Beth And Her Kooky Projects

My Hero

2012-03-05T06:21:00.000-08:00

I am a huge fan of Daniel C. Petersen, a Mormon apologist and professor of Islamic Studies at BYU. I've been following his work in one form or another for about ten years. I always find him insightful, thoughtful, and articulate. Of course, there are plenty of people who don't like him, too, as in all things. Sadly, I was never fortunate enough to take a class from him when I was in college.

It has been brought to my attention that he has a blog, and of course, I had to follow it at once. He only started the blog about a month ago, but quite frankly I'm surprised it took me so long to find out about it.

I'm A Mormon

2012-03-04T12:38:00.000-08:00

I created a profile on Mormon.org. I put a button on the right hand side of my blog that will direct you there when clicked. ====>

You Will Be Assimilated

2012-03-03T21:15:00.000-08:00

Someone over on the Motley Vision Blog wrote a very interesting piece on Mormon Assimilation into greater American culture. It was written about a week and a half ago, but it made me think. You should go read it. Right now. I'll wait for you to finish.

...

The post evokes a great number of questions. What does it mean to be a Mormon? What does it mean to be American? What is it to be an assimilated Mormon?

Without my Mormonism, I wouldn't have much of a cultural identity. Most of the people in my family are Mormon. I sang Primary songs as a kid, went to BYU, got married in the Temple. Mormon social mores are important to me, and I want them to be important to my kids, too. If I wasn't Mormon, what would I be?

As much as I enjoy bizarre things (beet pickles, bagpipes, The Alan Parsons Project), I am really not that weird (even though maybe deep down I wish I was). Unlike, say, the Mennonites, I speak English and watch TV and listen to Coldplay. I may have earned the "most unique" award when I was a senior in High School, but I still eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches like a regular person. I wear jeans, not 19th century pioneer dresses. In this sense I am certainly more American than I am, say, French. Or Amish.

Of course, being Mormon means I have to forget about a lot of things that a lot of Americans take for granted. Alcohol, for instance. Mormons just don't do the nightclub scene, or the six-pack of beers on July 4th. Also lax attitudes towards sexual relationships. I dated an agnostic guy for a while in college. He once suggested that we cohabit for a bit after graduation. As you can imagine, I found that completely unacceptable. I didn't date him for very much longer after that. So in that sense I guess you could say that I am Mormon first and an American second.

Anyone else? Thoughts? Insights? Raving insults?

The Best Quote Ever!

2012-02-21T20:30:00.000-08:00

I was reading in "Daughters in my Kingdom," yesterday, and found what is probably the best Brigham Young quote I have ever read or heard of:

"I call upon my sisters to...create your own fashions, and make your clothing to please yourselves independent of outside influences."

!!!

I think this is license to dress however I want (as long as it is modest, of course). I used to wear truly outlandish things when I was in high school and college, but felt the need to tone it down after I graduated and entered the job market. I kind of miss it. Wearing weird things, I mean. I don't miss the job market.

If I had my choice, I would wear this kind of stuff all the time, including to church. May I draw your attention to the Gaza and Syrian dresses.

Insert Napoleon Dynamite Sigh Here

2012-02-20T22:39:00.000-08:00

Just a quick observation:

When I write about stuff I care about, like the Right of Return or Spinning Wheels, no one feels the need to weigh in.

And yet when I write about what is - in my opinion - something that doesn't even matter at all (cough sports cough) - my blog suddenly becomes very popular for a day or two.

By this logic, if I want my blog to become wildly popular I need to start writing about things that I think are boring or uninteresting. I created a list of possible topics for your enjoyment:
Spongebob Squarepants
Belly Button Lint
Toenail Hygiene
Baking Soda and Possible Military Applications
The Life Story of My Kitchen Table
The Color Gray
Golf
Dirt: A History
Sloth Racing
Spatulas
Split End Awareness
101 Things To Do With Cold Oatmeal
A Story About The Time I Went On A Walk And Nothing Exciting Happened At All

I think I'll start sometime next week with the Sloth Racing post. Apparently it's a real thing. Sort of. When I Googled it, I found this YouTube video:

A Pet Peeve: Spinners who don't spin

2012-02-16T22:35:00.000-08:00

The spinning wheel enjoys a prominent place in Western Folklore. Two of our favorite fairy tales are spinning related - Rumpelstiltskin and Sleeping Beauty. There are lots of others, too, if you care to delve into the collected works of Andrew Lang. My favorite is The Nettle Spinner. It is possible to spin nettles - it turns out kind of like flax. I would love to try it sometime.

Spinning with a spinning wheel used to be HUGE. At one time, everyone knew how to spin. It was one of "those things" that all women did, right up there with eating, breathing, and having babies. Almanzo Wilder's mom spun and wove the cloth for all the family's clothing. One of my ancestors, Cynthia Stewart Hill, spun flax and wove it into linen suits to support her family while her husband was away. In the days of the American Revolution, spinning was a form of patriotism because the British didn't want the colonists to be self-sufficient. And before the spinning wheel was invented around 1200 A.D., women spun on drop spindles. Augustus Caesar wore only cloth spun and woven by the women of his household. Women have been spinning for thousands and thousands of years, practically since the dawn of time.

It's only been about 150-ish years since the industrial revolution took textile manufacture out of the cottages and into the factories, and today those who spin are a very small minority. (Thankfully, it's a minority that has experienced something of a Renaissance since the 1970s, so people like me can get their very own wheels instead of trying to steal one from a museum. ) 150 years is not a very long time at all, when you consider how long spinning as been part of the human condition.

But 150 years is plenty of time for the general human population to completely forget how a spinning wheel is supposed to work. There are hundreds of film and television portrayals of Rumpelstiltskin and Sleeping Beauty, and I have never seen one that gets it right. It drives me absolutely bonkers! Disney's version has Sleeping Beauty prick her finger on the distaff, not the spindle.

This Hello Kitty version has the straw going around the drive band. Check out 5:36.

The most recent episode of Once Upon A Time features a walking wheel, except the drive band is inaccurately placed. (10:30) Also, Rumpelstiltskin has the straw already on the spindle and the spun gold falls in tangles onto a plate on the floor. Cringe Cringe Cringe!

And a rendition of Sleeping Beauty (starring Bernadette Peters and Christopher Reeve). The spinning wheel is at 0:40. It's a walking wheel and the old lady kind of gets it (at least it is constructed correctly) but the lady is just winding and unwinding the same bit of yarn onto the spindle; she isn't actually spinning. I do like the Evil Fairy's line, "What is the world coming to? Spinning is spinning, or at least it was." And at least Sleeping Beauty pricks her finger on the actual spindle.

I have already treated the world to a rant on the horrible book "Spindle's End," where spinning wheels and spindles featured prominently, but the author did not take the trouble to figure out how they work. Well, ok, maybe the book wasn't horrible, but the inaccurate information ruined it for me.

Now, in an episode of the TV show LOST, Jacob does some spinning and he actually does it right. Sort of. I think the "roving" he's using has already been sort of spun. He has an Ashford Traditional (known as an Ashford Traddy) wheel, the same kind my mom has.

Here is another video that shows how it actually works, courtesy of Sesame Street. The clip is at the end of the video, around 51:10. The lady also uses an Ashford Traddy. Except normal people wash the fleece before they card it, and ply and set the yarn before knitting it into sweaters. Still, it's a much better representation of spinning than poor little Hello Kitty.

Here is a picture of me spinning at my wheel, taken about a year ago. That's the Squeaker in my lap.

Here's how it works: you use your feet to work the treadles, which makes the big wheel go around and around. There is a drive band that causes the flyer (the thingy on top) to also go around and around. I have a bit of fiber in my hand and slowly tease out bits to make it into yarn; the rotation of the flyer simultaneously puts spin into the fiber and winds it onto the bobbin.

There. Now you are an educated populace.

Volleyball

2012-02-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

Apparently I have deeply offended one of my cousins with my unabashed disdain of volleyball. I didn't realize it was such a sensitive subject. So I will grace the world with a treatise more eloquent than merely, "Volleyball is Stupid."

I had a number of unpleasant incidents with team sports when I was growing up. One memorable incident occurred in third grade when I hit a kick ball with my face. Volleyball was my least favorite unit in PE. I had the displeasure of studying it in four different schools in two states, so no one can say, "Oh, that's just the culture of (New York, Texas)," or "Maybe you'd like it better as a (kid, teenager, adult)," or "Maybe if you had had a better coach..."

The thing with team sports that involve balls is that they require a specific skill set, like the ability to catch and throw a ball with accuracy, for example. If you don't have the skill and are unlikely to develop it during the course of the PE unit, you're kind of sunk.

Why do they even teach volleyball? They say it's to learn sportsmanship and teamwork and whatever, but that's a load of camel droppings. I didn't learn anything of the kind. All I learned during PE is how much I hate sports. I learned that sports are only fun if you're good. I learned that if you can't serve or dribble or pass the ball, don't even try because you'll make the team lose and everyone will hate you and call you names and pick you last. Not the best message to be sending children. As a result, I grew up thinking I wasn't athletic, which isn't really true. I'm plenty athletic, just the way the PE teachers wanted me to be.

In contrast, anything I ever learned about athleticism, teamwork, and sportsmanship came from Martial Arts. Martial Arts isn't just a sport, it's a philosophy. Martial Arts is about learning about your self and your body, respecting your opponent and your environment and how you interact with it. It's about stretching yourself and reaching outside your comfort zone. I didn't get any of that from volleyball. In volleyball, if you seem hopeless, you're just given up as a lost cause. In Martial Arts, if you seem hopeless, the instructor will work with you and encourage you to do better next time. In Martial Arts, your only real opponent is yourself. Sparring matches, which account for only a small part of Martial Arts training as a whole, aren't about who wins or loses. They are opportunities to learn. Most importantly, Martial Arts has applications for real life. I don't think being able to hit a ball over the net will save you if you get attacked on the street, unless you can carry a volleyball around with you in your pocket.

If you were to ask me today to play a round of volleyball with you, I will say no. I will still be your friend, but don't expect me to play with you.

Death to Cutesie Stuff

2012-02-12T21:36:00.000-08:00

I told My Husband this story earlier today and he laughed, so I hope it will amuse others as well.

Once, I went to the Opera on a date. We saw Otello. My date fell asleep during one point of the performance, which slightly amused me. After the date, he dropped me off at my apartment and after I went inside left one of his shoes by the door, as some kind of gag. An homage to Cinderella, perhaps? For some time afterward, I saw the shoe every time I went past the door and thought, "Hmm, that's weird. Someone lost a shoe." I think it was there for about two weeks before the guy finally retrieved it.

Some months later, he asked me if I had noticed that he had left one of his shoes that night we went to the opera and I told him that I hadn't made the connection.

This kind of thing falls firmly in the realm of what I call "Cutesie Stuff," which is fine if you like that sort of thing. But I don't.

What is Cutesie Stuff? Here is a list of examples:

Cupcakes that took more than a minute each to decorate
Elaborate ways of asking someone out to a dance that involve live goldfish, cookies, and piano wire
The Disney Princesses TM
Pokemon
Lolspeak
Jack Weyland novels
Chihuahuas
Valentine's Day

Let's talk a bit about Valentine's Day for a moment. Every year, The Husband and I like to rip the whole holiday down one side and up the other. It's our little tradition. To us, it just seems unethical for society to expect men to buy their sweethearts flowers and candy just because it's "That Day," as if flowers and candy on any other day during the year count for nothing. The center aisle of our grocery store vomits forth pink and red hearts every year. It's almost an industrial version of love: "Buy our crap or you will be considered a cheapskate and social pariah!"

I know a lot of people love Valentine's Day, and I hope I don't get flamed for sharing my opinion, but there it is. It's a dumb holiday.

But this is why The Husband and I got married - we have similar opinions about this kind of thing. He has work off on President's Day, we'll probably celebrate that instead.

Karate Tests

2012-02-09T22:32:00.000-08:00

I really don't like Karate tests. They make me anxious beforehand and weak and feeble during, and sore and practically dead afterwards. I would have been perfectly happy to stay at, say, a green belt for ten years. Unfortunately for me, my instructor had other plans.

I had been a second degree brown belt for about a year - I took my last test in January 2011 when I was about two weeks pregnant with The Cookie. My instructor told me, "We're not going to tell you when the next one is, because you get too nervous. I'll have Dave take you on a 'date' and then drive you to the dojo and say, 'surprise!!!!'"

For the last month or so, my instructor teased me about having a "special dinner" sometime in March. Last Saturday he asked me, "So do you still want your test kept a secret from you?"

Thinking that it was going to be in March, I said, "Well, at this point I guess I wouldn't mind knowing."

"Great. You're testing today."

"Haha, very funny Sensei."

"Are you nervous?"

"I still think you're joking."

"I'm not lying. Your Husband paid the testing fee last Thursday. Your test starts at three today at the West Jordan dojo."

So right after my Karate class, The Husband picked me up and drove me to West Jordan and I had my test! He took the boys to a nearby park, where The Squeaker has a magnificent time playing on the slides.

I really don't like Karate tests. I kind of had something that may or may not have been an asthma attack, and I had extreme difficulty breathing. The last time I experienced this sensation was, oddly enough, my previous karate test a year before. And I left my inhaler at home. Also I forgot a technique that I supposedly learned at green belt but I had no memory of it at all. I was glad they passed me anyway, although at the time I wasn't sure I had really earned it. And yet, the supervising instructor, a 6th degree black belt, spoke with me a bit just before the end of the test and told me that he could tell I had internalized the Martial Arts by the way I moved. That's good, right?

These guys aren't in the habit of pity passing their students, but I can still think of about a hundred things I did wrong, things I wish I had done better.

So I'm a first degree brown belt now. My next test will be to get my black belt. Yikes. I never thought I would get to that point!

They really should teach the martial arts in P.E. instead of volleyball. Volleyball is stupid. Martial Arts has a purpose. As much karate stuff as I have done over the years, I am not sure I would ever be able to completely throw off an attacker, but I know I would be able to do something other than stand there and let some guy bludgeon me to death. Sometimes my imagination runs away with me and I think of all the bits of my house that are vulnerable to attack, and I start wondering if I should start sleeping with my kubotan and a pair of nunchucks under my pillow.

Karate has gotten under my skin. I have taken to doing a defensive maneuver here, a kempo there, while I go about my daily routine. Empty the dishwasher and leopard's paw to the lymph nodes, break the elbow, kick out the knee and spinning hook kick. Carry the laundry downstairs and monkey block, willow palm and chicken wrist to the jaw and throw the guy to the ground with a tiger's mouth to the neck. So much cooler than volleyball.

My Faith

2012-02-01T22:44:00.000-08:00

I have spent most of my free time today knitting (I'm making another lace shawl), but I thought I would blog for a bit before turning in. Even though experience has taught me that blogging at 11 pm is a good way to add grammatical errors and general incoherence to my writing.

These days, not a week goes by when the LDS Church isn't mentioned in the news. A lot of it is kind of mean. It's giving me flashbacks of being taunted at recess in fifth grade. One would think that journalists from prominent news sources would have a greater level of maturity than your average 11-year-old.

So...I'm a Mormon. I guess you could say I fit pretty firmly in the stereotype, too: middle class, white, stay-at-home mom. Most of my ancestors crossed the plains. I even graduated from BYU. But the picture Carrie Sheffield paints of my faith in this article does not resonate with my experience at all, even though we come from the same background.

"Avoid books and marry?" That's not how I was raised. While marrying and having a family was always a goal, my parents taught me that college was not optional, and that getting a BA was more important than getting an MRS. My dad, especially, gave me a lot of encouragement to have a career in my field. Before my kids were born, my parents twisted my arm to go to grad school.

(Aside: Now that I do have children, however, I stay at home with them, but not because anyone is forcing me or because it's "a woman's place." I have strong convictions about how I want to raise my boys. I believe in the importance of my role in their lives.)

The media is quick to label believing Mormons "sheep," blindly doing what we are told without questioning. For the record, I have questioned. There are a lot of issues that can make or break your testimony - women and the priesthood, polygamy, the Church's stance on gay marriage - but after reading a lot and pondering even more, I have found a nice resolution with each of these issues. In fact, but I am even in a pretty happy place about them. I am no sheep. I am a Mormon because I want to be one, and because I genuinely believe in the doctrine and in the Church.

People still like to accuse Mormons of not being Christian. My best friends in high school came from all sorts of backgrounds, but the cruelest and most unkind person I have ever met was one of those born-again Christian types. He treated me like he treated everyone else until he found out I was Mormon. Then came the snide remarks, the accusations of human sacrifice, of all things. "You just don't know what you believe," he'd say if I protested. If he is an example of what it means to be Christian, I want nothing to do with it.

I know that boy isn't a good example of Christianity. You get all types in all religions. There are good Christians and bad Christians, good Muslims and bad Muslims. Good Mormons and bad Mormons. The trouble is, some journalist has a bad experience with Mormonism, publishes it in a prominent newspaper, and suddenly it's national news and people think all Mormons are like that.

I know I shouldn't care what other people think, but I do. Negative media attention hurts. Purposeful misrepresentation of who I am and what I believe hurts a lot. Somehow, no matter how often or for how long you have to put up with it, you never get used to it. It always feels like a slap in the face.

A Note about the Right of Return

2012-01-28T07:08:00.000-08:00

There are very few subjects that make me foam and the mouth, breathe fire, and shoot lasers out of my eyes. The Israel/ Palestinian question is one of them, which is why I tend to not discuss it on my blog.

Newt Gingrich suggested on Thursday that the Palestinians should relinquish the Right of Return. It occurs to me that not many people understand what this means, or why it is important to the Palestinians. It just so happens that I know a little bit about this subject. My knowledge comes from having a Palestinian Roommate for two years, plus four total years living and breathing Middle Eastern politics night and day.

The Arabs in Palestine have been living in that area since time immemorial, not just since the 600s when the Ummayad Dynasty took control of the Levant. The current population of Arabs consists of not only the descendants of Arab conquerors from the peninsula, but also the descendants of Jews and Christians who had been living there during the time of Christ and before. They haven't just been living in Palestine - in many cases they have been living in the same village for generations.

Where a Palestinian is from is just as much a part of their identity as their religion and nationality. Americans can't really understand this because our society is so mobile. We've been mobile for generations and it's not really a big deal. For example, my distant ancestors are from Europe, but they all moved here within the last couple of hundred years. Most of them moved West with the Mormon Pioneers, my mom lived in Idaho most of her life, and in my own lifetime I have lived in California, New York, Texas, Utah, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt (not in that order.) When people ask where I am from, I say Houston, not because I have lived there the longest but because that's where my parents live now.

In contrast, when you ask a Palestinian where they are from, odds are they will answer with the village where their grandparents used to live, even if they had never been there themselves.

And now for the history lesson.

Back during the war of 1948, many Palestinians fled their villages to escape the fighting. Others were systematically removed from their homes and carted away in trucks. When the war ended, the Palestinian refugees wanted to return to their homes but they were denied entry into the State of Israel. "Sorry, you left. You have no rights to your land any more." Some of these empty villages were settled by European Jewish immigrants and given new names to reflect the new population, but others remain empty today. Israel is loath to allow the Palestinians' return because the Jewish establishment wants Israel to remain a Jewish state. To allow the Palestinians the Right of Return would threaten the Jewish majority, which today remains at 80%.

To an American, the Right of Return doesn't seem like a big deal. 1948 was a very long time ago. Several generations have been born who have never set foot in village of their origin. They are not from there any more and they should get over it.

But to the Palestinians, it is a big deal. Seventy years is a long time, but it is nothing compared to how long their ancestors lived in those villages prior to the war. Telling a Palestinian to relinquish their Right of Return would be cruel and barbaric and tantamount to telling an American to spit on the Constitution, Declaration of Independence, the Bible, and their Grandparents.

Another history lesson: in the days of Ancient Assyria, when a new people was conquered, the Modus Operandi was to take the entire population prisoner and relocate them. This was done to decrease morale and to damage the cohesion and identities of the conquered population. Remember when Daniel was carried away captive into Babylon? This was how the ten tribes of Israel were "lost:" not because of actual being lost lost, but because the Assyrians successfully robbed them of their identity.

I think I had better stop there.

Another bit on Polygamy

2012-01-25T07:47:00.000-08:00

My church has been in the news a lot lately. A lot. Most of the media attention has good things to say, but no one seems to be able to get over the polygamy thing. In every single news article, even if it is just about how Romney sneezed, they have to add some kind of caveat: "Mormonism, which abandoned the practice of polygamy in 1890...." Since we stopped doing polygamy 120 years ago, is there really any need to keep bringing it up?

I was raised LDS, and I had never even heard of polygamy until I was about eight or nine. I might even have been older. Kids at school found out I was Mormon and started making fun of me for having six moms. "In your church, people are supposed to have lots of wives!" "That is NOT TRUE!" I would yell with tears in my eyes. When I found out that polygamy was truly a part of the early church, I was completely shocked. I think the fact that it is not part of the Primary curriculum should be a good indication as to how modern Latter Day Saints feel about polygamy.

Now that I've grown up and learned more about plural marriage, I have formed my own opinions, and I am pretty strongly entrenched them. My opinions and how I arrived at them are personal, so I won't share that here right now.

