A Little Compassion Please

Okay, so I've started Facebooking. (like how almost anything can be turned into a verb?) and I just want to point out how sad it is when you select someone and the screen reads:

Loozah MacSmith HAS NO FRIENDS.

And now they (you know, the sadistic ones who run Facebook) feel the need to broadcast your pathetic aloneness to all of internetdom. I'm sorry my non-friend. I'm sorry.

Ten NEW Excuses For Not Showing Up To Church

(taken from a greeting card)

1. We have a blessing surplus.
2. We still haven't applied what we learned last month.
3. I've been classified as an overactive member.
4. The bishop said to never come to church without your scriptures, and I lost mine.
5. I'm waiting for all the stubborn people to die off.
6. I decided to endure to the middle.
7. If my home is the most sacred next to the temple, why should I ever leave?
8. I know I'm supposed to go to the Celestial Kingdom, but I have a fear of heights.
9. I'm creating reactivation opportunities.
10. The missionaries told me I only had to go three times.
    

Can anyone explain the last one to me?

Stinky Stuff

Wisdom from my coworker Margie (not for the faint of heart)

The Three Worst Smells Of Children:

1. Bloody Stool
2. E Coli
3. Styrofoam that's been a kid's nose for a while

What did he do to deserve that?

Nathan surprised me with flowers after his class yesterday (for the first time in a long time) and what do I do? I dreamed last night that he was sleeping with my sister. Not nice.

Holy Canolli, It's Good To Be Home

After a week visiting family, it's nice to be home.

Home... where I can eat my Frosted Mini Wheats for breakfast...where I don't have to climb stairs to use the bathroom if I wake up in the middle of the night...where I don't have to be self-conscious when I walk around in a bathrobe...where my grocery store is open around the clock ...where I know how to get from point A to point B without asking for directions or looking at a map...where I can drive to WalMart or Target or KMart or Lowe's or Home Depot or JoAnn Craft or Hallmark or Kohls or Old Navy or nearly anywhere I'm interested in going in 20 minutes or less...

Yes, it's good to be back.

How I Spent My Saturday

So, yeah. We took the "scenic" route home. Between Manchester, New Hampshire and Salt Lake City we landed in no less than 4 cities. Why this madness? you might wonder.

Well, it began with a car accident. (Not mine. Not this time anyway) What should have been a leasurely hour-long drive to the airport took nearly twice as long because of a bottleneck at the site of a pileup that involved 4+ cars. That's right. The three of us (my grandpa chauffeured) spend at least half an hour in stop and go traffic on a two-lane highway. Which definitely involved more stopping than going. And which ended with me and Nathan standing in line waiting to go through security as I saw the listing for our plane change from boarding to departed.

Crap.

Well, nowhere to go but forward. After security decided my canned fruit cocktail was contraband and made Nathan mail his metal-credit-card-sized-pocket-tool back to himself, we went to Southwest's terminal and explained our plight. While they didn't bring the plane back for us, we also didn't have to buy new tickets or get evil looks cast our way for being annoying. What did happen is that we flew standby from 11 o'clock Saturday morning (eastern time) to 8 am the next day (central time). We finally flew out from Manchester at 3:30 and got all the way to Chicago. In New Hampshire they had told us that we'd have to camp out in Chicago until 9:30 Sunday morning. Being stuck in an airport for 15 hour without any friends or family nearby did not sound like my idea of fun, so I made friendly with the employee at the Chicago gate and asked if they could do any better for me (us).

And guess what? We got to hang out in Dallas for a few hours with Nathan's favouritest aunt and her boys. In my book that was definitely a positive twist on what had started out as a bad day.

So, we started out in New Hampshire, had a layover in Chicago, took a flight to Dallas (with a 'stop' in St Louis where some passengers got off and some more got on and the two of us stayed put), hung out in Texas for ten hours, and finally got to go on a plane to Utah - but not before another 'stop', this time in Alburquerque. I rather felt like a yo-yo. Up and down, up and down. And I experienced most of the seasons in a 24 hour period. Pleasant autumn weather in New England, a humid summer night in Texas (where it's always summer), topped off by Utah's first snow of the winter. I had good times on my trip back home, but I would have to say that the biggest adventure was coming home.

Oh, and our luggage made it home before we did :)

A Moment of Panic

My trip got off to a good start. Nathan and I got to the airport early, didn't have any problems with security, and were able to sit next to each other on the plane. After a short layover in Baltimore, we landed safely in Providence, RI (Southwest doesn't have flights to Boston). And just FYI, that airport smelled funky. I hope the odor was temporary or else I'm never going there again.

Then I got to spend the night with my favoritest aunt! She and her husband picked us up from the airport and let us crash at their place. Of course, Nathan didn't get any sleep until he got his dose of the sci-fi channel. And I got to play with the puppies. Aunt Debbie treated us to some cheesecake and canollis for dessert. OMG! In Massachusetts you can buy canollis at the grocery store! To top off the good-food experience, Sunday morning we ate out at a local diner and I had my first ever eggs benedict. And I suprised myself by liking it :)

Oh, and the moment of panic mentioned above? At 11:30 Saturday night, we had just barely got in from the airport when I got a call on my cell phone (which I seldom have on and only had turned it on for the trip). It was my grandfather calling from an 801 area code. Yes, the grandfather who I planned on staying with for the rest of our time out here.

Our phone call went a little like this:
Me: Hello?

Him: Hi

Me: Who's this?

Him: It's Grandpa.

Me: Where are you?

Him: Just up the street.

Me: (pause) Are you in Utah?

Him: Yep, I came out to help Uncle Geeb on the house.

Me: Umm, did you remember I was coming out to visit?

Him: Sure, isn't that on the fourth? Deb (his wife) has it in an email.

Me: Uh, yeah...Today is the fourth...we're in Massachusetts now. (by now I'm thinking if there's other family I can stay with or if I should start calling hotels)

Him: Oh. Ok. Well, Deb's expecting you.

It doesn't seem nearly as stressful in writing. But I spent at least another minute making sure I had somewhere to stay for the rest of the week.