sad news

At about 12:35 this morning, our little friend Hannah passed away. We knew it was coming soon but I wasn't really prepared for the news, I guess. It was hard to tell our boys about it. It's hard to watch my friend go through this. Our hearts ache for the loss, the empty space at the table, but at the same time I feel some peace and gratitude that Hannah's struggle is over. She is free from the body that limited her so severely for the last few weeks. We know we will see her again.

mysterious ways

I have been feeling so boxed in by sadness, anxiety, stress, etc. lately. But here's the thing about boxes: sometimes there's a prize at the bottom! It may not be from Tiffany, but if it's sparkly and shines a bit, I'll accept it. Last night the prize was my first pack meeting -- something I was not particularly excited about, as cub scouts has struggled in our ward of late. But we had great attendance by both leaders and boys. The boys were so sweet and embarrassed and proud.

We had gathered around for cookies when the power went out. Out came the makeshift flashlights (cell phones) and we herded everyone to the parking lot; some kids cried, some were delighted. I don't know why that decidedly minor experience improved my mood, but it did. So I'm grateful.

cold scary world

Do you remember where you were 6 years ago today? Of course you do. On that morning I was driving in our old Corolla to Target, having just moved into a new house and in need of furnishings. Flash was with me; he was almost 2. We heard the 1st tower fall on NPR. I chatted with the cashier about it, returned to the car, and then realized that it was now two towers down, with thousands of people trapped inside. I went home and sat in front of the television all day, weeping. All of those people jumping. All of those "missing" posters in the days to come. All of those parents and siblings and spouses, gone.

I've been reading "For the Time Being" by Annie Dillard. She quotes the Mahabharata:
"Of all of the world's wonders, which is the most wonderful?"
"That no man, though he sees others dying all around him, believes that he himself will die."

It's true, isn't it? In the past week I've watched the rapid decline of Miss Hannah, was informed of a sexual abuse situation in our ward, and --tonight-- heard that people have been robbed at gunpoint in our neighborhood recently. (This last came from a well-meaning neighbor who shared all pertinent details with use in front of our kids. They're sleeping in our room tonight.) And though waves of sadness and fear and anxiety wash over me from time to time, the breakfast is made, the dishes are washed, the laundry is put away. To stop would be to acquiesce, to deny the warmth that hope brings to weary limbs and minds, that "healing balm" that we all require and receive more than we probably know.

in the underground city...

As part of my much-procrastinated report on our China trip, here are a couple of photos of the "underground city" in Beijing. Tourists can only see a small fraction of what was once an enormous winding network of subterranean air-raid shelters built by hundreds of thousands of Beijingers in the late 70s. What's left of it is damp, spooky and (best of all!) full of Mao propaganda and portraits of military leaders. Next to seeing Mao's creepy old body (which was under "maintenance" and not available for tourists), I was really hoping for a look at funny/disturbing propaganda. What I did not plan on (and was not pleased to see at the end of this dank tunnel) was a "Silk Education Center" wherein our friendly guide turned into a high-pressure mall kiosk salesman. We were trapped for at least 40 minutes until we finally told the guy we had to get to the airport to catch our flight home.
There's more info about the tunnels here.

look down!

Hooray for finetune.com, where you can make your own playlist and email it or embed it in your blog. I just spent 45 minutes working on it. The little player icon is waaaaaay down at the bottom of this page (I'm not sure how to move it up higher... any suggestions?)
If you've ever wondered what my kids are subjected to on long trips (or what I listened to in college and rediscovered when I put the playlist together), you can satisfy your curiosity courtesy of finetune.

media roundup!

In the usual attempt to distract myself from a mounting to-do list and sad things all around, I've been reading and downloading music like mad. Here's a sampling of things I'm in love with lately:


1. Sufjan Stevens (festively pictured above)
who has an amazing voice and songwriting ability, is Christian, and whose discography includes the requisite percentage of very sad songs. My favorites are To Be Alone With You, Abraham, A Size Too Small and The Dress Looks Nice on You. I think they're all on the same album (Seven Swans) but if you're downloading, you probably don't care.