That said, in my own family history, polygamy has been the source of a lot of pain and suffering. One ancestor, for example, was told that he and his wife would never have children until he took a second wife. He complied but he married the homeliest girl he could find. He always made it very clear to everyone that he always favored the first wife. The first wife and her children got a nice house, nice clothing, nice everything, while the second wife's kids had to wear raggedy old clothes. Do you think the second wife's kids got to go to college? Ha. (I'm descended from the second wife. We're not bitter.)

Another ancestor from a different branch of the family took a second wife the year before the manifesto. His first wife, my great-great-grandmother, had waited for this guy for years while he served a mission in the Sandwich Islands. Everyone in her family urged her to forget about him and marry someone else, but she refused, so deep was her love for him. She was very hurt that he would even dream of taking a second wife (even though her husband divorced the interloper only about four years later) that she could never stand to talk about it until her dying day.

As you can imagine, no one I know is in a huge hurry to have this sort of thing brought back. And mentioning it every time anyone has anything to say about Mormons is kind of like saying, "...South Carolina, which was the first state to secede from the Union..." or "...the Southern United States, which disavowed the Jim Crow laws in 1965..." or, my favorite, "Germans, who were largely responsible for all that unpleasantness back in the '40s..."

I hope that these comparisons shame the media into getting over it.

The Cookie's Coat

2012-01-21T14:58:00.000-08:00

I made this a month or so ago for the Cookie to protect him against cold weather. It is 100% merino wool. And because my mom is chummy with people who raise sheep, I happen to know that the wool I used is from a ram named Mikey who lives in the Texas hill country. My mom scoured the wool for me, and I carded, spun, and knit it.

When we go out in public, we always get the nicest compliments on this coat. The rest of the family at our reunion in November thought it was the height of cuteness. My Sister-in-law said I should make them and sell them. "Lots of moms will want this exact thing for their babies!" (This won't happen any time soon, since this took me a month to make; I had to take frequent breaks to nurse the Cookie and to keep the Squeaker from having raisin and cracker withdrawals. Luckily I finished it before the weather got too chilly.)

Today alone, three separate people stopped The Husband to comment on the coat while he was at Sam's Club with the kids. One woman wanted to know the whole story of its manufacture.

I am very flattered, of course. I always like it when people ooohh and ahhh over my various projects, but I have been slightly baffled by the response to this one. It's not my best work, you see. When I went to make this coat, I went over to ravelry.com and chose a pattern that required the thickest possible yarn so it would knit up quickly. (You can take a look at it for yourself here.) And I purposely carded and spun the wool as sloppily as I could so I could just get it done and over with. You can even tell in the picture that it is bumpy and slubby. My ultimate goal was not to create something cute, it was so that my kid could be warm. I expect if you were to compliment some prominent chef on his execution of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, that chef would feel much how I do about this project. "You...you like this? But it's nothing!"

Babies grow so quickly, anyway. I estimate he'll be too big for it in another two months. When that happens, we have an old coat of the Squeaker's he can grow into.

Now, I'm currently working on a sweater-shawl like the one featured in this blog post. I am in the process of spinning more yarn for it. I am using some nice nice silvery-gray merino/ silk blend that I bought from the woolery about a year ago. Since I'm not processing the fiber myself, it's going a lot more quickly. Mind you, I've already spent about a month just spinning this second skein of yarn. It's lace weight and so it's taking forever and I haven't even filled up the bobbin yet.

Book Review: A Princess of Mars

2012-01-09T21:28:00.000-08:00

A Princess of Mars was written by Edgar Rice Burroughs (of Tarzan fame) and was published in 1917. You can read it here via Project Gutenburg. I read this book because of the recommendation of my friend Carl. Apparently he read all the Mars books as a kid and adored them.

I began reading the book with a pretty good idea of what to expect. I went on a huge Tarzan kick when I was in high school - I read at least six novels and really liked them. But then when I tried to re-read Tarzan of the Apes in college I barely made it halfway through because I found Burroughs' Victorian Era social values so offensive. As I put it to Carl, " I had to quit [reading] so that I wouldn't strain the muscles in my eyes from all the eye-rolling I was doing."

This was more of the same.

To give Burroughs his due, it is an extremely imaginative story. I applaud the creativity he shows in depicting the fictional cultures of Mars. Six-limbed green aliens? No one had ever done that before, to my knowledge. The first half, I admit, was a bit of a struggle (it's kind of rambling) but the second half of the novel was absolutely riveting. There is political intrigue. There are epic battles. There is mistaken identity and sudden reversal. All good elements to be found in any story.

All this said, on the whole I didn't enjoy it much, specifically because of the Victorian social mores that Burroughs holds in such high esteem. While the plot and the actual story are interesting and even fun, I really disliked the main characters, John Carter most of all. He spends the first half of the novel making it very clear to the reader how much he absolutely loathes and despises the green Martians. He doesn't have one good thing to say about their culture. He says that they are warlike and unkind to their animals and have no love for their children. Although we learn through the actions of the characters that these things are true, Carter's supremacist attitude makes me wish he'd keep his opinions to himself. I had to smile when he points out that among his people, prisoners of war are taken care of and rehabilitated. Ha. Carter is an ex-soldier on the Confederate side. Confederate POW camps were famous for being absolute hell-holes (See this Wikipedia article on the Andersonville camp). Carter needs to wear a big sign around his neck that says, "hypocrite."

But the thing I disliked the most about Carter was his disregard for sentient life. He has the ability to kill a man with a single blow of his fist, and consequently he does it a lot, and he doesn't ever show any compunction about it. In one instance, he kills four guys just because they were standing between him and the female love interest. He says something like, "No man has been born that wouldn't do the same for such as she." Then he unabashedly sends the green men to war against the group of people holding the girl captive, not caring how many may die in the attempt, or how many innocents they may slaughter. And he does this all in the name of love. That's not love, that is selfishness. He doesn't care how many die or who gets hurt, as long as he gets what he wants. Maybe some people think that's romantic, but I just can't get behind that kind of behavior. To me, Carter just isn't a sympathetic character.

Which brings me to Dejah Thoris, the consummate Damsel in Distress. She plays her part well. She exists solely to be rescued. John Carter is head-over-heels for her, and I can't really figure out why, because she completely devoid of anything that resembles a personality. The event that convinces John Carter of his love for her is the moment he touches her bare shoulder. May I direct you to this entry from dictionary.com entitled, "lust."

But the real gem is the following conversation had between Dejah Thoris and John Carter:

Finally she smiled, and, rising, said: "I shall have to believe even though I cannot understand. I can readily perceive that you are not of the Barsoom of today; you are like us, yet different—but why should I trouble my poor head with such a problem, when my heart tells me that I believe because I wish to believe!"
It was good logic, good, earthly, feminine logic, and if it satisfied her I certainly could pick no flaws in it.

There are so many problems with this passage, I don't know where to start. So I'll just say "oh, brother."

But there were two characters I really loved: Tars Tarkis and Sola. They didn't get nearly as much screen time as John Carter or Dejah Thoris, but they seemed a lot more real to me. Their characters had more complex histories and were more fraught with conflict. I was disappointed that their father-daughter reunion (darn, now I've spoiled it for you) got barely a mention. If Sola doesn't appear in the movie, I don't want to watch it. Sola is way more interesting than Dejah Thoris.

So, my verdict? I definitely wouldn't recommend this to my sons when they get to this reading level. I wouldn't want my 12-year-old coming away from this book with the idea that it's ok to do questionable things in the name of "love." This, it seems, is Burroughs' thesis and I cannot endorse it.

Weaned! (and also a note on cloth diapering)

2011-12-12T06:29:00.000-08:00

I suppose I should announce that The Squeaker has been officially weaned for over a month. Nursing two kids was just too much hassle for me. When I told people that I was still breastfeeding my two-year-old, a lot of people cited those fringe cases of five-, eight-, and twelve-year-olds still nursing. So...what you're saying is that my two-year-old is five?

Anyway, for about a week, any time The Squeaker asked to nurse, I would redirect him. "Would you like some juice instead? Or should we read a book on Mommy's lap?" He would voice his preference for nursing but reluctantly go along with the juice or the book. Things were going very smoothly until he had a really bad day after a week of no nursing. At bedtime he rubbed his red eyes and asked in a very small voice, "Pwease nurse? Widdle bit?"

He looked so forlorn I said yes. I took him on my lap and let him nurse just a little bit, and then he was ready for bed. That was the last time he ever nursed. He would ask to nurse for a few days after that, but soon stopped asking entirely. That was it. A pretty uncomplicated end to nursing, in my opinion. I heard an argument against extended breastfeeding that was something like, "A toddler is harder to wean than an infant." And I guess that is true, but it still wasn't all that difficult once The Squeaker was ready. I'm glad I waited until he was two to wean him, because it became something he and I did together as a developmental milestone, instead of something that was done to him.

He watches me nurse The Cookie and says, "Baby nursing! Oh, nice baby!" The Squeaker still likes to cuddle and sit on my lap, and he loves stories at bedtime. He is still my sweet little boy, and he is growing up.

On a related note, I am loving my cloth diapers more and more .I love changing my kids' diapers, now, and I love washing them and folding him. It's kind of a weird hobby, I know.As many diapers as I have to change every day, I might as well make it fun, right? The Cookie sometimes has some wet leaks if we go too long between changes, but he has only had one poop leak with the cloth diapers. I remember when The Squeaker was this age, we had blowouts at regular intervals. I find as time passes, I am becoming more and more evangelical about cloth. The Squeaker has voiced his preference for them. Over Thanksgiving, he ate about thirty tangerines in a space of three days (I may be exaggerating here, but not by a whole lot) and got a pretty intense diaper rash. I didn't have any cloth-friendly rash cream with me, so I had to put him in a disposable over night. He wasn't happy. He asked if he could have a blue diaper instead. He went along with it, but reluctantly.

I do think it's good that we have options, though. I showed my bumGenius 4.0s to my sister-in-law and she indicated that she hated doing laundry so much, disposable diapers were a blessing. My friend Analei has the same opinion. And I think that's fine; what works for me won't necessarily work for other people. I've had such a good experience with the cloth, however, I feel the need to Preach The Cloth Gospel.

The truth is that cloth diapering is a ton different now than it was twenty years ago. Pocket diapers like fuzzibunz and bumGenius are hardly in the same league as prefolds and covers, although even that has been improved. We have better technology for washing them, and you don't even need to use pins thanks to the invention of the Snappi. I don't really see 21st century cloth-diapering as a step back to the basics, but rather a step towards something new. Yay for cloth!

Busy busy busy

2011-12-11T15:27:00.000-08:00

There is so much I would like to blog about. Unfortunately, I just haven't found the time. When I am at my computer, I only have one hand free because of nursing the Cookie, and I require two hands for typing.

So, basic stuff that has been going on, in bullet points:

I made this pattern out of bulky merino wool. It keeps the Cookie very warm. It's not the best spinning job I've ever done, but I wanted to make it quickly because the weather is getting cold. It still took me a month.
I am currently knitting some socks. I spun and dyed the yarn myself. It is a gorgeous variegated peachy-coral colorway. They are a Christmas present so I won't say more.
Remember my beloved Styrofoam Unicorn? The Squeaker bit its nose off. I glued it back together with school glue, but it will never be quite the same.
I am re-reading the Harry Potter books while I nurse the Cookie, because otherwise I'd have to stare at the wall, and at 3 am, that is just no fun. I'm already on The Order of the Phoenix. It's kind of fun because even though I've read and re-read the books about fifty times, I still remember the first time I read them. It's a nice bit of nostalgia to remember the time I came home from Girl's Camp, seized Prisoner of Azkaban (which had just come in the mail from Britain because the American version wasn't out yet) and locked myself in my room for ten hours until I finished it. I didn't even take a bath first to wash off all the Girl's Camp grime. Ahhh, the memories. I still remember how hard I laughed when I first read the word, "Wangobawime." (From Goblet of Fire)
I think I will have to take a general break from blogging just because it is impossible for me to keep up on anything any more. Perhaps after the holidays I will have more time?

Five Highlights From Thanksgiving Vacation

2011-11-27T15:56:00.000-08:00

We had Thanksgiving with The Husband's family in Nevada this year. It was a lot of fun. Here are some highlights:

1) The Squeaker Fell into the Swimming Pool. Not a joke. He was intrigued by the pool out back and wanted to stick his hands in it. I went ahead and let him kneel down by the edge to splash his hands in the cold water. Then he got up and walked a few paces along the edge and did it again saying in his cute little toddler voice, "This way! Let's go!" I was standing next to him the whole time. By our third time around the perimeter, the inevitable happened. It was one of those things where you don't freak out until about an hour later. He slipped as he was kneeling down to splash in the water again. I was kind of surprised that he didn't bob back up half a second later and he started sinking. I remember thinking, "Oh, I guess I'd better pull him back out, then." I reached in and pulled him back out by the arm. He had the funniest shocked/ stunned expression on his face; I wish I had taken a picture. He was speechless for a minute then said, "Want go back inside." As I was changing him into dry clothes he said, "Fell! The water!" several times. But an hour or two later he started telling me that it was his friend, Gideon, who fell in, and not him. "Gideon fell the water!" "No, I'm pretty sure that was you, kid," I would reply. That was about the time I started replaying the incident in my mind and thinking, "Oh, MAN, that could have been bad." I'm not sorry I let him near the pool, because he wouldn't have been allowed within five feet of it without a parent anyway.

2) The Husband and other certain male members of the family stayed up til 4 am playing computer games. They were all pretty wiped out for the rest of the weekend after that one. I was kind of sad that they had played my favorite game without me, but they didn't decide to play that one until long after I had gone to bed.

3) The Family Talent Show. For my talent, I used a Karate move to throw The Husband to the ground. I originally tried to recruit a volunteer, but my volunteer was slightly intimidated by the prospect of being trounced by his aunt and tried to fall on purpose rather than let me sweep his legs out from under him. Falling on purpose does not make for an effective demonstration. We also had some stand-up comedy, and some very impressive musical talent as part of our talent show. Everyone had "Low Rider" in their head for at least two days afterward.

4) I successfully used cloth diapers while traveling. The baby (we never call him the Marshmellon any more, but we do call him The Cookie) doesn't need his diapers hosed off because breastfed baby poop is water soluble. The same cannot be said for toddler poop. Usually cloth diapering with a toddler requires a special hose attachment for the toilet, and I knew we weren't going to have one in Nevada, to say nothing of on the road. Disposing of toddler poop without a diaper sprayer is highly unpleasant, but I didn't want to resort back to disposables for the trip (The Squeaker doesn't like them any more). The solution? A peri bottle! You know, one of those squirt bottles they give you at the hospital after you have a baby. It was not quite as convenient as my own diaper sprayer, but it was excellent for the trip. I highly highly recommend it.

5) I cross-nursed my niece. My brother-in-law had to go run an errand quickly, so left his baby with us with the assurance that my sister-in-law would be along shortly. "Shortly" ended up being over an hour, and in the meantime the baby got hungry and fussy. We tried feeding her some expressed breastmilk, but she refused to take the bottle. "How dare you insult me!" she wailed. So I said, "Ordinarily I wouldn't do something like this, but it's kind of an emergency." And you know what? It wasn't really as weird as I thought it would be. My sister-in-law is kind of a reformed hippie like me, so she thought it was awesome.

IN SPACE!

2011-11-18T09:40:00.000-08:00

I have spent a couple minutes this morning amusing myself by adding, "In Space!" to the titles of certain classics.

Pride and Prejudice In Space!
And its cousin Pride and Prejudice and Zombies In Space!
King Lear In Space!
Richard III In Space!
Pirates of Penzance In Space!
The Mikado In Space!
Lorna Doone In Space!
Tristan and Isolde In Space!
Beowulf In Space!

I like to imagine King Lear saying, "Divide we our kingdom in three," while holding a map of the solar system, and Reagan and Goneril wedded to alien monarchs. And "poor Tom's a-cold," while wearing a space suit.

And come to think of it...zombies have been done to death (ha ha) but have there ever been zombies in space?

I have been reading through my NaNoWriMo novel. Usually I cringe when I read through first drafts, but I am actually enjoying it. I can think of some places where I could tighten up the prose and change a couple of word choices, but other than that I am very pleased with myself.

What other titles would sound great with "In Space!" tacked on at the end?

All about George Washington HIll

2011-11-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

My mom took her duty to teach her children about their ancestors very seriously. She used to tell us stories about all our different ancestors, and would read us excerpts from their Journals. Our very favorite was George Washington Hill, my grandfather's great-grandfather. He crossed the plains with the Mormon pioneers to the Salt Lake Valley, and Brigham Young appointed him an ambassador to the indigenous peoples.

He was the original mountain man. He did all sorts of really cool things. He saved Parley P. Pratt from certain death, and had an opportunity to meet one of the Three Nephites (his mission president didn't let him keep the appointment - at least, that's our version of the story). Our favorite story was when he met a bear - it's a great story. He was part of Abraham Smoot's wagon train (Brother Smoot has a building named after him at BYU). Our favorite part was when Bro. Smoot was so freaked out by the bear he forgot he had a gun and he ran for it, letting George take care of it all by himself. George Washington Hill is like our family's version of Chuck Norris, except his beard was longer than Chuck's.

My story for Monsters and Mormons is taken strait from George's journal account of his encounter with the bear. A surprising amount of it is original text - it lends itself so well to a monster mash-up.

An amazing guy like George had to have an amazing wife. Cynthia Stewart Hill was raised in Tuscaloosa, Alabama as a Southern Belle (like Scarlett O'Hara, but with more brains). She had a really cushy life, until her family joined the Church, then they were run out of town and left with practically nothing. Even after she married George, he was gone a lot of the time on various missions so Cynthia had to support the family with her spinning. (Yay spinning!) She harvested wild flax from the river banks and spun and wove it into men's suits.

I have a lot of really cool ancestors. On my dad's side, I'm descended from Eleazar Miller, who baptized Brigham Young into the Church. I'm also descended from Joseph Nathan Neibaur, who was Napoleon's personal physician. His son Alexander was the first Jew to become a Mormon. Most of the people in my family history aren't very important, but they have some neat stories and did some really cool things.

This is it, Pal

2011-11-11T21:43:00.000-08:00

Root Canal!! (From Weird Al's Cavity Search)

I had my first ever root canal on Wednesday morning. I don't have anything particularly insightful to say about it. I've had that Weird Al song in my head for days.

The endodontist I saw was some guy in his early 30s who came across as really loving his job. I bet he wakes up in the morning and says to himself, "YAY! I get to do root canals today!"

When you have a whole bunch of stuff in your mouth, any conversation is pretty one-sided. Here is a selection of the things he said:

"You have an awesome tooth."
"Yeah, this was definitely the one. This is not a happy tooth. You're really tough for putting up with it for so long."
"Man, this thing is awesome."

I am not entirely sure what about my number 14 molar made it "awesome." Afterwards he showed me the x-ray and indicated one of the roots, which was curved into an almost "C" shape. I guess that made it kind of tricky. At least it was awesome, too.

I'm happy for the matter to be resolved. That tooth has been giving me trouble since college. Not very much trouble, of course; just enough to annoy.

In other news: it has been a year since I looked at my NaNoWriMo novel. I think it's time to start editing it, don't you? I need to figure out a different editing style - I get so caught up in the minutiae of individual word choices that I loose track of the big picture. If a character reacts a certain way in chapter three, then why on earth would he say that other thing in chapter four?!

Writer's Remorse?

2011-11-04T13:16:00.000-07:00

I don't know how else to describe what I've been feeling the last few days. I once read an interview with Johnny Depp wherein he said he didn't ever like to watch his own movies because he didn't like to see himself act. I kind of feel like that.

I have had the ebook version of Monsters and Mormons in my possession for a couple days now, but I have yet to read any of it. I am kind of shy to see what kind of stuff my work is sitting next to. I know a lot of the contributors are already fairly well-known and established, whereas I am the newbie. Where all of the other contributors are probably having lunch meetings with their agents, I am typing this on my couch in my pajamas. At 2 pm.

You would think that the fact something I wrote is in the same volume with more highbrow stuff should make me feel proud or accomplished, but instead it makes me want to hide my face and crawl in a hole. I guess I'm afraid people will read my story and think, "Pfft. I don't know why they included this one. Plus there is a horrible grammatical error on page seven."

The editors are organizing a lot of events to hype the book - book signings, and the like. And it's kind of fun that I will get to participate in that. I keep telling myself that I need to write more. The problem is, though, that I don't think of myself as a writer. At this stage of my life, I am a mom first and foremost, albeit a mom who also writes.

When I write, I don't care about being supremely "literary," or even sophisticated. I just like to write things that I myself like to read. My writing group, 3 liberals and a conservative, started meeting again (we are all of us moms with busy schedules) and for our writing exercise this week everyone wrote things that made sense, except for me. I wrote about a fictional senate meeting wherein representatives were debating the constitutionality of a bill regulating the use of heavy cream as jet pack fuel.

Anyway, just because I am shy to read the book doesn't mean anyone else should be. Here's a podcast that features Theric Jepson, one of the editors, talking about the anthology.

Halloween 2011

2011-11-01T08:30:00.000-07:00

One Tiger:

Plus one blond kid with spiky hair:

Equals Calvin and Hobbes:

The Squeaker loved going Trick or Treating this year. He was really shy at first, and would only approach doors if I held his hand. Towards the end, though, he became a lot braver and wanted to knock on the doors himself. He was really intrigued by the idea of getting candy and really liked accepting the treats to put them in his bag. It kind of made me guilty that The Husband and I already ate most of his hard-earned treats. But there was no way I was going to let him eat it all himself. Besides, he is still working on the one sucker pictured above. And that was before we even went trick or treating!

