Bucket List

Here are the things I really want to do:

Write the six novels in my head.

Travel to Switzerland.

Put on every single Shakespearean play, using my family as cast members, and using every single word of Shakespeare's in the productions.

Run businesses selling the things I have thought I could make money on.

Spend enough time with each one of my children that they know all about me and why I think the way I do, all of my relevant and positive history, and what I want for them and that they can achieve whatever they want to do.

Regain the buffness I had at thirty-two.

Become perfect.

Sew, cross-stitch, decorate, read, see plays and concerts, travel.

Eat at restaurants.

Here's what I will do:

Wash the same table hundreds of times.

Vacuum the same floors until the carpet is worn out.

Go to church and try to listen.

Have many conversations with my children and spouse, about eighty percent of which will be patient and positive.

Go to work 1768 more times.

Sleep in the same bed, wear the same clothes, eat the same breakfasts.

Sing the same goodnight song to my children at least 18000 more times. Times five.

Wish I had more time.

There must be some merit in performing mundane activities repeatedly. Because this is what our lives get filled up with.

I keep hearing and reading stories of people who--years before they thought this would happen--find out they are suddenly out of time.

The tremendous pain they have means they are full of cancer and they are put on morphine for the two days they have left. They have an accident and it's curtains. They come down with early-onset Alzheimers or another illness and are forced to quit their jobs and other meaningful activities.

It's over. Just like that.

Which brings me back to my thought. There must be some merit in having done certain things every day or nearly every day, over and over, even though those actions--in and of themselves--seem small and meaningless.

I remember at my grandma's funeral, someone mentioned that she got up and got dressed every day. What a thing to mention! Don't we all--to some extent? But it was the steadfast and unvarying repetition, the value she placed on it, that won her that accolade, small though it was. It made a big impression on me. Especially since I spend most of my time at home in my nightgown.

It meant more than it seemed to mean.

It was an effort she made for her own reasons. And someone noticed. And, somehow, it made a difference.

My mother was not a perfect housekeeper--she was far too busy. But I do remember that we never ate off a dirty table, as long as she was serving the meal. Small as that is, it says volumes.

So, maybe, even if I don't achieve greatness in any large way, but keep doing small things consistently, it will add up to something in the end.

Maybe, in the same way that the discipline I've achieved in consistency at the gym has made my muscles hard, washing that same table or singing that same song will add up to something in the end. Maybe there will be enough left over from the hurried, broken, incomplete or imperfect conversations I have had and will have my family members for them to piece together the rest of what I want them to know.

When the Prince Comes

Sunday, I found myself sprinting down the street from church to home to get the diaper bag and the Primary bag we had neglected to bring. And I was mad. I'd told my daughter to set them by the door so we wouldn't forget them. I'd glanced at the area near the front door on my way out and hadn't seen them, so I'd thought my husband had taken them with him. I'd thought, "How gallant." It was fine with me for him to carry them both and not leave one for me to tote.

However. Once there, these bags were nowhere to be found.

Our daughter is verging on teenagerism, and I should have specified which door she should have put them by.

But I wasn't mad at her. I was mad at him.

"We'll have to go back for them," I said, by which I meant, "You, the MAN, should go back for them."

He didn't pick up on that. "You have time. . ." he started to say. It was 1.5 minutes to the hour. So I sprinted.

I was probably able to run home faster than he was. I was wearing flats, and running was no problem in my shoes. I am used to running. Flying down the street in my brown skirt and tan jacket, I didn't even break a sweat. I grabbed the bags, which were set by the kitchen door, heaved them up on my shoulder (the diaper bag was suspiciously heavy, considering we don't even have a child in diapers), and ran back up the street and the 17 steps to the church without any trouble at all.

And I did get there before the meeting started.

So, why was I mad?

Paul asked where they had been and we had a brief discussion in which I said I'd thought he'd picked them both up and he said he had not seen them, either. "Are you mad?" he asked.

"Yes," I admitted. Then, as the meeting started, I reassured him by saying, "Don't worry--I'm not any madder at you than I usually am."

I continued examining my assumptions and biases. Within two minutes, I had decided to go with feeling glad that my husband considers me an equal.

Why should he necessarily be the one to go back for the bags? Because he's the man? Yes, it might be the chivalrous thing to do, but was it the most practical? I did it just as well as he could have--maybe better. In his suit coat, he would have broken a sweat. He was doing that, anyway.

I wasn't dressed in a way that made it hard. I wasn't weak or sick or pregnant. I was closer to the door. There were lots of ways to look at it practically that suggested I was actually the better candidate at the moment. Or at least just as good.

It reminded me of when it dawned on me, years ago, that men are really just people. They might be a little big bigger and stronger, but they can still be tired after work. They can still have physical issues, or down days. They aren't born with every skill, or all-knowing. They don't necessarily like to take out the trash.

I was actually surprised when my sixteen-year-old son didn't automatically know how to just go out and get a summer job.

I guess I'd heard so many stories describing my dad's confidence in his ability to do many things that I had grown up thinking men were superhuman. Dad could fix anything. He was smart about handling people. He didn't have a college education, but he could pick up his briefcase and go cold-calling on businesses and acquire customers. He ran his own business--no one told him how to. Although, my mother did have suggestions, to which he listened.

And I'd heard a lot of fairy tales. You know how fairy tales go--all your problems are over the minute the prince appears on the scene. They don't tell you that the prince shows up with his own list of problems.

I tell my daughters they can do anything they want. I believe in equal pay for equal work. I insist on fairness and equality in my relationship, as far as that is possible--at least that we each contribute to our family the best we can. We are not exactly the most traditional couple. My job has always been the more important job, and he usually does the cooking.

Yet, I don't mind at all if he is the one to stick his hand down the disposal or kill the spider.

I guess we all need to tease out for ourselves how we want to view equality and men's roles versus women's roles. We should decide what we think should just be people's roles, or adult's roles.

I think it's tricky--we grow up with certain experiences and ideas that give us biases and beliefs. Do we examine those? We should at least explore and discover them, and turn them over in our minds to see what we really would choose to believe about them. We should stretch ourselves to grow beyond stereotypes and harmful, false beliefs that we may have swallowed whole.

I knew a woman from Eastern Europe who believed herself to be completely modern, yet was really locked into caretaking roles for family members of various generations that used up time she didn't have, and who firmly believed that if her husband ever saw her once without lipstick on, it would be the end of her marriage.

I had a sister who was known as a champion for feminism--she was bright and employed, empowered and convincing, yet was often found baking cookies and cared about being pretty. Personally, I find nothing contradictory in this, and I don't think she did, either. She thought things through and decided what she wanted to think and stuck to it.

And then there are the people who will say things you know they swallowed whole and never really thought through. Like the man who told me that he had to believe men over women because they "held the priesthood." He wasn't an evil man--just uneducated and unexposed to critical thinking skills.

What do we think? And why do we think it? After turning it over and looking at it from different angles, do we want to keep thinking it, or modify it? If we're going to stand by a thought we have, shouldn't we at least know why?

Naughty or Nice--It Won't Matter

So, a friend and I were having a discussion about which of us owed whom a doughnut. I think I won, but then I had to decline. Part of me was saying, "I like the chocolate cake kind," and the other part was saying, "Remember your jade dress that you want to wear next week?"

It was exactly like those cartoons with a devil (devil's food?) on one shoulder and an angel (in a jade dress?) on the other.

Which morphed our discussion into the nature of being naughty or nice. I teased that I thought I was basically a naughty person forced into a saintly mold. He said I wore that mold well, which I really had to think about.

He also pointed out that I probably had not been forced into anything.

So then I had to take all of this on and be accountable for it--the naughty, the nice, the mold, my niche in the whole eternal struggle--but, unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on which shoulder you're on), not the doughnut.

I began to think, "Maybe someday, I'll be in the Celestial Kingdom, and completely happy, and then I won't want to be naughty anymore." My next thought was that my first thought was probably backward. Probably, I have to not want to be naughty anymore, then I can achieve total happiness. And then, we'd see about the Celestial Kingdom much later.

It makes one wonder.

And, while we're wondering about being in the Celestial Kingdom, I have to wonder if we'll be resurrected with armpit hair on our "perfect" forms? Because, well, that just doesn't seem like perfect form to me.

I worry about it.

If resurrected, "perfect," bodies have not one hair lost from their heads, does that apply to other parts, too? And if resurrected bodies cannot ever be ill or hurt, does that mean they will be unable to be tweezed, waxed, or shaved? I mean, what would indestructible armpit hair be like? I have never been able to stand the normal kind. Is titanium armpit hair that I cannot get rid of in all eternity something I can look forward to?

And, what about all the moles and whatevers that we've made sure to get rid of? Will they reappear, too? Maybe things like moles are considered imperfections and will thus not be resurrected with us. Maybe Cindy Crawford will wake up in the Resurrection and go, "Dang!"

Who's to say what things will be considered "blemishes" needing to be healed or made perfect, and which will simply be restored according to the DNA blueprint we were created with? (Okay, God.)

And what about the people who, through great expense and effort, have straightened their teeth? Will the Resurrection honor what we consider to be the "perfect smile," or will it honor the way the DNA blueprint thought the teeth should grow in as "perfect form"?

I'm very much looking forward to my middle son having the natural lenses and perfect vision he was meant to have, to seeing my mom with white, lovely arms unscarred by fire. But who knows what we might get stuck with? It's not like we can avoid our eventual fate by being naughty--the Resurrection is apparently for all.

My brother thinks maybe it would be nice to choose these things for one's spouse's resurrection. I'm just hoping for a tiny say in my own.

The Day I Got Old

I had a birthday recently, but that is not the Day I Got Old.

It reminded me of it, though.

The Day I Got Old was a little over a year ago. It had started out as a normal Thursday--out of bed around 4:00, heading to the gym with a suitcase and two carryons to tide me over until my long day as a state employee in Utah ended.