To Be Alone With You is about Christ, and it's very beautiful and even holy. (Here are the lyrics.)
Although I can listen to a few LDS artists, there is a kind of mid-90s lite rock undercurrent there that turns me off. Hence my joy at finding Sufjan Stevens, The Innocence Mission, and others who are Christian and not offensive and help me feel the Spirit without suppressing a laugh.

2. Fame Junkies by Jake Halpern

If, like me, you are a bit befuddled by the American obsession with famous people, you will enjoy this book. The chapter about the Rod Stewart fan is just plain sad. The author goes a bit too far in his use of evolutionary psychology (did I just make that discipline up) to explain celebrity worship, but it's a good read anyhow.

3. The Office

I usually recuse myself from conversations about serial TV shows, but, alas, I can join in now. I have a show, and it's The Office. Mighty fine mind candy. It's on a bit too early to watch at the normal time, but I've been watching the last season on this website: http://www.tv-links.co.uk/
And it's subtitled in Chinese, for even more fun.

4. Bog Bodies

I know that a deep and abiding love for bogs is not normal. But they are seriously fascinating. In a National Geographic article this month about bog bodies you will find some spookily beautiful pictures of very well-preserved people, some of whom died around the time of Christ. Some may have been sacrificed, some executed for criminal behavior. I am fascinated by the cultures in which these people lived and the ecology of the bogs themselves. Nowhere else do we find such perfectly preserved faces, clothing, even hair; a true encapsulation of a person who lived long ago.

transcripts

Don't you sometimes wish you could pull up a transcript of your day to share with other people? Super Q just summoned me to "sit outside the bathroom door because I'm scared but don't come in because of privacy." He walked all the way with a walking stick/light saber stick thing (stolen from the miniblinds in his room, no doubt) saying, "I'm Yoda. I'm a Jedi!" While in the bathroom, he danced around for about 5 minutes saying, "Mom, mom, guess what? OK, Yoda, he's really little? And he lives in this tiny house? His house is SO tiny! But he has a flat-screen TV and a microwave oven and like a little bed and guess what! He's poor! And he bought all of that stuff!"
Wow. I went from "Ugh; more Star Wars" to "Ok this is hilarious" to " my 4-year old says 'flat screen TV' and 'microwave oven?' Microwave oven? "
And it's only the smallest percent of what I hear every day. A transcript is needed, that's certain.

... and there's more!

What could be better than a handsome (although a bit gruff-looking) Texan with a view of Hong Kong behind him? Even MORE pictures of Hong Kong, that's what! Click here.

diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma

Our friend Hannah isn't doing very well. After a very nice respite from symptoms (5 months or so with radiation), her tumor is growing again. Her mom, a dear friend, gave birth to a sweet baby girl on July 1. Their family is under a mountain of stress. My friend, believe it or not, is taking things in stride and focusing on the blessings already received.
Please pray for our friend, Hannah. I won't put her last name here, but just include her in your prayers. Flash and Super Q are having a hard time with this. Today Flash asked me, "Is this the kind of cancer you can die from?" For the first time, I answered the questions instead of deflecting them. I told him yes. He said, "How many times does this kind of cancer come back before the person dies? 13? 14?" I shook my head. "2?" I nodded. He started to cry. "I don't want to talk about this Mom. It's going to give me nightmares." We hugged for awhile.
It's giving me nightmares, too.

back from the mystical Orient

I wish this was a photo that I took; it's pretty cool. My photos are all on our other computer, so I'll have to put them up when I have, oh, 6 HOURS of disposable time. China was amazing and not a little overwhelming. My favorite part, except for Hong Kong OF COURSE, was Guilin (pictured above) and wonderful, cheap food.
Least favorite was the near-crash landing in Chicago on the way home. When a flight attendant makes a tiny, one-line announcement along the lines of "Please remember to leave your carry-on items on the plane in the event of an emergency", you know to brace yourself, I guess. Suffice it to say it was the scariest freaking landing in my life. I really do have many deep and insightful comments to share, with accompanying photos. Promise. Just not tonight.

