Who can sing THAT title with the appropriate tune?
Either people have abandoned Blogger for Facebook, or you have all found something meaningful to do with your lives. Shame on you.
Or maybe it is because I have run out of worthwhile that my comments are at an all-time low? I know: it is because I never declared a contest winner. I must confess to sort of forgetting I actually ran a contest. I will get right on that.
The truth is that right now I'm on top of very little. "When you find yourself in a slump, unslumping yourself is not easily done." I'm mostly doing the right things--I'm studying the scriptures now pretty regularly, prayers are more earnest (if not frequent enough), I'm serving and really trying to focus on my family. So I'm not sure what the deal is. We typically have moved a lot, but Oregon is starting to seem more or less like our home. Maybe I'm coming to terms with that.
Anyway, friends, I got nothing. Just a need to connect. There are things nagging at me that I cannot resolve. Or talk about. I'm feeling grouchy and misunderstood; but mostly I'm tired. And the rain has kept the Jedi more or less in the house for several very long days.
Tonight's dinner--Bacon Spaghetti. (If your husband doesn't jump your bones for this concoction then you just might need couple's therapy.)
Bacon Spaghetti
To a pot of boiling water, add enough thick short pasta (penne, ziti, etc.) for 5 servings. Cook until just before al dente. Drain, rinse and pour into small (8 x 8 or whatever that small rectangle size is) casserole dish. Cut six raw slices of bacon into a non-stick frying pan. Stir fry over med-high heat until crispy. Transfer bacon to paper towels for draining. To the bacon grease add 1 cup of chopped sweet red bell pepper, 1 head of garlic, 2 tbsp chopped fresh basil, and 1/2 tbsp balsamic vinegar. Add either a pint of Italian stewed tomatoes and a can of paste or 3 cups of your favorite spaghetti sauce. If you like it a bit spicy, add a couple of tsp of red pepper flakes. Add the mixture to the noodles and toss to coat. Sprinkle Italian blend cheese on the top (mozzarella is too stringy; Parmesan doesn't melt properly) and then sprinkle with bacon. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.
Oh, yeah, it is so good. At least something is.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Monday, October 26, 2009
The Soundtrack of My Life
There is a free podcast on iTunes called "Celebrity Playlist." Famous people are asked about their musical influences and basically choose an album's worth of music. In between each selection, they explain what they like about the song and/or the artist and how it has been influential. Unfortunately, the free podcast only gives short clips from the songs and a portion of the interview. For the cost of an iTunes album, you can download the list with the songs and commentary in their entirety.
The latest installment features Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page tag-teaming a routine that makes Wayne and Garth look like rocket scientists. I only made it through half of their (mostly) forgettable list because I couldn't stand to hear Her Raspiness (Drew) use the word "awesome" one more time. And, I'm not making this up, Ellen used the word "massive" three times in her description of a single song. A few songs excepted, their celebrity playlist more resembled all the songs they've downloaded in the last few months, or bizzaro concerts they've attended.
This made me think about what songs I would pick. Yes, yes, I could just spout the last several songs downloaded or those getting the most playtime on my iPod, but I think the exercise calls for something more. So while I've been running around tossing papers the last several mornings I've thought through the playlist that best marks my life and how music has influenced me. The memories have been tender, and it has emphasized to me just how much music affects and enhances my memories of certain events. It also has helped me to realize just how influential music has been on my ideas and even, to a degree, my personality.
Because I don't think iTunes will be calling anytime soon, I present my playlist here.
It was all country music growing up at my house. In those days, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Alabama, Dan Seals and the Judds were all new. I'm still amazed when an old Conway Twitty or Eddie Rabbit song pops up on the radio and I know every word. Our eight tracks were of artists like Glen Campbell and Charlie Pride. Dad thought the "new" country was all right, but his tastes went to the classics--Don Williams, Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash were the order of the day. But mostly, and always, there was Willie Nelson. We teased my poor father mercilessly that his love of Willie stemmed from the fact that they were both so off-key that it sounded good when my dad sang along. I was into my teens before I realized that this first pick was not about a road trip at all, but about a band. We sang it every time we hopped in the old station wagon.
Track #1: "On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson
When I was able to make a few musical decisions for myself, my choices were mostly trendy and pop-y. However, I remember quite distinctly the first two tapes I bought with my own money: Bruce Springsteen's, "Born in the USA" and Cindy Lauper's, "She's so Unusual." They were on sale for $5 apiece through my mom's tape club. (You remember these? Ten free albums and then you have to buy 1000 more at jacked up prices or they take your firstborn child.) Cindy Lauper hasn't weathered too well. She was really so, like, 80's, you know. The lead track was Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and I saw the movie by the same title about 80 times. Still it is to The Boss's album that I turn for my selection. I later replaced my tape with a CD and re-discover it every three years or so, only to find it just as fresh and timeless as it was then. It truly is the consummate made-in-the-USA album. I choose a rock ballad from this great album, that you probably haven't heard unless you own it. It was never released as a single. I love a song that tells a story: "Somewhere out there on the road somewhere/you'll hear a radio playing/and you'll hear me sing this song/and when you do/please know I'm thinking of you/and all the miles in between/Now I'm just callin' one last time/not to change your mind/just to say 'I miss you baby'/Good luck/Goodbye . . . . Bobby Jean."
Track #2: "Bobby Jean" by Bruce Springsteen
I mostly avoided that mid to late 80's trap of glam and boy bands. But I think in a nod to the era, I have to choose a song that always reminds me of junior high more than any other. Some months back, Taylor Swift appeared with Def Leopard on a show called "Crossroads" that pairs country artists with unexpected artists from totally different genres. The country stars do covers, and the result is very interesting. I will say, however, for all that the lyrics of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" don't entirely make sense, I always felt that they were, somehow, really sensual. This point was brought home to me again when I saw the young Ms. Swift crooning said song to the lead singer of Def Leopard who is probably old enough to be her grandfather. Do you take sugar? One lump or two? Uh, Geritol, thanks.
Track #3: "Pour Some Sugar On Me" by Def Leopard
When my older brother got to high school, he began listening to a radio station called KJQ. The alternative bands (or was that era called post-modern?) had names like Echo and the Bunnymen, Dexy's Midnight Runners, The Mighty Lemondrops, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Cure, Oingo Boingo, The Dead Milkmen, Public Image Limited, Camper Van Beethoven . . . you get the idea. At first, I hated this station. The music was just so different and the mostly one-hit wonder singers were just bizarre. Then I heard a song called "Peek-a-boo" that I just couldn't get out of my head. I started listening to the station just to hear it again. And over a few weeks, I discovered that I actually LOVED this music. It was like a tiny act of rebellion for a girl that never did anything wrong. My brother and I plastered everything that would hold still with the station's cow stickers. We stayed up half the night in September of 1990 while he wrote his farewell talk. We called in the Eurythmics "Missionary Man" to the radio station and they played it for us at one o'clock in the morning. He and the music both changed in his two years away, and KJQ no longer existed when he came back. It was only when I downloaded the following song onto my iPod last year and began actually listening to the lyrics that I understood why my brother turned this one down every time Mom was in the room. Not appropriate. At. All.
Track #4: "Peek-a-boo" by Siouxsie and the Banshees
The bands I grew to love through high school weren't all one-hit wonders. I discovered U2 at this time, though it was mostly during their long break between Rattle and Hum/Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Choosing a U2 song for a playlist is like picking a favorite child. It just can't be done. The body of their work is so extensive and meaningful that their powerful presence will be felt throughout the music industry for generations to come. The Beatles of Generation X. During the spring of my senior year, my friends and I watched Rattle and Hum at least once a week and we all had a crush on some member of the band. (Being prone to crushes on muscled blond men, I was a Larry Mullin Jr. fan.) The old Hastings at five points in Ogden, now a dollar store, used to bring in a limited number of imports. It was there that I found the single CD, "All I Want Is You." There are two versions of the song on the CD as well as B-side covers of "Unchained Melody" and "Everlasting Love." It was remarkable to find an oasis of actual love songs in a genre too often about sex and lust and fleeting encounters. Bono croons, "Need you by my side/Come and be my bride/You'll never be denied everlasting love." Mr. Darcy, eat your heart out.
Track #5 "Everlasting Love" by U2
But if I loved U2, I was obsessed with Midnight Oil. When I first heard this band from Down Under, I realized that music didn't just have to tell a story or be about breakups or falling in love. Music could teach, make you angry, and inspire you to act. It was through listening to Midnight Oil that I became conscious of the environment, indigenous cultures and causes worth taking a stand about. In the 9th grade, they released an album called Blue Sky Mining that is easily one of my favorite albums of all time. Every track is perfect. I cried my eyes out when my older brother told me I was too young to come with him and his (cute) friends to their 1990 concert. I cried more when he came home and gave me the play by play of their night up at Park City and their stop at The Pie pizzaria in Salt Lake City afterward. I later met the band when I saw them play at Saltair a few years later. Lead singer Peter Garrett told me that my name was short and sweet. I hunted bargain racks at record stores for years to collect their albums from the late 70's onward. My selection here is actually from the album "Red Sails in the Sunset" which came out in the mid-80's. The cover of this album shows what Sydney would look like after a nuclear holocaust. Midnight Oil's activist efforts helped encourage government leaders to keep Australia a nuclear-free country. Peter Garrett is now the environment minister in the current government. This choice is pure Oils: pounding, relentless, lyrics rooted firmly in the land and its people. My love of this band got me in more than one door on my mission.