A normal day except that I was a little bit stupid in the morning. Which worried me later, when I had to wonder if I was having a stroke. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

It was the first day that fall cool enough to wear my jacket to the gym, which threw everything off. Instead of making sure I had four things--gym membership card, keys, baggie with a Clorox wipe, and locker lock--in my hands before locking my car, I assumed I had it all in my pockets and accidentally locked my keys in my car. I took my glasses--which I do not need at the gym--in with me instead.

I had been sick earlier in the week with a sinus infection and had missed a workout, and I was trying to make up those 900 calories a little at a time. So, instead of burning 900 calories on the elliptical machine, I burned 1000. This should not have been a big deal, because I had done that intense of a workout many times before. I had been on antibiotics for a couple of days already.

However, after I showered and had discovered I did not have my keys, had called a coworker to pick me up and was on my way home to borrow my sleeping husband's--after my pulse and respiration had calmed down, that is, I realized that my vision was not normal.

Around the outside of my vision was a flashing border continuously going around in a rectangle like some kind of marquee. And, the middle of my vision was pixilated. When I finally got to work and was talking with a woman, if I looked right at her, parts of her face were missing, like jigsaw puzzle pieces. I didn't want to believe that, so I looked at her straight on a few times to see. . .and it was really true.

But I felt fine. I felt strong. I wasn't numb anywhere or weak on one side or anything like that. I wanted to believe I was fine.

After talking with a couple of people about it, including a woman who had had some small strokes, my husband, and the university stroke center, I went to my supervisor, who was copying papers for a meeting.

"I need to go to the ER," I blurted. "Can you drive me?"

"Sure," she said. "Just let me finish copying this."

I went to the bathroom, called my husband, packed my lunch back up, and went to my supervisor, who was still at the copier. "You know what?" I said, less than graciously, "I need to leave right now, so I'll just drive myself."

"Okay," she said. I couldn't believe it. But that's what she said. (She later apologized.) And I had to take accountability that I had not been as straightforward as I should have been, so I got in my car and drove--pixilated vision and all--to the stroke center.

I didn't know how or when I had gotten hurt, but I was worried about the three-hour window for most successfully treating strokes, as it was well over two hours since I had stopped working out. The traffic up to the university is unbelievable in the mornings. I tried to avoid it by getting into the left lane, planning to turn left and go along a less busy street the rest of the way. Only, when I finally crawled to that intersection, there was a no left-turn sign.

Everything in front of me was stopped for blocks ahead. I didn't have that kind of time left. I decided it was a good thing I had pixilated vision and couldn't see everything in front of me (like signs) and made the turn. The traffic was still slow, but not as bad. I passed up another hospital's ER, which was a tough decision, but I wanted to get to the place that had the best reputation for dealing with strokes.

Finally, finally, with just minutes left (I thought), I pulled up to the ER, left my car keys in the hands of a valet, and went in. I told the person at the counter that I had been experiencing stroke-like symptoms. He had me squeeze his hands. "You didn't have a stroke," he told me.

I told him about my vision--only the funny thing was that that symptom had almost completely disappeared, so I started to doubt myself again. I felt fine, and now had no symptoms. If I hadn't had a stroke, what on earth was I doing there, about to hand over a huge ER copayment?

"Well, I'm an EMT, and I can tell you you did not have a stroke," he said.

My tears started falling onto the counter. That was not what I needed to hear in order to stay. I didn't know what to do. He told me that if I had a problem with my vision, that should definitely get checked. "But not at an ER," I said, feeling stupid.

"I'm just trying to comfort you," he said.

"It's not working."

My symptom was gone. I nervously munched some almonds. I was taken back into a private part of the ER. My husband and youngest child came in.

Another person asked me to squeeze her hands, touch my nose, push against her hands with my feet, look at the light, raise my arms, lower my arms. I complied, knowing none of this would tell her anything. A nurse came in and asked me to squeeze her hands, touch my nose, push against her hands with my feet, look at the light, raise my arms, lower my arms, balance on one foot. A doctor came in and asked me to squeeze her hands, touch my nose, push against her hands with my feet, look at the light, raise my arms, lower my arms, balance on one foot, walk a line on the floor. I complied, knowing it wouldn't tell her anything, and feeling more stupid each time.

A nurse came in to hook me up to an IV. I asked why. I wavered. I really wondered what I was doing there. My symptoms had been gone for hours. I was fine. I didn't want to pay the copayment if there was nothing wrong with me. My husband gently--maybe too gently--suggested I might as well go along with it and try to find out why my vision had been pixilated.

I complied, then took a break to have a hacking cough fit.

The day waned on. I did Sudoku puzzles and wondered what I was doing there.

A neurologist came in and asked me to squeeze her hands, touch my nose, push against her hands with my feet, look at the light, raise my arms, lower my arms, balance on one foot, walk a line on the floor. I complied. A second neurologist came in and asked me to squeeze her hands, touch my nose, push against her hands with my feet, look at the light, raise my arms, lower my arms, balance on one foot, walk a line on the floor. I complied.

She mentioned to the first neurologist that one of my pupils was not the same size as another one. Then, I had a CT scan, and the IV came in handy instead of just being a nuisance.

My husband had left. He had taken the baby to a neighbor's and had gone to pick up the other kids from school.

A completely new doctor walked in and said, "You have a dissection in your carotid artery. We're admitting you and putting you on a Heparin drip. You're at risk for a stroke." I felt my world shift beneath me. As I scrambled to regain my psychological footing, he continued. "No working out for at least a month (by which he really meant 14.5 weeks). You'll be on blood thinners. You're not going home tonight." Then, the clincher. "We'll refer you to a pulmonologist--you are not allowed to cough like that ever again."

That is what I mean by the Day I Got Old. I had a problem that was a real, serious problem. Not just sinus infections, or acne, a cavity, or thinning hair. Something that could kill me, or alter my life so badly I could wish it had killed me. Something I would have to watch out for, take precautions about. FOR. EV. ER.

So, feeling as strong as I ever had, I spent twenty-four hours in the hospital. I underwent an MRI, then several more CT scans. I learned how to give myself shots in the stomach, paying $250 for that privilege alone. I met with a pulmonologist, then a new ENT. I accrued a team of neurologists, participated in a genetic study, endured almost-daily finger pricks. Eleven pounds from my weight goal, I had to put it on a shelf. I went to the gym every day and just walked, which I found took more discipline to my regular workouts. I felt the pounds pack on around my hips as the holidays came and went. And--forget the ER copayment--I had to make arrangements to pay off a hospital bill. And I felt old for the first time.

But I fought my way back through those extra pounds and got even closer to my goal. I can run farther and lift more than I could before. I'm here, and I'm looking forward to getting older and older and older.

Hi, Mom, What's Wrong?

Well, I finally had a dream about my mom.

Actually, the dream was not about my mom at all. It was about one of my children getting run over by a big truck backing up on the street where I (and also my mom) used to live.

I couldn't see what happened. But I could see my family crossing the street behind this truck, and I heard shouts and cries as I passed and turned the corner. I looked in my rear view mirror, and some of my family members were kneeling down on the street. So I knew something had happened, but I didn't know what.

Trying to get back there quickly, I got in an accident of my own.

Then the dream shifted and I was trying to put my children to bed and they kept getting up. When I thought all was finally taken care of, I could still hear one child crying.

I got up to see about that and passed through a big hotel-type lobby in the house in my dream that was my house. (No, I do not actually have a big hotel-type lobby in my real house. In case you're wondering.)

A woman came into the lobby and took off her sunglasses.

It was Mom.

She rushed over to me and embraced me.

I woke up. It was 1:29--the birthday of the child I worry most about. The one who can't seem to stop "crying" no matter what I do. The one who is hurting the most and has been hurt the most.

I cannot believe that Mom's coming to me at exactly that time is not somehow about him.

Then I really worried--why was Mom rushing to my aid just then? Had something happened to him?

I could not go back to sleep.

I finally decided that it was her way of showing me that she is with me in my quest to make things right with and for him.

What do you think?

What Not to Wear or Do with Your Hair

This post is my version of "What Not to Wear." Or do with your hair. (Yes, I am a poet. Thanks for asking.)

I know I'm no fashion goddess, but I think I look okay.

All right, all right, I know everyone thinks they look okay, and that can't possibly be right, so I'll go one step farther for you. I conducted an extensive survey and asked five separate people if I look okay. All of them said, "Yeah."

So, here's just a few things I've noticed--in my humble opinion as a nobody.

If you're fair and blond, and you dye your hair pitch black, you won't be fooling anyone. Are your eyebrows still blond? You might even have blond whispies sticking out. Try a subtler shade--something with some variety in it, like natural hair has. On the other hand, if you want to be Morticia when you grow up, fine.

Gym-goers: please own at least two workout outfits, and interchange them from day to day. Yes: when you go every day at the same time wearing the same outfit, I do notice--even if I don't know you. Then I find myself distracted from my workout, wondering if you really wash your clothes every single day.

Change your hairstyle, at least every decade. If you've had the same hairstyle for over three decades, change your hairstyle.

Little tiny clothes that are 99% spandex are for little tiny bodies that are 99% sparkle. Yes, every fat lump and dimple shows through.

If you are an overweight middle-aged woman (like me), don't wear pants that cut off right below the knee unless they are loose around the knee. Tightish pants that end there emphasize any fat you may have on your upper legs, lower legs, and feet. Put on your favorite pants-that-end-at-the-knee outfit and stand in front of the mirror. Pretend you don't know yourself and you don't love those clothes. Ask yourself if you can pass the Petunia Pig test. If you really want to look like this, at least don't forget the polka-dotted bow for your head!

That's aaaaaaaall, folks!

It's not Easy Being Green

Four out of five sons agree: green is their favorite color.

This just proves my theory that all of their genes did not come from me.

As a color, green is okay. Obviously, much of the world is green, and that's nice. Some shades of green are really lovely. But many shades are, well, just so green.

Maybe my aversion had something to do with the color rhyming with my name. Maybe I was afraid I'd grow up to be Janean Greene.

My oldest son loved and adhered to green as if it were his religion. A colicky summer baby, all he needed to stop crying was to be taken outside--where it was green--for the constant, constant crying to simply cease.

