Back to the Bus

         Today is the last day of second grade for Jenna. It is also the last day that I’ll be driving the car for a while.  But I’m at the point where I actually don’t trust it anymore.  Plus there is a ton of construction happening just outside of my husband’s work.  Not having a car also means no dealing with construction.

          There is still the matter of visiting my mom.  On Wednesdays Jaime and I will walk to the TRAX station and purchase an all day pass.  We can go see mom and take the bus to the high school for her theatre class. 

          She has three parts.  Only Dorothy is in the first scene.  But she will be a munchkin for the next two.  She’ll be a tree in scene four and will enter as the lion on scene five and remain on stage as the cowardly lion.

          I think it’s exciting that she gets to play more than one role.  I hope she understands that as well.  My brother, Corey, may appear in many scenes – but he is usually cast as ensemble – sometimes a given name – and even as an understudy.  And though it may not seem significant to the performer, it does make a difference to the production itself. 

          I did not pursue a career in acting for several reasons.  One was because I simply don’t have the patience for it.  Rehearse, block, off stage, let’s do that scene again, take it from the top, off stage, let’s try it this way, rehearse, off stage . . .  too much time – for me personally. 

          Corey is really good at it.  Knows how to utilize his time and prioritize, etc.  Can’t say the same for all the people that he has ever worked with during his life time.  I’m certain that there have been situations (hopefully all in the past) that it has felt like junior high as some co-workers have been quite immature or amateur whether in their performance or following direction or being able to get along or present a civil personality while off stage.  One might as well be teaching junior high school.

          But then I’ve never dealt with the professionalism that he does currently.  But I know he puts in long hours that I’d just assume not have to deal with.

          I need to meet my husband in about an hour.  We are planning on driving to my daughter’s school to pick her up.  Roland will drop us off at home.  And he will have the car for the rest of the summer – except for certain occasions when I’ll need to go shopping or will have to move things.  For example, I would like to record the final production of “The Wizard of Oz” and I would also like to pick up mom so that she can go with us.  Don’t care to do the camera or mom on the bus however.

          Hopefully we’ll be able to get another car before the summer ends.  Meanwhile, I am grateful that I do at least have other options.

From the Catalogue of Ugly Dresses

In an earlier post  I had proposed the question, “What’s up with bridesmaid dresses anyway?”  Why are Bridesmaid and Choir Dresses always so ugly? Well, maybe not Always.  But more often than not.

Neither of my daughters-in-law wasted money on needless dresses – nor did my sister or I.  No bridesmaids.  No ugly dresses.

I had once heard someone describe the purposely made ugly dresses allows the bride to shine (Roz Doyle on Frazier)

          I love the movie 27 dresses.  Roland purchased the DVD one year and gave it to me for my birthday.  The movie came with a humorous book called "101 Uses for a Bridesmaid Dress" by Cindy Walker.  It provided ways to recycle. There were suggestions such as cutting the dress up into squares and washing your car.  Or throwing the dress over the car to protect it from the elements.

How glorious it would have been to own 30 plus years ago.  For one of the suggestions was to cut up the dress and make diapers for the first born of the bride who was responsible for dressing you in something so hideous. How cute my cousin would have looked in his great supply of lavender diapers, perhaps not as cute as my niece would have looked and how comfortable she would have been in pink taffeta diapers.  Oh, the joys of trying to wash them.

          The lavender dress – I kid you not – must have included one yard of fabric just for each sleeve.  My aunt was trying to get something that would work on all nine of her bridesmaid (count them, nine, plus two flower girls) as they were all assorted lengths and sizes.  It was a lot of fabric.  A LOT – we could have dressed a small nation with all that fabric.

          We had to keep our arms down as one raise would reveal any underwear that was put on underneath.  Another aunt made the comment that we looked like purple bats. I know pictures of these outrageous dresses exist somewhere, but not in my own personal file.  I’ll have to look harder. 