Track #6: "Kosciuosko" by Midnight Oil
Modern Music wasn't the only influence I had during those years. I did a lot of theater at our high school and loved the big, noisy, classic American musicals. But it was when I did a theater tour in London and saw Les Miserable, Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon that I saw the modern musical as something really meaningful, that the genre had moved beyond feel-good production numbers without ever quite adopting the self-importance of opera. I cried through the entire second act of Les Miserable, but my favorite piece was a mere 20 minutes into the show. In a song so heartrendingly beautiful as to be the climax in a lesser show, Fantine's solo teaches us about music's power to help us understand in a moment what tragedy is. "But the tigers come at night/with their voices soft as thunder/As they tear your hope apart/As they turn your dream to shame/And still I dream he'll come to me/That we will live the years together/But there are dreams that cannot be/And there are storms we cannot weather . . . "
Track #7 "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Miserable
After this, there was a terrible black hole in my ability to hear new music. I moved to Logan where there are two radio stations--the first is a country station that considers anything recorded after 1982 to be "new" country. The second is a "pop" station that is probably better described as a cross between adult contemporary and elevator. I had a roommate who had ten year's worth of EFY tapes as the funkiest in her collection of LDS music. As much as I loved her, I just could never love the music. Another roommate had a greatest hits album by Gordon Lightfoot. Really. But it was during these few years that I fell in love with Trisha Yearwood. Okay, her music, I've never met Trisha, though I'm sure she is quite lovely. I think she could probably sing the menu from McDonalds and make it sound like a tender and heartbreaking ballad. She continues to record new music, but it is only a really devoted group of fans that remains interested. For all her remarkable talent, she doesn't have the live and entertaining stage presence of other singers, and her newest stuff hardly gets any play time on the radio. Curse the establishment. Anyway, of all the songs I could have chosen from her, I picked one about a break-up. Shocker; it is country music after all. This particular song, however, tells the strange phenomenon of seeing your ex everywhere in the aftermath of a breakup. The singer travels to various parts of the country--St. Cloud, New Orleans, New York, Los Angeles--and yet she thinks she sees this person in each spot. "You chase me like a shadow/and you haunt me like a ghost/and I love you so/and I hate you so/but I miss you most." Who hasn't been there?
Track #8 "On a Bus to St. Cloud Minnesota" by Trisha Yearwood
The same roommate with the love of all things LDS-culture wanted a Grand Am. Do you remember the Pontiac Grand Ams that were everywhere in the mid-nineties? Bright blue and green with all kinds of a body details? Awful. Anyway, dear Pam thought her life would be complete with a Grand Am. So her parents bought one for her. The problem was that Pam's Grand Am was the circa 1985 model and was gold. GOLD. We named her Goldie; Pam treated her like an sweet and senile grandmother. Anyway . . . when I would go running (very occasionally), my roommates had a habit of finding me along my way, driving alongside me very slowly in Goldie, and blasting Journey's or Survivor's Greatest Hits out the window. Good times.
Track #9 "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor
Then I went on a mission. I still sometimes hear a song that I think is new and my husband informs me with a laugh that, no, it is from mid-nineties. This happens with movies occasionally too. I returned home and found that while most of the alternative music I had once loved had gone very grungy, there was a new rock sound. It was as though all the bands I had once loved had grown up--the sound was more mainstream but still edgy enough for my mother not to like it. The rock sound of the late 90's dropped the synthesizer and went back to its guitar and drum roots. Bands like Hootie and the Blowfish, Blues Traveler, Third Eye Blind and the Counting Crows became popular. It was also during this time period that I went through a break-up that would become THE break-up; you know; the worst (and maybe best!) one you've ever had, but it is only later that you can see that. This next song got so much play time on the radio in the spring and summer of 1998 that it became a bit of a mantra. Women everywhere related to it for the pathos and symbolism in each lyric. Men loved it for the gorgeous Natalie Imbruglia (a former soap star from Down Under) reminding them over and over again that she was naked. Stupid boys.
Track #10 "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia
The other band I came to love at this time was Matchbox 20. My younger brother and some friends lip-synced and danced to some of the boy-band music from the late 90's. As entertaining as they were, the music made me crazy. Though he was seven year my junior, Matchbox 20 was the one band we could agree on. One of the most fun things I did that spring was go to a concert with my brother. Matchbox 20 came with Semisonic and the dreadlocked singer of "Runaway Train." (Hm . . . . super famous song, but what WAS the name of that band?) We had a blast; one of the only grown up fun things we ever did together--he was finally 18 and I wasn't yet married. Oh, and I thought Rob Thomas was (is) gorgeous. Again, another band that it is hard to pick a single song from, but I'll defer to one of the more obscure tracks on that very first album.
Track #11 "Hang" by Matchbox 20
Then marriage happened and a change to a new city. Once again, country music seemed to be our main choice, followed closely by hip-hop stations and Latin rock. Then one night, probably in early 2005, we happened to catch an episode of Austin City Limits, and watched a singer-songwriter by the name of Keith Urban bring down the house. I realized that I recognized a song or two--songs I actually had not been that crazy about from his first album--but that his stuff from his latest album (Golden Road) was really quite incredible. Plantboy really liked it, which is a major concession about any country artist by my dear, rock-loving husband. I bought the album within a few weeks, hoping to find another singer that gave us that rare, common ground when it came to musical taste. I love nearly all of this man's music, but the selection here is based on a memory. When Plantboy and I left HoustonTexas for the last time, heading straight west and then north, we listened to this music over and over again. "I got no money in my pocket/I've got a hole in my jeans/Had a job and I lost it/But it won't get to me/Cause I'm ridin with my baby/And its a brand new day/We're on the Wings of an angel flying away. . . And the sun is shinin/and this road's still windin' . . . . I'm alive and I'm free/Who wouldn't want to be me?" It is a song of such optimism and faith. The perfect background music as we headed toward a new life filled with possibility.
Track #12 "Who Wouldn't Want to Be Me?" by Keith Urban
I know this was lengthy, but it was a wonderful exercise. I think I'm off to create my playlist on iTunes. It is raining today and the house needs cleaned, what better time to blast my favorite songs throughout the house, subtly teaching my children about who else I am besides mother. I might need to leave off "Peek-A-Boo."
So what songs make your playlist/life soundtrack? Either leave comments here, or take this exercise as your own. I hope you find it as pleasantly nostalgic as I did.
The latest installment features Drew Barrymore and Ellen Page tag-teaming a routine that makes Wayne and Garth look like rocket scientists. I only made it through half of their (mostly) forgettable list because I couldn't stand to hear Her Raspiness (Drew) use the word "awesome" one more time. And, I'm not making this up, Ellen used the word "massive" three times in her description of a single song. A few songs excepted, their celebrity playlist more resembled all the songs they've downloaded in the last few months, or bizzaro concerts they've attended.
This made me think about what songs I would pick. Yes, yes, I could just spout the last several songs downloaded or those getting the most playtime on my iPod, but I think the exercise calls for something more. So while I've been running around tossing papers the last several mornings I've thought through the playlist that best marks my life and how music has influenced me. The memories have been tender, and it has emphasized to me just how much music affects and enhances my memories of certain events. It also has helped me to realize just how influential music has been on my ideas and even, to a degree, my personality.
Because I don't think iTunes will be calling anytime soon, I present my playlist here.
It was all country music growing up at my house. In those days, Reba McEntire, George Strait, Alabama, Dan Seals and the Judds were all new. I'm still amazed when an old Conway Twitty or Eddie Rabbit song pops up on the radio and I know every word. Our eight tracks were of artists like Glen Campbell and Charlie Pride. Dad thought the "new" country was all right, but his tastes went to the classics--Don Williams, Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash were the order of the day. But mostly, and always, there was Willie Nelson. We teased my poor father mercilessly that his love of Willie stemmed from the fact that they were both so off-key that it sounded good when my dad sang along. I was into my teens before I realized that this first pick was not about a road trip at all, but about a band. We sang it every time we hopped in the old station wagon.
Track #1: "On the Road Again" by Willie Nelson
When I was able to make a few musical decisions for myself, my choices were mostly trendy and pop-y. However, I remember quite distinctly the first two tapes I bought with my own money: Bruce Springsteen's, "Born in the USA" and Cindy Lauper's, "She's so Unusual." They were on sale for $5 apiece through my mom's tape club. (You remember these? Ten free albums and then you have to buy 1000 more at jacked up prices or they take your firstborn child.) Cindy Lauper hasn't weathered too well. She was really so, like, 80's, you know. The lead track was Girls Just Want to Have Fun, and I saw the movie by the same title about 80 times. Still it is to The Boss's album that I turn for my selection. I later replaced my tape with a CD and re-discover it every three years or so, only to find it just as fresh and timeless as it was then. It truly is the consummate made-in-the-USA album. I choose a rock ballad from this great album, that you probably haven't heard unless you own it. It was never released as a single. I love a song that tells a story: "Somewhere out there on the road somewhere/you'll hear a radio playing/and you'll hear me sing this song/and when you do/please know I'm thinking of you/and all the miles in between/Now I'm just callin' one last time/not to change your mind/just to say 'I miss you baby'/Good luck/Goodbye . . . . Bobby Jean."