He let me know verbally early on that green did it for him. I remember watching him trying to catch green lights on his arms at the circus, wanting to choose "green meat" for his third birthday dinner, loving pea soup ("green voot") and grapes.

I accepted this very calmly and even encouraged it. Green was only one color. Even if I had six or eight children, there were plenty of favorite colors left for my other children to choose. Little did I know that most of them would choose green.

I had only two children for over a decade. Whenever I bought anything for them, one was always green. Brother would get the red one or the blue one--he didn't have a color religion. In fact, I think his first liked color was pink. I also accepted this very calmly. Pink is a pretty color. I let him like it without hassle. After he got to day care or maybe school, his preference seemed to somehow change.

My third son actually liked orange best first. Then black, or blue. I forget because he decided to very methodically change his "favorite" color according to the rainbow at the time of his birthday each year. (Yes, he's a future organizer of some type.) A few years ago, though, he settled on green, and it seemed to stick. And his little brothers are copying him. (My daughter wisely announced, "I like gold!" But that's a different story.)

The first house I bought was hideous. Decorated by some tasteless, deranged green freak from the mid-fifties, almost every room of it featured some awful shade of green. The dining room wallpaper was comprised entirely of green leaves with small pink flowers on them here and there. The linoleum in the kitchen was a passive yellow and a monstrous green--to match the "Dirty Diaper" paint on the walls, I suppose. The master bedroom sported dull moss green carpet. Even the nursery had enormous, heavy, olive green funeral-parlor drapes across two whole walls and gray-green stripey wallpaper--for a few minutes, until I could burn the drapes and paint the walls blue.

It was actually more than a few minutes, because I moved into the house a day-and-a-half after my first son was born. He had enough time to wet a stream onto the wallpaper before I could get it painted. At the time, I actually attributed that to good taste in him.

By the time we sold that house, I had changed the "Dirty Diaper" paint in the kitchen to "Wedding Cake." I had ripped out the Mike Wazowski linoleum and relaid six floors. I had also ripped out the horrible bedroom carpet to find a wonderful hard-wood floor beneath it--that I had never enjoyed the whole fifteen years I had lived there. I had painted over the foot-long butterflies in the family room downstairs. The house was so lovely that I wanted to move right back in. But we'd outgrown it.

By then, only one room in the house was green--the former bedroom of my oldest son. We had painted it the palest possible green with deep forest green trim. It looked fine.

I regularly wear shades of green. I just don't want to have to look at green exclusively--as in every room of my house--or dye every birthday cake I bake green.

I wonder if I can convince the other boys that green as a favorite was already taken by their oldest brother? All grown up, he still likes green. Now, we're just waiting for his kids--Kelly, Jade, Hunter, Teal, Emerald, Sage, Forest, and Spring, to appear on the scene.

"I Give Myself Very Good Advice, but I Very Rarely Follow It"

When I got out of the shower, I found my husband had come into the bathroom.

"You can look at all of me except three pounds," I said.

The three pounds could be a fluctuation. Given how I've eaten the past two weeks, though, I doubt it.

Which brings me to my question for the day: Why is it so much harder to exercise when you've eaten more than you should, and why is it so much harder to not eat what you shouldn't when you didn't exercise?

In a rational world, getting in only a partial workout should inspire one to cut back on eating. But it doesn't. In some mystical way, getting in only a partial workout makes you think, "Oh, it's okay if I have this donut. I didn't do my full workout, anyway." Which makes NO SENSE.

And eating a donut makes one think, "I'll just do 20 minutes today," which is the complete converse of what you should think when you eat a donut. How about doing 20 minutes more than you usually do? Why don't we think that way?

I think it's because a) compulsive eaters don't think rationally about food--that's why we have a compulsion; b) unless you grew up working out every day and loved it, it's hard to maintain that program. The more rigorous your program is, the harder it probably is to maintain. So, once you let a piece of your program slip, it's very easy to think that you might as well give it all up. Yes, there are benefits to a workout program, but when we get used to them, it's hard to see them clearly. Once we are comfortable in our skin, it's hard to remember how utterly, utterly miserable we were fat.

At least, I was. I hated being fat. I hated not fitting into my clothes. I hated going places and having people see me fat. I hated feeling fat. I hated huffing up the stairs, struggling to stand up from deep couches and the floor, not having energy.

I never want to go back there.

But. Do I ever want to be able to enjoy donuts again? Yes. Chocolate cake? Cookies? Pie? Christmas candy? Yes, yes, yes, yes!

So I have to strike a balance. And my sweet tooth gives me a heavy disadvantage to maintaining that balance.

During the past two weeks, while my eating has been, shall we say, larger than average, I've increased my workouts, too. I already do quite vigorous workouts daily, but I forced myself to burn an extra 500 calories this week. My run this morning was harder than usual. But at least I didn't cave in to thinking the opposite way I should and decrease my workouts. What I really need to do is reign back my eating again. Moderation, moderation, moderation.

There is a weight loss columnist who has not yet hit on the concept of moderation. He will sign up for marathons and triathlons, lose 100 or more pounds, and wow us all with his feats, then go on months-long binges and gain 80 pounds back.

When I read his column, I think, Dude! I wish he would get some counseling and figure this out. Most of us fluctuate, yes, but within 15 or 20 pounds.

He hasn't asked me for advice, and I doubt he ever will. But I'll give myself and you who read me what I think is good advice. He needs to stop setting superhero goals and just set a goal to reach moderation. He doesn't need to be Ironman. If he could only achieve moderate eating habits and moderate exercise habits, day after day after day, consistently, he would probably stay at a reasonable weight.

We all would.

Now, if only I can be unlike Alice in Wonderland and keep my own good advice!

We have to keep our heads and keep thinking correctly about our eating and exercising. We have to make sure we stay as consistent as possible. Through sheer physical force, if necessary. When I had run only 2.8 miles this morning, I really wanted to quit. I could remember times in the past when nearly 3 miles was a really acceptable workout. Yes, I reminded myself, but I was fat then, and I wasn't really losing weight. I reminded myself that I don't want to lose my skill for running 10 miles every week. I don't want to lose any of the progress that I have made. I don't want to gain that weight back.

And then, the clincher (try this--it works every time): would I want to have to only eat 28 percent of what I should eat today? I try to imagine shoving 72% of my food aside--having only half a boiled egg with a quarter cup of milk for breakfast--and I keep running.

Where Did You Find Me, Mommy?

A couple of weeks ago, two of my children told me separately that they did not want to attend the maturation program at the school.

When the second one said it, I was dumbfounded. "Don't you want to know what the other kids will know?" I asked.

This was not the problem I expected to deal with. In my head, I was wondering whose kids these were. Answer: their shy father's. Back when, I was curious.

Still, it seemed unlikely that both of them would have that reaction. I asked my daughter, "Have you been scaring your brother about the maturation program?"

One shoulder came up while a silly look came over her face.

So I talked to my son. A little bit. About his body and how it would be changing. (I had already talked to his sister over a year ago.) Then, looking into his beautiful, innocent, brown eyes, I veered off a bit into discussing what being a man really means. What being a father really means. I talked about working hard, responsibility, treating women fairly and with respect. Being there for his eventual children. Following the example of his father, grandfather, and uncles.

Which is not an altogether bad maturation pre-talk after all, I guess.

I completely agree with having "The Talk" with my kids. I agree that they need to get their knowledge and values from their parents. And information--it shouldn't all come from dubious or out-of-the-home sources. I do not want to be as reticent as my mother was.

But, when you're looking into the face and eyes of your child--that child whose whole existence you have spent protecting and shielding--and you're doing it really just to be ahead of some school's arbitrary schedule and not because this child came to you needing to know--it can feel a lot like you're shattering that child's innocence. So, it's hard.

Ideally, this information should come as the child is ready for it. Ideally, age-appropriate answers should be given when the child asks questions and clearly wants to and is ready to know.

The best talk like this happened when one of my children was two or three years old. He looked up at me and asked, "Mommy, where did you find me?" Clearly, he could not remember how we had met.

First, I laughed at his cuteness, and, second, I was stymied for a minute, but then I answered honestly, "I found you in my tummy. You were just a little tiny baby in there starting to grow, and I was so happy when I found out you were in there." I explained that babies grow in a special place in their mother's tummies until they are big enough to be born. That was all he needed to know at the time.

The next time he brought it up, I repeated, then elaborated, "And where did I find your sister?"

He looked at me sideways to see if I was joking, then said, "In your nose."

Apparently, more talks will need to be had.

Which matches what I told my ten-year-old son before his terrifying maturation program: growing up is a process. You're not a child one day and an adult the next. Not in any way.

Which is why I guess I believe there should not be just one "The Talk." There should be several--at different times, answering different questions, giving different information, with different levels of formality, in different places.

It, like everything else in life, should be a circular, ever-widening-and-deepening-each-time-you-go-around process.

Slashing Spice Cake with Pear Sauce to Fit

After dinner Sunday, my kids asked for dessert.

I felt deflated and defeated. I was trying to go for three weeks without sugar. In fact, the night before, I had avoided four kinds of cookies, several kinds of pop, and birthday cake at a family party. I had been strong then, but, since then, I had been fasting, and I wasn't sure I could last in the face of temptation.

"We have lots of things to use for dessert," my husband said, encouragingly. I looked over to him, wondering what he was talking about. "Peaches, pears, strawberries. . ." he started to list.

I smiled to myself. This is another example of a major difference between Paul and me. My list of things to make dessert with would not be all fruit--it would be things like chocolate, caramel, whipped cream. . . .

It used to be that I made a spice cake with pear sauce for my family. I think it must have been two years ago--I don't think I made it at all last summer, when I was trying hard to lose weight until The Day I Got Old. My family started clamoring for spice cake with pear sauce. They weren't really clamoring, by any dictionary definition of the word, but they wanted it.

I went into my bedroom.

When I came out, I started to make spice cake with pear sauce. I asked Paul if he knew where the recipe for the spice cake I'd used was. He brought out a big green loose-leaf binder, full to the point of explosion with recipes. A couple of them are apparently mine. He helped me find the spice cake recipe I had used back in 2007 or 2008. "Did it have raisins?" I asked, surprised.

