   Brown Bag had been bullied because he was different.   He so desperately wished to have friends that he allowed them to manipulate him – even though he knew that because they were trying to hurt him, they really weren’t his friends. After the play the cast members and writer and some others held a discussion panel.   Trume and Jenna both wanted to leave – which I understood.   It’s not a comfortable subject. But I thought it was important that w...

I don’t know who suggested to the primary children to stand at the front (in Sacrament meeting) with their arms folded to set an example for those that were entering the chapel. I didn’t have a problem with it – except when Parker would try to outrun whatever other child was headed to the stand.  But as long as the children were on the stand with their arms folded, there really was a reverence there – though it seemed to vanish the minute they sat down. A visiting high councilman had given the command to the bishopric that he didn’t want the children up there.  Maybe because he knew on a first hand account that some of those standing there ordinarily do NOT represent reverence – though the three in particular (the three most irreverent – actually there are four – which is just about half of the primary) come from very devout homes, it’s just that reverence has taken a back seat.  The more we try to enforce it, the stronger the misbehavior becomes.  I say “...

          I don’t know which episode it was, but I was watching “the Middle” and Jenna decided to watch it with me.   That one episode got her hooked.  And now she’ll watch it and rewatch it and memorize it.  I don’t like it near as much as she does.   Nor do I enjoy it as much as I once did.           What’s funny is Jenna has gotten Biff hooked on “the Middle” which is surprising to me as I really didn’t think they spent that much time together.  But he went out and purchased the first season and brought it home.  Jenna’s certain that he purchased it for her.           I recently learned that Corey also likes  “the Middle”.  They are such a quirky family. It’s actually kind of an odd show. 

          There are multiple Sunday School teachers in my current ward – team teaching the same classes – including the youth class.  I find it odd in a way – though I understand the need for variety.  I don’t think the two instructors who face the youth currently are the greatest choice.            When Wade taught the youth, I believe they fully related to him – as they really are not that many years apart – or so it appears.  I know that Wade is actually older than fresh out of high school – he just has that youthful look.  He was released to take on another call.  And so it was Lori and I who’d been called to teach.           Lori’s husband attended the class along with Wade and each would contribute to the lesson with such force and such power it was no surprise that they had all been called to serve or wo...

          I could have never become a doctor.  I especially couldn’t have been a surgeon.  For one thing I’m really not smart enough.  Even moreso, I am squeamish.  Major squeamish.  Finding myself nauseated by special effects shown in medical shows and even commercials.  I am a whimp. There really is no denying it.  I can’t pretend that I’m not.  Anybody who knows me knows that I can act my way out of a lot of situations, but not when it comes to my extremely weak guts.  I don’t have nerves of steel.  They’re more like silly putty.           So except for the given profession, I just seem to relate a lot to the Emily Owens character on CW’s Emily Owen, MD .           She has compassion for her patients – perhaps too much compassion.  She feels things and allows emotions to get in the way.  Sometimes w...

I don’t think more enforced gun control is necessarily the answer. Those that desire guns in their possession are going to find a way to get them – strict laws or not. In my opinion it is cleaning up the media that needs the enforcing. The media needs to quit glorifying horrific crimes and violence. Even the commercials are getting out of hand. John Wilkes Booth wanted to be remembered – and he is. Perhaps not in the manner he would have preferred – yet his name lives on. We associate his name with Lincoln ’s murder. At least two movies were made about Amy Fisher  the crazed teen who shot the wife of her former lover or Wanda Holloway the famous pom-pom mom who plotted to kill the mom of a cheerleader who was/is the same age as her own daughter so that her cheer-leading daughter would be so devastated and uncheerleader-like that there would be a position open for her own daughter to become a cheerleader at the school in Channelview, Texas. You want your name...

          When Roland has been out of town (which really has not been too often) I will allow Jenna to sleep in my bed.            At 6:00 last night she went toward her room and announced that she’d be going to bed – which I really didn’t believe until I saw her in her pajamas.  She had returned to ask if she could watch something in my room.  She really was tired – I could see that the second time.  I knew she wouldn’t finish seeing whatever video she chose.             She loves the reality show “ What WouldYou D o?”   which doesn’t start until 8:00.  By that time I decided I would go into my room as well.  I turned off the DVD player and turned the TV to ABC and got in bed.  Jenna was asleep.             Then comes the advertisement for “What ...

          In 1963 Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds” was released in movie theatres.  My mom didn’t seem like a thrill seeker, but had gone to see “The Birds” and was quite freaked out about it.           For years there was an apple tree in the backyard of the house where I grew up.  I recall several years when birds would fly overhead or gather into our yard as if it was the designated place for the birds to hold their daily or weekly conferences.  And mom would be freaked.            It seems quite hilarious really – by today’s standard’s I mean.  I remember mom checking out the video perhaps just a few years and decade after its release.  She sat Patrick and me down to show us this “very scary” movie so that we might understand her fears.            Well, ...

          If I can’t get interested in a movie in the first twenty minutes or a novel within the first ten pages, I usually don’t continue.  That may not seem like I am giving a fair chance – maybe so.  But it’s something I have decided not to gamble on – usually.  `        There have been too many movies and even more books read where I have sat through its entirety and am quite upset with myself for having wasted my time.  That is why I usually don’t go beyond twenty minutes or ten pages.  But sometimes I do.           “that’s what I am” was actually kind of a slow movie – one I watched in parts because of several interruptions.  I don’t know if I would have continued otherwise – though I was somewhat intrigued by the narration by Greg Kinnear – it reminded me of Jean Shepherd’s “The Christmas Story” or “Ollie Hopnoodle’...

          For those of you interested in the “Once Upon a Time” series and have NOT watched the April 1 st episode in which we learn why Regina is such a witch, you may want to watch it before continuing to read this post as I’m about to reveal a spoiler.           Flashback to a scene where a horse rider and stable boy are embracing and she expresses her love to him.  But it is a forbidden love – one that her mother just wouldn’t understand.           I was actually trying to figure out what fairytale it was – and why the female character looked so familiar.  (I didn’t realize it was Lana Parrilla until she said the name of her character;  I hadn’t recognized her as that character because she was nice – likeable – not the character she became – the one we love to hate)         ...

          There are several programs that we know our child has seen at least ten times just this month.  It’s true that many episodes get repeated.  But just as often, many programs just start sounding the same after a while.           I love the laughable things that are said.  Jenna and I can laugh at the same program, but usually at different parts.  And usually whatever is funny to me makes her wonder exactly why I am laughing.           There was one time (before Jenna had started going to preschool for four days a week) when she was in my bedroom watching Sesame Street.  I had just finished folding clothes and was going in and out of different rooms and putting the folded laundry away.  So I wasn’t watching Sesame Street, but was in the room long enough to hear this dialogue between Maria and Telly. ...