I am published!!

2011-11-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

It's here, it's here! Monsters and Mormons is available for sale. You can click on this link for purchase. The ebook is availble in several formats for $4.99. You can also get it as a paperback for $23.99, although that won't ship for another few weeks.

You can also purchase the anthology from Amazon, but if you buy it directly from B10 mediaworx everyone involved its creation gets more money.

The title of my story is "George Washington Hill and the Cybernetic Bear." It stands alongside works from quite a few more established authors, a fact that both excites and humbles me.

I really should write more. I am not going to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, since I just had a baby and we're still figuring out life with two kids. I had a dream last night that would have made a fantastic story, but I didn't write it down when I awoke at 3:26 am and now I can't remember any of it. Ah, the sadness.

Movie Reviews: Transformers 3

2011-10-24T06:59:00.000-07:00

Blaugh. This movie is like a train wreck. You want to look away, but you just can't.

Where to begin?! The girlfriend doesn't have much personality and serves no purpose in the movie other than to look pretty. I have serious reservations about the Autobots' "secret operation" to destroy an "illegal nuclear facility" in a nebulous part of the Middle East where they happen to speak Persian. It seemed like propaganda to me. At least half of the movie looked like a commercial for the Marine Corps. Obviously Michael Bay forgot that the movie was supposed to be a commercial for giant alien robot toys. And then there was the fact that it had a lot of pointless characters (John Malkovich, for example) and you could have fit the first hour of the movie into maybe fifteen minutes and not missed any actual plot. It's really easy to tell the good guys from the bad guys: good guys look vaguely human and are colorful, and bad guys have extra eyes and resemble animals, and are black (because bad guys always wear black). I think I can almost forgive Leonard Nimoy for being part of this film (he was a robot), but only because he's Leonard Nimoy. Also, various characters use the phrases, "Autobots, roll out!" and "Let's roll!" about seven times each.

Several times during the course of watching this movie, The Husband and I would turn and look at each other to say, "this is so dumb, let's turn it off," and yet we could not. We ended up watching the whole thing. By the time the credits rolled, we were left with that uncomfortable feeling you get when you eat too much candy and want to throw it all up. Except we didn't get to experience the joy of eating candy first.

For your entertainment, here is another review of this movie from the New York times that really tickled my funny bone. Reading this review is better than watching the actual movie:

"There are filmmakers whose work is characterized by thrift, efficiency and devotion to the subtleties of cinematic expression. And then there is Michael Bay, whose films are symphonies of excess and redundancy, taking place in a universe full of fire and metal and purged of nuance. I’m not judging, just describing."

I heard rumors that they are going to make two more of these. They should have quit with the first one, that was pretty good.

Toddler Mayhem

2011-10-20T07:26:00.000-07:00

This commercial has been playing on Hulu. Since I have turned into a walking dairy farm, I spend a lot of time watching TV on the couch. This tickles my funny bone every time, probably because I can identify with it so well.

The Marshmellon's Birth

2011-10-20T07:24:00.000-07:00

I have wanted to write something about this for several weeks, but I am still not sure what to say about it. Giving birth to the Marshmellon was a much, much different experience than giving birth to the Squeaker. It was a lot more painful, since I didn't get an epidural or any other pain medication, but it was also more amazing.

I had already gone through four or five bouts of false labor in the last two weeks. The contractions would stop immediately after I ate something, which was frustrating. Finally, six days after my supposed due date, I woke up with contractions that did not stop when I ate breakfast. They still kind of came and went all day, though. I went up to my midwives' clinic around 11 am and they found that I was already 4 cm. But since I wasn't in full-blown labor we decided that I would go home until things picked up. And it took a while for things to pick up. I am so glad I went into the clinic instead of the hospital; the hospital would have made me stay, and the contractions didn't become actual active labor until about 8 pm that night.

My doula, Jamie (who was so awesome, by the way. All women should get doulas) came over at around 8:30 and we all headed over to the hospital by 9.

I had practiced Hypnobirthing techniques for a couple of months prior to this, so I coped pretty well with the contractions for most of the time. Until transition hit, anyway.

I won't sugar coat it; transition was a beast. At first, I suggested in between contractions to my husband, "Um, maybe we can talk to them about an epidural, after all. Like a 'walking epidural' that some people get." But then he and Jamie would say, "You are doing so well. You are doing an amazing job. Are you really sure you want to get an epidural?"

As labor got more intense, I started becoming more insistent until about a half an hour before I started pushing when I started practically begging for an epidural. By then, however, I was 8 cm and an epidural wouldn't have done me any good anyway. At the time I thought, "Man, this sucks. Next time I am totally getting an epidural at the beginning." Not getting an epidural had one huge benefit, however: because I could move around more, I was able to deliver the baby on my hands and knees instead of flat on my back. I also could feel which muscles to use for pushing, which meant that I only had to push for I think maybe 20 minutes instead of two hours 45 minutes. The biggest upside, however, was the fact that I didn't tear. YAY! Anyone who has ever torn or had an episiotomy will tell you that this is a VERY good thing.

This is not to say that I was all smiles during the pushing process. In Hypnobirthing, they tell you to "breathe the baby out." Ha. I screamed him out. It was not very comfortable at all. I think I even said, about minute before I delivered his head, "I don't want him out any more." Everyone laughed but me.

But everything changed when he was actually born. This part is what is so difficult to convey to other people. It is also kind of personal. They passed him through my legs so I could look at him, all covered in blood and vernix. All the pain instantly went away, and was replaced by a mix of emotions that I am still trying to sort through - relief, elation, joy, and especially personal pride.

When the Squeaker was born, I didn't think he was particularly good-looking or even cute. I was happy, of course, but compared to the Marshmellon's birth, it was kind of bland. I immediately thought the Marshmellon was the most beautiful baby I had ever seen. I felt so alive. All the pain was definitely worth it. I would go this route again.

Another thing I want to mention about the birth is that I had exemplary perinatal care. I had a fantastic team in the delivery room, and everyone there wanted me to succeed in my goal to have an unmedicated birth. Apart from The Husband and my doula, I had my Certified Nurse Midwife (Claudia) and the L&D nurse (Sheryl). Sheryl had given birth to five children naturally, herself. Everyone was so supportive and no one seemed to mind that they were up at 2 am to help me, even when I started to get whiny. No one said or did anything to make me feel rushed, or like I was working on a deadline. Everyone knew I could get through it, even when I wasn't so sure myself.

The agony of transition notwithstanding, this birth is something I will treasure always. It was a hugely transformative experience, and a beautiful one.

Also, as it happens, this birth was way cheaper that my first one. We got our statement from the hospital last week, and they charged us fully half of what they asked for when the Squeaker was born. Doulas are so much less expensive than epidurals!

Monsters and Mormons

2011-10-08T20:33:00.000-07:00

At the end of this month, I will officially be a published author.

(applause)

Last summer, I stumbled upon a short story contest called Monsters and Mormons. The editors of the blog A Motley Vision wanted to publish an anthology that explored Mormons encountering monsters of various kinds. Intrigued, I wrote a little something and entered it. And then I wrote a second something and entered that, too. The second entry was a mashed-up version of a pioneer account of a bear hunt, taken from the diary of an ancestor of mine. In the style of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, I "tweaked" the story to turn the bears into cybernetic monsters. It was accepted! Whee!

My story is just one of many works that will be included in the volume. The anthology is set for launch on Oct 31. Everyone buy a copy!

More information will follow.

A Cruel Irony

2011-10-05T11:02:00.000-07:00

My little Marshmellon is seven days old today! My postpartum recovery is going remarkably well. I can walk around and everything, and I am wearing regular pants and everything. My baby is extra cute, too. Want to see?

He is so gorgeous and adorable and I love him. The Squeaker hasn't exhibited many signs of sibling rivalry, and loves to give the baby kisses. In fact, everything would be wonderful (as in, sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows kind of wonderful) if I didn't have this horrible debilitating cold.

I barely slept all weekend, not because the Marshmellon was keeping me up at night, but because my throat was so sore I could barely swallow. I won't gross you out with details, suffice to say that I haven't been this sick since August 2002. I went to the doctor today expecting him to give me a round of antibiotics or something (it is a REALLY bad cold. I am not even joking.) and do you know what he said?

"Take sudefed."

I suppose it is good to have the peace of mind that the Marshmellon isn't in particular danger of catching what I have or dying from it, but I still kind of feel as though I have wasted a good deal of time and energy for something trivial. Of course, the way I have been feeling, it certainly doesn't feel trivial. I think a good description would be "death warmed over." Or perhaps something more dramatic. "

In the last four days, I have cried more than one time. "I can't do this when I'm sick! Everything would be so awesome if only I didn't have boogers coming out of my EYEBALLS!" (Too much information, perhaps? Oh, well.)

When the Squeaker was born, I had difficulties getting around and doing things because of childbirth-related things that required some healing time. But I'm doing great in that department. No problems at all. If I'm going to be miserable after giving birth, I think I would rather it be childbirth related instead of cold-related. It is a cruel irony. I have the sniffles from Hades.

It's a BOY!!

2011-10-01T11:35:00.000-07:00

We are now a family of four. My second son, whom I shall call The Marshmellon on my blog, arrived via a normal, unmedicated vaginal birth in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

I am not sure what I should say about his birth, yet, except that it was unlike anything else I have ever experienced. It was really amazing in the best possible way. They are not kidding when they say that labor is some of the most incredible pain a human can endure, but what they don't tell you is how fantastic you feel when the baby finally comes. I had an epidural when The Squeaker was born and I felt very positive about that whole experience, but compared to giving birth to the Marshmellon, the first one was almost indifferent.

I was really surprised when The Husband announced that we had a BOY and not a GIRL. Before he was born, I wondered if I would be disappointed if we had another boy. Not so! I just love being outnumbered by boys at my house. I have TWO boys!! I love them so much.

Thoughts one has during False Labor

2011-09-25T04:04:00.000-07:00

I've had two bouts of false labor so far. And now I'm having more contractions and I have no idea if it's the real thing or just round three. Arg.

But since I'm up at 4:39 am anyway, I thought I'd do a bit of blogging.

If I was only slightly less conventional than I already am, I would push the name Yggdrisil for a little girl. For the uninitiated, Yggdrisil is the World Tree from Norse mythology. Yggdrisil could have a sister Eagdyth (Edith, except spelled with a G) and a brother named Mjollnir (the name of Thor's Hammer).

I think these are fabulous names, but they do rather border on "completely strange," even for me. Yeah, we'll probably go with something conventionally recognized as an English name. Like Bob. It's a palindrome. Besides, we kind of have a pedestrian-sounding last name (no offense meant towards The Husband) and Yggdrisil would sound odd standing in front of it.

So...I keep having Doctor Who-themed dreams. I should write them down as soon as I wake up. They would make pretty good episodes. Last night I dreamed about River Song's messed-up childhood (spoilers!) at the hands of the Silence.

Have I mentioned before that Debussy's Reverie is my most favorite song in the whole entire world? I read up on Debussy's life not too long ago and he was kind of a crazy person with a complicated personal life. And yet he wrote some amazing music. I guess that just goes to show that people can surprise you sometimes. Like in 10th grade there was this kid in my Gifted/ Talented English class who was out of class more often than he was in (having been regularly suspended for this and that). I forget his name, but he was the kind of person who dressed all in black and had a little toy troll with a noose around its neck hanging from his backpack. And yet, he was always supremely polite and respectful in class, and offered the most insightful comments of anyone. I wonder what happened to that guy?

And now I am going to eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and watch some TV.

ETA: It was another false alarm. No baby yet.

My Due Date

2011-09-21T21:09:00.000-07:00

I did lots of things today.

I made scrambled eggs for the Squeaker, and we went for a long walk with some friends just before lunch. After he went down for a nap, I was seized by and overwhelming need to vacuum my living room and mop my kitchen floor. Then I figured that since I was feeling so well, I might as well show up to my karate lesson. Then I came home and made dinner. Since my mom is in town and we had an automatic baby sitter, The Husband and I decided that we had better seize the opportunity to go on a date while we still could. So we went to go see Captain America, which is a great movie, by the way. (It has Richard Armitage in it! I LOVE Richard Armitage!!)

Did I mention that I am 40 weeks pregnant today? I basically did everything there is to do on a Wednesday except have a baby. Although as I write this there are still two hours left in September 21 so if I have a really quick labor, I could still manage it.

On a slightly unrelated note, when we were at the theater I heard a guy mention something about the Dubai tower to his date. She answered back, "Where is Dubai?"

I died a little inside.

When the Leaves Change

2011-09-19T14:12:00.000-07:00

I have spent the last couple of months explaining to the Squeaker, "We will have a new baby in our house when the leaves change color."

Today I looked up at the mountains and saw that the trees were turning red. I guess that means we are go.

Also today is my birthday. I bought a bunch of ice cream and ate it with my friends on the grass in the shade. It was a wonderful birthday treat. I have been truly blessed with some exceptional friends.

If my baby is born today, it will be my Birthday Present (in capitals). I think I will call it My Precious [Last Name].

Movie Review: X-Men First Class

2011-09-14T08:20:00.000-07:00

There were a lot of good things about this movie. James McAvoy is one of my favorite actors and he was decidedly fun to watch as Charles Xavier. And the guy who played Hank McCoy was decidedly adorable (but that's just because I have a thing for nerdy guys).

But I had some supreme issues with the way women were portrayed in the movie, and this overshadowed everything else I liked about it. For one thing, there are like 20 speaking roles for men, including various bit parts, but only four female characters in the movie. And not one of them keep their clothes on for the duration of the film. Even Moira McTaggart, CIA agent, shows up wearing lingerie in her first appearance - her "undercover disguise." (Was it really necessary for that scene to take place in a brothel?)

What kind of messages does this send about women and their place in our world? Certainly, if there are fewer female characters than male characters, it says that somehow women are "less," wouldn't you agree? And if the only women in the movie are willowy and sexy, doesn't that also send the message that women who do not fit into this mold do not exist? Because according to Hollywood, they don't.

I am surprised that there hasn't been more of a feminist outcry over this. The film has gotten overwhelmingly positive reviews, but I haven't read one mention of upset about the female roles in this movie. In this world we live in of political correctness and gender equality, why did the filmmakers choose to include these degrading statements about women? In this film in particular, there exist male roles of all kinds - old guys, fat guys, guys with funny-looking feet - just like in real life. The males are not necessarily sexual, they are just people. In real life, we have old women, women with crooked teeth and Lebanese noses, women who wear a size 18. Why do these kinds of people not exist in film? I think that as a culture, we have to take a good long look at these messages we are sending to the world. This film tells women they are not valued unless they look and act a certain way. This film tells men that they don't have to value women unless they comply.

In one of the last scenes of the movie, the female CIA agent sits in a room full of men, confessing that she doesn't remember anything that occurred over the last weekend. She says, "I remember some things - trees, the sunlight, a kiss." One of her superiors scoffs and says, "This is why the CIA is no place for a woman."

This statement left me feeling cynical. Apparently, the director of this movie doesn't believe the film industry is an appropriate place for a woman, either - unless she is a stripper.

Khalid Latif: Shattered Silence

2011-09-09T16:28:00.000-07:00

This is a fabulous podcast on one of my favorite subjects: Islam and America's relationship with it.

Khalid Latif: Shattered Silence by The Moth on Mixcloud

Engage!!

2011-09-02T06:48:00.000-07:00

I am 37 weeks pregnant now, which technically means the baby is "fully cooked." When I went to see my midwife on Thursday she felt my tummy and said, "Hmm...I'd say your baby is about seven pounds." So even if we went right this very minute, we'd still have a healthy birth weight and everything.

Not that I'm in any particular hurry. But last night as I was getting ready for bed I could feel the kid really low in my pelvis. The correct term is that the kid is "engaged." Which of course made me think of this:

Except my kid will be littler and maybe have just a tad more hair.

Boy or Girl?

2011-08-29T06:21:00.000-07:00

I have really vivid dreams. I know a lot of ladies have supremely wacko dreams when they're pregnant, but I have vivid dreams all the time. And enough of my dreams have had deeper meanings (or have actually come true) to make me take them seriously.

I have had seven dreams about having a baby girl and no dreams about having a baby boy. This leads me to believe that my unborn child is female. We don't like to find out what we're having at 20 weeks like most people, so it's 40 full weeks of guessing (except the Squeaker was late so it was more like 41 1/2 weeks of guessing). There is still a 50% chance that we'll have another boy, but if the kid comes out sporting boy parts I will be completely shocked.

This morning The Squeaker even told me, "Baby sister!"

"Did you just say baby sister?" I asked, slightly surprised.

"Yes."

"You don't think you're going to have a baby brother?"

"No. Baby sister."

I guessed correctly that the Squeaker was male. All through my pregnancy I called the baby "he" and "him" and it felt "right." Sometimes this time around I have used masculine pronouns when referring to this baby and it feels really weird. I have to stop myself from using "she" and "her," even though it feels natural, because I still don't really know for sure.

Cloth Diapering - two weeks

2011-08-25T06:40:00.000-07:00

It has been two full weeks since we implemented our cloth diaper experiment. And you know what? I kind of like it.

I don't think I'll ever be evangelical about cloth. I like it, but I'm not passionate about it the way I am about healthy eating or the Middle East. A lot of the literature I've read on cloth vs. disposables tries to paint one method as the savior of mankind while the other is the root of all evil. If it's not, "disposable diapers will give your baby cancer and will render him infertile," it's "cloth diapers are so much hassle, I don't know why anyone in their right mind would use them by choice."

In my experience I have discovered that cloth diapering using all-in-ones is fairly comparable to using disposables. Throwing the diapers in the wash isn't that much more or less hassle than throwing them in the dumpster. I totally get why people who grew up with the old prefolds and covers totally hate cloth, however. But the ones I bought are most certainly not, as I said in a comment on my previous post on cloth diapering, your mama's diapers. They are nice and fitted with elastic and snaps. The inner fuzzy layer keeps poop from sticking to much.

But I decided to take the plunge and switch for real because of the trash factor. It kind of bothered me every time I had to take a bag of soiled disposables out to the dumpster, knowing they would never ever decompose. And we go through a lot of them. I got in the habit of placing dirty diapers on our back steps while they were awaiting a trip to the dumpster, to keep the smell out of our house. Sometimes they piled up, and it looked really ghetto. Cloth diapering has eliminated that problem. Dirty diapers in a smell-proof wetbag are much less icky than dirty diapers on the back steps.

When people watch my kid for me, I like to put him in disposables anyway to be nice to my friends. If you don't know how to handle a poopy cloth diaper it can really put you off.

I think a lot of new parents dismiss cloth diapering as something only we "reformed hippies" and "back-to-earthers" do. But I think cloth diapering can be for everyone.

Is Mormonism Weird?

2011-08-23T20:43:00.000-07:00

I am hearing this a lot lately. Mormons and their "weird beliefs." I think I am tired of hearing it, especially when I hear it from other Mormons. "Weird" is so subjective, and is therefore a matter of perspective.

For example, I personally think the Baptist idea of Grace is weird: that you can sleep around, be a raging alcoholic and drug addict, treat other people like trash but still get into heaven as long as you have "accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior." I knew plenty of people like this when I was a kid - people who did and said some supremely mean things to me for being Mormon. And yet these same people considered themselves superior disciples of Christ. (Yeah, ok, maybe I'm still a little upset about that. For what it is worth, I was picked on a lot more by Catholic kids in New York and Fundamentalist Christian kids in Texas than I was by Muslim kids in Kuwait. Christian is as Christian does.)

So how is this less weird/ heretical/ hypocritical than the idea of God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost being three separate individuals?

I could point to other things as well. Some ultra-Orthodox Jewish families keep two separate kitchens - one for meat products and the other for dairy products - so they can be absolutely sure that they never cook a kid in its mother's milk. At least they are thorough.

Is this less weird than the Law of Tithing? Or the doctrine that as literal Children of God, humans have the potential to become like Him?

I read that when the Conquistadors first came to Mesoamerica, the indigenous population considered Christianity to be a bloody and violent cult. Only one deity? How bizarre.

My point is that every religion has bits that seem weird to outsiders but make perfect sense to its adherents. I think it's unfair to single out Mormons for being "so weird" when there is plenty of weirdness to go around.

Is there a word for this?

2011-08-21T17:22:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I refer to myself as a hippie, although The Husband doesn't really think this is accurate. As Mormons, we don't do the free love thing, nor are we into mind altering substances. Nor are we radically anti-establishment (we're only a little anti-establishment).

However, as an extended breastfeeding, cloth-diapering, pesticide and GMO-hating, homebirth envying lady who rarely wears makeup and goes around barefoot a lot of the time, well...I feel a need to find an adjective to describe that.

Crunchy? No...Insane? Maybe. But not really. So what does that make me? A reformed hippie perhaps? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Farewell Chompers

2011-08-19T18:47:00.000-07:00

Well, we finally did it. Chompers is gone.

It's been over a year since we first contemplated giving him away. We just kept putting it off and putting it off until whoosh! It's August. We got the thing with his mouth rot squared away and we figured out how to get him to quit refusing his food, so that was good. But we still weren't really doing all we could do to take the very best care of him.

The Husband and I would bring it up with each other every couple of weeks or so. "We need to post something on craigslist. We won't even bother to sell him, we'll just give him away." But nothing got done.