"I don't know. Don't think so."

I didn't, either, but I put raisins in, anyway. What i didn't put in was sugar. Or flour. I was brave. I was bold. I thought I should probably put in half sugar and half Splenda (which is basically sugar with no calories and doesn't usually bake as well as sugar does), so it would turn out all right--and half whole wheat and half white flour, but I didn't. I used only Splenda! I used only whole wheat flour! I wanted to be able to eat some when I was done and not just stare at it the way I had the cookies the night before.

I dug up the lemon sauce recipe I had modified for the pear sauce. "Did I double this?" I asked Paul.

"I don't know."

"Did I pare the pears? Or leave the skins on?"

"Don't remember."

"Did I use two, or three?"

"Dunno."

Clearly, I was on my own.

So while my son whose name starts with P made up "pare a pair of pears" jokes in the living room, I made that spice cake with pear sauce, and I made it good. I made it edible on my low-carb diet. I made the pear sauce with Splenda, too. And it was good. Paul said it was fine, but didn't eat any more than one serving. Although he did empty the cookie jars of the two kinds of cookies I had had to make for another family party on Monday. So sweet, that man.

After dessert, I picked up a reference book and figured out how many calories were in the two versions. Answer: 454 per serving with sugar and flour; 250 per serving with Splenda and whole wheat flour.

I felt omnipotent.

Hi, Dad, Where's Mom?

I want to see if any of you can help me figure something out.

Lately, I have been having several dreams I can remember, as opposed to dreams I cannot remember--which I'm merely taking on faith from what I learned in high school health class that I am having, since I can't remember them.

Anyway.

In all these dreams, I dream that I am at "home," sleeping, getting ready for work, hanging out, or whatever, but in all these dreams that I am at home, I am actually in my parents' home, where I was raised. That's not actually my question, as I have always dreamed that I am in that home when I dream that I am home. I never dream about my current house, and I only dreamed about the previous house, where I lived for 15 years, when I dreamed about my ex.

My question is, how come in all these dreams, my dad is at home, sleeping in his bedroom, or just standing in the kitchen, or something like that, but my mom never is? Don't get me wrong--I love my dad, but I was much closer to my mom, and, well, I really wouldn't mind dreaming about her, too. It used to be that she figured in a lot of my dreams as just someone who was in the room or place with me. Not really saying anything, just there. Which I took to mean she is still a presence in my life, or that she is a core part of me. Something like that.

But, lately, I dream that I am in their house (which we sold after their deaths several years ago), but she is not in the house, although my dad is. He's not usually a part of the central action, but he is there. (Which is actually symbolic of his role in my life--he was always there for everything but not often putting himself forward to be the center of attention.) And I find myself thinking something like, "Oh, yeah, Mom's work schedule is completely off from mine"--which makes no sense when it comes to Mom but actually applies in real life to my husband or my grown son.

Oh, and one other detail. Typing the title of this post made me cringe, because it's a lot like the last thing I ever said to my dad. I actually asked him how Mom was doing while his heart was winding up to give him the coronary of his life, so to speak. Just as we hung up, I thought to ask, "And how are you, Dad?" but it was too late. And then it was really too late.

Any thoughts? If you have any guesses at all, please be brave. My sister who was good at helping me with my dreams is no longer available, either.

The Lies that Bind Us

Ugh.

These are the things I was losing weight for (besides my health and happiness, which are huge): My anniversary. Easter. A family reunion. THE WEDDING! My cousins' party. My high school reunion.

All of these events are now behind--not ahead of--me.

How did I do? Pretty well. Was I happy with myself at each of these events? Yes. Did I reach my goal weight? Not quite. But I'm close enough now that I could reach it by my husband's birthday. Maybe for his birthday, I could present myself to him at my dating weight! On the other hand, if there happens to be any kind of correlation between something being given to him for his birthday and how much he actually uses it--I'm not saying there is, but just if there happens to be, that might not be good.

(And let me just insert here in this very natural place for it that the wonderful man I married had a meal on the table for me when I got home from work, as he does almost every night. Thanks, hon! I know how busy you are!)

Apparently, though, I still need something to motivate me.

Here's how things have gone once the last event--my reunion--came and went.

At the reunion, after several "perfect eating" days, I had da-da-da-da! one small dessert. Which is exactly what I'd planned to have. So far, so good. My husband had a small plateful. Then came back with another white roll and two more. I gave him a look. He said, "Well there were two more that I hadn't seen before." The next day, he said, "They were small."

Yes, they were small, but probably 200 calories each. Times whatever. I know--I've been thinking this way for months.

The next day, I had two taffies out of my goodie bag from the reunion. Not so good--I didn't really need them. But I was really tired and they were, well, just sitting there! What else was I supposed to do?

Today started out pretty well. Only I was late for the gym, so I only burned 2/3 of the calories I usually burn. This wouldn't be a problem if I would just make it up during the rest of the week. I also wore a very cute lime green dress that I haven't worn in years. It was a little tight, though. Maybe if I'd burned those 300 other calories. . .

A very young, very cute coworker gave me very large compliments when she saw me. She also told me she had brought home-baked chocolate chip cookies. "But you are not allowed to have one!" she said, by way of encouragement, I'm sure.

And, no, I'm not blaming her.

I'm blaming all the years of lies I've told myself, before I started telling myself the truth about treats--that each one is so many calories and would take so long to burn off, and so forth. The lies that support my triggers, which all seemed to be cocked and waiting today.

Well, I knew that Miss Manners would say that the only polite thing to do in this situation was take her seriously and not have any of her cookies. Anything else would be, well, begging.

I also knew that another coworker had a stash of fun-size Hershey bars that I was welcome to. I knew that very well because I'd avoided them like the Black Death all last week. One day, I wouldn't even go near her cubicle.

Early this morning, it had occurred to me that I could maybe allow myself, now that the reunion was over, to have one of them.

But when I wasn't allowed to have one cookie (because I'm sure I would have called it quits there), I helped myself to one Hershey bar.

Not that the dress wasn't tight enough or anything, and not that I hadn't started out very well eating my one orange, then an hour later my two eggs and glass of milk, then my nut snack, then my lunch. Well, by the time I went home, I had had 259 Hershey bars. Or something like that. I was driven--compelled--to make that dress tighter and tighter and tighter! Maybe, who knows--it would explode and I could shoot off like a popped green balloon around and around the ceiling and land weighing absolutely nothing.

That didn't happen.

After all, the only compelling reasons to NOT pig out were my health and happiness. Who cares about those?

So, what lies do you tell yourself when you overeat?

On Procrastinating Home Repairs

So we have had a drip in the master bathroom sink since, I don't know, last year, maybe? I can't even tell you how long that drip. . .drip. . .drip has been driving me nuts at night. Only, recently it has become more of a dripdripdrip and we HAD TO do something about it!

I know it's been going on for several months at least, because we wanted to get it fixed last time we had a plumber over (last summer?). My husband mentioned it to him. The plumber told him it would be another $175 to fix. We were already spending something obscene like $850 to have the kitchen faucet fixed.

The man who sold us our house nine years ago had the brilliant idea of putting in impossibly expensive fixtures and appliances that we could never hope to repair so that he could flip the property and make a fortune.

Unfortunately for him and fortunately for us, that didn't happen. He sold it to us instead.

But whoever heard of a kitchen faucet costing that much to replace?!!!

Anyway, I digress. We couldn't even hope to add to that expense at that time. And then I walked around for months thinking all we needed was a new washer in the faucet. And being slightly miffed in the back of my mind (to that drip. . .drip. . .drip accompaniment) that no one ever did anything about the new washer we needed.

It was Friday that my husband divulged (at least in a way so that I heard him) that our bathroom faucet was WASHERLESS! That's what the plumber said to him last. . .year?

Anyway.

Since then, we had the dishwasher go on the blink, but not before ruining the kitchen floor. We had to replace both vehicles. We had a two or three weddings in the family--one that we were directly responsible for. And two deaths (which we were not responsible for). We had a plastic wolf dropped in the main toilet. So the bathroom faucet waited.

And waited.

Meanwhile, the water company sent me a letter that they were raising our rates, effective July 1. I lamely tried to say that my son would be moving out then and couldn't we wait and see what impact that had on our water usage before we got hasty and raised the rates? They sent an investigator to the house. The first report I got was that the water meter was not moving, meaning there was no leak. In subsequent phone calls, someone said it had been moving. Personally, I knew there was a leak. At any rate, the higher rate stuck.

"Your usage has doubled since last year," I was told.

I couldn't imagine why.

Paul said it was because we were doing dishes by hand instead of using the dishwasher. I disagreed. But, eventually, we did agree on something. The dripdripdrip woke us up, and by Friday, it had come to the top of both my husband's and my lists.

He took the faucet off the sink and knew exactly where to take it. "Your dad probably came here a lot," he commented.

"Really? He wasn't a plumber," I said, but felt comforted anyway, like maybe we would experience a visitation while we were there or something.

We walked in and sat at the counter. I imagined the place had once been a sandwich counter and fantasized briefly about ordering a double malt for us both from the muscle man standing behind the counter. But it was too tinny and dingy for that. Not chromey and vinylly like the fifties would have had it.

The quiet muscle man behind the counter smiled at our story and brought us a tiny black dob of plastic with a tiny spring. He added a jar of putty to put the sink back together with.

The cost? Five dollars, four cents.

Or did you mean the cost of the water bill?

Vintage Wear

So I went through my overflow clothes that have been in my baby's closet since we moved here. (Doesn't everyone have a closet like that?) Never mind that who the "baby" in that room is has changed three times. And I thought that I would add some of those clothes back into my wardrobe.

Woot woot!