Track #2: "Bobby Jean" by Bruce Springsteen
I mostly avoided that mid to late 80's trap of glam and boy bands. But I think in a nod to the era, I have to choose a song that always reminds me of junior high more than any other. Some months back, Taylor Swift appeared with Def Leopard on a show called "Crossroads" that pairs country artists with unexpected artists from totally different genres. The country stars do covers, and the result is very interesting. I will say, however, for all that the lyrics of "Pour Some Sugar on Me" don't entirely make sense, I always felt that they were, somehow, really sensual. This point was brought home to me again when I saw the young Ms. Swift crooning said song to the lead singer of Def Leopard who is probably old enough to be her grandfather. Do you take sugar? One lump or two? Uh, Geritol, thanks.
Track #3: "Pour Some Sugar On Me" by Def Leopard
When my older brother got to high school, he began listening to a radio station called KJQ. The alternative bands (or was that era called post-modern?) had names like Echo and the Bunnymen, Dexy's Midnight Runners, The Mighty Lemondrops, Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Cure, Oingo Boingo, The Dead Milkmen, Public Image Limited, Camper Van Beethoven . . . you get the idea. At first, I hated this station. The music was just so different and the mostly one-hit wonder singers were just bizarre. Then I heard a song called "Peek-a-boo" that I just couldn't get out of my head. I started listening to the station just to hear it again. And over a few weeks, I discovered that I actually LOVED this music. It was like a tiny act of rebellion for a girl that never did anything wrong. My brother and I plastered everything that would hold still with the station's cow stickers. We stayed up half the night in September of 1990 while he wrote his farewell talk. We called in the Eurythmics "Missionary Man" to the radio station and they played it for us at one o'clock in the morning. He and the music both changed in his two years away, and KJQ no longer existed when he came back. It was only when I downloaded the following song onto my iPod last year and began actually listening to the lyrics that I understood why my brother turned this one down every time Mom was in the room. Not appropriate. At. All.
Track #4: "Peek-a-boo" by Siouxsie and the Banshees
The bands I grew to love through high school weren't all one-hit wonders. I discovered U2 at this time, though it was mostly during their long break between Rattle and Hum/Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby. Choosing a U2 song for a playlist is like picking a favorite child. It just can't be done. The body of their work is so extensive and meaningful that their powerful presence will be felt throughout the music industry for generations to come. The Beatles of Generation X. During the spring of my senior year, my friends and I watched Rattle and Hum at least once a week and we all had a crush on some member of the band. (Being prone to crushes on muscled blond men, I was a Larry Mullin Jr. fan.) The old Hastings at five points in Ogden, now a dollar store, used to bring in a limited number of imports. It was there that I found the single CD, "All I Want Is You." There are two versions of the song on the CD as well as B-side covers of "Unchained Melody" and "Everlasting Love." It was remarkable to find an oasis of actual love songs in a genre too often about sex and lust and fleeting encounters. Bono croons, "Need you by my side/Come and be my bride/You'll never be denied everlasting love." Mr. Darcy, eat your heart out.
Track #5 "Everlasting Love" by U2
But if I loved U2, I was obsessed with Midnight Oil. When I first heard this band from Down Under, I realized that music didn't just have to tell a story or be about breakups or falling in love. Music could teach, make you angry, and inspire you to act. It was through listening to Midnight Oil that I became conscious of the environment, indigenous cultures and causes worth taking a stand about. In the 9th grade, they released an album called Blue Sky Mining that is easily one of my favorite albums of all time. Every track is perfect. I cried my eyes out when my older brother told me I was too young to come with him and his (cute) friends to their 1990 concert. I cried more when he came home and gave me the play by play of their night up at Park City and their stop at The Pie pizzaria in Salt Lake City afterward. I later met the band when I saw them play at Saltair a few years later. Lead singer Peter Garrett told me that my name was short and sweet. I hunted bargain racks at record stores for years to collect their albums from the late 70's onward. My selection here is actually from the album "Red Sails in the Sunset" which came out in the mid-80's. The cover of this album shows what Sydney would look like after a nuclear holocaust. Midnight Oil's activist efforts helped encourage government leaders to keep Australia a nuclear-free country. Peter Garrett is now the environment minister in the current government. This choice is pure Oils: pounding, relentless, lyrics rooted firmly in the land and its people. My love of this band got me in more than one door on my mission.
Track #6: "Kosciuosko" by Midnight Oil
Modern Music wasn't the only influence I had during those years. I did a lot of theater at our high school and loved the big, noisy, classic American musicals. But it was when I did a theater tour in London and saw Les Miserable, Phantom of the Opera and Miss Saigon that I saw the modern musical as something really meaningful, that the genre had moved beyond feel-good production numbers without ever quite adopting the self-importance of opera. I cried through the entire second act of Les Miserable, but my favorite piece was a mere 20 minutes into the show. In a song so heartrendingly beautiful as to be the climax in a lesser show, Fantine's solo teaches us about music's power to help us understand in a moment what tragedy is. "But the tigers come at night/with their voices soft as thunder/As they tear your hope apart/As they turn your dream to shame/And still I dream he'll come to me/That we will live the years together/But there are dreams that cannot be/And there are storms we cannot weather . . . "
Track #7 "I Dreamed A Dream" from Les Miserable
After this, there was a terrible black hole in my ability to hear new music. I moved to Logan where there are two radio stations--the first is a country station that considers anything recorded after 1982 to be "new" country. The second is a "pop" station that is probably better described as a cross between adult contemporary and elevator. I had a roommate who had ten year's worth of EFY tapes as the funkiest in her collection of LDS music. As much as I loved her, I just could never love the music. Another roommate had a greatest hits album by Gordon Lightfoot. Really. But it was during these few years that I fell in love with Trisha Yearwood. Okay, her music, I've never met Trisha, though I'm sure she is quite lovely. I think she could probably sing the menu from McDonalds and make it sound like a tender and heartbreaking ballad. She continues to record new music, but it is only a really devoted group of fans that remains interested. For all her remarkable talent, she doesn't have the live and entertaining stage presence of other singers, and her newest stuff hardly gets any play time on the radio. Curse the establishment. Anyway, of all the songs I could have chosen from her, I picked one about a break-up. Shocker; it is country music after all. This particular song, however, tells the strange phenomenon of seeing your ex everywhere in the aftermath of a breakup. The singer travels to various parts of the country--St. Cloud, New Orleans, New York, Los Angeles--and yet she thinks she sees this person in each spot. "You chase me like a shadow/and you haunt me like a ghost/and I love you so/and I hate you so/but I miss you most." Who hasn't been there?
Track #8 "On a Bus to St. Cloud Minnesota" by Trisha Yearwood
The same roommate with the love of all things LDS-culture wanted a Grand Am. Do you remember the Pontiac Grand Ams that were everywhere in the mid-nineties? Bright blue and green with all kinds of a body details? Awful. Anyway, dear Pam thought her life would be complete with a Grand Am. So her parents bought one for her. The problem was that Pam's Grand Am was the circa 1985 model and was gold. GOLD. We named her Goldie; Pam treated her like an sweet and senile grandmother. Anyway . . . when I would go running (very occasionally), my roommates had a habit of finding me along my way, driving alongside me very slowly in Goldie, and blasting Journey's or Survivor's Greatest Hits out the window. Good times.
Track #9 "Eye of the Tiger" by Survivor
Then I went on a mission. I still sometimes hear a song that I think is new and my husband informs me with a laugh that, no, it is from mid-nineties. This happens with movies occasionally too. I returned home and found that while most of the alternative music I had once loved had gone very grungy, there was a new rock sound. It was as though all the bands I had once loved had grown up--the sound was more mainstream but still edgy enough for my mother not to like it. The rock sound of the late 90's dropped the synthesizer and went back to its guitar and drum roots. Bands like Hootie and the Blowfish, Blues Traveler, Third Eye Blind and the Counting Crows became popular. It was also during this time period that I went through a break-up that would become THE break-up; you know; the worst (and maybe best!) one you've ever had, but it is only later that you can see that. This next song got so much play time on the radio in the spring and summer of 1998 that it became a bit of a mantra. Women everywhere related to it for the pathos and symbolism in each lyric. Men loved it for the gorgeous Natalie Imbruglia (a former soap star from Down Under) reminding them over and over again that she was naked. Stupid boys.
Track #10 "Torn" by Natalie Imbruglia
The other band I came to love at this time was Matchbox 20. My younger brother and some friends lip-synced and danced to some of the boy-band music from the late 90's. As entertaining as they were, the music made me crazy. Though he was seven year my junior, Matchbox 20 was the one band we could agree on. One of the most fun things I did that spring was go to a concert with my brother. Matchbox 20 came with Semisonic and the dreadlocked singer of "Runaway Train." (Hm . . . . super famous song, but what WAS the name of that band?) We had a blast; one of the only grown up fun things we ever did together--he was finally 18 and I wasn't yet married. Oh, and I thought Rob Thomas was (is) gorgeous. Again, another band that it is hard to pick a single song from, but I'll defer to one of the more obscure tracks on that very first album.