On Wednesday I buckled down and I posted something on freecycle.org. A lady came today to pick him up. She has four kids and three snakes at home, so she already knows how to take care of Chompers. She brought along her almost 12-year-old and I could tell by the way they held him that our pet was going to go to a good home.

I feel a little guilty that we had such a cool pet for so long but didn't do all that we could to enjoy him. Mostly, though, I feel relieved that I don't have to worry about taking care of a snake in addition to a toddler and a newborn.

"What do you do all day?"

2011-08-16T21:38:00.000-07:00

My cousin came by yesterday to chat, and asked me that question. And I answered, "um."

Later I kicked myself. Um? UM? I do a lot more than um.

I admit, the last couple of weeks I have been doing a lot of the stereotypical "housewife" stuff - cooking and cleaning, and whatever. I did reach a breaking point where I was about ready to shout to the heavens, "Cook and clean and clean and cook that's all I do I can't take it any more augh!" But then I spent some good quality time with the ol' spinning wheel and that soothed my soul. I can see why a lot of women rebelled against the housewife bit back in the 60s and 70s, when it was unheard of for men to lift a finger to change a diaper. If you're not careful, that stuff can really suck away at your soul. At least it sucks away at mine. I hate cleaning.

I've had some paradigm shifts lately about what my priorities are. For example, in the last month our family has begun to have - this may shock you - actual meals that require us to sit down at the table. For most of our marriage, on nights when I felt like cooking (maybe twice a week or something) we'd eat together on the couch during a nice episode of Star Trek or something. But The Squeaker was engaging in some specific undesirable behaviors and we decided to experiment to see if having dinner as a family might put a stop to it. It did!

And now I'm totally a Family Dinner advocate. I will write another in-depth blog post about this another day.

Another priority I have decided upon also involves The Squeaker and his insatiable desire for playing outside. I read a bunch of stuff about how outside playtime is better for children's eyes, and running around barefoot outside can ensure proper arch development in toddlers (I tried to find the articles from the NY Times but was unsuccessful). Plus there's the whole gross-motor development thing and the childhood obesity prevention thing. So now we spend at least a good hour and a half outside every day. I usually sit on the grass and supervise while the kid walks his bike around in circles (he is just a little bit small for it).

When I'm not cooking or playing outside, I read a LOT of the news. I bet you could tell because of the last couple blog posts I wrote on the subject. When I'm not pregnant I do a lot more gardening and things, but these days it is kind of uncomfortable to walk too much. When I'm not reading the news, I am on the floor coloring with the Squeaker. He likes it when I draw outlines of cars so he can draw the wheels on. He also likes me to write his name for him over and over and over again. When I'm not doing that, I am either loading or unloading the dishwasher or trying to fight the entropy that is my kitchen.

I mopped the floor today. Huzzah!

Cloth Diapering - Day Four

2011-08-14T20:48:00.000-07:00

We are at the end of the fourth day using exclusively cloth diapers. I've had a couple of poops to deal with, but it hasn't been that bad. With only eight total diapers, I do have to wash them every day, and that is a little bit of a hassle. If I decide I like cloth overall, though, (and I am leaning in that direction) I'm going to buy more and that won't be as much of a problem.

I decided to give cloth another try because I was becoming alarmed with how many diapers The Squeaker was going through every day. We are dabbling with potty training because he has been asking to be changed so much more often - today we went through six diapers when a couple months ago we would have gotten by with only three - but I think we still have a long way to go. He is in size five diapers, and it turns out that size fives and also pull-ups cost a lot more than the other sizes. I added up the number of diapers he has gone through since we began our experiment on Thursday, and it was a substantial number. I pulled out a stack of our disposables to show The Husband and showed him how many disposables we have saved from the dumpster just in the last four days. It is a tall stack.

Cloth Diapering

2011-08-13T19:59:00.000-07:00

Pursuant to my last two posts, I should probably mention that I preface the majority of my conversations with, "I read this interesting article in the BBC/ New York Times/ Deseret News/ Other about x."

But that's not what I'm going to blog about today.

I am giving cloth diapering another go. I gave it a half-hearted attempt a few months ago, but I was experiencing morning sickness and coming in close contact with diarrhea by choice when you are already nauseated is plain masochistic.

I have two fuzzibunz brand diapers and six bum genius ones. They all have strange cutsie names. Kissaluvs is another one. Eight diapers is more than enough for my toddler at this point. I will probably need a whole bunch more diapers once the New Kid arrives, but I am going to wait until I know which kind I like the best before purchasing more. At $18-$20 a pop, the initial expense does have a tendency to turn one's hair white. The math doesn't lie, though - cloth diapering pays for itself pretty quickly.

So we've done cloth diapering for three days in a row now. So far it's going ok. I'll keep you posted.

Why is it important to read the news?

2011-08-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

I was ever so slightly shocked to hear that a few of my friends hadn't heard about the riots in London or about poor little Lieby Kletzky. I engaged in a (heated) discussion last week about the Israel/ Palestine question, and I discovered that my friend did not realize that Palestine does not have a state that is recognized by the UN. (It's considered The Occupied Territories) I asked her what she thought of the reports of Israel violating the terms of the Geneva Convention during their 2008 conflict with Gaza. "I don't follow politics," she said.

"That's not politics," I replied, completely scandalized. "That's news." And the common man (or woman) needs to know what it is, especially on controversial issues like Israel/ Palestine or the debt ceiling. If you don't know what the deal is with the national budget, how can you have an informed opinion?

Our political system doesn't work unless we have an educated public. Our political leaders shape their policies to reflect the preferences of their constituents (at least, ideally they do). If more people understood, say, Islam and the true (nonexistent) role of Shariah in American politics, I highly doubt we'd be seeing these kinds of emotional protests over building a mosque in New York City. Of course, when I say "news" in this context, I mean real news and not Glen Beck.

Finding a News Source

2011-08-09T15:31:00.000-07:00

A few months ago, I mentioned to a member of my family that I liked to read the New York Times.

"Ah," he said. "All the news that's not fit to print."
"Actually, it's pretty good," I said.
"Well, I like Fox News."

If I had had my "politeness filter" on, I would not have made the noise that I did, which sounded a little bit too much like a derisive chortle. Oops.

I am not overly selective of the news I read, just because I tend to read an awful lot of it. Each news source has its own biases and strengths and weaknesses, and if you read just say, BBC, or only The Deseret News you will have an incomplete picture of what is going on in the world. I have a list of things I read every morning when my kid wakes me up around 6:30 or 7.

Sadly, I have found that a lot of the popular news sources in America are lacking in actual news. I don't want to read about celebrity breakups. A turkey who has turned to ride on a tractor does not count as news. And of the stuff that is news, a lot of it tends to be alarmist, reactionary stuff that has no purpose other than to convince people that the Libyan rebels are in league with Al-Qaeda or that the President was actually born in a spaceship in orbit around one of Jupiter's moons. CNN is a major offender in this regard. ABC news is about the same. As for Fox News? *derisive chortle.*

Here is what I like to read and why:

New York Times
Strengths: Decent international news coverage, excellent recipes (I LOVE Mark Bittman), the op-ed writers are pretty intelligent and with a few exceptions seem pretty moderate.
Weaknesses: Still an Establishment news agency; while they don't hesitate to criticize congress and the President, there are some issues (like the Patriot Act) they refuse to touch. Wimps.

BBC
Strengths: Excellent international news coverage, objective perspective on American politics, better coverage of science/ technology news than most, if a former Doctor Who actor dies you can bet the obit will make the front page.
Weaknesses: BBC has a penchant for running stories about dogs adopting baby tigers and seagulls who steal packages of potato chips. Objectivity does not extend to the politics of the UK or Europe.

Wall Street Journal
Strengths: They don't just cover business news.
Weaknesses: You have to shell out money to read the majority of their articles

Deseret News
Strengths: Local news; they run a lot of articles on Mormon issues that concern me; Daniel Petersen, one of my personal heroes, as a regular column; a woman in my ward writes for them
Weaknesses: the regular Middle East correspondent doesn't even pretend to have an objective opinion on the Israel/ Palestine question (he is rabidly pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian), and therefore has no business writing about Muslim issues. Every time I read anything he has written I start shooting lasers out of my eyes in rage. Also Deseret News is a little heavy on BYU sports. Snore.

The Daily Herald
Strengths: Ultra Local news. This news source tells me what time parades are, and about city government.
Weaknesses: The writers tend to be overly colloquial in their style. It's definitely not the most professional writing you'll ever read. They run a lot of weird "special interest" stories, usually about the winners of a cherry pit spitting contest (this made the top five headlines yesterday).

Slashdot.org
Strengths: I live with a nerd, so I have to keep up with the nerd news. A lot of important social issues come up on slashdot that would never make it to more traditional news sources. The comment moderation system makes reader comments at times just as insightful and interesting as the articles, although they do tend to be, shall we say, "salty" in character. The articles I think are interesting are not necessarily the ones my Nerd Husband thinks are interesting.
Weaknesses: Slashdot focuses almost entirely on science and technology news.

Every so often I'll branch out and visit Al-Jazeera or the Atlantic or the Houston Chronicle. I'm not super hooked on the latter - too much "pop news" for my taste. Al-Jazeera is exceedingly unobjective when it comes to Middle East issues (no surprise there), and it has a tendency to suck me in and make me lose all objectivity. As for the Atlantic, it is more of a magazine than a news source, but I still like it.

I'm sure some of you will have noticed that I purposely left the Salt Lake Tribune off my list. With objectivity as my watchword, why would I do that? I will tell you. In the Tribune's desperation to distance themselves from Greater Mormon Utah, they make a point to run a lot of anti-Mormon material. That's not being objective. That's just being mean.

What news sources do you guys read?

TV Review: The New Thundercats

2011-08-06T22:02:00.000-07:00

I never watched the original show from the 80s, but when I was growing up I always wished that I could. During the years it was popular, we lived in Saudi Arabia and the only way to get your daily dose of cheesy cartoons was to tape them when you went back to the States and then import them in your carry on luggage. We had Rainbow Brite and Sesame Street, but no Thundercats.

I heard that they were doing a "reboot," so The Husband and I checked it out. We saw the two-parter pilot episode as well as a second episode whose storyline reminded me of Moby Dick.

We have passed judgment on this cartoon. Our verdict: "Meh." It's not horrible, but it's not super great, either. And I have serious issues with the fact that the female characters are hyper-sexualized. Wiley Kat is like, nine, right? So why the heck does she need to wear an off-the-shoulder number? She wears less fabric on her whole body than Tygra has on one of his shirt sleeves. What possible reason could she have for that? I don't even want to talk about Cheetara.

I'm sure a lot of people will call me a prude or something, but you have to admit there is something inherently Ferengi (link is to Memory Alpha. Scroll down to "Role of Women") about the fact that the male characters look very comfortably dressed for the weather (no skimpy underpants made of leather this time!) while the female characters do not have that privilege. Unless their body temperatures run a few degrees warmer than the guys, I'm sure they're probably a little bit cold.

This is an issue I've been noticing a lot recently on TV and in the movies. I think it reinforces a negative idea that women have to be super attractive and wear a size four in order to be worthwhile human beings. It makes me very sad.

A note on 12-year-old Girls

2011-08-06T08:35:00.000-07:00

When I was growing up I felt a great deal of jealousy for the boys my own age because they got to go camping and white water rafting and play with fire as part of their church activities. The girls in Young Women mostly did volleyball (have I ever mentioned how much I loathe and despise volleyball?) and needlepoint. And while I am a fan of needlepoint, I would have much preferred to play with fire. My brother would come home from scout camp with tales of all the fun things the guys got to do (along with tales of contests to see who could pee the farthest).

I have yet to hear an explanation as to why, exactly, it is that the boys get to have, in my estimation, way more fun. I think it's probably because as a culture we have this idea in our heads that girls aren't as silly or gross as boys. And indeed, we did have a sizeable population of girls who brought their blowdryers and curling irons to girl's camp (It's camp. Who does that?) and freaked out over the spiders (wimps).

But in seriousness, I think there could be some real benefit to getting girls involved in the rough-and-tumble physical stuff the Boy Scouts get to do, just as there is equal benefit in teaching teenage males how to sew on a button or change a diaper or knit or make a casserole.

I bring it up because I was reminded this morning of a certain song I used to sing as a 12-year-old. I don't think it says anything about broader ideas of gender politics, except to prove that I was plenty gross and silly when I was younger.

We have all heard "I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee," yes? For those unfamiliar with the song, it's usually sung in preschools and the lyrics go:

I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee

Won't my mommy be so proud of me?

I'm bringing home a baby bumblebee

Ouch! It stung me!

Well, I made up a bunch of extra verses with a good friend of mine, with hand motions to go along with it.

Some variations also include the first few made up verses - Squishing up my baby bumblebee, but then the goop is "all over me!" and then you have to lick it off your hands. But the following are purely of our own invention:

I'm throwing up my baby bumblebee (because ingesting it caused stomach upset)
I'm vacuuming up my baby bumblebee (in order to clean up the vomit)
I'm throwing out my baby bumblebee (emptying the vacuum cleaner bag)
And then a dog comes along and eats the garbage with I'm scarfing up my baby bumble bee
And then the dog excretes the biomass with I'm excreting my baby bumblebee
And, finally, a fly comes along, lands on the excrement and sings merrily, I'm sitting on my baby bumblebee.

By this time, of course, the bumblebee would be completely unrecognizable, so the fly wouldn't be sitting on the bumblebee, per se, just some of the molecules that at one point belonged to it. We found the concept fascinating.

My friend and I used to sing this all the time when we got together. Our little brothers thought it was awesome. I distinctly remember our mothers rolling their eyes, however.

On Parenting: It's pretty great

2011-07-31T13:03:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, a friend of mine from high school told me that she and her husband were going to wait to have kids until they could afford a live-in nanny. When I asked her why, she gave me a response that was more or less, "We know ourselves pretty well - we like kids when they are cute and happy but we don't want to have to deal with them when they cry." I didn't respond, but there seems to be something intrinsically wrong with having children on purpose when you have no intention of actually nurturing them.

I remembered this conversation because we had a crazy morning on Saturday. The Squeaker woke up around 3:45 asking for a drink of water, but then couldn't go back to sleep. I'd give him a hug and a kiss and go back to bed, but he'd start crying again ten minutes later. By 5 am, he was inconsoleable and he told me that his ear hurt. He was laying in his bed as I stroked his damp forehead, and he held his arms out to me and said, "Loves. Cuddles." So I picked him up and rocked him.

Before we had kids, we knew some parents who tended to emphasize a lot of the negative aspects of child-rearing. "You will get no sleep! Pregnancy destroys your body! Be happy that you two have time to yourself! Kids just make messes and have tantrums!" And while all of that is true to a certain extent, none of those things really capture what it is really like to be a parent. The whole truth is that yeah, having little ones in your house is quite a job (on Thursday, the Squeaker made not one, but THREE big messes!), and it requires a lot from you, but it's also completely wonderful.

But when he was feeling really horrible and just wanted his mommy, all I could think about was how grateful I am that he is part of our family.

On Naming One's Kid

2011-07-27T08:57:00.000-07:00

I have about two months until I have my next kid, so we are thinking about names.

When we were getting ready to have The Squeaker, I had two male names picked out, complete with middle names and everything, but when we actually saw The Squeaker's face for the first time, we knew we had to look at other options. The names we chose just didn't fit. So we spent my entire recovery time frantically looking through lists of names from the Bible and from our family history.

We don't want to be quite so frantic this time, so we are compiling a longer list of names from which to draw.

It's a good thing I am having my kids when I am in my 20s, because when I was 18 and 19 I had daydreams of naming my children names from The Lord of the Rings, like Eowyn, Theoden, Olorin, etc. They are nice names and everything, but if you name your kid Eowyn, you might as well hang a neon around her neck that says, "My mother is an incurable nerd."

We will probably end up using something very traditional that everyone knows how to spell, but I find that there is still a part of me that longs to defy convention once again and go with some names that are so ancient that you would never know how to pronounce them unless you had a degree in Medieval literature:

Eagdyth (Edith)
Aisling (Ashley)
Mechthilde (Matilda)
Ruaidhri (Rory)

And as a Middle Eastern Studies major, there are quite a few Arabic names I am quite in love with. However, unless you are Muslim or have some other legitimate tie to Middle Eastern culture, it just doesn't work to name a blond-haired blue-eyed white kid Abd Ar-Rahman. Other Arabic names I like are:

Salah Ad-Din (Saladin)
Ibrahim (Abraham)
Yussef (Joseph) - Tangent on this one: Joseph was a name I had originally picked out for the Squeaker, but then I realized that I kind of hated the name Joseph, and really I just wanted to have a kid named Yussef.

Nesma (A gentle breeze)
Besma (Smile)
Maryam (Miriam/ Mary)

Yeah, we'll probably end up going with something like Peter or Susan. Ok, maybe not Susan. (Did I mention we don't know if we're having a male or a female child? We will find out in a couple months.)

That's not trash, that's dinner

2011-07-26T20:16:00.000-07:00

From my keyboard to the NY Times's ears: just as I wonder about weird CSA offerings, the New York Times just happens to offer an article about this very subject.

The Reign of Kale is at an end

2011-07-26T18:20:00.000-07:00

Holy cow, have we had a lot of kale go through this house in the last two months! No, I'm not growing it. It's from a local CSA (which shall remain nameless) based in the next town over from us. We have gotten so much kale, it's unbelievable how much kale we've gotten. Every week for seven weeks, we got about three times as much kale as in the picture. I'm not exaggerating. This week concluded our subscription and I think we will probably keep it that way.

Thing is, I don't really like kale that much. I tried a couple things, putting it in stir-fry, making kale chips out of it (lots of people I know really love them, but I think they are weird.), and I even put it in a smoothie. After a couple weeks of so much kale, I stopped even trying to do stuff with it, and I just gave it away to my friends. I'm glad I have so many friends who like kale!

My brother-in-law bought us a 13-week subscription to this CSA last fall as a gift. I found the CSA's website and showed it to him because I thought it was so neat. I was originally going to see if I could persuade The Husband to let me buy a share so we'd have tasty veggies all through the winter, so I was really excited when they told us about the gift.

At first it was really fun, but then the farm suffered some setbacks. That's a natural part of running a farm, but I got really frustrated because the farm neglected to actually tell anyone anything. I was told in November that due to one thing and another that they were taking a haitus for three weeks. Three weeks turned into about to six months. Arg. I kind of felt as though I had wasted my in-law's money by even pointing the CSA out to them in the first place.

When deliveries finally started back up again in the middle of May, kale was the primary staple. A LOT of kale. I have no idea what I would have done with all that kale, had I not given it all away. I got into the habit of showing up at my friend Analei's house on Monday afternoons with cries of "It's KALE day!!"

So no, I don't think I will renew the subscription to the CSA. Some of the stuff was really tasty (I loved the salad greens and the green beans, and last fall they had some nice canteloupe), but the same cannot be said of everything (they gave us broccoli leaves and just the tops of carrots. That's just weird). They gave us way more of several items than two adults and a toddler can reasonably be expected to eat in one week (like kale). In the end, I gave away about 75% of the food each week. I like zucchini, but I don't like it enough to eat it for every meal for seven days, and that is the only way I would have been able to chow through it all.

In the end, I feel a sense of conflict within myself over the whole experience. Am I being ungrateful for expressing disappointment over a gift that I was hoping to get for myself anyway? Am I being picky and unreasonable for not even trying to find a way to cook broccoli leaves and carrot tops? Am I, fundamentally, a pessimist? I think I have to accept that the answer to all these questions is, at least a little bit, "yes." Sigh.

I think from now on, I'll do my produce shopping at the farmer's market or through Bountiful Baskets. (Have you heard of Bountiful Baskets?! They are so great. I love that The Squeaker begs and pleads and cries for oranges and plums and strawberries instead of candy.)

Why I Am Still Mormon

2011-07-11T08:14:00.000-07:00

I know a few people who used to be members of the Mormon church but are no longer active. Some are people from my high school seminary class, some are members of my family. They are all delightful, intelligent people, and a couple have advanced degrees. I really like them, especially the ones I am related to. I don't know why they decided to discontinue their membership.

I got much the same upbringing as they did. And I can't say there is nothing about church doctrine and theology that has given me pause. So why haven't I fallen away, too? I was pondering on this subject the other day and I came up with a pretty good answer:

I am still Mormon because I believe the Church is true. I believe in the whole bit - the standards, temples, modern prophets, everything. When I read the scriptures or listen to General Authorities speak, it feels real, far more real than anything any news pundits or anti-Mormon apologists have to say.

I may have been a little upset with my parents when they insisted that I had to be sixteen to go on any dates, but other than that I have never found the standards restricting. Avoiding alcohol, tobacco, taking good care of your body, and the whole chastity thing is just a long list of really good ideas. I have never heard anyone tell me, "I put my high quality of life down to my smoking habit," or "my interpersonal relationships have become so much more meaningful since I started sleeping around."

Mind you, there are some aspects of Mormon culture that I disagree with, but big hooplas for baby blessings, a love for Jack Weyland novels, and testimonies of Glen Beck are not requirements for a temple recommend. Jack Weyland novels make me want to throw up. So does everything ever written by Chris Heimerdinger.

Doulas!