First off, who knew when I stored these clothes away that people would stop tucking shirts in? Some of my old shells and blouses definitely require a tuck-in, but I feel downright ancient doing it. Also, my waist isn't really quite ready for that display yet. Although I DID wear the mint suit at my son's wedding reception and my husband said that if I couldn't have looked any nicer without upstaging the bride. Who is movie-star beautiful and at least that tall, too. In her elaborate ivory wedding dress with her hair done up, she looked exactly like she could have been plucked from the heroine role in a Jane Austen film. So, I was forced to forgive him on the spot for all past sins. (Can you believe I'm going to have to start over now?)

Have you ever found a $20 somewhere and you have no idea how it ever got there or how you forgot about it? Well, no, I didn't find a twenty, but something like that. While excavating this closet, I found a perfect little black dress skirt that had NEVER BEEN WORN!

I KNOW! How did that happen? Slobbering, I hurriedly checked the tag, and it was a size 12. So I immediately grabbed an old mauve shell I'd been saving and put it with it to form an outfit for this week. "I'd better wear this thing quick before I can't wear twelves anymore," I said to myself.

Yeah, right. So, to figure out if this shell can really go with this skirt and what to do about tucking or not tucking, etc., I tried this outfit on in that small moment between when I walk in the door and when I am already wearing my nightgown for the night. (Paul calls me the fastest nightgown in the West, which really doesn't quite equal the earlier comment in any way but is still okay.)

I couldn't believe it. The skirt didn't fit. I checked the label again. Twelve. I weighed myself. I measured my waist. Of course both of those numbers were up a little because--hello!--this is evening and I never in my right mind weigh or measure in the evening. So I'm tearing my hair out wondering if I've really gained weight or if something else is off.

I'm thinking something really funky happened to this skirt in the factory. I've been wearing tens and this was not fitting like an 8 or a 6.

Which might explain why it's never been worn.

And why I forgot about it. I mean, who wants to remember a size 12 skirt that they could NEVER WEAR?

So I put it back in my closet--but only a week back. I'm still going to keep trying it until I can wear it--mauve blouse or not, tucked or not.

Truth Stranger than Fiction

On my son's last night at home, I entertained mixed feelings. Fatigue being among the top contenders, I headed to bed early. Also, I had nothing left to prepare and wanted a good night's sleep in order to be at my best for the next day's events.

He had been going in and out of the house, cleaning his car and attending to last-minute details before his wedding the next morning.

As I went through my bedroom door, I glanced at the digital clock on the dresser. Eight-thirteen. At the same time, I heard the front door of the house close behind my son.

Wow.

I could hardly believe it. Eight-thirteen p.m. is the time my son was born.

So, exactly 8770 days from the moment he was born, the last day of my life with him in my home ended and I heard the door shut behind him.

I couldn't write fiction this good if I tried.

I have noticed this at other times in my life, like when my daughter, through a series of strange small events, was born on my parents' anniversary, as I'd wanted her to be because my mother had recently joined my dad in the hereafter and her due date had been close to their wedding date. My doctor had said it was impossible for her to be born that day unless it happened on its own (and I only once in seven children went into labor on my own), because she was going to be on her way to China that day. But, the universe smiled on me and gave me exactly what I wanted--a daughter I could name after my mother on the day my mom and dad had been married.

And the time I was writing about my life and saw how certain events had fit together just as smoothly as a jig-saw puzzle to make things work out. And when I struggled for the exact words I needed to express something very important that had happened and they came into my mind and I knelt with tears streaming down my face to thank God not only that I had the ability to write what had happened, but because I could finally see that the misery I had passed through fit with the writing talent and other blessings I had been given to allow me a way to do some good in the world.

Sometimes, I think the entire history of the world is a very good, long novel of the most intricate detail imaginable--like zooming in on the pattern of a flower far enough down to see the pattern of its cellular structure, and then the patterns of the molecules, and then the patterns of the atoms themselves. A novel with characters of every sort, a meaningful plot line, important themes, life lessons, and a glorious ending we're still waiting to get to. God knows every detail and has the thread to every plot line in His hands.

As my own section of this novel whizzes past, I have to marvel as I see its plot line fall into place. With my son getting married, I am scared to realize how far through this story I am, and I feel the same sort of longing I feel when I realize a good book I can't put down is going to end sooner than I want it to.

Here I was, the mother of the groom, giving him the wedding luncheon I wanted to have for myself--at the Lion House. Here I was, going to bed like an old person, while he shut the door without a care on my significant moment and moved on--as he should. Here I was, not the young person any longer, but the wiser, more worried one, watching and hoping with all my might to see how it turns out. Glad that he is in a better situation than I was in. Glad he has made better choices, is better set up, better equipped. Glad that the wedding luncheon I can offer him is not at an all-you-can eat buffet, as mine was, by his father's choice (due to his own sense of taste and not financial concerns). That should have been one clue to me of the life I was taking on, but I guess I couldn't see the red flag for the orange centerpieces.

When this son was serving his mission 6184 miles away--farther away than almost all of Europe, his twentieth birthday fell on a Monday. I thought that would mean that I would get an email from him that day, but the day waned on with no word from him. It turns out to have been the best reason possible. The people he knew there were taking good care of him.

I had become interested in seeing how light or dark it had been when each of my children had been born. For middle-of-the night births, of course it had been pitch black, but five of my children had been born in the morning or evening. Light in the morning or evening varies according to the time of the year, of course. So, on his birthday, I went outside at 8:13 to look at the light.

I found out the next day--when I was able to read the email message that did come late--that he had been looking out at the sky at the exact same time (only it was 11:13 where he was), wondering how light the sky was in Salt Lake City.

When life can give us moments like that--moments that connect us with each other and time and space and the universe and what's meaningful--I'll devour it like any great novel and hope against hope that I can catch on to what it's all about.

Waving the Banner

It's great to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in church on the actual Fourth of July. This doesn't happen every year. I have the whole thing memorized, so I stand and sing with gusto. (And with apologies to anyone standing in front of me.) My only regret is that I miss the third verse that was taken out of the hymn books twenty-five years ago. It was probably deemed too violent and bloody, but, hey! That's what revolutions are about.

Also motherhood, at it's early stages.

The early years of my experience in motherhood are why I love "The Star-Spangled Banner" so much, and why I have the whole thing memorized.

But family life isn't meant to be a battlefield, actually. We usually think about war as something "out there," removed from us.

When being at home, or with our closest family members, becomes a life-or-death situation, something is terribly wrong.

Two tiny Utah children recently lost their battles for their lives. Behind the closed doors of their parents' homes, they were wounded, tortured, and killed. Both were mere toddlers, having what the courts like to now call "parent time." Both were away from their custodial parents who had their best interests at heart. In both cases, the custodial parents knew that the child was not safe during "parent time" with the other parent, but were helpless against power of the law. Both "other" parents were creating new families with very violent partners.

Both of these stories could have been different if the custodial parents had had more support--from the courts, from the community, from the law.

I love America. We've come a long way. Nowadays, I can hear even women who rightfully think themselves anti-feminists express gratitude for the privilege of voting. Child murderers in Utah can now be charged with murder, whereas a few years ago, the worst charges they could get were for child abuse crimes.

We also sang, "America, the Beautiful" today. As the line, "God mend thine every flaw" passed my lips, my heart sang a prayer for this particular flaw that still exists in America's court system, and for better protection for our tiniest, most vulnerable, citizens--from the "terror of flight," "havoc of war," and "gloom of the grave," among those trusted (not by them nor those closest to them, but by the court system) to protect and care for them. "Then conquer we must, for our cause it is just, and this be our motto: In God is our trust. And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

Little Mint Dress

By next week, my first son will be married.

Of course I am happy and excited, but I wouldn't be a mother if I didn't have mixed feelings. Twice, I have felt overwhelming feelings of sadness at the thought of not having him around anymore so I can kick his shoes out of the way as I walk down the hall past his doorway. I've lived more years with this son than I have with any other human being in my life. And I love him.

Of course I hope that he and his bride will be able to negotiate their marriage with less conflict than I could as a young person. Of course I hope they'll always have health insurance and food on the table, that their mortgage won't overwhelm them, that they'll keep sparkling and laughing as they go along and nothing will ever diminish that.

My main responsibility in this wedding is to pull off the luncheon beautifully. The bride's family has graciously not required me to wear beige nor keep my mouth shut, as the anecdote goes. So, of course, the luncheon and all its details have been much on my mind.

But, honestly, the thing that has taken up the most concern is the same thing that would occupy any normal female--will I fit into my dress?!

Months ago, I found the perfect dressy mint suit--mint being one of the operative colors in this gorgeous wedding, and the bride's mother having rightfully chosen coral for herself. I was perfectly happy with mint. I got the suit approved by the bride, which wasn't a bit hard, and the only problem with it was what size to get.

I know it's stupid to buy a dress for a wedding that doesn't fit you, no matter how far off in the future the wedding is. But, of course, my situation--as fate always seems to have it--was the exception.

When it was the optimum time to find a mint dress in the stores--early spring, I had recently been released from my doctors to do more exercise than merely walking. NOT doing more than walking--and over the holidays, no less--had put fifteen pounds on me. I was making good progress, and I still had, I reasoned, three-and-a-half months left.

So, I didn't want to buy a size fourteen or a sixteen, which would surely drown me by the time of the wedding. The sales clerk talked me into buying two sizes and bringing one back within the month, depending on the progress I was able to make.

After trying on both, I purchased a size twelve and a size ten and kept on working out and hoping for the best. I used to wear a size eight, so it wasn't THAT unreasonable.

After one month, I tried them on again. The twelve fit in the waist, but was getting too big for me in the wide neckline. (See, Dr. Neurologist? That dress has a wide neck, not me.) Not wanting to be spilling all of that out on my son's wedding day, I took back the twelve and kept the ten and continued to work out and hope for the best.

A few weeks ago, I added ten minutes of extra ab work a day to the opposite end of the day of my normal workouts. (A weight trainer suggested this to me fifteen years ago--funny that I never heeded his advice until now.)