Track #11 "Hang" by Matchbox 20
Then marriage happened and a change to a new city. Once again, country music seemed to be our main choice, followed closely by hip-hop stations and Latin rock. Then one night, probably in early 2005, we happened to catch an episode of Austin City Limits, and watched a singer-songwriter by the name of Keith Urban bring down the house. I realized that I recognized a song or two--songs I actually had not been that crazy about from his first album--but that his stuff from his latest album (Golden Road) was really quite incredible. Plantboy really liked it, which is a major concession about any country artist by my dear, rock-loving husband. I bought the album within a few weeks, hoping to find another singer that gave us that rare, common ground when it came to musical taste. I love nearly all of this man's music, but the selection here is based on a memory. When Plantboy and I left HoustonTexas for the last time, heading straight west and then north, we listened to this music over and over again. "I got no money in my pocket/I've got a hole in my jeans/Had a job and I lost it/But it won't get to me/Cause I'm ridin with my baby/And its a brand new day/We're on the Wings of an angel flying away. . . And the sun is shinin/and this road's still windin' . . . . I'm alive and I'm free/Who wouldn't want to be me?" It is a song of such optimism and faith. The perfect background music as we headed toward a new life filled with possibility.
Track #12 "Who Wouldn't Want to Be Me?" by Keith Urban
I know this was lengthy, but it was a wonderful exercise. I think I'm off to create my playlist on iTunes. It is raining today and the house needs cleaned, what better time to blast my favorite songs throughout the house, subtly teaching my children about who else I am besides mother. I might need to leave off "Peek-A-Boo."
So what songs make your playlist/life soundtrack? Either leave comments here, or take this exercise as your own. I hope you find it as pleasantly nostalgic as I did.
Thursday, October 22, 2009
When Did THAT Happen?
My oldest will be eight tomorrow. This milestone birthday has me feeling very tender-hearted today.Where did the years go?
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
I Just Love Technology--Except When I Don't
Last week we had another one of those perfect days. We drove to Portland, where a friend watched our kids so that Plantboy and I could go to the temple. It is the first time we have been together to the temple in nearly a year. The weather was looking a bit awful in the morning, but by the time we got back to pick up the kids, it had cleared beautifully.
The zoo was our next stop. And, despite having left the directions at home (with a list on the back about all the things not to forget on our day-trip), we did not get lost on the way to the zoo. We had two awesome hours to roam around, which was just about enough for the age of my kids. It was easily the best trip we've ever taken to the zoo.
We haven't been to the zoo since Houston, when Jedi Knight was far more interested in the train and the Padawan was just a baby who always seemed in need of a nap when we went to see the animals. Though the Youngling is just a few months older than two, he rarely naps any more and loves animals. At each stop, he jumped out of the stroller, ran right up to the animal pens and tried to spot what we were looking at. As he doesn't exactly talk yet, it was completely hilarious and charming to watch him "describe" what we were looking at using a combination of his limited language and creative signing.
Even days later when I brought up going to the zoo, the Youngling's memory was accurate. I said, "Do you remember the bats?" (There was a wonderful indoor display of fruit bats in the semi-darkness, so that the bats were extremely active.) The Youngling nodded and blurted, "Bat!" He then wrinkled up his nose and sniffed and said, "Poop! Bat poop." He then flapped his arms around and said, "Banananananna," while sticking out his tongue. He was entirely accurate: the bats were flying, pooping and eating bananas. It is almost as adorable to watch him describe the zoo's baby elephant, which rivals my own kidlets in hairy perfection.
So why all of this pleasant description and none of Plantboy's wonderful pictures of our whole family dressed in matchy clothes so the pictures would be extra cute? Where is the hilarious picture I took just for ChrisW because I was standing next to the big sign leading into the re-created subterranean niche of the Naked Mole Rat? What about the kids eating elephant ear scones as big as their heads? Alas . . . I went to load the pictures today and all seemed to be going according to plan for the 130 pictures on the camera. When the last picture loaded, an error message came up saying that for whatever reason, the pictures would not load and that I should try again. Okay, no problem.
Only when I went to try again, the error message THIS time tells me that there are actually NO pictures on my camera. It must have deleted the photos during the first attempt at downloading, as we have directed it to erase the pictures after loading them. I didn't realize that I had to create a separate designation in case the camera was of a mind to thwart my plans by just deleting photos willy-nilly that it had no intention of actually adding to my computer.
Yesterday, Doreen posted a hilarious bit from the Conan O'Brien show on her Facebook page. The tagline on the clips says, "Everything is amazing and nobody is happy." The comic being hosted by O'Brien is talking about all of our modern conveniences and just how little we actually appreciate any of it, and how all this convenience hasn't served to make us better people.
So in an effort to demonstrate that my bum camera doesn't have the power to take away my appreciation for the wonderful and real things in life, here are some joy-giving daily moments that have little to do with modern convenience:
* We watched Herbie the Love Bug for Family Movie Night on Friday. I wasn't sure if the kids would like it, but I was gladly mistaken. There were parts where they were, quite literally, falling off the couch with their giggles. During the montage bits with the silly-Disney-music-in-all-of-their-movies-from-the-1960's, the kids got up and danced around. Jedi Knight very closely resembled Elaine from Seinfeld when he was dancing, at which point Plantboy and I fell off the couch with our giggles.
* During family home evening we were talking about the flu and its symptoms. I talked about glands and where they were and how they might feel if one of the kids got the flu. When I pointed to the general groin area for glands, Padawan said, "In my weenie! There's glands in my weenie?" This is even funnier when I point out that we have never actually used the word "weenie" in our family. Oh, we aren't so uptight, we have plenty of our own euphemisms, but this one never made the lexicon. More uncontrolled laughter.
* I talked Padawan through his part for the Primary Program just twice (It is a five-sentence paragraph) and then he did the entire thing, word for word, from memory. He was able to do the whole thing from memory even several days later. In a related story, Jedi Knight is actually going to read his talk this year.
*I keep catching Jedi Knight trying to stay up late to read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It is impossible for me to get after him in these moments. In fact, it makes me want to weep for joy when I gently remind him about bedtime. When will his suddenly wildfire reading get so commonplace that it ceases to delight my heart? I hope never.
*The Youngling sings the clean up song. "Eanup. Eanup." It is a nice edition to the "oh, oh's" he knows during the Cold Play song, Viva la Vida and the similar lyrics in Beyonce's Single Ladies. Not to worry, the adorable aspects of his personality are entirely balanced by his desire to always play the part of Darth Maul ("Arf Ma") in the boys' Star Wars games.
* This morning I had a particularly violent sneeze and Padawan said to me, "You and dad do really enormous sneezes, and it kind of FREAKS me out."
Good grief they are cute.
STOOPID camera.
The zoo was our next stop. And, despite having left the directions at home (with a list on the back about all the things not to forget on our day-trip), we did not get lost on the way to the zoo. We had two awesome hours to roam around, which was just about enough for the age of my kids. It was easily the best trip we've ever taken to the zoo.
We haven't been to the zoo since Houston, when Jedi Knight was far more interested in the train and the Padawan was just a baby who always seemed in need of a nap when we went to see the animals. Though the Youngling is just a few months older than two, he rarely naps any more and loves animals. At each stop, he jumped out of the stroller, ran right up to the animal pens and tried to spot what we were looking at. As he doesn't exactly talk yet, it was completely hilarious and charming to watch him "describe" what we were looking at using a combination of his limited language and creative signing.
Even days later when I brought up going to the zoo, the Youngling's memory was accurate. I said, "Do you remember the bats?" (There was a wonderful indoor display of fruit bats in the semi-darkness, so that the bats were extremely active.) The Youngling nodded and blurted, "Bat!" He then wrinkled up his nose and sniffed and said, "Poop! Bat poop." He then flapped his arms around and said, "Banananananna," while sticking out his tongue. He was entirely accurate: the bats were flying, pooping and eating bananas. It is almost as adorable to watch him describe the zoo's baby elephant, which rivals my own kidlets in hairy perfection.
So why all of this pleasant description and none of Plantboy's wonderful pictures of our whole family dressed in matchy clothes so the pictures would be extra cute? Where is the hilarious picture I took just for ChrisW because I was standing next to the big sign leading into the re-created subterranean niche of the Naked Mole Rat? What about the kids eating elephant ear scones as big as their heads? Alas . . . I went to load the pictures today and all seemed to be going according to plan for the 130 pictures on the camera. When the last picture loaded, an error message came up saying that for whatever reason, the pictures would not load and that I should try again. Okay, no problem.
Only when I went to try again, the error message THIS time tells me that there are actually NO pictures on my camera. It must have deleted the photos during the first attempt at downloading, as we have directed it to erase the pictures after loading them. I didn't realize that I had to create a separate designation in case the camera was of a mind to thwart my plans by just deleting photos willy-nilly that it had no intention of actually adding to my computer.