4 more days!

Yes, there are lots and lots of McDonald's restaurants in China. Kind of surreal, ordering a Big Mac in chinese. And the omnipresence of borscht on fast food menus there is also weird. I'm looking forward to roasted sweet potatoes, shrimp dumplings, and fresh watermelon juice drinks, all available from street vendors. I'm dreaming in chinese again, something that hasn't happened for a long time. Evan asked me what I wanted to do first, and I was overcome with images and feelings; I almost couldn't answer. The thought of being there again is pretty overwhelming.


This place is one of my favorites. It's called Sai Kung, and it's gorgeous at sunset. I watched a man once on P-day as the sun went down. There was a diving platform there and as I watched his silhouette enter the water over and over again I felt such peace. Being a missionary can be exceedingly challenging, even depressing sometimes. I was so grateful for peaceful moments like those; they buoyed me up and gave me the courage to keep trying.

... and we'll set that particular insecurity aside

Thanks for the feedback on the sad-face thing. Sorry it was so self-absorbed. Now that I'm 35 (as of Saturday) I'm WAAAAY beyond stuff like that.

Thanks to all of you who sent/emailed birthday cheer my way. I had a great time buying stuff for myself without the inner mom guilt kicking in ("Flash really needs new church pants and you already have 6 pairs of black shoes; what are you thinking?"). We also dropped the kids off at a friend's house and headed to the beach for Italian food and walking in the moonlight (don't get any romantic ideas there, we were joined by about 29 Mississippians armed with bright flashlights and buckets on the search for sandcrabs). It was a nice day.


We're almost set for the great trek across the ocean to the mystical Orient. I say it in jest, but I must add that there is truly something in the air in China (besides smog); incense and mothballs mingled with a definite shrimpy smell and mango undertones. I can't wait!

sad, sad girl

An informal, unofficial, and certainly not mandatory poll. I've had more than a few people tell me lately that I look sad all the time. These kind of comments come my way from time to time, and I just have to ask, all of you, friends and family... do I really look sad all/most of the time? I think it's just the natural cast of my face (unfortunately)-- what do you think?

this is so much fun

After an arduous 1-hour session of setting up some new software, I looked around for some virtual mind-candy and found this sign generator. You can add text to all kinds of stuff, from pictures of cakes to the Vegas sign to the London Underground sign. There are lots of fun tools for kids and grownups alike on the site. Check it out! (The link there is to the Big Boy marquee sign, but scroll down for more.)

my kind of cooking

I found an article at nyt.com (click here) which I love. Here's why: I have a friend who is an excellent cook, who grew up eating food prepared by excellent cooks (her parents), and she once imparted a bit of wisdom to me, which was, basically, you don't need a lot of crazy geegaws to make wonderful stuff. As a person who has collected a number of crazy kitchen geegaws over the years, I'm gearing up for a major kitchen cleanout. (The remnants of the late 90s candle craze were dumped over the weekend; the kitchen's next). This article gives me the freedom to not feel like a loser cook if I use a plate as a pot lid or a splatter screen as a colander.

Super Q ROCKS!

I'm happy to report that at the ripe old age of 4, Super Q has a theme song... a rockin' theme song. You can hear it here; the link's on a site devoted to an actor who was on the old Scholastic Animorphs series, a series I knew nothing about until I found some ancient VHS copy of it at the library. It's now considered way awesome at our house. But here's the best part: remember taping your favorite song off the radio using a tape recorder and having to be super quiet while you did it? I didn't think it would be anywhere online, so Super Q and I sat down and taped it off the TV. Then Q had a great time listening to it over and over again for (no joke) about 2 hours. It's now part of the musical canon of "boy songs" suitable for soundtracks to superhero and secret agent living room battles. Yeah!

what the?