One week ago, I realized that much of what I do in my ten minutes of just-abs is fluff. I downloaded some "Flatten Your Stomach" exercises and beefed it up. One web site I saw said something to the effect of, "Honestly, the best exercise you can do to rid yourself of unwanted belly fat is to do cardio." I hit the "pfflbt!" button with my lips and moved on. I have faithfully done several hundred calories worth of cardio daily for six months and still have unwanted belly fat. (As opposed to wanted belly fat. Which would be different.)

I now weigh less than I did last fall when I had to stop working out, but the mint suit is still tight around the middle. I haven't seen my waist since the moment I conceived the son getting married. I am convinced that I could get all the way down to Jillian Michaels arms and legs and lose my bustline altogether (no mean feat), and my waistline would still not budge.

I've switched down to "fat burner" workouts which take me 84 minutes instead of one hour to burn 900 calories. I'm now doing 20 extra minutes of ab work a night. I've trimmed down what I eat even further and added blueberries to my diet (I heard they dissolve belly fat). I've started doing leg lifts in the restroom at work. I'm trying on the mint suit several times a week. Do I seem desperate? Well, it's only because wearing that suit to that wedding is the ONLY OPTION I HAVE!

Yesterday at work, I got a couple of compliments on the dress I was wearing. "It's a ten," I told one friend. "And I wore a ten yesterday. And the day before. I can wear every ten I own now except the one I need to wear."

"Hmmm. It must be the way it's cut," she said.

"I think it's the way I'm cut," I said, miserably.

I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that I rented out my mid-section to seven different human beings for nine-month stays. And played the part of the perfect hostess all the while, making sure each of them had every possible thing they could need packed in there with them.

Not that I can blame my babies, the youngest of whom is over three years old.

Maybe I can blame my parents, instead.

Me Wuv Cookie!

Cookies ought to be the perfect food.

Think about it. They come in a variety of flavors, shapes, colors, sizes, and textures. They are ready when you are. They don't need to be refrigerated. You can make them ahead and they last a good while. They are easily stored, and easy to transport. They contain a certain amount of energy. They taste better than anything.

If they hadn't already been invented, NASA would probably have invented them.

I've hardly met a cookie I didn't like.

The problem is, cookies unabashedly feature three dieters' no-no's: sugar, fat, and white flour. Not just one, but all three--together! With sugar's main role being to make you fat, white flour's main role being to add mega-calories (in the form of carbs!) with few nutritional compensations, and fat's main role being, well, to be fat, to the dieter, cookies spell doom.

It's a tragedy, really.

I keep thinking there should be a way for cookies to become a healthy choice. You can replace white flour with wheat flour, with some success, but the cookies are heavier and don't taste the same. You can use a sugar substitute with limited success, but, again, not the same. You still need some fat, too. I'm sorry, but diet cookies just don't do it for me.

It's not them, it's me.

Just as I was about to give up my cookies-are-the-perfect-food fantasy last time, my thoughts turned to another food--round, sweet, filling, and possessing some of cookies' best features. I mean, they come in a variety of flavors, shapes, colors, sizes, and textures. They are ready when you are. They don't always need to be refrigerated. They last a while. They are somewhat easily stored, and easy to transport. They contain a certain amount of energy.

Of course, I'm talking about nature's cookie--fruit. There are enough kinds of fruits that there ought to be a few favorite kinds for anyone.

This thought is a little depressing to cookie lovers like me, but, hey, it's a thought.

Which brings me to the following update: where a few months ago I could hardly bring myself to actually eat an orange although I don't mind the taste, now, I can't live without them.

We ran out of oranges for a few days, and it threw my eating off completely.

When I start my eating for the day with an orange, it sets the stage for healthy eating. I have an orange first, then my two boiled eggs and a tall glass of milk. This is enough to hold me for a while. Later, I have a small nut snack and then my lunch. However, when I don't have an orange, I have to start off with just eggs and milk, and, somehow, this isn't enough to eat. So, then, I'm looking around for something else. I can have my nuts early, but then I need my lunch early. I'm more tempted by the staff meeting treats, and I'm looking around for something else to fill me up.

Seriously. I told my husband (who does the grocery shopping) that I must have an orange a day now, and he looked at me like, "Who are you and what have you done with my wife?"

But the weight continues to slowly come off. Even my brother noticed!

That seems worth switching fruit for cookies, if anything is.

Good as New

Yesterday in church, the little girl sitting next to me showed me that right smack in the middle of the skirt of her Cinderella brand dress, a rosebud was missing.

It was a beautiful dress with a white satiny top and a light pink skirt, covered with a layer of tulle sprinkled with tiny sewn-on pink rosebuds.

Not because of any specific memory, but just on a hunch, I hunted through the cash part of my wallet and found the missing rosebud. It had apparently been there for two or three years, since her older sister last wore that dress.

I guess I have been using this wallet for years. The problem is that I too-seldom have the opportunity to get into the cash part!

To her delight, I showed my younger daughter the rosebud and promised to sew it back on when we got home.

This was a good thing, partly because that little girl was scheduled to be baptized later that evening. I whispered in her ear, "This is just like what happens when you are baptized and repent--the missing piece is found--has been there waiting for you all along--and things are made whole and well, good as new."

She smiled, and I smiled. It's great when events in life just snap together to give parents the perfect object lesson to support their teachings.

Got Your Back

Right now, as we speak (so to speak), I am not washing off the patio chairs. Yes, I know we're well into June, but in Utah, it just barely got warm. In fact, in today's paper was an article officially stating that we had the coldest May in 57 years.

I was amazed when I got the patio swept off and cleaned up in the hour I had before picking up the children from school. While on a roll, I planned to set out all twenty patio chairs and spray them down. I imagined my newly-released-for-summer children blissfully wiping down the chairs after I hosed them (wearing my fifties pearls and nylon stockings, I suppose).

It didn't turn out that way.

My husband, who had been working in the front yard the whole time I was sweeping up the patio, came around after I had set out half the chairs on the lawn, and told the kids to pick them up. What he was doing--spreading seed, fertilizer, and dirt on the lawns--was going to take precedence over what I was doing.

As sometimes happens, I think what I am doing is more important than what he is doing, and he thinks what he is doing is more important than what I am doing. But we've learned through trial and error and error and trial not to fight about it.

So I came in and good-naturedly plunged into the dirty work of reading the newspapers I hadn't gotten to and doing the Sudoku puzzles so the papers could be thrown away.

But it put me in mind of today's topic, which is marital teamwork. Not that I'm an expert on that subject, but, in several years of marriage, I have learned a thing. So now, while my husband sweats in the sun, I am doing the hard work of posting my next article.

Recently, two of our children had birthdays. Our son chose to have a birthday cake that would look like a computer motherboard. We had done one in the past, when our oldest was first becoming entrenched in the computer world. (My nephew had promptly informed us then that we had decorated the cake with candy and frosting in such a manner that a motherboard would NEVER be hooked up, so this time Paul did some research.) Our daughter chose to have a Little Mermaid cake, for which we already had a pan.

Paul, the number one family cook, decorated them.

While I did two loads of dishes by hand and made the dinner. (I had also baked the cakes and made the frosting.)

Paul posted pictures of the cakes on Facebook. They were truly amazing looking. He got a lot of compliments, including from me. Also my appreciation.

Somehow, no one mentioned that the cakes looked delicious, which they were. Which was my part. Part of my part.

But that's how it goes.

Together, Paul and I have put on sixty-six birthday parties for our children. By now, we are truly a team. Paul is better at cooking, wrapping presents, and decorating the cakes than I am. So, as time allows, he usually does more of those things. I usually do more of the cleaning, planning, and baking. Together, we shop and decide how we will divide up the work. In this, we are flexible, depending on what is going on. As we work, we often feel a real spirit of teamwork building that is very fulfilling.

We pull off the party together. Whatever went right--we'd both contributed to it. Whatever wasn't so great we'd both left undone, sometimes by mutual agreement, sometimes by simply running out of time. We improvise together. We're getting good at it.

This past weekend, another daughter needed a costume for a play. Paul had ideas for the hat/crown that I could not even comprehend as he described them. I know he would have been lost trying to sew a tunic. He did his part, and I did my part. At the end of the day (literally), the costume was complete. I could not have done what he did; he could not have done what I did. We both appreciate each other's contribution.

In some ways, we are quite a traditional couple. In others, we're not. This is what I believe about marriage--the husband and wife need not be forced into fixed roles; they should figure out between them how things work out best and do accordingly. Their work as the joint heads of the family is both of their work.

If I cannot deal with mold without having PTSD symptoms of recurrent visions and anxiety about it for hours afterward, it becomes Paul's job to deal with it. (Which hopefully means more than he just dumps it out and leaves the dish for me to deal with.) If there's something that Paul has trouble doing, I often step up to do it.

We both earn money. We both take care of the children. We both cook, although Paul does the majority of that because it is his favorite way to contribute. We both clean, although I do the majority of that. Without spelling it out, over the years the laundry has evolved into my job; grocery shopping has evolved into his. He does more yard work. I do more planning. We both do dishes. (Of course, he does them his way, and I do them my way. Because we're both right.)

We have learned to not keep score, but to each do what we reasonably can and appreciate our partner for what she or he does. This goes a long way toward marital happiness. We both expect each other to contribute. But we also are able to give each other a break, cut some slack, when needed.

My dad used to say that each partner cannot give 50% to the marriage, or it will fail. Each partner has to give 100% of all she and he can.

When our daughter's birthday party started, Paul was still decorating the Ariel cake. This isn't how we had planned it to happen, but I rounded up the kids and took them to the family room and started the party. He joined us as soon as he could. While he was leading a game, I sneaked upstairs and set the table. It's so much nicer to have a feeling of, "Wow! Thanks for doing that!" than "I did this much and you only did so much."

We've got each other's backs, as well as our own. It feels a whole lot better than the alternative.

Um, How Do You Spell That?

Yesterday, my friend sent me a one-word instant message: Ryatt. Actually, it was a two-word message: Ryatt (male). She did this because she knows I take delight in scoffing at the stupid things people name their kids. It's one of my faults, I guess.

