Angels and Demons

OK, I have to state here that my favorite holiday is Halloween. I love the spookiness and the decorating and the Haunted Houses and Ghost Stories and all. It is because of this that I feel the following declaration must be made... (Excuse me whilst I step upon my soapbox) Halloween is a time for severed limbs, jars of floating eyeballs, statues that scream at you as you walk by, and chainsaws. It is a time that is filled with things that screech, howl, and go BUMP in the night. For those of us needing a break from the usual (which I frequently do), it is a welcome time. I embrace it wholeheartedly (and by this, of course I mean this literally--by taking out my own bloody heart, and holding it in my decrepit hands in the true spirit of Halloween.) Now, as I am sure that you have noticed..there seems to be some overlap between Halloween, and another rather large holiday. I am of course referring to Christmas...which is a lovely holiday in it's own right, however, I just don't see Halloween and Christmas as holidays that should even know that the other exists, let alone be apparent friends. There is nothing that is more disturbing than walking down the isles of Halloween, watching some chainsaw dummy or phantom ghost try to scare you out of your wits, and then to come face to face with some darling cherubic snowman at the end of the isle. WHAT THE CRAP IS THAT ALL ABOUT!?!?! And I'm not kidding you, if I see one more screaming zombie that slowly pulls his head off next to a manger scene, I'm gonna scream louder than that zombie, I can tell you that! I thought that we were trying to provide that "All is calm, all is bright" kinda atmosphere for the newborn King, not scare him to death with a mirror that screams bloody murder when you look into it. I AM SERIOUS, WHAT THE CRAP IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE?!?!? I understand that there are those who are anxiously awaiting Christmas, even to the extent to listen to Christmas music beginning in June, but I am sure that even Christmas enthusiasts will agree with me. Don't you think that the overlap borders just a bit on sacrilege? Look, I'm not trying to get my favorite holiday more than it's fair share of time in the great commercial parade, I'm just saying that maybe it's best to keep the Heavenly Choirs in the backroom for a while--at least until the Haunts have returned to the underworld.

There Must be an Evil Spirit in that Vegetable!!

Canning season is upon us, and I recently spent a day canning salsa with two of my gilrfriends, June and Carah. (See previous post "A Day Filled With Jam and Love.) I was in charge of cutting onions for said salsa. Now, for those of you who don't know, I spent much of my adolescence working at Quizno's for my uncle, and have sliced a great number of onions in my day, and consider myself quite immune to their tear-inducing effects. However, the onions that were purchased by Carah and June were more than just onions--they were SUPER ONIONS FROM OUTER SPACE!!! I am not kidding--these onions had been sent here by their parents on Krypton and had derived their super-powers from the yellow sun of Earth. If only I had had some Kryptonite handy!!! Before long, I had sucommed to their powers, and was subdued. June, who at this point was not only unconcerned by the evil which had overpowered me, but was laughing so uncontrollably that I now highly suspect that she is one of the evil minions of the alien onion super-race, eventually was able to pull herself together enough to get me some volleyball goggles. I looked ridiculous, but my pain was lessened somewhat.

In the end, I had a thought concerning onions. While they are lovely, and add a fabulous flavor to almost all things that they are involved in--if I were the world's first person to cut into an onion, I would have been sure that the vegetable was possessed by evil spirits, and would never cut into one again! I probably would have also been sure that I had let the evil spirit out, and would forever be haunted by the spirit of the onion. I'm not gonna lie, I am not sure that I am not currently being haunted by the Evil Spirit of the Onions, as I still can smell it's evil upon my hands--days and days later!! Does anyone know a good exorcist--preferably one that specializes in onions? (I suppose that if they end up being an alien super race, perhaps Spec. Agents Mulder and Scully would be more appropriate!)

Days of Defeat/Victory (or, My Life of Late)

You know the days--the ones where you want to run up the white flag and declare to the world--"I SURRENDER, WORLD!!! YOU WIN!! YOU HAVE DEFEATED ME THOROUGHLY!! I HAVE LEARNED MY LESSON!!! PLEASE JUST PICK ON SOMEONE ELSE FOR A WHILE!!!" I know that you have had them, because I think that everyone who has decided to take on the quest that is life, is defeated by it now and again. The trick is to decide that you can start tomorrow with a fresh new battle, and hopefully, you have learned a thing or two from the previous day's defeat that can aid you in the fight.

The real problem is that sometimes you are so weary from the previous day's battle, that you don't want to fight. Sometimes you are wounded, and want to take a while and heal before deciding that you can face the challenge again--but the unfortunate news is that the war wages against you even if you choose not to fight, and if you are passive, you will wind up defeated once more.

There is no surrender!! There is no rest!! No matter how defeated you are feeling, you have to fight the fight each day, and learn how to fight better from the days of defeat. Victors are those who continue to fight.

I need to remember that when my days, and sometimes weeks and months, are filled with more defeat than victory, I am not yet defeated tomorrow! If my my seeming defeat has taught me something, then I have won.

Maybe I'm not as ready to surrender as I thought...

I'm Sorry, But the Morning Ain't Gonna Come...