          My sister-in-law had chosen two shades of pink – taffeta of all fabrics.  Seriously.  The slips had to have sleeves sewn into them as I personally felt like I had brillo pads beneath my arm pits.  I must admit that I did use the slip as a night gown, but I wore the dress only one time – and that was while I was in line at Patrick and Sunny’s wedding. Half of us looked like circus tents.

          Then there are the choir dresses.  For years and years the fabric at my high school had been green.  That was the school color after all.  I suppose they worked on some girls, but looked very awkward and out of place on others.  Most of the shades that were chosen seemed to work.  But there was one year it was decided to go with a completely different look.  (Though I don’t think having the majority of the choir appear to have jaundice was the intent)

I don’t know whose brilliant idea it was to use peach – more than half the girls appeared very sickly in appearance.  And although the pale gray suits seemed to work on many of the guys – it didn’t really make any one of them stand out.  It seemed to mask most of their facial features, I think.  But then I’m no expert.  But I don’t think the clothing selector was either.

I remember one choir that was dressed in black and blue.  The entire choir itself looked like a giant bruise. 

All choir dresses (not so much when they’re seen in a group as just with an individual) speak the language:  “I want to be noticed.  I want to stand out” and they do.  But it certainly isn’t the attention that most girls are looking for.  At least the choir dress will be worn more often than the bridesmaid dress (or so I would assume)

They can also be recycled as prom and drag queen dresses.  Bless those wise brides that don’t have bridesmaids or at least dress them in silly dresses.

So, what would you do?

          Last week my husband spotted a wallet in the parking lot of a shopping complex.  His arms were full of groceries and he asked Jenna if she would bend down and pick it up. 

Excitedly, she retrieved the wallet and announced that it must be returned.  I am so happy that it was such an automatic decision for all three of us to turn the wallet in.  Oh, and we could have so used any money it may have contained.  But I’ve been in that situation too many times where I have been the one that has lost whatever – and if the roles were reversed, it is exactly what I would want the finder to do. 

As the grocery store is the largest – it is where we ended up taking the wallet.  The owner frantically entered the store only moments after we turned it in.  We told him where it was.  With gratitude he gave Roland a half embrace.

Jenna was a little bit disappointed that there weren’t any cameras or having John Quinones pop out of the woodwork to announce that we were part of his reality show.  Roland assured her that Heavenly Father could see her actions and has His own version of “What Would You Do?” and was giving Jenna a thumbs up for she did the right thing.

I am so happy that Jenna wanted to do the right thing.  And I’m happy about her excitement for the reality show which has really taught her values.  Thank you John Quinones and the creators of that show.

Oh, my picture at the beginning of the post?  That is Jenna mimicking John Quinones.

Happy Memorial Birthday

        In addition to sharing my birth month with Mothers' Day, half of my birthdays happen to fall on Memorial Weekend - which actually bothered me as a kid (or rather when the holiday was pushed to the Monday prior to the 31st) because everything was always crowded, nothing but war movies all weekend long, and like I really have a strong desire to visit cemeteries on my birthday.

        But now that I think about it, having freedoms is a pretty awesome birthday gift.  So thank you men and women who helped fight (and continue) for this awesome gift.  What an honor it is to celebrate your day with you!  Have a good one

Journal Jars

I once attended a Relief Society enrichment meeting where we made “journal jars”.  What is a “journal jar”? you may ask.  It is a jar containing questions that will hopefully provoke thought to get written answers one may record in his or her journal. 

Questions like:

“Do you remember your grandparents?  What special memories do you have?”

          “Did you have a favorite radio or TV show as a child?”

          “Tell about the changes you have seen in your lifetime: society in general, technology, fashion, politics, laws, inventions, etc.”

          Jenna absolutely LOVES to explore these questions – or my answers rather.  Often she can answer for herself, but many ask for detail on things that she hasn’t experienced yet such as marriage, parenting, high school, dating, etc.

          The idea of the journal jar is to record memories.  But Jenna loves to use it as a conversation piece or in place of playing games.  And I like that she likes it.