I promptly added it to the list, nearing 700 names, which I keep. My first thought was that poor little Ryatt's parents must have a sort of reverse-lisp problem where they say R's in place of W's. Then I remembered that, ages ago, when I was young, there used to be a comic strip in the newspaper called, "The Ryatts." Ryatt was the surname for this comic strip family. The kids were, supposedly, "riots," and it was a play on words.

Probably, though, Ryatt's parents are too young and uneducated in historical comics to have used the name for that reason. Probably, they were following the current misguided trend of trying to find a unique name for one's baby, which often calls for purposely misspelling a name and/or mutating a common name into something freakish in order to meet that end. Or, maybe they honestly couldn't decide between Wyatt or Ryan. (As in, "Hey! Look! The first syllable of Ryan and the first syllable of Wyatt are almost identical! Wouldn't it be a riot to confuse them?!)

A woman once told me--with a straight face, no less--that she had named her daughter Nichelle because she wanted her name to be different but "not weird." (Close, but not quite, I thought to myself.)

Close, but not quite names on my list include Chasidy and Chasity. The word, people, is "chastity," and I wouldn't recommend using it as a name. I can easily see any child saddled with it hurrying off as soon as she finds out what it means to disprove it. Another is Calicia, which was supposed to be pronounced Celisia. Okay, folks, without a French cedilla beneath the C, it is not going to make an S sound. Another in this category is the name Lily Vyne. Lilies don't grow on vines. Another is Marry. The name Mary has one R. I have also seen Merry used as a name. But Marry with two R's means, in most cases, pretty much the opposite of chastity. I wonder if they are sisters.

Other close-but-not-quite names on my list include Skigh, Tishelle, Storie, Myangel, Skylee, MaDawna, Ralinda, and Xzyle (what the?). Exile would be a horrible moniker without the atrocious spelling! Also notable is that Gage is the name; Gauge is a tool. And then there's Spechele. (Ain't that "special?") And Deseret, pronounced Desiree. Deseret is. . .something else, not a French name you can ignore the T on.

Another category is words--or misspelled words--that are simply outrageous as names. These include (for boys) Bugzy, Cage, Nazareth, Oreo, Pastor, Fate, Flapp, Fonzy, Success, Christ, Lucky (last name Lee--luckily, his parents. . .I can't finish this thought), and K'Arrion. (Do they know what carrion means?) For girls: Bethlehem, Baby, Cocoa, Dezire, Embrace, Genius, Heavenly, Kindness, Memory, Miracle, Miseryrose, Sorrowlily, Promyse, Nymphmedusa, Treasure, Tender, Unique, Trylogie (how can one child be a trilogy?), Thoery (in theory, if this were a name, which it isn't, it should be spelled correctly), Zion, Sunny Star, Legend, Louxious, Aborijahnae (shuddering), Jerzeigh and Jersi. And my personal favorite, Purgatori. (Why not just name her Hell?)

Another is Hunee. We knew a woman named Honey, and my husband felt really silly saying hello to her when he encountered her at the kids' school. ("Oh, hi, Honey! I mean. . .er. . .) But at least hers was spelled right.

Which brings us to the equally awful category of names that have been purposely misspelled by the parents, so that the poor child must spell it out every. . .time. . .for. . .the. . .rest. . .of. . .his. . .or. . .her. . .life. Whew! What a sentence!

My own name has an unusual spelling. I wouldn't say it is misspelled, as there are several authentic variations of my name, but it is unusual, and, yes, I have to spell it for people. But at least it doesn't have a lot of X's, Y's for I's, or other unusual and unnecessary letters.

Take Aamber and Aautumn. Is it soooooo important to make sure your child's name will be at the first of any list that you have to put people in mind of an aardvark instead of your lovely child? Or Abbygail. Yes, it is possible to call her Abby without it being spelled exactly that way inside of the formal name. We get Jim from James without spelling it Jaimes. I've seen Lieu Anne in lieu of Lou Ann. I've seen Mahalet, which was supposed to be Molly. I've seen Shyanne, which, I suppose, is meant to emphasize a possible negative quality the child might understandably develop instead of putting people in mind of a town in Wyoming. I've seen Anthonyy. (One Y will do, thanks.) I've seen Antwon. (Gag!) Sometimes, in the case of Rackel and her sister Stephine, I have to conclude that the parents probably really didn't know how to spell. (I'm sure a nurse at the hospital could have helped out if asked.)

Then there are deliberately made up names. I understand this is a point of pride in some cultures, so I'll tread lightly. But I thought I would just mention Cheynithia, Choisniece, Elyxzia, LaDisha, Fredleca, Nuka-Marie, Pearlynda, Dorothalene, Melverlina, the twins Keon and Keona, and the too-popular Nevaeh. (Yes, I know it spells heaven backward. That's why it's dumb.)

To me, if you want to avoid looking ignorant, one sure-fire tip is to not change the spellings of Bible names or words that can easily be found in the dictionary. The real spellings of these names (and words) are so readily available and have such a long tradition that, well, that is how they are spelled. Yet, we continue to see names like Isaia, Isiai, Izaiah, Izeja, Izrial, Isreal (is that real?), Emanuael, Kayleb, and Jaunathan (he was afflicted with jaundice in the hospital). And Apryl, Aspynn, Candel, Dayzee, Safire, Strawberrie, Jakyl, Realiti and Realitie, Pheenyx and Pheonix.

Last, but by no means least, are made-up names with made-up spellings replete with symbols instead of letters. What, pray tell, is missing that these apostrophes are replacing in the names
A'kneta, My'Kylea, Shammare', R'Mayni, and K'Arrion (forgive me for using it again, but it is so good!). There's also Brie Z. Okay. If you're going to name your daughter Breezy, which, in and of itself is a terrible idea, at least make it one word. I also heard tell of La--a (LaDasha). So clever that my mind stops thinking altogether.

If your child's name is on the list, please forgive my offense, and I will do likewise for you.

In the Eye and Mind of the Beholder

I have good news for my friends.

I read in the newspaper a few months ago that if your friends get fatter, you will tend to get fatter. And if they get thinner, you will tend to get thinner, too. The theory in this article was based on the idea that our perception of what is "normal" alters depending on what we see around us. Shortly after reading this article, I witnessed what could be considered a confirmation of that idea when a person mentioned that another person I consider to be a good thirty pounds overweight is "not overweight at all."

And, no, it was not in reference to me. I would never use myself, because I know how we women lie to each other about that stuff. To each others' faces, at least. And, we lie to ourselves.

Since then, I've thought a lot about this, and I've extended the theory to include not only what we "see" as normal, but what we think of as normal.

I'll explain.

Since I started eating an orange--a real orange that I have to peel--every day, I have lost ten pounds. I'm almost halfway to my goal.

I am not suggesting that merely eating an orange will make you lose weight. It's more about what eating that orange a day means to me and how it has changed my thinking. A couple of months ago, I posted an article about how food, by nature's design, should take some effort to obtain and prepare. Calories should be burned before being consumed. It's not necessarily so in fat America anymore. Only if we so chose do we have to physically work for what we eat.

And America is fatter. I remember as a child that there was a fourth-grade teacher at my school whose girth was truly amazing, but, other than that, I only knew a handful of "fat" adults. Today, I can sit in almost any meeting and look around me and see that about half of us are.

One thing that helped me extend my theory was noticing that whenever my daughter plays with a certain friend, she comes back with reports that they visited an ice cream parlor. And often had cake, soda, and popcorn, too, between school and dinner. Shocked at first, I realized that, to this family, having treats every day--several, apparently--is normal.

So I started eating an orange every day and thinking more about what I was consuming and what effort I was putting out. Small changes can create great benefits.

Instead of sticking merely to a list of foods that were "in" or "out," as I had been doing (with some occasional cheating along the way), I started fueling my body with foods that I knew to be naturally good for me and avoiding those that are not. I no longer have an "in" list and an "out" list. I have a "better for me" end of the list of food and a "not so good for me" end of the list. Instead of pretending I'm not eating much, I think about how much sugar and fat is in everything I eat. Not in a ruminating, self-defeating, worrying sense. In a self-educated, I'm in charge sense.

I select most of what I eat from the "better for me" list. The idea is that if I am busy eating the things that are good for me, I won't have as much time (and room) for the things that are not so good for me. I focus on low-fat proteins, fruits, vegetables, fiber, and whole grains. If I do have something from the other end of the list, I keep my portions really, really small. Like, a bite.

Doing this, I made my box of Girl Scout cookies last seven weeks. Unbelievable! I know!

When I had "in" and "out" lists, if I ate something from the "out" list, I tended to go "out" of control and eat more of it.

Now, I think differently. I think not about whether or not I should eat something, but about how much I want to eat of something loaded with sugar and/or fat, or, in other words, empty calories.

I had a very small piece--a half piece--of chocolate cake at a staff meeting. Naturally, I wanted more, but, first, I calculated how many extra calories were in that half piece. I had made it myself, so that was easy to do. I added up the calories from the amounts of white flour, sugar, oil, and butter I had used in making the cake, divided that by the sixteen pieces I had cut the cake into, then divided that in half. I had had about 212 extra calories.

I know well from daily experience how long it takes me to burn 212 calories. Did I really want to add ANOTHER 212 calories to that in the same day? Did I want 425 extra calories to worry about? This really helped me say no and turn to the apple I had brought instead.

In the past, I probably would have had two pieces of cake. Maybe even a third by the end of the day. Making myself acknowledge how many extra calories I used to eat really helps me see how I came to be overweight.

I watch portion sizes and exercise daily. I know, I know. Wouldn't it be nice if it could be about something other than diet and exercise?

If I think of one piece of pizza as a dinner portion (instead of three), with a little self-talk, I can stop at one. (Much to the amazement of my husband. And myself!) Do I want to eat three dinners in one night and have to worry about burning those calories? No! So I tell myself that's enough and turn to my tall glass of low-fat milk and salad to fill me up the rest of the way instead.

When Easter came, I was really worried. I gained seven pounds last Easter. I tried to simply have less candy in the house this year, but I still had a portion of it in the basket I share with my husband. I thought about what amount of candy a day would not make any difference to my weight loss. I decided one piece would do no harm. So I told my brain over and over that one piece was a days' worth of candy. I could have my day's worth, but not more.