2011-07-11T07:22:00.000-07:00

I am thinking very seriously about hiring a doula for my upcoming birth in September. I was doing a little reading up on what a doula does during labor, and I found this short 14-minute documentary from Dona International:

I was most intrigued at the assertion that 100 years ago, the average woman would have witnessed many other people's births before going through her own. How great would it be if childbirth became demystified, no longer solely the realm of doctors, but a regular part of life? In fact, knowing that made me feel a little cheated. It would have been so helpful for me. I can only imagine how enlightening it would have been to have that corpus of experience before going into labor myself, and how comforting it would have been to have not just the hospital nurses, but a whole team of women supporting me during the contractions. I am grateful for many of the advances in modern medical care (blood transfusions, antibiotics, and so on) but I am sad that we got all that at the expense of turning birth into an ordeal.

The last three generations of women in my family all had very hard, difficult births (when they were conscious for them), so naturally I was raised to think that childbirth was something painful and horrible to be feared, not to mention supremely dangerous. In my experience, I discovered that childbirth has the potential to be none of those things. It's not my family's fault that it was like that - the nature of the obstetric care to which they had access to made it inevitable. But I would like to break the cycle, all the same.

My feelings echo the parting remarks of the documentary. If everyone could have a positive birth experience, imagine how that could change society as a whole for the better. Having children would be seen as more positive, women would feel more confident and empowered, and it could even strengthen families. Cool, huh?

Hobbies and Projects July 2011

2011-07-10T14:38:00.000-07:00

The Husband told me that one of his co-workers was asking about me the other day. She asked what kind of hobbies I had been up to. He had to answer that he wasn't actually sure, since it has been a while since he came home from work to see me hold up some kind of tapestry woven from the hair of Tibetan lemurs with the catch phrase, "Look what I made!"

When The Husband told me about the conversation, I kind of thought, "Oh, yeah...I haven't really done a lot of knitting or spinning or sewing or that other stuff lately." But I still find myself quite busy, and even though most of my time is spent doing things that fall under the twin umbrellas of "Parenting Stuff" and "Pregnancy Stuff," I am not bored.

For example, I discovered that if The Squeaker doesn't get a decent amount of outside play time every day, he becomes quite impossible. He got a cute little toddler bike for this birthday and loves to walk it everywhere, and he likes me to follow him around. "That way, that way!" he says. So we are outside quite a lot. I have tried reading books or writing in a journal during this time, but invariably I never get more than three pages of reading or half a sentence in a journal.

In the Friend, the Mormon Church's magazine for children, they had a "recipe" for popsicles that involved ice cube trays, toothpicks, strawberries, and orange juice. We (and by "we" I mean "I") made these last week and shared them with friends - a hit! Later all the other moms I'm friends with brainstormed for other popsicle ideas. On Friday, I made a couple of fruit smoothies and used that. I like using the ice cube trays, because the resulting popsicles are the perfect size for a little kid. The small size lets me have zero guilt for letting him have as many as his little heart desires. I know fruit has its fair share of sugar, but a fruit smoothie popsicle is still way better for you than an otter pop.

Also we've been doing potty training. Balloons are a great motivator for this kid.

The Squeaker keeps me busy, but he is also in a heartbreakingly cute phase right now. Sometimes I just like to watch him be a little kid. He figured out how to turn on the box fan, and he likes to yell into it because it makes his voice sound funny.

And then there's the pregnancy stuff: doctor's appointments, blood tests, etc etc etc. And then there's the part of actually being pregnant. While many aspects of pregnancy are quite nice, sometimes it's not particularly comfortable. I'm getting more and more excited to have an additional Squeaky Thing in the family, discomfort notwithstanding.

A Quick Yogurt Update and some other stuff.

2011-06-26T22:27:00.000-07:00

The Yogurt Update:
The yogurt I made earlier in the week was grainy and kind of runny. I drained an appropriate amount of the whey using cheesecloth and that made it a lot thicker, though it didn't help the graininess. Neither The Husband nor I particularly care for it, but the Squeaker does! Yay!

I put some crushed blackberries and sugar in some, and sweetened another portion with some apricot mango jam. He loved it all. In fact, this morning he said, "Yogurt! Yummy!" High praise for a two-year-old.

I will definitely be trying yogurt making a second time. It's fairly easy, and inexpensive, and it's good for you. What's not to like?

We only use whole milk around here for everything. In our book, "low fat" means "yucky-tasting."

Some Other Stuff:
A) I really love General Conference and the Ensign and the Friend (church magazines), but I really cannot stand most of what Deseret Book comes out with. The "spiritually uplifting" novels about young teenage girls who combat their angst with quotations from scriptures. Instead of being actually spiritually uplifting, it just comes across as cheesy. it's kind of embarassing.

Same with those Living Scriptures cartoons of scripture stories. (I think they're called Nest entertainment, now, actually....) I loved them when I was a kid, but I absolutely cannot stand to watch them as an adult. They're a little over-the-top, and slightly ethno-centric, just enough to be a little uncomfortable. Example: In the video talking about the prodigal son, Jesus is the whitest guy in the room, while the conniving lawyer guy has black hair and a swarthy complexion. Maybe I'm reading a bit too much into it. I don't even want to discuss the cheese factor. I applaud my parents for putting up with those videos for so many years. Five minutes of "Ammon: Missionary to the Lamanites" makes me want to throw up, which is a shame because the original source material is completely awesome. I think there is a really good reason why the Church suggests you should use only official Church materials for primary lessons and things - the fringe stuff created for "Mormon Culture" is just not as good.

Which reminds me of another interesting anecdote...I once saw in the library a "historical novel" about a girl who tries to revolutionize obstetrics in Pioneer-era Utah. One of my ancestors (Her name was Sarah Salina Meniza Gay Miller) supported her family as a midwife in the early 1900s after her husband was killed in a coal mining accident, so at first I was intrigued. I picked the book off the shelf and read through a couple of pages. The very first passage I read described a horrified protagonist chiding a dirty midwife for her unhygenic practices. LIES! SLANDER! Truthfully, midwives had much better outcomes than medical doctors during that time period specifically because midwives did things like (gasp) washing their hands. Great-Great Grandma Miller never lost a mother in childbirth, whereas death by puerpural fever was fairly common in hospitals at the time. I am so offended by the fact such a historically inaccurate novel ever got published.

B) I gave my presentation on Islam last tuesday. I'd say it was pretty well received. Mormon/ Muslim relations is kind of one of my pet topics. I only had 20 minutes and I think I went over. I could have covered so much more than I did.

C) The Squeaker turned two this week. And he is really two. He is making terrible two-type messes around the house and everything. I think we're starting potty training in earnest, now, but I always vowed I wouldn't discuss the intimate details of my children's micturations in public so I will leave it at that.

Projects June 2011

2011-06-25T06:08:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged about a lot of my projects lately. This is because I don't want to bother with the effort of taking pictures and posting them, yet any mention of certain of these projects would really benefit from pictures.

But oh, well.

1) My swimsuit. I made one. Yes, I did. Do you have any idea how much a maternity swimsuit costs? It's a lot. Being a practicing Mormon, it was important to me to find one that was reasonably modest, as well. Most maternity swimsuits are low cut, and I couldn't even find one in a color I really liked. The one swimsuit I found that I thought I could stand to wear would have set me back about $75, and even then I wasn't in love with it. So what's a girl to do? I made one myself. I picked out a pattern, read a bunch of online tutorials, and took a trip to JoAnn's in search of material. I am very pleased with the result. I wore it on a recent trip to St. George and I am pleased to report that it is comfortable, way more modest than anything I found in any store, and it's an attractive shade of purple. I love purple. The total cost? Including the pattern, thread, the special sewing machine needles for stretchy fabric, and the fabric, I spent $42. Still not exactly cheap, but that is a lot less than $75. Plus, the fabric I chose is a lot higher quality than the average, so it should last through more than one pregnancy. I am extremely satisfied. I think I will make all my swimsuits for the rest of my life.

2) Yogurt. I made yogurt in my crockpot this week. It was both a success and a failure. A success because the milk did indeed turn into real-for-real yogurt, and a failure because it came out kind of grainy, and the texture is icky enough that I can't really stand to eat it. The Squeaker thought it was ok, but the Husband hasn't tried any yet. I want to try again sometime soon. If I can get it to work, it is a much cheaper way to get your yogurt fix. I gave some to the Squeaker yesterday that was sweetened with honey. I tasted it and thought it was weird, and so did he. This morning, I mixed in some blackberries and regular sugar and he thought it tasted much better.

3) My Garden. It's not doing quite so well this year as it did last year, and this I attribute to several factors: 1) the rotten cold and wet spring we had, 2) slugs, 3) ants, 4) The Squeaker. In addition to the onion debacle, he has also squished a few spinach plants and some broccoli. In his zeal, he has picked a couple of green strawberries.

All this stuff makes me get all philosophical about how our society is so consumer-based. The people of my generation have been socialized not to do anything for ourselves; we pay other people to do it for us. Making your own food and clothing? Fixing your light switch? Educating your children? These are things best left to professionals, because the Everyman is certainly not qualified. Sure, it's cool and hip these days to make your own clothes and grow your own garlic, but maybe the fact that it's cool and hip is a good indicator that not enough people are doing that sort of thing.

Garden Rage

2011-06-21T06:50:00.000-07:00

-or-
Stuff my Kid Ruined

Remember those Wethersfield Red Onions that I planted from seed eleven months ago? They are doing well. Three of the plants were going to seed, which pleased me greatly, seeing as it was a rare variety and part of our family's heritage and everything. I really really wanted to save seed from those onions. it was very important to me.

Notice the past tense? Oh, yeah. I bet you can already see where this was going.

Yesterday morning, as I went out with the Squeaker to collect the day's strawberries, I turned my back on him for approximately forty-five seconds. This was enough time for him to PICK THE ONION FLOWER and TAKE A BITE OUT OF IT. I was horrified. He got a time out.

"Don't want it!" he cried, in reference to being put in his room.
"Whatever kid," I replied. "I can't look at you right now."

What was even worse, this was the second of the three flowers he picked! The first time was just maddening, but the second time was completely horrible.

"At least there is one more left," I thought to myself. Yesterday evening Sam was out there by himself (bad, bad, bad idea) and he picked the third one. ARGH!

In the grand scheme of things it's not a huge tragedy; I still have some seeds from Seed Savers Exchange that I purchased earlier this year. I can always purchase more from them, if necessary. And at least the Squeaker isn't lighting things on fire, or playing with electricity, or jumping off of tall buildings. Although, I have this sinking feeling that it's only a matter of time.

A Short Note About Twilight Syndrome

2011-06-01T13:05:00.000-07:00

I tend to use the term "Twilight Syndrome" to mean unrealistic and silly ideas of what teenagers (and, sadly, older people, too) think healthy relationships are supposed to be like. (Hint: Edward and Bella are doing it wrong. Disagreeing with me doesn't make you correct.)

True love has nothing to do with being swept off your feet or being taken out to expensive restaurants or fancy, over-the-top weddings.

True love is when you wake up in the middle of the night to throw up, and then your spouse rubs your back and puts extra blankets over you after fetching you an extra pillow.

Am I (gasp) Stereotypical?

2011-05-26T14:14:00.000-07:00

I'm sure everyone I know read that thing from Salon.com about being addictedprinting to reading Mormon housewife blogs. I think it was originally published in January, and then a friend of mine, Carl, did a little blurb about it in April so I re-read it.

The first time I read it, I thought, "Oh, one of those blogs." The kind that does not include me. The blogs the original author is talking about are written by women with immaculate houses, who take pictures of their children frolicking in fall leaves, and spend their time creating cutsie cupcakes. I don't do any of those things. Especially the part about having an immaculate house. I believe I once owned a cross stitch sampler that read, "Only boring women have immaculate houses."

For a while I was meaning to post a response to the Salon Article that was going to be something like, "I'm Mormon, a housewife, and I am not like that at all." But the same weekend I was planning on doing that, I sewed two blouses for myself and made marshmallows from scratch (the marshmallows tasted kinda weird, but the squeaker liked them.) Ha. Plus, I have spent an inordinate amount of time this pregnancy being barefoot in the kitchen. It doesn't get a whole lot more "Mormon housewifey" than that.

It made me wonder - do I fit in with the stereotypes? If I do, then you can rest assured I am extremely shocked. I never ever in my whole life fit in with any stereotype until maybe now. All the other girls my age in my ward fussed over their hair and makeup and squealed over the same three or four boys and played volleyball. I didn't ever care what I wore, as long as it was clothing, and I took Tae Kwon Do and Latin. And I also made lace, and had more Star Wars trivia in my head than most people knew about the Revolutionary War.

These days, though? Well...I don't know. Most of my friends do a lot of the stuff I do. I mean, sure, I am told at least once a week that I am odd. And at the Releif Society talent expo, I stayed away from the cupcake decorating table, just because I'd rather eat a cupcake than decorate one. I am so used to not being very much like everyone else...how do I cope with the realization that I am just like everybody else? At least I still do Karate. That isn't usual for a pregnant lady.

On Being Grateful For What You Have

2011-05-26T13:33:00.000-07:00

Remember back at the end of March, when I was getting so excited about my garden? I had planted carrots and lettuce and radishes and I put a tomato plant under a wall of water. Well, guess what? Two days later, everything got buried under six inches of snow. And then after that we had some more snow, then a few days of sun and a few days of snow.

And last week it rained solidly for about six days.

The end results have not been so good for my garden. Last year around this time, I was enjoying my first salads. Nothing from my first TWO rounds of carrots and lettuce ever came up, and the first tomato plant died, even with the extra insulation. It's a little depressing.

But I have to remind myself that even though I may not get many carrots or much lettuce this year, my strawberries are having a field day. Take a look:

Yes, that whole thing is my strawberry patch. The Husband said at one point, "Do you think we might be devoting too much space to strawberries?" To which I replied. "HA! You can never have too many strawberries." To the left we have my little potato patch (which, I might add, is also doing quite well this year) and to the right is a patch of Red Wethersfield onions, also doing well.

These strawberries have been blossoming and setting fruit like it's going out of style. I haven't exactly counted how my strawberries I'm going to get this year, but it is going to be a lot. The Squeaker will be very pleased. He calls them "tah-bayees." I have a mixture of junebearing and everbearing varieties in my little patch, but they all sent out so many runners last year, they are all jumbled up and there is no realistic way to tell which is which.

None of the berries are exactly huge, but I have a few already turning pink. This one should be all the way ripe tomorrow or the next day:

I planted some popcorn two and a half weeks ago in a plot of gardening space close by my house. Nothing has come up. I am worried that maybe the seeds all rotted during the week of rain. That makes me sad, because I have always wanted to grow that very specific variety of popcorn.

I am trying to stay positive, though. Last year, I got maybe five or six strawberries from my little patch. This year, way more than that. Last year only one potato plant survived. This year, I have six plants and they are all strong and healthy. I will still have tomatoes, though since I'm growing a determinate variety they won't take over my garden quite so aggressively has the cherry tomatoes did last year. My third round of carrots is coming up. I have a lot to be happy about, so maybe I won't fret so much over the failed popcorn.

Middle Eastern Studies in the News

2011-05-13T14:40:00.000-07:00

Someone asked me recently why I haven't blogged about all the incredible things that are going on in the Middle East right now. I have a reason, and it's kind of a complicated one. Simply put, I resent how every time anything happens in the Middle East, the news media (both liberal and conservative) choose a way to spin it so it. It can't just be "news," it has to mean something.

But since I do have a degree in Middle Eastern Studies, I can't stay silent forever. Briefly, here is what I think:

On Libya: I'm not too excited that we are expending our resources on another military conflict in the Middle East. However, philosophically speaking you can't get too upset over it unless you are also indignant about ALL the United States' involvement in the Middle East, including (but not limited to): Iraq, Afghanistan, Desert Storm, the $3bn we pump into Israel annually. (While Desert Storm was probably a good thing, I still don't know why we're in Iraq, especially since the Iraqi citizens have been asking us to leave since we got there. )

On the other political upheavals in Egypt, Yemen, Tunisia, etc etc: I knew it would happen sooner or later. I think it's a portent of great positive changes to come. Some people are worried about a radical Islamicist government taking hold; these people condemn the revolutions as a very bad thing, as if the American Revolution was the only one to ever be allowed. It's not like America never had growing pains. I think Egypt is allowed to have some, too.

On Osama Bin Laden's Death: Celebrating his demise is like celebrating your high school graduation when you intend to go to a four-year college, then medical school, then a specialty school, then a medical internship, and a residency only to have massive student loans to pay off over the course of the next ten to twenty years.

I think that's as much as I want to say for now.

How to Be a Stay At Home Mom and Not Go Insane

2011-05-07T16:25:00.000-07:00

My chosen profession (Stay-at-home Mothering) sometimes gets a bad rap. Or, if not a "bad" rap, a woefully inaccurate one. It's mostly portrayed as a demeaning, never-ending death sentence of relentless soul-sucking servitude. Either that, or a parade of picturesque walks in the fall leaves and homemade cookies. The truth is somewhere in the middle, but perhaps leaning to one side in the direction of sunshine lollipops and rainbows. Motherhood won't suck your soul and cause you to lose your sense of self (at least, not if you do it right) but it is important to understand that it will not always be rainbows and butterflies; it is real work, and there are good days and bad days just like any job.

I've been at this close to two years now, which makes me still kind of new, I suppose. My soul and my sanity are still quite intact, so I suppose that qualifies me to share what I have learned about staying that way. Unless you "do it right," it's really easy to go insane and spiral downward into self-desctructive behaviors (including but not limited to infanticide).

There are a few things you need:

1) A friend or friends. Other stay-at-home moms are good, but any friend will do. It's good to get out of the house, have things to do and discuss with other adult human beings. I do not believe it is realistic to expect the kids' father to fulfill your every need for adult conversation, especially if he is at work all day. You need someone to go on a walk with you to the library, or to call when you're having a bad day (see item #3).

2) Goals and hobbies not directly related to motherhood. This is important for preserving your sense of self. It's important to feel as though you are not "just" a mom. College education is also very helpful in this arena. You need to wake up in the morning and look at yourself in the mirror and say, "Yeah, I'm a mom and I have poopy diapers in my future, but look at this awesome quilt/ knitted sweater/ novel/ garden space/ jet pack I made!" When the kids are taking their naps, you need to have something creative or constructive to do that will give you a sense of real accomplishment. Staying current on popular TV shows does not count.

3) Know when to ask for help. This relates back to item #1, and is probably the most important. You will have bad days. This needs to be understood from the very beginning. Everyone has bad days. Everyone. You will know when you're having one because you'll read stories in the news about moms who drive minivans into the Hudson River and know that it could be you. When that happens, you need to ask for help. Everyone arrives at that dark, uncomfortable place at some point or another. This, in and of itself, is nothing to be ashamed of, but how you deal with the situation can mean the difference between being a happy family and a statistic.

Here are some examples of "a bad day":

Once, when the Squeaker was about two months old, he refused to take a nap or even nurse. He just wailed and cried and wailed some more. A couple of hours of that does tend to wear on your mind. I believe that in my desperation I may have punched a wall...This was before I had made close friends in my neighborhood, so I called my Relief Society president. She in turn called my next door neighbor, who invited me to made apple sauce with her. The Squeaker still wouldn't nurse or take a nap, but at least I could get out of the house and have someone to talk to and that made all the difference in the world. I had another bad day last week, also when the Squeaker would not take a nap. He kept crawling out of his bed (we switched him to a big boy bed a few weeks ago). I got so mad, I spanked him. I'm definitely not proud of that, but it shows how mad I was. Ashamed, I called a very good friend of mine who lives across the parking lot and told her that I was in trouble and needed help. She offered to let me go over to her house and get away for a few minutes while she got my kid to sleep. It only took her about 20 minutes or so to get the job done, and I was saved.

This can go both ways, often when you don't realize it. "Thanks for coming over," a friend will tell me. "I was having a really bad day."

So there you have it. Three not-so-secret secrets to getting the most out of the stay-at-home parenting lifestyle.

What does everyone else think? Any other secrets you'd like to share?

Vilifying sugar

2011-04-25T12:17:00.000-07:00

There was a certain nine-page article in the New York Times last week entitled, "Is Sugar Toxic?" I read it and was intrigued. These days, High Fructose Corn Syrup is constantly vilified for its roles in various health problems, obesity and type II diabetes among them. It's not unusual for some products to proclaim on the label, "No High Fructose Corn Syrup!" while on the label "cane sugar" is still listed as one of the first three ingredients. This article makes the case that refined sugar is equally bad for you as High Fructose Corn Syrup. The article says a lot of other things about sugar, as well, and I'm not really sure if I can take everything it says at face value. But.

Reading this did make me slightly more aware of how much sugar I actually eat. I try to stay away from candy and things, and I don't even eat as much ice cream as I used to (Ice Cream: The Mormon Addiction), but after looking at the labels on all my food, I still eat a whole lot of sugar. "It's ok in moderation," is a pretty accepted claim. The problem is, sugar (both High Fructose Corn Syrup and the regular granulated kind) is in everything. I bought a thing of pickles at the store not too long ago, and wouldn't you know it, they put corn syrup in the pickles. It's in spaghetti sauce, and salsa, and ketchup, and mustard, and mayonaise.

And the way we celebrate major holidays in this country, there is absolutely no such thing as moderation. When I was growing up, the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus always brought refined sugar and chocolate to our house in droves. Don't even get me started on Halloween. It tasted SO GOOD, but I also remember feeling kind of "blah" for about a week afterwards.