Yesterday, Doreen posted a hilarious bit from the Conan O'Brien show on her Facebook page. The tagline on the clips says, "Everything is amazing and nobody is happy." The comic being hosted by O'Brien is talking about all of our modern conveniences and just how little we actually appreciate any of it, and how all this convenience hasn't served to make us better people.
So in an effort to demonstrate that my bum camera doesn't have the power to take away my appreciation for the wonderful and real things in life, here are some joy-giving daily moments that have little to do with modern convenience:
* We watched Herbie the Love Bug for Family Movie Night on Friday. I wasn't sure if the kids would like it, but I was gladly mistaken. There were parts where they were, quite literally, falling off the couch with their giggles. During the montage bits with the silly-Disney-music-in-all-of-their-movies-from-the-1960's, the kids got up and danced around. Jedi Knight very closely resembled Elaine from Seinfeld when he was dancing, at which point Plantboy and I fell off the couch with our giggles.
* During family home evening we were talking about the flu and its symptoms. I talked about glands and where they were and how they might feel if one of the kids got the flu. When I pointed to the general groin area for glands, Padawan said, "In my weenie! There's glands in my weenie?" This is even funnier when I point out that we have never actually used the word "weenie" in our family. Oh, we aren't so uptight, we have plenty of our own euphemisms, but this one never made the lexicon. More uncontrolled laughter.
* I talked Padawan through his part for the Primary Program just twice (It is a five-sentence paragraph) and then he did the entire thing, word for word, from memory. He was able to do the whole thing from memory even several days later. In a related story, Jedi Knight is actually going to read his talk this year.
*I keep catching Jedi Knight trying to stay up late to read Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. It is impossible for me to get after him in these moments. In fact, it makes me want to weep for joy when I gently remind him about bedtime. When will his suddenly wildfire reading get so commonplace that it ceases to delight my heart? I hope never.
*The Youngling sings the clean up song. "Eanup. Eanup." It is a nice edition to the "oh, oh's" he knows during the Cold Play song, Viva la Vida and the similar lyrics in Beyonce's Single Ladies. Not to worry, the adorable aspects of his personality are entirely balanced by his desire to always play the part of Darth Maul ("Arf Ma") in the boys' Star Wars games.
* This morning I had a particularly violent sneeze and Padawan said to me, "You and dad do really enormous sneezes, and it kind of FREAKS me out."
Good grief they are cute.
STOOPID camera.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Better Than a Bag of Skunks
Sunday we ended up taking two cars to church. I will spare you that long and boring story and what it tells you about my terrible lack of Saturday organization. (Saturday IS a special day: it is the day I work and work all day long only to still not be ready for Sunday.) Suffice it to say, when it came time to go home, the kids were loaded up and Plantboy and I stood debating who would drive the van and who would take the quieter journey in the Civic.
We put it to the kids. Who, like they always do, yelled, "Mom!" Le sigh.
Even Plantboy felt the smart of such preferential treatment this time and said, with mock incredulity, "You guys stink!"
To which Jedi Knight replied, "That's okay, Dad. Mom is used to that little boy smell."
Uh, yeah, I guess I am.
I don't think I'll ever get used to big boy smell, though. In a few years I have no doubt that Febreeze, open windows and Speed Stick will be my best friends.
We put it to the kids. Who, like they always do, yelled, "Mom!" Le sigh.
Even Plantboy felt the smart of such preferential treatment this time and said, with mock incredulity, "You guys stink!"
To which Jedi Knight replied, "That's okay, Dad. Mom is used to that little boy smell."
Uh, yeah, I guess I am.
I don't think I'll ever get used to big boy smell, though. In a few years I have no doubt that Febreeze, open windows and Speed Stick will be my best friends.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
I Thought the Reward Would Be in Heaven
I have a dear friend who just lives two doors up from us. I am not going to go into all that this dear sister has done for us, but suffice it to say that my kids call her "Grandma Goody." Grandma Goody did another favor for me last conference Sunday, and while I was at her house, she told me about a dinner that the stake Relief Society had been asked to put on.
But what a dinner.
Apparently they were asked to make a sit down dinner for a stake president training which our stake was hosting. Stake presidents from Medford to Seattle were invited and both general and area authorities were present (one from Alaska). Grandma Goody isn't in the Stake RS, but the president and first counselor are in our ward and recruited heavily from within our ranks to get the help needed to put on the dinner--centerpieces, china, crystal, silver, three courses, all homemade food--the works. This event came on the heels of a few other major activities Grandma Goody was involved in and I could see that she was very overwhelmed. I volunteered to help with dishes on Saturday night.
I have to say, I didn't volunteer for the leadership, my thoughts were all on my friend. In fact, I went into the service with the attitude that the whole sit-down, fancy dinner thing seemed more than a bit over the top. After all, General Authorities are just men, and are probably the first to say that no special treatment is in order. When I arrived at the church, there seemed to be no shortage of help: Besides the RS presidency and a committee, there were several spouses and half a dozen young single adults who volunteered to do the serving. My attitude didn't improve when I found out the meeting was running nearly an hour behind, and the dishwashing that was supposed to start at seven was actually still dinner being served.
Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.
The funny part about the whole thing is that for the first hour I really did little more than get in the way of a very well-oiled machine of getting hot food out to the tables, and yet several different sisters said really sweet things to me like, "Are you the one who volunteered to do dishes?" The whole time I'm thinking, "Aren't you ALL volunteers? And haven't most of you been here all day? And if you knew how much I just wanted to be home in bed, you wouldn't think I was nice. AT. ALL." I smiled very sweetly instead.
Because the group was being served in the RS Room right next to the kitchen, no dishes were to be done DURING the meeting portion of the night, which started after eight.
The grumbling at this point sounded more like murmuring.
Then, perhaps recognizing that we would just be outside waiting for the meeting to finish, they invited us to come inside and join them. They waited while we arranged chairs around the edge of the room, and I was feeling exceptionally glad that I'd dressed up. The man conducting the meeting was Elder Whitney Clayton, a member of the presidency of the seventy. He talked briefly about the purpose of such meetings, and how it allows him to get around to eventually meet all of the stake presidents in the 230 + stakes for which he is responsible. He told us that if you ever get an opportunity to see a member of the Quorum of the Twelve at a Stake Conference, you must take advantage of it because it will be 29 more years before it happens again. Assuming, of course, that no new stakes are added in that same time.
Then, without any more formal remarks, he opened up the floor to spontaneous questions. I've never been in a church meeting quite like that. It was interesting that so many of the questions involved specific administration questions, but that the answers were often spiritual in nature, with Elder Clayton and other members of the leadership sharing both scriptures and personal experiences. The Spirit was strong and I felt blessed above all measure to be there. And certainly blessed above the rotten attitude I'd walked into the room with. I suddenly saw the dinner as a chance for a group of very over-worked and underpaid (or UNpaid) men to be treated to the best we had to offer. What a difference the spirit can make!
There were three things especially that stood out to me from this singular event:
1) One particular brother asked about how to make the receipt of the Priesthood a more sacred and understood thing for someone recently converted to the church. Elder Clayton asked four others to respond before he did and they all said the same thing: if a man is worthy for baptism, he is likewise worthy to be ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood. That it is important to remember that the Aaronic Priesthood, by definition, is a preparatory state. To require too much preparation ahead of time can be very intimidating for a new convert, just as it would be for a twelve year-old boy who had been raised in the church.
When Elder Clayton's turn came for the question, he turned to Alma 27. (Well, first he turned to his iPhone but after a moment said, "I'm so unused to this, does anybody actually have any scriptures?) He read about how the Anti-Nephi-Lehis, fearful of their life in the Lamanite lands, agreed to follow Ammon and his brethren up to the land of the Zarahemla and put themselves at the mercy of the Nephites, even to be their slaves just so that they could save their lives. Ammon contradicts the king saying, "It is against the law of our brethren, which was established by my father, that there should be any slaves among them; therefore let us go down and rely upon the mercies of our brethren."
Elder Clayton used these verses to point out that when people join the LDS Church, they are essentially doing as the Ammonites did here--they are leaving the traditions of their fathers behind along with the only life they've ever known. Sometimes they leave family and friends behind. They need our love and kindness above all else, and yet, we make it so hard for them to fully integrate. Elder Clayton accused church members generally of not allowing new members into their cliques, using specialized vocabulary that makes no sense to anyone outside our culture and in short, putting these tender converts through some kind of gauntlet to see if they are tough enough to make it. He basically issued a cease and desist order on all such conduct and challenged each in the room to shepherd new converts from baptism to temple and beyond.
2) When asked about easing burdens on those in leadership positions time-wise, particularly bishops, Elder Clayton said, "The gospel is simple, and Church administration can be simple." A better explanation of the second half of that statement is in my third point, but what I liked about this basic statement was the clear distinction between the gospel of Jesus Christ and the temporal running of the church. It reminds me that all we do in the church is to help bring people closer to Christ, and that the Church is not about the administration of programs but about ministering to individuals. When our programs cease to facilitate personal growth and increase spirituality they have failed.
3) Elder Clayton clarified what he meant about the potential for Church administration to be simple. Speaking specifically to the stake presidents in the room he told them that there was NO WAY they could ever hold enough meetings or counsel often enough with individuals or even delegate enough to ever solve all the problems in their stake. But, he said, "The Lord can." To this end, the main advice he gave to stake presidents was this:
1--Read and study the scriptures every day.