It's all in how you think.

You might eat an apple, but would you eat three? Or would you drink three glasses of milk at dinner? Probably not. I ate my piece of candy, then reminded myself (repeatedly) that I didn't want to eat two or three days' worth of desserts in just one day.

It's like the theory from the news article--readjusting my thinking about what is "normal." If I thought that four or five handfuls of Easter candy a day was a normal portion, I would have gained weight again.

Really, I lucked out tremendously doing this. By the fourth day, my candy was all gone. I couldn't find it. I had only had three pieces, but some family members had helped me. Annoyed, I was also secretly relieved. No weight gain this Easter.

If you've gone from the two cookies your mother let you have to a half-dozen as a "normal portion," try cutting back to two. If you load your bowl with six scoops of ice cream, try letting yourself have just one. You wouldn't eat a dozen eggs for breakfast, would you?

We have only "super-sized" certain foods in our minds and not others--and usually the worst ones. Changing the picture in our heads of what's normal for us--particularly with the not-so-good-for-us foods--could change the view in our mirrors of what's normal for us, too.

Issues of Entitlement

One would think that someone with the lack of entitlement issues that a sixth-of-eighth child can have would know better than to marry a firstborn, only male.

But he was so cute.

The past thirteen years have turned up scores of differences, some of which stop me in amazement.

An example: when I hunt in the utensil drawer for a pancake turner-type tool, I take the best one I can find. If the one I truly prefer happens to be there, I am delighted. I know it must be my lucky day. This is because, as the sixth child, I am not used to getting what I really want on a regular basis. For my true preference to really turn up for me is a coincidence, a lucky strike. I mean, for years, what were the odds?

But if Paul can't find the pancake turner-type tool he prefers, he forgets that something in the pan must be turned right away and launches on a mad search for it. Uprooting dozens of spoons, potato mashers, brushes, kitchen shears, and, yes, three other pancake turners, he cannot, can NOT proceed without the one he likes.

Because when he was a child, he was one of only two children. He was the oldest. He was male. The thing he wanted was there for them. Or it had better be.

In the time that I would have mentally shrugged, grabbed the nearest tool and flipped over the food--ten times--Paul has started muttering about the drawer being a mess and nothing ever being where it should be. EVER being where it should be--when he fully expects it to be there always, unlike me, who considers it a lucky find.

Utensils get placed on the counter. The dishwasher is searched. An inquiry is begun. Now half the kitchen is a mess in addition to the drawer, and I think, "Wow! What would it be like to have gotten what you wanted so often in your childhood that you still expect it, every time?"

I am both amazed and dismayed. In awe and embarrassed. I wonder, "Should I start to act like that? Would it increase my chances of being pleased?" On one level, I'm really envious.

But, as I move to act practically in the crisis, I think, no. I'm fine as I am.

Sisters

I was going to write an article about how my oldest sister died at the age of 62, at the top of her career and enjoying being the grandmother of twelve children, half of them infants and toddlers. I was going to opine about how short her life was cut, how bravely she met her challenges. I was going to mention how she jam-packed the years she had with more achievement than most people who reach 90.

I was just having a little trouble finding the words.

Then, exactly eleven weeks after she died, my second sister suddenly died. She was even younger.

I had just stopped wearing black.

So I knew then that I had lost any control of this story. The story is in control, so, ready or not, here it comes.

My second sister also enjoyed a brilliant career doing what she loved. Not teaching math teachers how to teach math to children, like Susan, but writing. She was a well-known local author and former journalist.

Both sisters did not live long enough.

Both sisters were high achievers.

Both sisters were brilliantly intelligent and did what they wanted with their lives, but their careers were only the capstone.

Both sisters--in different ways but using their amazing talents well--put their families first.

Both reached out to their communities, were kind and compassionate. Both sisters gave of themselves unselfishly. Both endured their illnesses with courage and cheer and hope for being well just around the corner.

My second sister, Linda, has been housebound with more than one chronic illness for years. She has been in constant pain and averaged one good day a month--in a good month. Yet, she never failed to remember a child in the family's birthday with a special, thoughtful present she knew they would enjoy. She honestly never complained. Unable to sit for long periods of time, she recently completed a novel on her laptop while lying on her back. It's a good novel--I read it in one night because I couldn't put it down.

Both sisters left great legacies. I want my children to know and remember them.

Upon finding out about Linda's unexpected death, my youngest sister, living in another state, scrambled to find enough sitters to farm out her large, young family to so she could come to be with the rest of us. She reports she was asked, "Didn't you already have a sister who just died? Is it the same sister?"

And then, "How many sisters do you have?"

"Not as many as I did a few months ago," she replied, "thank you very much." (I think that last part was an aside to me.)

I love my sisters.

Both Susan and Linda left warm, deep imprints on my mind and heart, and will never cease to live on within me and all others whose lives they touched.

Mrs. Who?

So, the news is that a famous prisoner has been granted permission to marry.

The question is, who would marry him?

This is a young man who has had his whole face and head (and, perhaps body, but I'm not going there) tattooed with hate messages. More importantly, he is a convicted murderer.

Although I'm not personally fond of tattoos, I know many nice people have them. However, this man has carried it so far that I can't see what he looks like. Maybe this was his purpose. Along with not having an attractive look in my book, someone who is completely hiding behind tattoos may possibly be an unlikely candidate for the open and honest thing most of us want in a relationship. And he's violent.

Also, the guy is in prison. For the rest of his life. Could also be on death row. It's probably just me, but that's not what I would look for in a guy. I kind of like someone I can have access to on a frequent basis, who can contribute to the household finances and chores, be a role model for my children, be there for me when I need a partner, or at least cook my dinner.

As far as I know, the news has not revealed who the lucky bride-to-be is, but it does make one wonder.

Back in my single days, I started to notice that there is not exactly equity between the sexes as far as ease in getting married. I used to go to dances and sometimes stand on the side for most of the time, because all of the attractive men had brought their own dates. And this was back when I was cute. I would re-shower, put on something very nice and often dry cleanable only, recurl my hair, redo my makeup, pay for a baby sitter, and go out trying to meet my match.

Then I would stand in a steaming crowd among other beautiful, classy, trim, and intelligent-looking women, and wait.

Men would show up in jeans and a tee shirt--having made no effort at all. If they didn't already have all their dances pre-booked with the date they brought, decent men were so in demand that they could dance every dance with someone different and not even make a dent in the number of women looking at them.

There used to be a guy at every dance whom I, not really affectionately, called "the Mole." I picked this name for him because I never knew his name, and because he walked around with his head down on his chubby front and his shoulders shrugged. Had there been grass on the dance floor, he would have tunneled right through it to me. He always asked me to dance twice a night.

At first, I would dance with him just to be nice and to get me out there on the floor in order to be seen. But when I found myself busy all night with those who would be his friends if they knew how to make friends, I had to wonder if this was hurting instead of helping my chances. I was not overly vain, but I did own a mirror, and I had to wonder if these crowd-fringe guys really thought they were my equal, or didn't care as long as I danced with them, or what? The Mole never tried to talk to me, so I really didn't know his intentions, and maybe he had none.

But some guys did. I can't even tell you how many "between jobs" (this was before the bad economy), "slipped a disk," "going back to school but I don't know what in yet," "was excommunicated but don't worry about it," "wife just died," and "living with Mom" stories I heard in the first fifteen seconds of meeting someone this way. And I noticed that, when I started going to the older dances instead of the younger ones, the first question I was asked changed from, "What school do you go to?" to "Why are you divorced?"

I am not a mean person. I'm not talking about good-catches-but just-not-quite-Prince-Charming here. I am talking about guys who would show up smelling so badly of mildew that they must have dried their clothes in the dryer without turning it on. (It takes I would guess about a week that way.) Guys who nervously confessed as I tried to avoid their smelly armpits that their bishops had "challenged" them come to a dance.

So I decided I was no longer going to make such an effort and pay good money to dance all night with guys who just, frankly, didn't have a chance. I decided to give a guy one look and, if there was honestly no way, just say no.

I'll never forget the first time I tried it. A guy shuffled his way over to me and I gave him the once-over. His clothes were dirty and torn, and his mustache had food in it. I smiled sweetly and said, "No, but thank you."

He was so sure the answer would be yes that he turned to start walking out on the dance floor (assuming I'd follow), and then did a double-take. "What did you say?"

"Thank you for asking, but, no thanks."

He stared at me like what I had done was completely unbelievable.

It was an experiment, and I found the results fascinating. Seriously? I wondered. Does every girl always say yes, no matter what?

Then I started extending this asking-for-a-dance thing in my mind to analyze the whole male-female thing. I know there are plenty of males who stay in a relationship too long or put up with what they shouldn't, but it seems to me to be a particularly common female downfall.

Are we so brainwashed by the stories of how when the prince shows up, all the problems are solved, that we will take anyone male? No matter what?

It's just not like that for women. Most of the time, in order for a woman to attract a man, she has to meet up to certain criteria. If a man cannot find anyone who meets his criteria, he can still find a woman, because there are plenty of women who I think will take anyone. There do not seem to be plenty of men who will take any woman, no matter what.

I have known of so many stories, some of them my own, where women put up with all kinds of far-less-than-ideal situations just to hang on to or catch a man who seems, really, not all that worth catching. The one whose live-in "fiance" slept with other women in his office in the same building where we all worked. The one whose husband held her hostage in her home for a week, yet she took him back. The one whose husband raped her six-month-old baby, which killed it, and she took him back. The ones who let guys live off of their welfare benefits and never contribute in any way other than as a sperm bank.

I wish I could get the whole of society to try an experiment. What if we didn't accept any man in any circumstance? What if all women required a man to meet a certain standard before accepting him? Wouldn't men do the male equivalent of dolling themselves up, so to speak--improving themselves in the ways we need them to--for women? I betcha they would if it was the only way to get one.

Sadly, I have become convinced through all that I have seen, that any man, and I mean any, could find a woman who would marry him, no matter what.