Over the last two years or so I've gradually been morphing into something of a health nut. I've come to beleive in a stricter and stricter version of the Word of Wisdom, for example. I talked a little bit about a year ago concerning the eating of meat, and came to the conclusion that gorging yourself on red meat is probably really bad for you. I am afraid I must also come to the conclusion that sugar is probably really bad for you, too. I'm sure everyone will come to their own "happy place" concerning what is and is not good for their own body, but the other week I ordered a strawberry lemonade at a restaurant, knowing full well that it was highly concentrated sugar water. I don't think I should have done that, especially after reading about what concentrated sugar water does to your liver.

Before the Squeaker was born, we lived just across the street from a grocery store. It was very convenient because we could just mozy on down to buy a candy bar or a few donuts whenever we felt like it, even at 10 pm. I ate a lot of fried chicken and swiss cake rolls during my pregnancy with the Squeaker. Now that we have to actually drive to the store, we eat a lot fewer snacks and a heck of a lot less junk food. Since we're not eating so much candy any more, we almost didn't know what to do with the basket of candy some beloved members of our family gave to us for Easter. I had some skittles and realized I had forgotten how cloyingly sweet they were. The Husband and I each had a handful of skittles and a few jelly beans, and then admitted to each other that we didn't feel so good. This is in great contrast to my freshman year of college, when I would purchase five king-sized chocolate bars and eat them all in one sitting.

So I'm sure you're all wondering, now, what we did about the Easter Bunny if we think sugar is so evil. The Squeaker did indeed get a lovely Easter basket, with the plastic eggs and the easter grass and everything. We put yogurt-covered raisins in the eggs. His basket also contained his very own carton of strawberries (he calls them tah bayees), a bottle of bubbles, and some balloons. He thought he was in heaven. The best part was that he could scarf all the treats he wanted and we didn't need to worry about him getting sick. I think we will start to celebrate all our holidays like this.

A bowl full of M&Ms makes me sick. A box of cookies makes me sick. A bowl of strawberries makes me happy inside.

Nixtamal!

2011-04-19T12:51:00.000-07:00

I'm kind of on a corn tortilla kick. Specifically, I am on a homemade corn tortilla kick. You see, you can get this stuff called Masa flour, and you just add water and roll it out and cook it. I was raised on icky bland-tasting storebought flour tortillas, the kind that are already borderline stale by the time they get to your kitchen. So you can hardly blame me if I wasted most of my life believing that tortillas were not particularly yummy.

My friend Kristen got me interested in this thing called "homemade corn tortillas." I mean, sure, it's from a mix, but the ingredients read as follows: selected corn treated with lime. And that is it. My husband served a Spanish-speaking mission in California and apparently ate way too many corn tortillas to truly love them, but I can't get enough of them. I find the flavor rich and delicious, better even than homemade flour tortillas (which I also make from a mix - the flour kind has a few more ingredients than the corn kind).

So where does Nixtamal come in? I saw this really neat episode of Good Eats on hulu (see below, total running time about 25 min) where the Alton Brown actually makes corn tortillas completely from scratch. He even soaks the corn in calcium hydroxide and everything:

For those who don't have 25 mintes of spare time at this particular moment, or if you don't feel like clicking on the wikipedia article that I liked to, I will explain nixtamalization in a nutshell: you soak corn in wood ashes (these days folks use calcium hydroxide). This process serves to take the outer hull off of the corn kernels, making it easier to digest.

Intrigued, I set out to find a way to create nixtamal myself. Someday (but perhaps not this year, unfortunately) I wish to grow this very specific variety of corn: Oaxacan Green Dent. As the name suggests, it is green. I have grandiose plans of making green tortillas. (ETA: When I mentioned my green tortilla dreams to a friend of mine, she asked if I was still, in some small way, trying to get the "most unique" award. I told her no, not really. I just like weird things.)

I visited a grocery store that specializes in Mexican imports today. I happen to be friends with the owner. I told him about my dreams of nixtamal and my love of corn tortillas and he said that he keeps the calcium hydroxide in stock. He also sold me a lovely little packet of nixtamalized fresh corn. Yay! I will grind it up in my food processor tonight and see how the resulting tortillas compare to the stuff from the mix.

Movie Review: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2011-04-16T21:38:00.001-07:00

Meh. The book was better.

Sesame Street Purists

2011-04-08T14:49:00.000-07:00

I know doctors say that little kids shouldn't watch any TV until they're two...but...yeah, ok, I'm a horrible parent. We watch a lot of Sesame Street at our house, but we are very very discriminating as to which Sesame Street videos we watch. You could say that we are Sesame Street Purists, or even - dare I say it? - Sesame Street Fundamentalists. Elmo is banned (not because he's "bad," per se, I just can't stand him), and Bert and Ernie are only allowed when performed by Jim Henson and Frank Oz. Basically, we do not watch any Sesame Street unless it was filmed prior to 1990.

How do we adhere to such a strict ideology? YouTube!! YouTube is full of people who post stuff they taped off of TV back in the 70s and 80s. I am so grateful that they did. Classic Sesame Street is so much cleverer than the tripe they foist upon children these days. You can tell that those involved really cared about children, and that everything was done out of only the deepest love. As for the Modern garbage, I don't know what their goals are, but I don't think they have much to do with teaching children their letters and numbers.

Let us compare Classic and Modern Sesame Street clips, shall we?

First, let's look at this one:

You can very clearly see that the purpose of the song is to teach opposites.

Now let's take a look at a Modern clip that I think is supposed to teach opposites, but I am not exactly sure. They don't spend much time on the actual opposites part.

Next, let's examine popular culture in Sesame Street. There's this song about Z that is unmistakably a reference to ZZtop:

and this other one with Lionel Richie:

You "get" that they are meant to showcase letters of the alphabet.

Here is a modern equivalent:

Full marks for featuring the relavant letter, but minus several million for unoriginal lyrics and uninspired melody.

But where Modern Sesame Street really loses me are the "fun" little videos they have that may seem charming for adults, but have limited educational value for children. Why would there be any value in a preschooler knowing that "there's an app for that?"

And I think this one is supposed to teach about the preposition "on," but I don't think a little kid would pick up on it.

Here are some specific pre-1990 Sesame Street videos that the Squeaker has gleaned actual information from:

This one taught him "Circle" and "Square."

After watching this one a couple times, the Squeaker can point out the capital letter "T" on the covers of books.

The Squeaker sings along with this one. "Dee dee dee."

Nursing a Toddler

2011-04-07T13:31:00.000-07:00

One of my cousins encouraged me to write a blog post on this topic. When I asked The Husband's opinion, he said he also thought it would be a good idea.

The Squeaker will turn two in June, and has a great vocabulary. He can say "nurse?" and "other side!" That's probably a good indication that I am still nursing him. I think even my close friends think I'm a bit odd for flying in the face of convention, but I don't mind. Most people know I'm a fairly normal person (even if I do like pickled beets) so they politely let me get on with it.

I knew I wanted to breastfeed The Squeaker when he was born. All the research is very clear that breastfeeding is the way to go, if you can manage it. I didn't originally plan to be nursing him for this long, but as his first birthday loomed closer and closer, I started feeling like I didn't want to wean him just because he was twelve months old. As I did a little digging into what the World Health Organization had to say, as well as the American Academy for Pediatrics, I came to feel that twelve months was an arbitrary number that didn't at all reflect the needs of my child. I found some very good reasons to continue nursing him, and the only reason to stop that I could find was, "It's kind of weird to nurse an older kid." I didn't think "weirdness" was a very good reason (see previous post), so I decided to keep going. "Maybe just three more months," turned into six more months, and now here we are with the Squeaker pushing two.

The AAP says on its website, "There is no upper limit to the duration of breastfeeding and no evidence of psychologic or developmental harm from breastfeeding into the third year of life or longer." The World Health Organization even recommends two to seven years.

There are already volumes of resources on the benefits of breastfeeding, so I won't repeat much of it here. However, there are a lot of good things that we like about The Squeaker. Sure, he may have his moments, but he is also smart, healthy, and generally easy going and emotionally well-adjusted. He is not afraid to try strange foods, and he has never had an ear infection (knock on wood). I am not saying that his continued nursing is directly responsible, but you can't rule it out as a factor. Continued nursing is good for me, too, in the long run. Health benefits for mothers who nurse include decreased of ovarian and breast cancers as well as a decreased risk of osteoporosis. The benefits are cumulative, so the longer you nurse, the more your risk of these illnesses decrease. Sounds really good to me!

For whatever reason, breastfeeding can be a sensitive subject in the US today. I don't mean this blog entry as any kind of commentary on those who chose to wean at twelve months, or those who were unable to breastfeed at all. I only mean to say that extended nursing has worked very well for us, and I'm glad I didn't wean my kid "when I was supposed to."

PS:
For what it's worth, the Squeaker has been slowly weaning himself for the last month or so. He doesn't always ask to nurse at bedtime any more, and he has started to refuse nursing as a means of soothing owies.

"You're So Weird, Beth"

2011-04-06T10:22:00.000-07:00

That's what a friend of mine told me when I confided that I was craving homemade beet pickles.

I don't know if an affection for beet pickles makes me particularly "weird" (especially given the number of people who love raw fish, blood sausage, and sheep eyeballs), but in the past, I did actively cultivate a "weird" persona. When I was a senior in High School, one of my primary goals in life was to gain the yearbook's "Most Unique" award. I wore blue lipstick and funny hats and streams of long ribbons on my wrists. When the time came for my classmates to vote on the issue, I was a shoe-in. I was so proud. Those were some good times.

Am I still "weird?" Well, probably. But I don't mind.

"When China Invades..."

2011-04-05T08:25:00.000-07:00

When I talk to my friends about the end of the world, I usually use the euphamism, "When China invades." This is not because I am particularly anti-China (although their human rights record doesn't lend them to much praise), but rather because of a very interesting observation I remember reading several years ago. Because of China's one-child policy, China has several million surplus males that have or will have no hope of marrying or having a family. This article went on to point out that in the past, nations with a surplus male population solve their "problem" by sending the surplus males off to war, thereby making them Somebody Else's Problem.

I don't think China will really invade Utah county, but the idea does lend itself to the imagination. Sometimes I construct these really involved scenarios in my head wherein I rally the neighborhood and distribute our family's collection of bo staffs and nunchucks to defend our little group of town homes. I usually imagine my friend Analei, who believes very firmly in the second amendment, sniping enemy troops with her rifle from her son's bedroom window.

It would be kind of like Captain Moroni but with the special effects of Battle of Los Angeles. We win because we're the good guys.

Springtime in my Backyard!

2011-04-02T19:57:00.000-07:00

I've already planted some radishes, lettuce, potatoes, carrots, and broccoli. The radishes and some of the lettuce has already sprouted, and that makes me exceedingly happy.

I will have to post pictures another day, because it's dark outside and too late to take pictures of itty bitty radish seedlings.

Last year, I planted a number of strawberry plants. I didn't keep track of what varieties I have; all I know is that I have a few everbearing kinds and a few june bearing kinds. I bought two plants from a local nursery, and then some neighbors gave me a whole bunch of their strawberry runners. I think I got about four strawberries in total. Over the course of the last year, they have multiplied like you wouldn't beleive! I haven't exactly counted, but I have way more strawberry plants this year than I did last year. And they've already started blossoming; yesterday I counted two blossoms, and today I counted five. I am really happy about this, because the Squeaker is in love with strawberries. He calls them "bay-ees" and cries and begs for them when he knows they are in the refridgerator. I grew cherry tomatoes for him last year, but he didn't like them very much. No one in the family likes tomatoes for fresh eating, so I gave away nearly every single yellow pear tomato my giant tomato plant produced.

I have spent the last couple months developing an unhealthy relationship with seed catalogs. I very much love looking at all the different kinds of veggies.

Here is what I am growing, or will attempt to grow, this year:

Cream Sausage tomatoes: A cream-colored paste tomato
Carrots (Nantes and Purple Haze)
Various varieties of lettuce
Potatoes (All Blue, Yukon Gold, and some kind of red-skinned one)
Rat Tail Radishes: Not necessarily something I would have chosen myself, but I am intrigued. Rat Tail radishes are grown for the edible seed pods, not the roots. Some loved ones bought me some seeds as a present.
Romanesco Broccoli: Looks like a fractal
Red bell peppers

I also have plans for some small sugar pumpkins, delicata squash, and sunflowers.

Good Night, Nobody

2011-03-31T20:13:00.000-07:00

When I was a college student, long before I got married, I read this fantasy novel called War of the Flowers by Tad Williams. It was kind of a weird book, about a punk rocker who visits the steam-punkish land of the fairies. There was one part, however, that I think about often.

The main character's girlfriend has a miscarriage, and it is very sad. He has difficulty wrapping his mind around the tragedy and goes into this very deep and beautiful soliloquy about losing someone you don't know yet, how it hurts so much but you don't always know why. He uses Goodnight Moon as a metaphor, how the page, "Goodnight, Nobody," was always a little creepy to him, and now he knew why. Saying goodnight to nobody is expressing familiarity with a stranger, someone who is in a limbo of existence, kind of existing but also kind of not. It's a beautiful piece. It deserves to be studied in college-level literature classes.

The Squeaker loves Goodnight, Moon. He loves to snuggle against me and point to all the familiar objects. "Moon! Balloon! Cat!" And when the book is over, he says, "'Gain?" But that one page, "Goodnight, Nobody," really kind of creeps me out. Sometimes I try to skip it without the Squeaker noticing.

Sewing Maternity Clothes

2011-03-24T22:08:00.000-07:00

Warning: This post discusses pregnancy-related expansion. If you don't feel like reading about my internal monologue on sewing for an expanding figure, may I recommend this humorous YouTube video about Chocolate Ice Cream.

Last week, I snapped up two different remnants at Joann's. The combined cost, including tax, was $4.34. The colors matched exactly, even though the patterns were different, so I decided to make a maternity dress out of it. I'll post pictures tomorrow, because it's almost 11 pm right now and I don't feel like getting out the camera.

I am a little nervous how it will turn out. I decided to cut the fabric one size larger than what I normally wear, to "grow into." This is my first time sewing something with darts. I read on the interwebs that it's a good idea to adjust the fit of one's bodice by making a dummy out of muslin fabric before working on the actual garment. But how could I possibly do that when I don't know how my body is going to change in three months? But then, I grew out of a couple of my cutest maternity tops last time. By the time I was 8 1/2 months pregnant, I had nothing good to wear! It's kind of a gamble. Will I eventually grow into this dress I'm making? Or perhaps not so much? If it turns out to be a disaster, at least I will only be out $4.34.

As a side note, I have discovered that I am much happier when I ignore the comments section on news articles, especially if they happen to be about the Middle East. There will always be some idiot who turns the comments section of every Middle Eastern themed news item (even if it's about raising falcons or King Abdullah's heart surgery) into his personal platform to say how the US military should just spray the entire region with napalm. Similarly, every time anyone in Utah sneezes, these same idiots love to make snide remarks about Mormons. Oy. Since I stopped reading news user comments, I find I enjoy the news quite a lot more. I even read the New York Times now.

Quiz on Islam - Answers

2011-03-22T07:42:00.000-07:00

I'm just sorry it's taken me a week and a half to follow up on this.

Before I go over the answers, I must announce the winner: Thora!!

I did kind of wonder to myself whether Thora was eligible, since she was one of my roommates in Egypt and got her degree in Near Eastern Studies, but then I decided that of course she was. Thora, you have won a tatted bookmark, in the style and color of your choice:

Ok, so the answers:

1) What is the most populous Muslim nation in the world?

c) Indonesia. Everyone got this one.

2) True or False: The Qur'an mentions the second coming of Jesus Christ in great detail.

True. Although Thora did point out that the Hadiith, the teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, delves into much greater detail than the Qur'an. The Second coming of Christ is referred to in the Qur'an as Yom id-Diin, or the Day of Religion or the Day of Judgment. The word used to describe Christ? Al-Messih, the Messiah.

3) Muslims have which tenant of faith in common with Mormonism?
e) all of the above. In my personal experience, I have found that I have more in common, theologically speaking, with my Muslim friends than with my Catholic ones.

4) To Muslims, Muhammad is:
c) The seal of the Prophets. The Qur'an includes a long list of previous prophets. These include, but are not limited to Adam, Abraham, Solomon, and Daniel. The term "seal of the Prophets" means Muhammad's mission was the confirm and ratify the words of his predecessors. This is also taken to mean that he is the last prophet.

5) Which groups of people are considered "People of The Book," ie those who are beloved of God, and had prophets among them at one point, but eventually fell away from the whole truth.
d) Jews and Christians. Thora pointed out that Zoroastrians were traditionally considered People of the Book as well, a little fact I am ashamed to say I had forgotten. Today, the largest concentration of Zoroastrians is found in Chicago, as it happens.

Bonus Point:
I didn't consider that people would see through the fact that I asked the question at all. But yes, the correct answer is that this event occurred in the history of both Mormonism and Islam. Unfortunately, my old textbook that contained the account of his incident was otherwise terribly boring, so I sold it back when that particular class ended. I discovered that google is not a good resource for finding information about religion in general, so I must leave a large (citation needed) clause here.

Should Mormons Support Muslims?

2011-03-13T15:32:00.000-07:00

That is the question Stephen Prothero asks in this article from the Deseret News.

His answer? "Heck yes!" And I agree. My favorite line from this article:

"Perhaps I am wrong for holding Mormons to a higher standard, but I do," Prothero said. "I believe that members of a religious group that has been persecuted almost to extinction should stand up and speak out."

That makes me want to wave my arms and shout, "TESTIFY!" and "AMEN!"

Later this year, the Relief Society in my ward will be doing a "World Religions Night." Since I'm the only one in our ward who has studied Islam in-depth in a university setting, and having lived in the Middle East for an extensive period of time, I have been asked to present a little spiel about what Islam is all about.

That opportunity is still months away, but I've been thinking a lot about what I want to say, and what I'd like people to get from it. As part of my preparation, I've been doing a little reading in the Qur'an, something I haven't done since my college days. There is actually a lot to be gained from it. I don't necessarily believe that the Qur'an is a perfect book, as Muslims do, but it has much to offer. Did you know that the Qur'an includes an account of the Annunciation to Mary and the virgin birth? It's true. (See Al-Imran, starting v 44). I don't think we (and by "we" I mean "other people who are not me") should dismiss it out of hand as a "work of the devil." Rather, we should look at it the same way the Lord instructed us to view the Apocrypha: "Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth; And whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit therefrom." (D&C 91:4-5)

In the years since 9/11, I've been saddened, even disgusted, to hear the things that some Americans say about Muslims. When these things come out of Mormon mouths, it makes my stomach turn. There is no place for that kind of religious bigotry within the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We hold ourselves to a higher standard in nearly everything else - we should do so in this case, as well.

In contrast, I've been very pleased that Church leaders have made favorable statements on Islam in general, and some very favorable articles have been featured in the official Church Magazine, the Ensign. (I listed some in this previous blog entry)

My main goal at World Religions Night will be to convey the good things I know about Muslims and Islam, combined with an overview of the (vast) common ground we share. I want people to go home feeling a newfound sense of respect for our Muslim neighbors. More than anything, though, I want the other members of Relief Society to understand that you can have respect for beliefs that contradict your own without compromising your own faith. Feeling compassion and warmth for Muslims does not weaken my own testimony.

I'm probably preaching to the choir, since most people who read my blog happen to be friends of mine from college. Or my mom.

Quiz on Islam

2011-03-11T11:07:00.000-08:00

Let's see how well you do! Answer questions in comments. Those who win will get a prize. Probably something small, so don't get too excited.

1) What is the most populous Muslim nation in the world?
a) Egypt
b) Saudi Arabia
c) Indonesia
d) France

2) True or False: The Qur'an mentions the second coming of Jesus Christ in great detail.

3) Muslims have which tenant of faith in common with Mormonism?
a) Daily prayer
b) Fasting
c) Alms for the poor/ Tithes
d) Participation in religious rituals
e) all of the above

4) To Muslims, Muhammad is:
a) Their God/ object of worship
b) The only true Prophet
c) The seal of the Prophets

5) Which groups of people are considered "People of The Book," ie those who are beloved of God, and had prophets among them at one point, but eventually fell away from the whole truth.
a) Jews
b) Christians
c) Polytheists/ Pagans
d) a and b
e) b and c
f) a and c

Bonus Point:
In the history of which religion did the following occur:
The Prophet has been sharing his revelations with his followers, and insists that they are of divine origin and that he did not just make them up. One of his followers smiles and says, "Aw, come on, I can write a revelation that's at least as good." He tries, but is unsuccessful. He concedes that the revelations must indeed be divine.

Spring Projects

2011-03-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

I'm going to have a busy spring and summer. The only problem is that I've been absolutely tired out of my mind for the last month or so. You see, my little one's wake-up time is six thirty in the freaking morning. It doesn't matter how early I get to sleep, I'm not going to feel awake unless I get to sleep in until at least 7:30 or 8. Plus I'm pregnant. (I'm sure most of you already knew that...curse you, google reader, for revealing my secrets! The lesson I learned from that is to not post anything on my blog when I'm in a bad mood.) I'm 12 weeks along, now, and due in late September.

I'm going to maintain another garden, this year. Some people in my family were kind enough to purchase some seeds for exotic vegetables for me: Creme Sausage tomatoes, Romanesco Broccoli, purple carrots, etc. I was so excited about gardening, I started my seeds almost six weeks ago. My aunt gave me some walls-o-water, so I'll be able to plant a couple tomato plants out in the garden sometime in April, instead of having to wait until May.