2--Set aside time for meaningful prayer.
3--Do all you can to keep perfect harmony with your spouse.
Why? Because these three things will keep signals from the Spirit crystal clear. He said that if our meetings and counsels were filled with the quiet whisperings of revelation then they could be shorter, more productive and truly helpful to individuals. He obliquely referenced the story of Mary and Martha reminding us that we had to be careful in getting too caught up in the work of the kingdom that we didn't take time to seek the higher things of true religion. I think this three-fold advice is going to be helpful to me in the months to come. Is it anything new? No, not really, particularly the first two, but when Elder Clayton connected such preparation to more effectively channeling what the Lord would have us do, it was a mini-revelation for me.
And a final note on revelation. Elder Clayton bore powerful testimony as he closed the meeting about his knowledge of living prophets and apostles, and particularly ongoing revelation. "Is this a Church of revelation? As surely as I stand here. Evey day, every hour, the good men and women of this Church receive revelation for how to keep it moving forward. Do good and be good, and all will work out in the end."
Wow. The gospel is simple.
But what a dinner.
Apparently they were asked to make a sit down dinner for a stake president training which our stake was hosting. Stake presidents from Medford to Seattle were invited and both general and area authorities were present (one from Alaska). Grandma Goody isn't in the Stake RS, but the president and first counselor are in our ward and recruited heavily from within our ranks to get the help needed to put on the dinner--centerpieces, china, crystal, silver, three courses, all homemade food--the works. This event came on the heels of a few other major activities Grandma Goody was involved in and I could see that she was very overwhelmed. I volunteered to help with dishes on Saturday night.
I have to say, I didn't volunteer for the leadership, my thoughts were all on my friend. In fact, I went into the service with the attitude that the whole sit-down, fancy dinner thing seemed more than a bit over the top. After all, General Authorities are just men, and are probably the first to say that no special treatment is in order. When I arrived at the church, there seemed to be no shortage of help: Besides the RS presidency and a committee, there were several spouses and half a dozen young single adults who volunteered to do the serving. My attitude didn't improve when I found out the meeting was running nearly an hour behind, and the dishwashing that was supposed to start at seven was actually still dinner being served.
Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.
The funny part about the whole thing is that for the first hour I really did little more than get in the way of a very well-oiled machine of getting hot food out to the tables, and yet several different sisters said really sweet things to me like, "Are you the one who volunteered to do dishes?" The whole time I'm thinking, "Aren't you ALL volunteers? And haven't most of you been here all day? And if you knew how much I just wanted to be home in bed, you wouldn't think I was nice. AT. ALL." I smiled very sweetly instead.
Because the group was being served in the RS Room right next to the kitchen, no dishes were to be done DURING the meeting portion of the night, which started after eight.
The grumbling at this point sounded more like murmuring.
Then, perhaps recognizing that we would just be outside waiting for the meeting to finish, they invited us to come inside and join them. They waited while we arranged chairs around the edge of the room, and I was feeling exceptionally glad that I'd dressed up. The man conducting the meeting was Elder Whitney Clayton, a member of the presidency of the seventy. He talked briefly about the purpose of such meetings, and how it allows him to get around to eventually meet all of the stake presidents in the 230 + stakes for which he is responsible. He told us that if you ever get an opportunity to see a member of the Quorum of the Twelve at a Stake Conference, you must take advantage of it because it will be 29 more years before it happens again. Assuming, of course, that no new stakes are added in that same time.
Then, without any more formal remarks, he opened up the floor to spontaneous questions. I've never been in a church meeting quite like that. It was interesting that so many of the questions involved specific administration questions, but that the answers were often spiritual in nature, with Elder Clayton and other members of the leadership sharing both scriptures and personal experiences. The Spirit was strong and I felt blessed above all measure to be there. And certainly blessed above the rotten attitude I'd walked into the room with. I suddenly saw the dinner as a chance for a group of very over-worked and underpaid (or UNpaid) men to be treated to the best we had to offer. What a difference the spirit can make!
There were three things especially that stood out to me from this singular event:
1) One particular brother asked about how to make the receipt of the Priesthood a more sacred and understood thing for someone recently converted to the church. Elder Clayton asked four others to respond before he did and they all said the same thing: if a man is worthy for baptism, he is likewise worthy to be ordained to the Aaronic Priesthood. That it is important to remember that the Aaronic Priesthood, by definition, is a preparatory state. To require too much preparation ahead of time can be very intimidating for a new convert, just as it would be for a twelve year-old boy who had been raised in the church.
When Elder Clayton's turn came for the question, he turned to Alma 27. (Well, first he turned to his iPhone but after a moment said, "I'm so unused to this, does anybody actually have any scriptures?) He read about how the Anti-Nephi-Lehis, fearful of their life in the Lamanite lands, agreed to follow Ammon and his brethren up to the land of the Zarahemla and put themselves at the mercy of the Nephites, even to be their slaves just so that they could save their lives. Ammon contradicts the king saying, "It is against the law of our brethren, which was established by my father, that there should be any slaves among them; therefore let us go down and rely upon the mercies of our brethren."
Elder Clayton used these verses to point out that when people join the LDS Church, they are essentially doing as the Ammonites did here--they are leaving the traditions of their fathers behind along with the only life they've ever known. Sometimes they leave family and friends behind. They need our love and kindness above all else, and yet, we make it so hard for them to fully integrate. Elder Clayton accused church members generally of not allowing new members into their cliques, using specialized vocabulary that makes no sense to anyone outside our culture and in short, putting these tender converts through some kind of gauntlet to see if they are tough enough to make it. He basically issued a cease and desist order on all such conduct and challenged each in the room to shepherd new converts from baptism to temple and beyond.
2) When asked about easing burdens on those in leadership positions time-wise, particularly bishops, Elder Clayton said, "The gospel is simple, and Church administration can be simple." A better explanation of the second half of that statement is in my third point, but what I liked about this basic statement was the clear distinction between the gospel of Jesus Christ and the temporal running of the church. It reminds me that all we do in the church is to help bring people closer to Christ, and that the Church is not about the administration of programs but about ministering to individuals. When our programs cease to facilitate personal growth and increase spirituality they have failed.
3) Elder Clayton clarified what he meant about the potential for Church administration to be simple. Speaking specifically to the stake presidents in the room he told them that there was NO WAY they could ever hold enough meetings or counsel often enough with individuals or even delegate enough to ever solve all the problems in their stake. But, he said, "The Lord can." To this end, the main advice he gave to stake presidents was this:
1--Read and study the scriptures every day.
2--Set aside time for meaningful prayer.
3--Do all you can to keep perfect harmony with your spouse.
Why? Because these three things will keep signals from the Spirit crystal clear. He said that if our meetings and counsels were filled with the quiet whisperings of revelation then they could be shorter, more productive and truly helpful to individuals. He obliquely referenced the story of Mary and Martha reminding us that we had to be careful in getting too caught up in the work of the kingdom that we didn't take time to seek the higher things of true religion. I think this three-fold advice is going to be helpful to me in the months to come. Is it anything new? No, not really, particularly the first two, but when Elder Clayton connected such preparation to more effectively channeling what the Lord would have us do, it was a mini-revelation for me.
And a final note on revelation. Elder Clayton bore powerful testimony as he closed the meeting about his knowledge of living prophets and apostles, and particularly ongoing revelation. "Is this a Church of revelation? As surely as I stand here. Evey day, every hour, the good men and women of this Church receive revelation for how to keep it moving forward. Do good and be good, and all will work out in the end."
Wow. The gospel is simple.
Tuesday, October 06, 2009
It's Called GOING OUT, People!
I remember my parents going out on dates regularly when we were kids. When I was younger we had sitters, when we were older we WERE the sitters. We did a great job too, I can tell you. One time, my sister and I in a frenzy of fighting, chasing, yelling and screaming slammed a door so hard that the mirror on the back of it fell to the ground and shattered in approximately 4.3 billion pieces. We bawled, apologized to one another and cleaned up the mess. The whole rest of the time my sister and I lived under the same roof, my parents weren't able to keep a door- hanging mirror more than a year or two--each one of them broke at the slightest bump. The point is, that regardless of what was going on at home, my parents took the time to regularly go out.
My sharpest memories of the going out are those that involve my mom getting "gussied up" to leave the house. My parents very seldom veered from two or three restaraunt picks, and their dates were nearly always either going to the temple or going out to dinner. Still, Mom always took pains to dress up. After putting on her prettiest clothes, she sprayed her neck with Beautiful by Estee Lauder--my dad's favorite scent and the one he gives her nearly every year for Christmas. She would spend time on her hair and make-up and clothes. Going out meant going all out.
When I was a little bit older, my parents occasionally took us out with them. This was a great treat. We usually went to Maddox steak house in Brigham City after especially good report cards. It was a huge event for us; my sister and always always followed Mom's cue in getting decked out to go out, primping right up until the moment that dad was growling for us to get in the car. During the winter of my junior year in high school I spent a week and a half in London. I was shocked to go to the theatre and find people in jeans and tee shirts. I was more shocked when some of our group, after a week of theatre-going deteriorated into the same sloppy dress. I had not come that many thousand miles to wear trainers and a parka to Miss Saigon, thank you very much.