In preparation for the big TRIP I got a Hepatitis A shot today. And my arm is so very, very sore. Anyway, I sat down to write/whine about it and desired a picture of Hepatitis A cells or something when I came across this oddity: it's the Hepatitis virus in stuffed animal form! It can be purchased from giantmicrobes.com, where you will also find cute n' cuddly versions of black death, ebola, algae, dust mites, mange, rabies, and more! I've been trying to think of an occasion for which a soft stuffed syphilis doll is appropriate. Is it meant to soothe the pain of a diagnosis? Some kind of gag gift you bring to a pathology conference? Man, the internet is bizarre sometimes.

heavy, heavy boots

Sometimes it's great to revisit books you liked, but only when you remember enough about the book to STOP yourself before you get to the super-depressing parts. Say you've decided to read Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close again, and all you remember is that the protagonist is a 9-year-old boy whose father died on 9/11. He finds a mysterious key among his dad's things and embarks on a search through New York to discover what the key will unlock. The boy's name is Oskar and he's so precocious and creative--the child we all think we want to have but probably would be annoyed with. When he's feeling sad, he calls it having "heavy boots." He's been hiding the family answering maching since 9/11 because it has 5 terribly sad messages on it: his dad calling from the Windows on the World, reporting on the situation there. The last message consists of, "Is anyone there?" repeated 15 times. Don't forget this next time! Don't pick up this book unless you are on the beach in Jamaica or something, surrounded by enough beauty and vacuousness to cushion the impact. Remember this.

the show must go on!

Is there anything better than an impromptu performance by your kids? When I was little, it ranged from Debbie Boone/Xanadu/Barbra Streisand lip-sync concerts to roller derbies to pageants (the "Miss Ugmo Pageant," to be precise, wherein the ugliest contestant won).

In my house, it's feats of strength and bravery, involving running, jumping off the ottoman, and sliding in the kitchen in stocking-feet. The best part is the accompaniment, provided by the very crappy songs on our 80s Casio keyboard. Current favorites include "Superstition" (Stevie Wonder), some Pet Shop Boys song, and a song called "Crocodile Rock." These are "boy songs," appropriate for superhero fighting and feats of strength and bravery. The "girl songs" like the theme from Aladdin and a folk song called "Santa Lucia" are only to be played for visiting girls. Even then, they are roundly scorned. Then there are "church songs" (anything with a ponderous organ sound) during which one must solemnly march around, eyes fixed on an imaginary hymnal held in front of one's chest. That keyboard has provided hours and hours of quality entertainment. Definitely worth the $50.00 gift certificate and free night of babysitting I paid for it. (Flashback to that night of babysitting: one pee-soaked mattress, one hyper 10-year old demanding strawberries and whipped cream, one 3-year old who stayed awake until 11:30 pm, one tired and humorless Rebecca taking it all in...Yeah, I guess it was worth it.)

Paris to the Moon

First, I do like Adam Gopnik! Just finished his other small-family-in-a-big-city memoir, called Paris to the Moon. So nice. It's good to get a little reality check about Europe sometimes, don't you think? I read in another favorite book, American Cultural Patterns*, that Asia looks up to America, America looks up to Europe, and Europe looks up to Asia. I think there is a fair amount of Euro-worship here (minus that whole "Boycott France" movement of a few years ago), and we sure could learn from European lifestyles (walking to the market, sidewalk cafes, super yummy fresh bread, and real chocolate, to name a few), but we don't often know the country/culture well enough to make a real assessment of it. Anyway, that was a long way of getting to my point, which is that Gopnik reveals Paris as city with which one easily falls in love and just as easily feels frustrated with. I won't write out any anecdotes here, but suffice it to say that Gopnik hates Barney as much as you do, knows heaps about French cooking, and can draw some lovely conclusions about cultural differences from fax error messages.


*A textbook from some linguistics class ages ago...VERY enlightening! If you want to understand more about American culture and the (for us, totally obscured) motivations behind American friendships, social structure, and ambition, read this book. I also learned quite a lot about Japan, Germany, and, of course, Micronesia in the pages of this book.