Heavenly and Sinful (at the same time)

          I know that I mentioned in an earlier post – perhaps several – that cooking is really not my forte.  Roland, on the other hand, enjoys cooking and baking but does not have the time or opportunity that he used to, and so I have had to put together more of the meals and frankly, I’m just not that good at it.

          I can follow a recipe but it’s got to be exact.  Roland has told me a few times (probably) that I need to cover dishes when baking in order to maintain moisture – I haven’t committed that to memory however.  If the recipe had instructed me to cover the dish, I would have done so, but it didn’t – needless to say the lasagna I made was a little dry.

          The other day I went to the office to meet Roland for lunch.  He was on the phone and pointed to his lunch bag and said he had something for me.  Inside were what appeared to be two muffins – although I didn’t know what kind.  I bit into one and oh . . . what heavenly pleasure . . . the taste buds came to life on my tongue as I enjoyed the succulence sensation of  cookie and  brownie surrounding the surprise taste of melted peanut butter cup.  It was delicious!  Sinfully delicious.  Heavenly and sinful at the same time!

Though my tongue was quite pleased with the vivacious wonderment – the rest of my body must have experienced some kind of resentment. I did not eat them both.  I saved the second to give to Jenna when she returned from school.  I knew she would agree with me about the wonderfulness of it all.  And she did.  We both wanted more.

          My family is having a BBQ on Memorial Day – and Roland decided we would make this awesome treat, and so last night we had a practice round. They still taste sinful – unfortunately this particular batch also looks like – well, it looks like I made them.  It gives me comfort when Roland’s food doesn’t always turn out quite right – not that I want to gloat in it.  But I feel like such a failure in the kitchen, it’s nice to know that he’s not kitchen perfect either.

All I can say is that it’s a good thing we did a test run.  I suppose we’ll try it again later on today.  Meanwhile Jenna and I will somehow manage to force ourselves to eat the mistakes.

Racked Nerves

          I am usually not pressed for time – but on those few days that I do need to leave – well, those are the days my mom would like me to stay.  And it would be all well and good if I actually lived closer – or with her.  But I don’t.

          We’re down to one functional car – and even that has been questionable. 

          Since Roland works late on Wednesdays, he drove the car in and so I borrowed my son’s car in order to get out to mom’s.  Talk about nerve racking.

         

          First off, it has a quirkiness to it that anybody but Biff might not get – and the fact that other people have trouble turning on the ignition is actually a great feature in Biff’s opinion.  I was just about to give up, when I actually got it to turn.  I don’t know how.  But then I worried – if I did make it all the way to mom’s and it was time to leave, would I be able to start it again?

Biff’s car would make clicky sounds – even when I hadn’t put on the turn signal.  I was only part way to my destination when it dawned on me that I didn’t think Biff has car insurance.  Oh, great!  As if I wasn’t already neurotic about the whole thing.

          And then, I parked across the street from my mother’s driveway (as there was a van in her driveway) and pulled out the keys from the car and the radio continued to play.  I didn’t know if that was normal for Biff’s car.  I turned it off so that the battery wouldn’t run down.

Mom’s air conditioner was being worked on – a good portion of the day – I might add.  She was hungry.  She wasn’t satisfied with anything in her fridge and asked the worker how much longer he’d be.  At least another hour.  She told him that she was going to go get lunch and that she’d return before he left, but if not, he could just lock up.  Just a few years back, that would have been so out of character for my mom to do that.

We went to a drive-in just at the end of her street.  And we did return before he was finished.  (I think they should have sent two guys instead of just one) and I actually had to leave before he did – although he was packed up and ready.  Biff left for work shortly after I returned.

          I noticed a luggage tag fastened to mom’s purse.  Corey had posted some personal information on a bright pink card.  It may let others know her medical situation and contact information in case she gets lost again. I don’t like this “old timers” mental state at all. It is more irritating than Biff’s car.