I don't really consider myself a high maintenance person. Many days, "combing my hair" consists of putting it in a ponytail without the benefit of a brush. Make-up manages to catch me every third or fourth day. Jeans and tee shirts are the clothing choice as soon as I remember to switch from flannel pants some time in the mid-morning. But when it is time to go out . . . .
Friday we went to Outback. I'm not a big fan of paying $25 for a plate of meat and vegetables werein "vegetables" consist of onions. (I also think Outback is entirely ridiculous as there isn't a single actual Australian thing on the menu other than Foster's Beer. But that is beside the point.) Still, we had a gift card and a volunteer babysitter so we would have been crazy to pass up the chance. I did wear jeans, but I also wore heels, an awesome orange jacket (partly awesome because it was a steal at $4 from the Goodwill), and a scarf. I actually curled my hair and wore eyeliner.
As we waited for a table, I noticed several families with children. The kids all looked so sloppy! One girl had on over-sized pink sweatpants and (just-shoot-me-now) Ugg boots take-offs that looked like sloppy slippers. Her hair was in a half pulled-through pony and she wore a ratty hoody and starlet sunglasses. Did she think she was J-Lo? Atrocious. Another kid was wearing ill-fitting gym clothes with long white socks and sandals. This unfortunate social butterfly also brought a 500 page fantasy novel with him. Apparently he had no plans for talking with his parents, or going out for expensive dinners is such a regular experience for him that he was completely indifferent to being "treated." Mom jeans and Hawaiian tee shirts seem to have made a comeback among the Friday-night-Outback-Steakhouse crowd.
It is true that there were a few groups of people who looked like they had taken pains to look their best; there was even a group of high school kids at one table who were probably on a Homecoming date. Either that or the girls had all just come from the lingerie store and run into a a group of friends leaving the Men's Wearhouse. (Don't get me started on THAT unfortunate spelling.)
The next mistake is my own. To be seated a few minutes faster we agreed to sit in the bar, where there were actually "tables." I use the term loosely because it was too small for all of our food and drinks at the same time. The chairs were so high that my feet couldn't quite reach the top rung. Of course, as soon as we sat, I realized there were four enormous televisions in the bar area. One in each corner. Plantboy knows how I feel about non-stop sports at restaurants, or anywhere else, and graciously volunteered to sit with his back to one, though it just meant he was full-on facing another. *sigh* Plantboy laughed at the situation, "You know this place is packed because of the meat-fest and the football. It might be the only way to get men out of the house."
But there were other annoyances, besides college football and sloppy clothes, that occupied my thoughts Friday night: the sound on the TV was entirely down, but between the motion and the scroll bar, there was plenty to keep the eyes busy. The radio was playing in the background, causing people at each table to raise their voices quite high. My meal was excellent, but the headache I took with my Chocolate Thunder From Down Under nearly ruined my meal.
Why is it so hard to find a nice, quiet, affordable place to go out? All of the chain restaurants are a cacophony of visual and auditory over-stimulation. In the past 18 months I've only been to two places that were a peaceful dining experience with unique food and a relaxed non-TV atmosphere. The bill at each spot nearly caused a gag reflex. Maybe it is worth it if we only go out every few months instead of trying to do something more regularly?
But I do know this: The most pleasant part of the entire evening was in the quiet of our car ride home. Plantboy and I held hands. We talked about covenants and sacrifice. We expressed with joy some of the love-lessons we've learned in the past decade. Maybe getting dressed up to go out is worth it after all.
My sharpest memories of the going out are those that involve my mom getting "gussied up" to leave the house. My parents very seldom veered from two or three restaraunt picks, and their dates were nearly always either going to the temple or going out to dinner. Still, Mom always took pains to dress up. After putting on her prettiest clothes, she sprayed her neck with Beautiful by Estee Lauder--my dad's favorite scent and the one he gives her nearly every year for Christmas. She would spend time on her hair and make-up and clothes. Going out meant going all out.
When I was a little bit older, my parents occasionally took us out with them. This was a great treat. We usually went to Maddox steak house in Brigham City after especially good report cards. It was a huge event for us; my sister and always always followed Mom's cue in getting decked out to go out, primping right up until the moment that dad was growling for us to get in the car. During the winter of my junior year in high school I spent a week and a half in London. I was shocked to go to the theatre and find people in jeans and tee shirts. I was more shocked when some of our group, after a week of theatre-going deteriorated into the same sloppy dress. I had not come that many thousand miles to wear trainers and a parka to Miss Saigon, thank you very much.
I don't really consider myself a high maintenance person. Many days, "combing my hair" consists of putting it in a ponytail without the benefit of a brush. Make-up manages to catch me every third or fourth day. Jeans and tee shirts are the clothing choice as soon as I remember to switch from flannel pants some time in the mid-morning. But when it is time to go out . . . .
Friday we went to Outback. I'm not a big fan of paying $25 for a plate of meat and vegetables werein "vegetables" consist of onions. (I also think Outback is entirely ridiculous as there isn't a single actual Australian thing on the menu other than Foster's Beer. But that is beside the point.) Still, we had a gift card and a volunteer babysitter so we would have been crazy to pass up the chance. I did wear jeans, but I also wore heels, an awesome orange jacket (partly awesome because it was a steal at $4 from the Goodwill), and a scarf. I actually curled my hair and wore eyeliner.
As we waited for a table, I noticed several families with children. The kids all looked so sloppy! One girl had on over-sized pink sweatpants and (just-shoot-me-now) Ugg boots take-offs that looked like sloppy slippers. Her hair was in a half pulled-through pony and she wore a ratty hoody and starlet sunglasses. Did she think she was J-Lo? Atrocious. Another kid was wearing ill-fitting gym clothes with long white socks and sandals. This unfortunate social butterfly also brought a 500 page fantasy novel with him. Apparently he had no plans for talking with his parents, or going out for expensive dinners is such a regular experience for him that he was completely indifferent to being "treated." Mom jeans and Hawaiian tee shirts seem to have made a comeback among the Friday-night-Outback-Steakhouse crowd.
It is true that there were a few groups of people who looked like they had taken pains to look their best; there was even a group of high school kids at one table who were probably on a Homecoming date. Either that or the girls had all just come from the lingerie store and run into a a group of friends leaving the Men's Wearhouse. (Don't get me started on THAT unfortunate spelling.)
The next mistake is my own. To be seated a few minutes faster we agreed to sit in the bar, where there were actually "tables." I use the term loosely because it was too small for all of our food and drinks at the same time. The chairs were so high that my feet couldn't quite reach the top rung. Of course, as soon as we sat, I realized there were four enormous televisions in the bar area. One in each corner. Plantboy knows how I feel about non-stop sports at restaurants, or anywhere else, and graciously volunteered to sit with his back to one, though it just meant he was full-on facing another. *sigh* Plantboy laughed at the situation, "You know this place is packed because of the meat-fest and the football. It might be the only way to get men out of the house."
But there were other annoyances, besides college football and sloppy clothes, that occupied my thoughts Friday night: the sound on the TV was entirely down, but between the motion and the scroll bar, there was plenty to keep the eyes busy. The radio was playing in the background, causing people at each table to raise their voices quite high. My meal was excellent, but the headache I took with my Chocolate Thunder From Down Under nearly ruined my meal.
Why is it so hard to find a nice, quiet, affordable place to go out? All of the chain restaurants are a cacophony of visual and auditory over-stimulation. In the past 18 months I've only been to two places that were a peaceful dining experience with unique food and a relaxed non-TV atmosphere. The bill at each spot nearly caused a gag reflex. Maybe it is worth it if we only go out every few months instead of trying to do something more regularly?
But I do know this: The most pleasant part of the entire evening was in the quiet of our car ride home. Plantboy and I held hands. We talked about covenants and sacrifice. We expressed with joy some of the love-lessons we've learned in the past decade. Maybe getting dressed up to go out is worth it after all.
Friday, October 02, 2009
Mansfield Park Lite, Or Is It Heavy?
I reread Mansfield Park this week. It got me to thinking about movie versions of this story, and how much I disliked Masterpiece Theatre's recent interpretation of it. It isn't fair, really. MT did a very credible job of telling the story, preserving much of Austen's original intention for the story, complete with a Fanny Price so bland as to be entirely forgettable.
Because she is. As much as like Austen's book for its tone, satire, wittiness and plot, I am not crazy about Fanny. I don't know why. She is friendly and kind. She is loyal to a fault. Her principles are impeccable and her judgment sound. Her patience is infinite. In short, she has exactly those attributes I find myself striving for.
Yet, isn't it possible to have all of these lovely traits while, at the same time, standing up for herself? Explaining herself fully? Acting like a woman instead of a mouse? Her fearful shyness is sometimes so annoying I found myself gritting my teeth with her. Austen herself was so Mary Crawford; where does this Fanny Price heroine fit with the Emmas and Elizabeths?