I've also decided to sew my entire maternity wardrobe this time around. I still have some clothes left over from last time, but as I worked at a preschool during my first pregnancy, my maternity pants have some pain stains on them. I picked out a pattern (I'll probably get it in the mail in a week or two), and I have some fabric that the Husband bought me for Christmas. I want to get some heavier canvas fabric with which to make some capri cargo pants.

Sewing my own clothes seems like a much better option than buying them from the mall. I really hate clothes shopping. The stuff I like to wear is never what JCPenny thinks I should want to wear. Or if I want to wear it, the neckline is unflattering or I hate the color. Blah. Tangent: Back in 2005, I spent several days trying to find a simple pair of cargo pants. I looked everywhere. Old Navy, Target, Wal-mart, the mall, online, everywhere. I was especially displeased with the selection to be had at Target. That year, the fashion was really low, tight waists. I like to be able to walk in my pants. I do not want my blood circulation cut off at the waists. Buying pants in a larger size than usual would not have solved this problem. I am sad to report that Target lost my business forever that day. I did buy my vacuum cleaner from Target, but I don't have any plans to buy clothing from them again. I really really hate clothes shopping. Fabric shopping, however, is a different story. I need to get a zipper foot for my sewing machine.

I'm hoping to make another lace shawl, as well. I have to spin the yarn first. This shawl has sleeves, so I'll probably actually wear it, instead of tucking it quietly away after showing it off to my friends. I showed the desired pattern to my mom and she thought it was so cool she bought it for me. I guess that makes me spoiled.

I have so much I should do today - my house is kind of a mess, but cleaning it is the last thing I'd like to do. I need to repot my tomato plants, too, and take care of the dishes in the sink. What I'd really like is a nap.

There's been so much interesting stuff in the news, I'd just love to comment on all of it on my blog, but I don't think I will. I just hope that people in my family won't be swayed by the anti-Muslim fear-mongering perpetuated by certain congressmen from Long Island.

The Middle East Feminist Revolution

2011-03-10T08:09:00.000-08:00

ETA: I have had some serious grammatical issues lately. When I re-read this post, I immediately felt deep shame for the gross grammatical errors contained therein. The current version of this post has been edited for grammar and readability.

I found this opinion article from Al-Jazeera quite stimulating. Interestingly enough, it supports the thesis of my senior research paper: that in times of instability women tend to take greater roles in politics and public life. Perhaps I should take the time to rewrite that paper to include recent events.

I really hope most people I know aren't buying into the fear-mongering perpetuated the American media. These protest in the Middle East are not bad, and it is highly unlikely that they will lead to Iranian-style theocracies. The drama isn't over by any means, and things in Egypt and Tunisia and Libya will probably get worse before they get better. In the long term I think we can expect a positive outcome. Our own American revolution had its ups and downs, and our country had our share of growing pains before we became a fully-fledged democratic republic.

All of my colleagues from school (I am not aware of any exceptions) are really excited about these developments. I kind of wish I was back at BYU - I would love to hear what my old professors have to say about all this.

An Article by Rebecca Walker

2011-03-04T06:25:00.000-08:00

I think this speaks for itself. I found it from a link on a friend's blog.

A story about a violin

2011-03-04T06:15:00.000-08:00

I had a dream about this chapter from my family history last night. It's a very interesting story so I thought I'd tell it. If I get some of the details wrong, I'm sure my mom will set me straight in the comments. Sometimes my mom still feels a bit queasy when she thinks about this story.

Once upon a time, in the early days of my parents' marriage, they happened upon an old violin at a garage sale. Its distinguishing feature was that the neck (the long handle-looking part) was set at a weird angle to the rest of the violin. They practically got it for free.

They took it around to some appraisers to see what they made of the crooked neck. The first guy who looked at the violin said that it was probably worth only a few hundred dollars. When my parents asked specifically about the neck, he answered, "Huh. Weird. Well, if you want, I can take it off and put it back on straight." My parents replied, "Thanks, but we'll shop around first."

The second guy who saw the violin practically went into transports of delight. He said that they had in their possession a rare french-style violin. The neck was made crooked on purpose, he said, for superior sound. He put the value at thousands upon thousands of dollars.

At this point in the story, my mom always gasps, "And the first guy wanted to take the neck completely off! It would have RUINED it!"

Well, a couple years later, money became a little tight and they had to sell that beloved violin. My dad promised my mom that when they could, he would buy her another violin worth an equivalent amount of money. Instead, he purchased a Yamaha baby grand piano when I was about four or five years old. "Well, there's your violin," he said. And my mom was content.

But sometimes I still hear her say, "My other violin isn't loud enough to be heard at the back of the chapel. Sigh. That french violin could have done it."

I don't know if there's a moral to this story, except that if you ever find a violin with an angled neck, don't automatically assume there's something wrong with it.

ETA: I guess violins with angled necks really are rare, because I couldn't find a picture or anything when I checked google.

Phone Etiquette

2011-02-24T09:19:00.000-08:00

Isn't it common knowledge that when you call someone, you ask if the person on the other line is the person you think it is? For example, "Hi, is this Jenny?" or "Hey, Bob." When you confirm the identity of the other party, you identify yourself. "Oh, hey, Jenny, this is Marcy."

So why is it that every so often, someone calls me and says, "Who is this?" If you don't know who I am, why are you calling? Did you just choose a random number? The first time this happened, I told the other person to go away if she wouldn't tell me who she was first, and she sent me threatening text messages laced with profanity until I called the police, who then called her and reminded her that harassment was a crime punishable by law.

But when I got another phone call that began with "Who is this?" it made me wonder. If someone just randomly calls me and says "Who is this," I'm not going to tell them, "This is Beth," unless I know who they are first. My conversation with this random individual went something like this:

Me: Hello?
Caller: Um, who is this?
Me: You called me first, so you need to tell me who you are.
Caller: I'm Amber. Who is this?
Me: (thinking, I don't know anyone named Amber who would act like this on the phone.) Amber, how did you get my number?
Amber: Um, I don't know.
Me: Amber, how old are you?
Amber: Eight.
Me: Is your mom there?
Amber: Um, no. Who is this?
Me: (Exasperated, giving in) My name is Beth.
Amber: Um, oh. I thought you were someone else in my district.
Me: No, you've got the wrong number, sweetheart.
Amber: Um, oh.

I know she was only eight, but it annoyed me. I'm half tempted to call the number back and politely explain to Amber's mother that it might be a good idea to teach her daughter to ask, "Is so-and-so there," instead of "Who is this?" The former implies that there is a purpose to the phone call, and the latter makes me wonder if I'm being pranked. I like knowing that when I pick up the phone, the person on the other line won't make me keep asking myself, "What does this person WANT from me!?"

And since we're on the topic of phone etiquette, we've gotten three calls in the last month asking for someone named Beverly. Once is a fluke, twice is kind of weird, but three times? Now I'm curious about this Beverly person, and I'd like to know why people think she has my same number.

Farewell, Facebook

2011-02-23T18:21:00.000-08:00

I guess it's been somewhere in the vicinity of a year and a half since I first signed up for facebook. About a month or so ago, I began to question its place in my life. Did I really need to check facebook for updates 15+ times per day?

So about two weeks ago, when I was in a particularly grumpy mood anyway, I disabled my account. It stayed disabled for a full two weeks. And you know what? I didn't really miss it much. Instead of clicking on someone's wall, I took to sending long, newsy emails and talking to people on the phone. I liked it. It feels like cultivating genuine, real relationships instead of shallow ones. It is the difference between, "I am going to converse with you about my life and my problems and I'm interested in hearing what you think," and clicking the "like" button.

The Husband mentioned an interesting study he did on how social media like facebook actually makes people depressed. Apparently relationships carried out over facebook are unfulfilling because they lack the substance of real interaction. No kidding, man.

I recently had a very long conversation over IM with an old friend from college. Ordinarily I would just read her blog, but this time we chatted for like an hour. It was great! We didn't talk about anything special, just our families and whatever. The cool part was that it had been like four years since I had actually sat down and had a conversation with her, but we were able to pick up where we had left off, as if no time at all had passed.

I think it's not the topic of conversation that is important, but the feeling of connection you get when you exchange ideas with someone you care about. That's the real thing facebook is missing, but it's something you can only really get when you pick up the phone. And I'm not referring to texting.

Spinning Wheels: A note on Price

2011-02-21T07:26:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention in a previous post how much spinning wheels actually cost. The general range is about $500-$700. There are a few available for less (The Kromski Prelude is $350 if you buy it unfinished, the clear finish is $400) and a lot are more ($800-$1000).

I honestly don't have a lot of experience spinning on multiple wheels, sad to say. My mom has an Ashford Traditional, and some random flax wheel she bought in Saudi Arabia (probably produced in the former USSR). I also tried out a Kromski Minstrel once. I've never used a double drive wheel (though I kind of want to someday), or touched a wheel that is more than $700. So I am not qualified to say whether it's worth it to pay upwards of $800 for a spinning wheel.

If you can find a spinning wheel on ebay someone is selling for a hundred bucks, look really really closely at it first. If you're going to take the trouble to buy a wheel at all, do your homework and find one that will last you forever (unless you're the hardcore type that wants to start a collection). If you spend a hundred bucks on a piece of junk that falls to unsalvageable pieces after six months, you'll be in the same situation you are now, only you'll be out a hundred bucks (plus shipping).

I am qualified to say, however, that it's probably best to pay the extra money for something that will last. My mom has had her Ashford Traddy for about 30 years now (doesn't that make you feel old, Mom?) and it still works pretty well, though it's needed a little love and care now and again. A couple years ago for Christmas, my Dad and I took some time and fiddled around with my mom's two wheels. I made a new brake band for the Traddy's scotch tension out of linen, and my Dad put linseed oil over the flax wheel to make it nice and shiny. That was a very enjoyable Christmas.

Sheep to Shawl

2011-02-19T09:42:00.000-08:00

Blogger tells me this is my 400th blog post. Groovy.

I've spent the last couple weeks of my life knitting this:

My mom likes to use spinning stuff as an object lesson on the importance of sufficient preparation. I think this shawl is an excellent example - hours and hours and hours of preparation went into it before I even started knitting. And it is worth it. I don't know if you can tell from the pictures, but the drape of this thing is unbelievable. It is soft (The Squeaker has been rubbing it against his cheek, chirping "Soft!") and completely wonderful. The wool has almost a shine to it that you can't see in the pictures. You could never just go out to a store and buy something like this. It has to be made by hand. You can't cut corners, either, or the finished product would be nowhere near as luxurious.

Here is the story of this shawl

It is made of 100% lambswool grown by a friend of mine in Vermont. The lamb this wool came from was named Lucy Lu, a merino ewe lamb. This is the natural, undyed color of the wool, a recessive gene known as "moorit." If you look closely at the pictures, you can see striations within the shawl, due to the natural variation of color within the sheep. My friend, Alex, really loved her sheep, and I think it shows through in the wool. It takes a lot of dedication and love to raise soft, fabulous wool like this. Alex specialized in breeding sheep with black and moorit wool. Most large-scale wool farmers selectively breed to remove the colored genes because white wool is easier to dye. But I love the creamy smooth, neutral brown color of this moorit wool.

Alex sent the raw wool to my mom, and I scoured it myself in my mom's bathtub, a process that took the better part of a day. To scour wool, you have to let it soak in hot hot water with dish soap for 20 minutes or so, to get most of the dirt and lanolin out. Then I dragged the wet wool out of the tub and put it through the spin cycle of my mom's washing machine. This I did three times with soap, and three times with regular water to wash the soap out. Then of course you have to let it dry.

After that, I combed the wool using my English combs, a very time consuming process just by itself. It can take an hour and a half to process a single ounce of wool using English combs. The finished yarn is so worth it, though - smooth and even and almost completely free of slubs.

Spinning enough yarn for a shawl takes a long time, mainly because when you spin yarn that fine, it takes absolutely forever to get enough yarn onto the bobbin. And then there's the plying. When I actually sat down to ply all that yarn, it took me the better part of the five hour version of Pride and Prejudice with Colin Firth. Pioneer women sang as they plied and plied and plied and plied plied...

And you have to wind the yarn to a skein, set the yarn, wind the yarn from a skein into a ball, which took about two days, since I don't have an automatic ball winder. The knitting itself only took about two weeks, which is hardly any time at all comparatively speaking. When I was all done with the knitting, I wet the shawl and blocked it, and that required the use of about 150 individual pins. I left it to dry for slightly less than 24 hours. `

This morning I declared it finished and the height of luxury. Not including the time it took to raise and shear the wool, I would estimate that this shawl represents at least 200 hours of work. And it was worth every minute.

I think most worthwhile things in life are like that, whether you want to go to college or get a good job or have a meaningful relationship or eat healthy, homemade food. We live in an age of supreme instant gratification (Most of this week my motto was, "I want a hot dog and I want it NOW!"), but knitting my shawl has been a good exercise in the rewards of delayed gratification.

How to Buy a Spinning Wheel

2011-02-18T20:36:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine does not have a spinning wheel, but she really wants one. For some reason, I feel very emotional about this topic and it has become singularly important to me that she, somehow, obtains the spinning wheel of her dreams. So every couple of days I've sent her emails that include lengthy treatises on every kind of spinning wheel that was ever made. Castle wheels, Saxony wheels, Polonaise Wheels, Great Wheels, Charka wheels, Flemish wheels. Yeah, baby.

Probably the very best way to pick out a wheel is to stroll into some kind of show room and spin on a variety of different wheels, then buy the one you like the best. Unfortunately, not all of us live close to spinning wheel show rooms (it's kind of a niche market, I guess), and few of us have the funds to buy the one you like the best and to heck with the price. So we have to do our best with internet research. To that end, here is a helpful little piece on selecting a wheel from the Woolery, my favorite spinning supplier.

This is a picture of my wheel. It's a Kromski Sonata. Also pictured: My Grandma, me, the Squeaker.

I chose it because it was, in my opinion, the best, highest-quality, nicest-looking folding wheel on the market for the most reasonable price. We lived in a small apartment at the time I bought my wheel, and I wanted something that could be put away discretely when not in use, so it was important to me to purchase a folding wheel. Now that we have the Squeaker in our lives, this is a plus because it is safe from the destructive forces of crayon and marker.

When looking for a wheel, step one is to establish your highest priority. Are you more concerned with price? If so, a Babe wheel might be the one for you. They are not much to look at (ahem), but they are cheap. Ebay is also a consideration, if you're looking for a cheap wheel, though you have to be careful, and know what to look for. More one that later.

Other priorities to consider:

Style (saxony, castle)

Quality of building materials (solid maple vs. layers of plywood)

Ease of obtaining replacement parts, if something breaks (this can be a problem with custom-made wheels. If, for example, the original carpenter passes away, how will you get an extra bobbin?)

How beautiful/ ugly it looks. (Treat it like buying a piece of furniture. You'll have it a long time, so it's best to get something you can stand to look at for a couple of years.)

Once you have established the most important thing you'll look for in your wheel, go look at a lot of wheels. Bountiful Spin and Weave is one supplier, as is woolery.com. Ebay and etsy also have their uses. Each wheel is a little different and they all have their own features. Get to know the difference between double drive and scotch tension, and decide whether this matters to you at all. Do you want a double treadle wheel or will a single treadle suffice? Are you at all concerned about the speed of the flyer?

And now a word on buying wheels from Ebay. Examine, if you will, this cheerful little listing for a wheel with a "wonderful antique oak finish." I'm sure the seller is a very nice person; she just doesn't know anything about spinning wheels. And I suppose it wouldn't be fair to expect everyone to know everything, but still. She says: "The wheel is in good condition and spins freely. I believe there are a few parts missing. I am not familiar with the parts of a spinning wheel, so I don't know what is missing. I appears to me the major working parts are there and it wouldn't be a big deal to get it in working order!"

Oy. First, the treadle isn't even attached to the wheel, and the "few parts missing" include only the entire mother-of-all, the bit that includes the flyer and the maidenhead. (Yeah, those are the actual names of the parts.) Those are VERY IMPORTANT PARTS. The major working parts are NOT INCLUDED with this wheel. It would be a VERY BIG DEAL to get it in working order. (Oh, and the finish isn't really all that wonderful. Just saying.) So buyer beware. If you want to get yourself a wheel, know which bits to expect in the mail.

In my friend's case, her husband firmly believes in the importance of getting a "Sleeping Beauty" spinning wheel. In reality, Sleeping Beauty most likely had a great wheel like the one in this video. The great wheel is the only kind that was ever widely used that has a spindle on which anyone could ever prick their finger. But when people say "Sleeping Beauty Wheel" they usually mean something more like this one, the Ashford Elizabeth 2. I suggested the Kromski Prelude for my friend, because it's less expensive than other saxony wheels on the market, and it's made of solid wood. I really like all of Kromski's products. Had I not cared so much about getting a folding wheel, I would have gotten the Prelude instead.

However, her husband said the Prelude isn't "Pretty Enough," so I suggested this one from ebay, a Merkelbach. After a close look at the pictures, I think it looks pretty good. It is a double drive wheel, single treadle, Saxony style, with wood turning that is reminiscent of the Flemish wheels, though not exactly the same. Everything seems to be in good condition, plus it comes with a lazy kate, and a skein winder that can be turned with the main wheel. How cool is that? And the seller says it comes with eight bobbins, which is fantastic. I am inclined to trust this seller on spinning matters because the listing uses terms like "lazy kate" and "skein winder." I kind of hope my friend buys this wheel.

Would I ever get another wheel? I don't know. Probably not. I was seduced by the Clemes and Clemes traditional for a while, though. I mean, look at it. Fabulous. But I couldn't be more pleased with the wheel I have. It does everything I need it for. Perhaps someday I'd like to buy an additional flyer for it which has faster speeds, but for now I am content. The Sonata is functional, practical, but the designers put all these little flutes and little touches on it for pure aesthetics. It comes with a carrying case, which I have used to great effect. I flew with it to Houston and back - twice (It was part of my checked luggage). I've also brought it with me to work a couple of times, back when I worked for Head Start. It was a huge hit with the kids. No, I'm happy with the Sonata. I think I made a good choice the first time I bought a wheel, so I don't think I'll ever have to buy one again.

The weird crossover-y nature of emotional dreams

2011-02-18T19:18:00.000-08:00

I've had weird dreams every night this week. I mean weird even for me, the queen of weird dreams. Monday night, I dreamed that the TSA took a naked picture of the Squeaker. That dream also included a lot of getting lost in the basement of the airport (which was wall-to-wall washing machines) and I woke up feeling absolutely enraged. How DARE they?! He's 19 months old! They're going to take a naked picture of a 19-month old because he "might" be a terrorist?!

And last night, I dreamed I had this knock-down, drag-out shouting match with one of my cousins. He, along with his siblings, were inspecting a number of window blinds, one of which looked like a pair of lips. It was an art piece, entitled, "Vampire's kiss." I thought the whole thing was stupid, so I kept knitting instead. My cousin saw that I was singularly uninterested in what everyone else was doing and he called me out on it, and called me a couple of names while he was at it. In real life, I think all of my cousins like me pretty well, and the one in particular from my dream would never call me names. But in my dream I shouted right back at him. I woke up feeling argumentative and a little grumpy.

It's been hard to shake those negative feelings as I've gone about my day-to-day business. When you still feel upset about things that never actually happened, it blurs the line between reality and fantasy. It's been horribly disorienting.

Well...that was unexpected

2011-02-12T07:01:00.000-08:00

Remember a couuple days ago when I was really sad about something? Yeah, it's amazing how quickly and unexpectedly things change.

For more details, you can contact me personally. I originally typed out the whole story on my blog but then realized I didn't want the whole story public quite yet.

Egyptian Memories

2011-01-31T21:08:00.000-08:00

I spent three months in Egypt during from Sept-Dec 2004. It was great. The protests in Egypt that I've been seeing on the news have brought a lot of those memories to the surface.

But the specific things I've been remembering aren't the stuff I wrote home to my family about. Not visiting the pyramids or seeing Tutankhamun's mask or the delicious kofta.

More than anything, I've been remembering the giant sheesha lounges we'd walk past at night, and the sheer number of hollow-eyed unemployed men who frequented them. Or one family's house I visited. They had a hole in their ceiling, and the plug on the TV was broken so they shoved the wires directly into the wall socket. "It works great!" they said. Their family of five or six existed in three rooms: a kitchen with a curtained-off area that served as a bathroom, a living room that had a curtained-off area as a guest lounge, and one bedroom that served the entire family. (They had bunk beds). I remember speaking with one girl who was around my age, maybe a couple years younger, about her life: she got married and had a kid, but her husband left her. She stands out in my mind because at first I thought the funny marks all over her skin were self-inflicted cigarette burns. But then I learned that they were actually a side effect of severe malnutrition.

I'm sure some people would visit my tiny little townhome in Utah and observe that it was a little on the small side. Sometimes I even think to myself, "If we end up having more than two or three kids, we'll have to move to a bigger house." But the truth is that I live in a palace. My "tiny" house is quite literally more than a lot of Egyptians can ever dream of having. And I have a Husband who quite likely won't abandon me. My son has access to nutritious food and vaccinations and I can even buy him as many balloons as he could possibly play with in his lifetime. Does that make me spoiled?