So, I don't know what has gotten into me this year, but looking back thus far, I have done a lot of things that I have never done--nor dreamed of doing--before. I have to say that the latest of my crazinesses was quite possibly the most out of my comfort zone. A previous student of mine, Geoph (who played Jean Valjean in Les Mis at Northridge) who is currently one of my son's guitar teachers (the other is a friend of his named Simon) asked me at one of my son's recent guitar lessons if I would sing with their Ska band at their CD release party. Now, I feel that I have had ample musical experience to be able to sing with confidence, and really, how difficult can a song that a 19 year old kid wrote in his spare time working as a host at Mimi's Cafe be to sing? Apparently, if the aforementioned kid is very musically gifted, the song can literally be the most difficult piece of music that I have ever seen!! So much for my bigheaded musical experience! For those of you with any musical background, let me explain a few things about this song. It is written in 6/8 time, the entire song is arpeggios done in 16th notes--and the best part is, the pace is at about 200. (Go and find a metronone and set it to 200 and then imagine singing 2 notes in between each beat). Now you have to know that each note has it's own syllable--and so this means that you are singing over 250 words in 45 seconds.

So, after a week of doing almost nothing else but practice, I had to go and practice with the band. Now I was thrown another curveball--I had to sing the song and compete with two electric guitars, a bass guitar, a drum set, and another vocalist who already knows how to sing loudly enough to be heard over the other instruments. I was still attempting to figure out whether it is humanly possible to breathe during the song, let alone sing with any type of volume. I was then directed to a mic, that I had to do the rocker thing with and "EAT" to be heard at all!! This was very uncomfortable for me as my previous mic experience has generally been standing next to my sister with a piano 25 feet away--we are usually standing at a pulpit and being reasonably (I say reasonably as this is me that we are talking about) reverent and the mic is facing straight up at the ceiling so that we are not too loud for the congregation. Needless to say that my Avenue (the Ska band) experience was quite different.

All in all, the whole thing was very enjoyable, and terrifying--I became lightheaded as soon as the song was over the night of the party and had to go outside for a minute so as not to pass out--but they have asked that I sing with them again, and although I had to promise to sing louder, it went pretty well in the end. Yea for living life and trying new and different things!! Yea for not getting in ruts!! Yea for making the occasional fool of yourself so that you can experience as many things in life as possible!!

You're Older Than You've Ever Been, and Now You're Even Older...

So, my thirtieth birthday was on the 9th of this month. (Good thing that I am still so young and hot, right?) Anyway, on the 6th, (which was a Saturday), I was called by a member of the Bishporic to tell me that the Bishop wanted to meet with me at 7:15 that evening. "Oh great!", I thought, "I am getting called to the nursery." (Not that the nursery is a bad calling, I am just enjoying my current calling in Achievement Days.) Anyway, Bry had a sitter for the evening as he wanted to take me out for some ice cream or something, and we left to the church. When we arrived, there was a sign on the door that said the bishop's office's carpet had been recently cleaned, and we needed to go to an office on the other side of the building to have our meeting. Bryan decided that we should cut through the cultural hall, and much to my suprise, it was filled with tons fo people all there to celebrate my thirtieth birthday! It was AWESOME!! There was food and dancing, and balloons and stupid pictures of me...it was really great!

There were a lot of high school students there (as I am involved with the Drama Dept. of Northridge High), and they were a lot of fun to have there, as they kept the party young and interesting. It was so fun to see so many of my friends there in one place--however really weird at the same time. You know how it is...you have different groups of people that you associate with, and in your head they are kept separate. It's kind of a shock to your system to see everyone intermingling: family talking to students, bookclub socializing with high school friends, Kimball Mill friends introducing themselves to "Forum" people--it's like watching all of the people from your favorite TV shows come together. Imagine Dr. House treating Jack Bauer, or Jim Halpert and Dwight Schrute being investigated by Mulder and Scully. It was crazy!

Overall--I was so happy to see so many of you there to help me celebrate my birthday!! My understanding is that my sister was very involved with the planning, and was a big help to my husband. Everyone was so thoughtful and my party was really great! Thank you to everyone for making me feel like I am still cool--even though I'm now not-quite-so-young and hot!!

Stay on the Designated Walking Areas!

Yellowstone National Park is one of the most beautiful places on the planet! It is also filled with a lot of crazy things. The really amazing thing is that the craziest things frequently are the most beautiful. The boiling mud paintpots were really facinating, and weirdly captivating to me on this most recent trip. I found myself spending an unreasonable amount of time watching the mud form bubbles, and then break--making the most satisfying gooey sound!

On this trip, we also visited a place called "Fishing Bridge". It was easily one of the most beautiful places that I have ever seen in my life! (Eliza thought so as well, and said that she would like her wedding announcement pictures taken there.) Fishing Bridge is over the largest natural spring in the North American Continent. It has the most clear water that I have ever seen, and makes all of the surrounding vegitation the most incredible shades of green. It looked like something out of a beautifully illustrated childrens' book-an illustration that could certainly never exist in our drab, real-life existance-and yet, there it was. It was amazing!

The day that the family went to the "Lower Geyser Basin" (where Old Faithful is located), it was very windy! Belle spent the day wrapped up like a burrito. Ethan was very excited to learn all about how the geysers were formed and came out of the experience wanting to be a Geologist (but, really, who doesn't want to be Geologist when they visit Yellowstone? It's like watching "Indiana Jones" and wanting to be a Archeologist.). Eliza especially enjoyed posing for the camera in the wind, and talking with Keith and Ella, two of her cousins. All of my time was spent trying to keep my hat on--and literally every picture of me on that day reflects this fact.
I would say that everyone should take their families to Yellowstone. My kids say that it is one of their favorite places to go. We live in such close proximity to the park--it is an easy drive. Bryan and I also took our Honeymoon to Yellowstone--and it was a lovely and romantic place. We will return again soon!

The Madness of King Bryan

My husband is an interesting guy. He can be a mellow, giutar playing, nice guy, and then become a wearing-a-tu-tu-on-his-head kind of guy in nearly the same breath. I just thought that the world should know what living at the Brady house can be like, and that I don't bring all of the madness to our lives!!