No doubt, someone here is going to write back that they did one of those Austen Facebook quizzes and were declared to be most like Fanny Price. I'm not concerned; if you are most like Fanny Price than nothing I can say will offend you. I can criticize your social standing, your parents, your financial situation and even your looks without so much as a quiet nod as you return to your needlework.
So, imagine my delight when I re-discovered the 1999 version of Mansfield Park on YouTube the other day. While most Austen adaptations that veer too much from the original are extremely distasteful to me, this one left me feeling just the opposite. The screenwriter dissected the original Austen, read between the lines for plot development, enhanced character motivation, and gave Fanny a backbone.
The result is a piece that is both dramatic and funny, romantic and satirical, literary and entertaining. It is a story that, with the benefit of a more modern sensibility, helps put Fanny's entire experience at Mansfield Park in the context of her time. Here follow some brief comparisons.
The actress who plays Fanny is quite wonderful and pretty too. She contains all of Fanny's better attributes without being as sickly and retiring as Austen's heroine. The 1999 Fanny is vivacious, strong and natural. She hears each cruel thing from her Aunt Norris and others of her ilk without ever really believing it. To keep household peace, she will hang her head and acquiesce without complaint, but she never sees herself as second to anyone. Even the sassy and sensual Miss Mary Crawford. She may not know how to compete with her, but she doesn't ever defer to her either.
The characterization all around in the 1999 version is remarkable. The feckless older brother, Tom, is not merely a drunken lout; instead he is deeply depressed over his father's involvement in the West Indian slave trade. Austen's book uses his father's "business in Antigua" as a major part of the story, but she is less than forthcoming about what, specifically, he did there. The movie gives Tom depth of character from the first few minutes he is introduced. His extreme guilt over a lifestyle paid for almost entirely from the buying and selling of slaves leads him to self-medicate with extreme alcoholism. Nor is he the only one. Austen tells us that Lady Bertram is constantly lethargic and uninterested in almost everything to the point of almost being a non-entity. This film helps us to see why this is the case: she is an opium addict. Something not at all uncommon in that day and age. True to Austen's original story which paints Fanny's mother and her Aunt Bertram as so much alike, this version casts the same actress in both parts. A brilliant juxtaposition. The slave trade is also used to help explain Lord Bertram's alternating bouts of indifference, interference, cruelty and interest in Fanny's concerns. This theme of slavery is a major point in the way he basically auctions off his daughters to the highest bidders, regardless of their feelings. Fanny's defiance to his orders matches her revulsion for his money-making schemes.
All is not entirely well with the screenplay: the deletion of Fanny's brother was a mistake, even if Fanny's character picks up a lot of his best attributes. The help and advancement Mr. Crawford lends him is Fanny's primary motivation for even considering his overtures toward her, though the 1999 Mr. Crawford is a good enough actor that I almost began to wonder what Fanny's scruples against him are exactly. Which takes us to the only major flaw, in my eyes, in this particular interpretation. Fanny, desperate in the life she has been punished back into and eager to help her family, tells the charming Henry that yes, indeed, she will marry him. It is true that her acceptance of him only lasts for a day, but Fanny's chief virtue is her unwavering constancy toward her best principles and her beloved Edmund. I think this screenplay could have taken us down the road of Fanny's serious consideration of Mr. Crawford's advances without her actually saying yes.
So now we must talk about the beloved Edmund, played perfectly by Johnny Lee Miller. (Who I loved in Eli Stone--a short-lived dramedy on television for about 18 months.) Imagine my surprise when I found out he was in the MT series as Emma's Mr. Knightly as well. I missed it because I was so disappointed in both Mansfield Park and A Room With a View that I couldn't even attempt another adaptation. Anyway, there is a moment near the end of the film where Fanny has just learned a series of shocking things about her adopted family. She is sitting near Tom's sickbed in her nightgown, her face a mask of shock and horror when Edmund comes to her to ask her if she is okay. He is comforting her and in the intense emotion of the moment he (ALMOST!) kisses her. This almost kiss is more beautiful than any movie kiss I've ever seen. I won't link it here because this same clip has a few pretty shocking moments in it; this version of Mansfield Park is daring thematically and is for grownups only.
I do love Austen. I think if you have only seen film adaptations or read books about Austen's work, then you have seriously missed out on the actual Austen experience. Her gifts are legion and her legacy much deserved. But I will say, in this case, there is actually some improvement on the original.
Because she is. As much as like Austen's book for its tone, satire, wittiness and plot, I am not crazy about Fanny. I don't know why. She is friendly and kind. She is loyal to a fault. Her principles are impeccable and her judgment sound. Her patience is infinite. In short, she has exactly those attributes I find myself striving for.
Yet, isn't it possible to have all of these lovely traits while, at the same time, standing up for herself? Explaining herself fully? Acting like a woman instead of a mouse? Her fearful shyness is sometimes so annoying I found myself gritting my teeth with her. Austen herself was so Mary Crawford; where does this Fanny Price heroine fit with the Emmas and Elizabeths?
No doubt, someone here is going to write back that they did one of those Austen Facebook quizzes and were declared to be most like Fanny Price. I'm not concerned; if you are most like Fanny Price than nothing I can say will offend you. I can criticize your social standing, your parents, your financial situation and even your looks without so much as a quiet nod as you return to your needlework.
So, imagine my delight when I re-discovered the 1999 version of Mansfield Park on YouTube the other day. While most Austen adaptations that veer too much from the original are extremely distasteful to me, this one left me feeling just the opposite. The screenwriter dissected the original Austen, read between the lines for plot development, enhanced character motivation, and gave Fanny a backbone.
The result is a piece that is both dramatic and funny, romantic and satirical, literary and entertaining. It is a story that, with the benefit of a more modern sensibility, helps put Fanny's entire experience at Mansfield Park in the context of her time. Here follow some brief comparisons.
The actress who plays Fanny is quite wonderful and pretty too. She contains all of Fanny's better attributes without being as sickly and retiring as Austen's heroine. The 1999 Fanny is vivacious, strong and natural. She hears each cruel thing from her Aunt Norris and others of her ilk without ever really believing it. To keep household peace, she will hang her head and acquiesce without complaint, but she never sees herself as second to anyone. Even the sassy and sensual Miss Mary Crawford. She may not know how to compete with her, but she doesn't ever defer to her either.
The characterization all around in the 1999 version is remarkable. The feckless older brother, Tom, is not merely a drunken lout; instead he is deeply depressed over his father's involvement in the West Indian slave trade. Austen's book uses his father's "business in Antigua" as a major part of the story, but she is less than forthcoming about what, specifically, he did there. The movie gives Tom depth of character from the first few minutes he is introduced. His extreme guilt over a lifestyle paid for almost entirely from the buying and selling of slaves leads him to self-medicate with extreme alcoholism. Nor is he the only one. Austen tells us that Lady Bertram is constantly lethargic and uninterested in almost everything to the point of almost being a non-entity. This film helps us to see why this is the case: she is an opium addict. Something not at all uncommon in that day and age. True to Austen's original story which paints Fanny's mother and her Aunt Bertram as so much alike, this version casts the same actress in both parts. A brilliant juxtaposition. The slave trade is also used to help explain Lord Bertram's alternating bouts of indifference, interference, cruelty and interest in Fanny's concerns. This theme of slavery is a major point in the way he basically auctions off his daughters to the highest bidders, regardless of their feelings. Fanny's defiance to his orders matches her revulsion for his money-making schemes.
All is not entirely well with the screenplay: the deletion of Fanny's brother was a mistake, even if Fanny's character picks up a lot of his best attributes. The help and advancement Mr. Crawford lends him is Fanny's primary motivation for even considering his overtures toward her, though the 1999 Mr. Crawford is a good enough actor that I almost began to wonder what Fanny's scruples against him are exactly. Which takes us to the only major flaw, in my eyes, in this particular interpretation. Fanny, desperate in the life she has been punished back into and eager to help her family, tells the charming Henry that yes, indeed, she will marry him. It is true that her acceptance of him only lasts for a day, but Fanny's chief virtue is her unwavering constancy toward her best principles and her beloved Edmund. I think this screenplay could have taken us down the road of Fanny's serious consideration of Mr. Crawford's advances without her actually saying yes.
So now we must talk about the beloved Edmund, played perfectly by Johnny Lee Miller. (Who I loved in Eli Stone--a short-lived dramedy on television for about 18 months.) Imagine my surprise when I found out he was in the MT series as Emma's Mr. Knightly as well. I missed it because I was so disappointed in both Mansfield Park and A Room With a View that I couldn't even attempt another adaptation. Anyway, there is a moment near the end of the film where Fanny has just learned a series of shocking things about her adopted family. She is sitting near Tom's sickbed in her nightgown, her face a mask of shock and horror when Edmund comes to her to ask her if she is okay. He is comforting her and in the intense emotion of the moment he (ALMOST!) kisses her. This almost kiss is more beautiful than any movie kiss I've ever seen. I won't link it here because this same clip has a few pretty shocking moments in it; this version of Mansfield Park is daring thematically and is for grownups only.
I do love Austen. I think if you have only seen film adaptations or read books about Austen's work, then you have seriously missed out on the actual Austen experience. Her gifts are legion and her legacy much deserved. But I will say, in this case, there is actually some improvement on the original.
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