This is not to say that everyone in Egypt lives in abject poverty, though. Alexandria is home to a thriving university, and we'd see swarms of young Egyptian women rushing to and from their classes every day. I once met a very nice young man, but I forget his name. I wish I could remember it. He was very exceedingly educated and spoke excellent English. He was very devoutly Muslim but not fanatically religious. We had him over to our house for dinner with a bunch of friends and I accidentally walked in on him praying in the back room. That had a pretty big impact on me, because obviously he cared very much about things like prayers, but he hadn't even announced to anyone that he was going off to pray. He just secretly slipped away to do it in private. Some weeks later he bought tickets for everyone in my apartment to go see a recital of cultural dance that was performed near the Library of Alexandria. It was absolutely fantastic - there was a whirling dervish, and the dancing trouble performed a number of traditional Egyptian folk dances. I can't remember the details, but at one point during the performance I was moved to tears. I offered to reimburse him for my ticket, but he refused to accept my money, insisting that he was happy to take us. So you can imagine how guilty I feel that I don't even remember this guy's name. I'm sure he's probably one of those out on the streets protesting right now. It's people like him that make me shout and scream and grind my teeth when I hear horrible stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims in the media. They don't get much nicer than he.

I don't mean this as any sort of commentary on Mubarak's regime, I'm just voicing the thoughts that have been swimming around in my head.

I want to go back to the Middle East. I felt exceedingly jealous of all the married couples in our group, because Alexandria by its very nature is a very romantic place and I wished I had someone with home to share the experience. Maybe someday I will; The Husband has never been across the Atlantic. But I'm afraid we'll be homebound until the TSA stops taking nude photos of people.

The Outer Limits: What happened next?!

2011-01-27T18:49:00.000-08:00

I've been watching a lot of The Outer Limits lately, the newer version, not the one from the 1950s. It's a lot like The Twilight Zone, except 80% of the episodes on the Outer Limits tend to have a happy ending. Sort of. Kind of like, "Yeah, the guy died, but he stopped the alien invasion and saved the human race!" or "That lady didn't get the microchip out of her head, but she can still have a normal life if she wears gloves all the time."

So I was kind of surprised when I ran into this episode: The Flower Child. Basic plot synopsis: An alien plant takes the form of a supermodel and tries to seduce an engaged guy who lives in her apartment building. She succeeds, and tells the guy, "I have created a new species, thanks to you! The Millions of my children will go forth, spread upon the land, to become dominant." And then she spreads little alien spore babies all over the city.

The Outer Limits usually has a moral, too, whether its about the dangers of blind faith, or a treatise on the nature of fear. This one was on Fidelity. The creepy voice-over basically says, "If he hadn't been such an unfaithful creep, none of this would have happened and the human race wouldn't be slated to become extinct."

I've been preoccupied by this episode, not because I've been philosophizing on the cultural implications of the moral, but because I'm so curious as to what happened next. Did people get paranoid and start agent oranging all the spore babies? Was there a human-alien hybrid rights campaign to halt the use of agent orange? Was there a war between the two species? Did the spore babies ever come up to the unfaithful creep and call him Da-da? Did they ever refer to his parents and "Gramma and Grampa?" Was there any further intermarriage that caused the two species to ultimately become one? Did the plant people adopt human culture (TV, high school reunions, argyle socks) or did they inherit racial memories of their more advanced, techy alient technological roots? Did the rise of the plant people lead to an increase in beef production? I only ask because I hardly think they'd eat more carrots. That would be like cannibalism. Kind of.

These questions deserve an answer. Unfortunately, The Outer Limits has been canceled for quite some time, so it's up to someone else to write part two. Probably not me, though. I have too many other things I like to do.

My idea for an invention

2011-01-16T23:28:00.000-08:00

Well, I guess it's not really my idea.It's kind of The Husband's idea. But it's something I think would be unbelievably cool.

In-home plastic recycling.

Have you guys seen those 3D printers? Wouldn't it be cool if someday, everyone had one? The next time your spatula melted because you forgot you weren't supposed to leave it in the hot frying pan, you could melt it down and re-form it instead of throwing it away. Or you could take that empty mayonnaise bottle and turn it into another cup for your toddler. I'm sure some corporations could make a little extra money by selling patterns for various plastic items (action figures! dinosaur toys! potato mashers! artificial limbs! sippy cups!) the same way they sell e-books. You could also probably buy special decals so that the cup and bowl set you make for your kid has Lightning McQueen on it. Or Princess Aurora. Or Dora the Explorer.

A lot of plastic companies would probably loathe this idea, but think how awesome it would be?! We throw out lots of plastic at our house, every day. And I am always thinking about things we need. "The Squeaker could really use an additional sippy cup." What a perfect solution! And if we ever installed solar panels at our house, we could act all pompous to our friends about how we're saving the planet while they're still clubbing baby seals to death.

I think the biggest problem would lie in making sure you use the right kind of plastic to make stuff. We learn in elementary school about the little number in the recycle triangle on the bottom of water bottles. I'm sure you would have to use a certain kind of polymer to create food-grade items. But it could work!!

I bet everyone will have one within the next ten years. We'll call them replicators, except they'll make tool boxes instead of steak dinners.

My husband informs me that there is a research team in Australia that is working on this very issue. Isn't technology grand?

Is Speech Free?

2011-01-15T14:50:00.000-08:00

I've been re-thinking my blog and my relationship to it. We live in such an interconnected world, I've grown increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that the things I say on the internet will hang over my head in the ether forever. Forever.

I'm sure most of you have been following the whole Wikileaks fiasco. I think we can all agree that, whether or not Wikileaks is a good thing, Julian Assange is egotistical and kind of a jerk (at best). But he did say something very interesting on a live Q&A session hosted by the UK's Guardian:

"Western speech, as something that rarely has any effect on power, is, like badgers and birds, free. In states like China, there is pervasive censorship, because speech still has power and power is scared of it."

Meaning, of course, that we in the West are allowed to say whatever we like because everyone knows that it is not going to affect anything. I suppose that's why cesspools like 4-chan and the comments section to Yahoo News are allowed to exist; they're mostly harmless. And I know it's kind of cynical, but I thought about all the times I've written to my elected officials with impassioned words, only to receive a condescending "what do you know? You're just a civilian" in response. Such a wonderful insight into our political system.

I can think of lots of other examples, but if I listed them all, this blog entry would become a lot more political than I'd like.

So this is why I haven't been doing a lot of blogging lately: by and large, no one cares what I have to say. My blog is just words floating through the ether, impotent and ineffective.

Sewing My Own Clothes

2010-12-30T21:56:00.000-08:00

Today I feel especially grateful that my mom taught me the basics of sewing when I was young.

My sister-in-law came over today to play while her husband and my husband busied themselves with a game called "The Realm of the Mad God." We decided it would be fun to make her a pair of pajama pants. I had already made two pairs of pajama pants for me in the last year, and I made some pants for the Squeaker (in fact, we had matching Christmas Jammies this year!), but she hadn't sewed anything since she was in Young Women's.

We smoothed out the flannel fabric and laid out the pattern pieces and cut them out, pinned them together, sewed them. I say we, but my sister-in-law did most of the work. I walked her through it, but mostly re-threaded the needle on my sewing machine. Here is the final product:

I think they turned out nice! That's the Squeaker she's holding. Isn't he cute? She wore her new pants for the rest of the day, partly because she said they were comfy, and also because she felt proud that she made them herself. And I think that is really great. I always love sewing my own clothes. I haven't done it very much (so far) but every time I do, I feel empowered that I have the capacity to thwart the evil forces of consumerism. I'm glad I could share that sense of empowerment with someone else. My sister-in-law told me that this was the first sewing project where she didn't get frustrated and annoyed with the whole thing, which I took as a very deep compliment.

My Christmas present from The Husband was a sort of unofficial gift certificate to the fabric store of my choice. I hate shopping for clothes at the store because it's so difficult to find something in a style I like in a size that fits, and that's also a decent color. When I make my own clothes, I feel like I have a lot more control over those variables. I bought a pattern for a blouse and enough fabric to make two articles of clothing. I made this:

Truthfully, the fabric isn't my favorite color. I just happened to have it lying around but I thought I'd experiment with the pattern on it before using my beloved blue paisley. All the girls in Egypt were wearing this exact same style in 2004. Since I was making this blouse myself, I raised the neckline about an inch and a half. Because that is what Mormons do.

Wanna know what else I did today? I darned some socks!! Way back in 2008, I knitted some socks for my brother-in-law. When he came over on Monday to visit, I saw that he had worn a huge hole (about the size of a 50 cent piece) in the heel of one of the socks. Obviously he really liked them. So I looked up how to fix them on the internet.

"Do you want me to try to fix your socks?" I asked him.

"Maybe," he replied in a tone of voice that reminded me of Edna from the Incredibles when she says, "Oh, you push too hard, dahling!"

So I did. I used red embroidery floss. I wish I had taken a picture; it looked kinda neat. I hope it holds up for at least another two and a half years. Apparently he really likes those socks.

Christmas Eve and Lack of Sleep

2010-12-24T21:52:00.000-08:00

This year has gone by so quickly, I can hardly believe it. Didn't I just barely blog about New Year's?

I haven't been blogging much this month, as I'm sure you've noticed. My time has been busy with a myriad of other activities. I baked an obscene amount of cookies, for example. I never thought I'd get sick of cookies. We still have a bunch crammed into two gallon-sized ziploc bags, and that's after giving a whole lot of them away as Christmas treats. I also made matching Christmas Jammies for me and the Squeaker. The Husband did not feel it necessary to participate in the Jammy-Matching Extravaganza, but that's ok.

We have a lot of Christmas traditions at my house. When I was growing up, one of these was that all the kids would sleep in one room (usually mine) on Christmas Eve. That was a lot of fun, until we grew up and some of us (not saying who...) started snoring and others of us (not naming names) began to groan in our sleep. I usually have difficulty sleeping on Christmas Eve because I get too excited, so the additional ambient noises didn't help very much.

I remember one Christmas in particular, the first time I came home for Christmas after my first semester at BYU. My family was living in Kuwait at the time, so in addition to the Christmas Spirit, I was also horribly jet-lagged. I lay awake in my bed, staring at the ceiling. I heard my sister stir.

"Hey! Hey, Meryl*!" I whisper.

"Wha?" she says.

"Hey! Meryl! Are you asleep?"

"No."

"How awake are you?"

"I dunno."

"Well, I can't sleep. Wanna play a game of cards?!"

". . .Ok."

So we play a game of go fish or war or something. After a measly two games she says, "Ok, I'm ready to go back to sleep now."

"Are you sure? I'm still awake."

To which she replies, ever so eloquently, "Zzzzzzzzz."

"Dangit," I mutter. So that was about three am or something. Our parents decreed years ago that seven am is the cutoff time for getting up and opening presents. It was a very long night.

2003 was about the last time I was so excited for Christmas I couldn't sleep. I spent Christmas of 2004 in a hotel room in Amman and had a weird dinner that involved poorly-prepared fish (I hate fish) so that wasn't exactly memorable. Oh, and that year the only present I got was a thing I got from a white elephant party that included a container of pepto bismol. The year after that I was married, and since then I was just a regular old grown-up. Grown ups don't have as much fun as kids. It's the law.

But now? Now I have a kid. I have a kid who loves balloons (known at our house as "boom-booms") and bubbles and blocks. And balls. Lots of things that start with B. So The Husband and I blew up about fifty balloons "from Santa," and he is also getting a thing of bubbles in his stocking, and three things of blocks under the tree. I cleared off a bunch of space on my camera so I can record the look on his face when he comes downstairs and sees that Santa brought *gasp!* boom-booms GALORE! And it's only 11 pm. Why can't the morning COME already?!

*Not her real name. She hates it when I blog about her.

ReWriting

2010-12-19T14:56:00.000-08:00

They say that all writing is re-writing. I say "They" in the ambiguous sense, kind of like how "They" say that you're not supposed to go swimming until a half hour after you eat. No one knows who "They" are, but you had better do what "They" say, or risk the consequences.

But anyway, they say that all writing is re-writing. I think that's true. After NaNoWriMo I decided to return to my other book, the one that I started writing in 2004. After letting it marinate for a month, I got some really good ideas and interesting and awesome ways to close all those pesky plot holes.

Unfortunately, this means a complete re-write. And that means I have to start at the beginning. Again. Interestingly enough, this also means that I've managed to snip off a good five thousand words in the last two days. Sure, it's shorter, but it's also more interesting to read. And it's also less embarrassing, in that if someone were to read the first twelve pages, I would not feel a desire to hide in the broom closet for a week. That's something, right?

As recently as June, I let people see the working draft, which included some really embarrassing material. When I went back and read those parts, I kind of wanted to die. "I can't believe I showed that to anyone. Please excuse me while I cover my face with a paper bag."

In the most recent draft, the heroine has a little something I like to call a backbone. There's nothing I hate more than invertebrate heroines.

Amusing Anecdotes from my Past

2010-12-13T21:19:00.000-08:00

It's been a while since I posted an Amusing Anecdote from my past.

Unfortunately I can't think of any. So I'll just have to tell you this one.

There was this one time when I was about twelve or something, I took apart a hair dryer to see what the insides looked like. I won't say I did it to "see how it worked," because a thorough examination of the insides gave me zero insight into its inner workings. I later collected the copper wire from the motor and used it to re-root the hair of one of my barbie dolls.

I cut off the cord part, the part that plugs into the wall. I noticed there were two bundles of wire, so I separated these and exposed about an inch of it. Then, sometime around 11 pm when my parents were asleep and I knew I could get away with it, it struck me as a good idea to plug the cord into the wall and touch the two ends together.

I was greeted with a shower of blue sparks and the electricity in my room went out. I spent the next twelve hours or so freaking out. "I BROKE THE HOUSE!" Luckily everything was fixed with a simple switch of the circuit breaker. My mom, who looked very much as though she was trying very hard not to chortle, impressed on me that a repeat of the experiment was not a good idea.

I never played with electricity again. But I started taking apart things. I made jewelry out of it. And also a playset for my star trek action figures.

Door-to-Door Salesman

2010-12-10T20:34:00.000-08:00

I forgot I wanted to mention this story.

So a couple of nights ago a guy came to our door trying to sell a subscription to "your local church news." He told me about how desperate he was for funds so he could buy presents for his family. I told him that we didn't need a paper subscription because we had the internet and he tried to tell us how inconvenient the internet was. "It hurts your eyes. You can take a paper anywhere. It's really portable!" Obviously no one had told him about the iphone.

I ended up just telling him that we weren't interested. After he left, The Husband pointed out that it was probably a scam, especially seeing how he was trying so hard to tug on our heartstrings. Later I thought, "Well, obviously he was talking about Mormon church news...but why did he automatically assume we were Mormon?" I don't like people making assumptions about me, even if they are true. I wish I had messed with his mind a little.

"Which local church?" I could have asked.

"The Mormon one," he'd reply.

"....Oh," I'd say, looking uncertain. "We're [Seventh Day Adventists/ Theravada Buddhist/ Raelians/ Bahai], so...."

"Ah." At this point he'd act supremely embarrassed and attempt to withdraw gracefully.

Maybe next time.

OK, So I lied.

2010-12-10T18:17:00.000-08:00

I know I said I'd start blogging three times a week. That was on Thursday last week. Since it's now Friday on the following week, this makes me a dirty, rotten liar. So shoot me.

I've been up to a lot of exciting, interesting things. I saw the Sorcerer's Apprentice, a delightful movie. I think I would have liked it much better had it not been so derivative. It seems like no one can make any reference at all to magic without mentioning Merlin and Morgan la Fey.

I got out the ol' tatting shuttles. I'll post pictures later.

I've been extremely preoccupied with the wikileaks business. Whether you agree with the release or not, the fallout has been fascinating. It's a true cyber war, with the US Department of State on one hand, urging its employees to avoid accessing the cables on their personal computers (despite the fact they have been splashed all across the NY Times and BBC and The Guardian); and the collective consciousness of Anonymous on the other, wreaking general havoc on the 'net. I like to imagine little cyber siege towers creeping inexorably onward to assault the iron gates of Amazon.com. I'm surprised that the US Department of State was able to announce World Press Freedom day with a straight face.

I've also been obsessively following the reaction to the new TSA "security" measures. I direct you to Bruce Schneier, the nation's foremost expert on security and counter-terrorism.

Also I've been reading the Mistborn books by Brandon Sanderson. I just finished the second one, Well of Ascension, this afternoon. That has kept me very busy indeed.

Christmas!! And some other stuff

2010-12-02T19:15:00.000-08:00

I know very few people who do not love Christmas. Ebeneezer Scrooge is one. And I can't think of anyone else.

I put up my tree on the day after Thanksgiving, and we've been singing Christmas Carols in my house a lot. By we I mean me, because the Squeaker isn't old enough to sing them, too. Sometimes The Husband will hum them because I effectively got them lodged in his head.

I've been giving more thought into working towards becoming a published author. As in, actually getting a manuscript cleaned up enough to send out to agents and publishers. To that end, I understand that the best way to sell books is to create a brand around yourself as an author. This makes me feel conflicted because marketing myself like that seems a) egotistical, and b) uncomfortably close to prostitution.

So I dunno.

I have decided that I want to blog more regularly, though. We have enough people in this world that update their blogs on Monday/ Wednesday/ Friday, so I have decided to update on Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday.

Now that NaNoWriMo is over, I'm turning back to my other novel, the one I started six years ago as scribbles in my notebook when I should have been reviewing Arabic verb forms. Since It's had a month marinating in the back of my mind, I have lots of ideas for revisions. I edited chapter four yesterday, for example. When I showed it to my buddies in my writing group, I got some really enthusiastic feedback.

And there is, of course, the LDS Christmas Story contest, which has a nice little widget in the sidebar. I want to write something for it, but I can't think of anything good. I want to write something funny and interesting, and decidedly not sappy.

-------

Speaking of Mormon culture and sappiness, a friend of mine is letting me borrow a book (Eve and the choice made in Eden). I decided I didn't like it, not because I disagree with it, but because of the flaws inherent in most theological Mormon Scholarship. Those flaws are threefold: 1) too much reliance on quotes from Hugh Nibley, 2) Too much reliance on Bruce R. McConkie, and 3) an overenthusiastic love of all things Hebrew.

The first two are self explanatory; when you just say "Bruce R McConkie said this, and he said that, and he said this other thing, too," you end up just sounding derivative. I should probably expound upon the third one.

I think we, in the Church specifically and also the Christian world in general, feel a special affinity for Judaism. I think it's because Christianity sprang out of Judaism and out of Jewish culture, and you can discover lots of cool things about the Gospel by going back to the original Hebrew text. But Judaism did not and does not exist in a vacuum. Judaism is just one branch of a very rich theological environment that is the Middle East. A study of Islam and the proto-religions of ancient Mesopotamia can yield just as much insight into gospel principles, and yet these are largely overlooked. It makes me sad. I don't have any problem with referencing Ancient Hebrew scholars in Mormon academia (I did, after all, take two semesters of Ancient Hebrew at BYU), but I think it is done to the exclusion of other faiths.

ETA: It might interest some of you that reportedly anti-Christian books like The DaVinci Code and The Golden Compass come to the same conclusions about Eve that are outlined in this book written by a Mormon.

Just in case you forgot...

2010-11-30T09:21:00.000-08:00

Friends, I give you:

THE BILL OF RIGHTS!!!!!

Amendment I

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment II

A well regulated Militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.

Amendment III

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.

Amendment IX

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Amendment X

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.

Look what I got!

2010-11-28T11:27:00.000-08:00

Isn't it shiny? It's a spiffy little badge that says I made my goal for nanowrimo this year. According to my word processing program, I had 50,880 words. (The word count validator on the nanowrimo website told a different story, probably because I used many hyphenated words. So I cheated. It's ok, because *I* knew I won, even if a glitch in the website said otherwise.)

I think I'm going to take a break from writing. I was so hyper about nanowrimo that I let some other things slide, like the cleanliness of my house, and the state of my garden. I forgot to plant a whole bulb of garlic. (You have to plant garlic in the fall)

So my final thoughts on my book: it is, without any doubt, word vomit. It's full of talking heads and not very much action. It's kind of preachy in places. And I wrote several pages on one scene before saying, "I don't like where this is going. I'm going to go back and kill off one of the characters." But it's supposed to be a rough draft, anyway. I think I'll just let it sit and stew for a couple months before I look at it again.

Nanowrimo was kind of fun, and I'm proud of myself that I accomplished my goal, but I don't know if I want to do this next year. Especially toward the end, it became a real slog.

Coincidence? You Decide.

2010-11-22T20:16:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think my son can read my mind. Like, he'll be taking a nap, and then I'll think to myself, "Hm...he's been napping for a while." And then about ten seconds later he'll wake up.

But last night something really weird and interesting happened. I had this really vivid dream wherein I was a servant trying to catch the eye of the crown prince of England (not Prince William, just a generic sort of prince figure). I was changing a poopy diaper in a walk-in closet at the palace when the Queen of France started heckling me about what a rotten person I was and how I was really bad at changing diapers. Well, this infuriated me, so I did the only thing that could be done under the circumstances. I slugged her. In front of the Prince, the English king and queen, and the King of France.

Immediately afterward, I was awakened from my dream with profuse "help-me-I'm-going-to-die" screaming coming from my son's room.

Almost as if he had witnessed the attack...I guess I can be kind of scary when I'm mad.