The Swan and the Toad

I'm all verklempt-like this morning because I'm sitting outside listening to my neighbor mowing his lawn. I'm also listening to the doves coo and my dog chew and my playlist woo. Right now it's playing For Good from Wicked, which is so appropriate, since Swirl (remember Swirl?) was here (on my blog) and so was Iwa (remember Iwa?). Iwa told me that she went to a party with my favorite student, Wolfgang (remember Wolfgang?) where they ate Japanese rice crackers without me.


HOW RUDE!


Sometimes I miss my Hawaii peeps something fierce.


You guys know I used to live in Hawaii, right?


Do you remember my know-it-all 12-year-old son who used to live in Hawaii too? And who turned into a sassy-pants 13-year-old? Well today he turns into an eye-ball-rolling 14-year-old.


That's right, fourteen years ago today I was in the Bethpage hospital in New York watching Oprah and crying for the anesthesiologist. A week later we were packing up our little Nantucket apartment and driving across the country with two teensy kids, a bag of sunflower seeds and a raging bladder infection.


Was that TMI?


On that trip across the country I could hardly keep my eyes open, probably because nursing moms cannot live by sunflower seeds alone. I spanked my daughter for the first time and I thought mean thoughts about my hub for the second time. Or maybe it was the third time, I can't be sure. Alls I wanted was a hot bath and a clean bed to rest my weary postpartum soul. Was a hotel room every night or two too much to ask?


We were in between grad school and our first real job so we shacked up in the magic cabin for a few months during the interim, where I thought my fourth mean thoughts about my hub for letting his mother drop by every morning at 7 a.m. and call through the screen door, "YOOHOO! Do you want to go hike Stewart Falls? huh? huh? huh? Do you want to go play tennis? Do you want to go to Chuck-A-Rama? huh? huh? huh?"


"Do you want me to go all Kung Fu Panda on you?" I would call back, as I dragged myself out of bed and strapped on the freakin' baby carrier and filled my head with mean thoughts.


I was full of mean thoughts fourteen years ago. But then we moved to Hawaii and I took control of my life and I was healed.


Hallelujah!


And Amen!


So we started celebrating my son's birthday yesterday. My boys all slept on the trampoline, until the sprinklers came on at 5 a.m. We didn't tell them to, but them darn sprinklers do whatsoever they please, whensoever they please. They must be teenager sprinklers. So then my boys crashed on the living room couches, until I had to go to my early morning church meetings and I accidentally turned on the car alarm for car #1. And then while fumbling through my purse to find the keys to stop the insanity I accidentally turned on the car alarm for car #2.


So yeah, both car alarms were breaking the sabbath simultaneously.


Then we went to a mission farewell and guess who happened to be there ROCKIN' the piano for the instant ward choir? BARBALOOT! (Remember Barbaloot?) She ROCKS THE PIANO SO HARD! Did you guys know that about her?


Me neither!


I was this close to jumping out of my seat and joining the instant ward choir so I could Rock out to her piano.


So my Chinese commenter struck again and I got all curious George and plugged the comment into an ancient Chinese secret translator and this is the message: “in an organization's fool, is bigger than permanently is equal to 2/3.”


Hmmmmmm . . .


Iwa translated the last comment on my Jack Johnson moral to the story and it was something about a swan marrying a toad and giving birth to an ugly duckling.


Hmmmmmm . . .


Does anyone else find that oddly coincidental, being as it's my son's birthday an all? Do you think the swan ever had mean thoughts about the toad?


hee hee hee


Okay, I promised to tell you about the books I read at Lagoon so let's get to it before I am forced at gunpoint to throw one more partay!


First I finished reading Braden Bell's book The Road Show. It's definitely a Mormon book, but you know what? I enjoyed it anyways. It represented. The cool thing about it is that it is so straight forward about the most important topic in the world: The healing power of the atonement. I personally believe it is the most valuable message we can share and I often try to share it in subtle ways, but I'm way way way vague. I skitter around the topic with inferences but Braden Bell comes right out with it and nails it square on. I respect that!


I also read Mennonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janzen. I favor narrative non-fiction and memoirs and this one is a charmer. I lubbed it, but it will take me a whole nother to post to tell you why, so stay tuned.


I also started Legend of a Suicide by David Vann. It's very poetic and lovely and well written. He's a major award winning writer, but my literary ADD kicked in and I switched to Hunger Games after 43 pages.


But after I finished the first page my daughter's friend said "STOP READING NOW! Don't pick up Hunger Games unless you have time to read the whole book at once. I stayed up until 2 a.m. last night to finish it."


I'm just not in that place in my life right now so I took her advice and STOPPED.


But I pinky promise I will get back to it very soon. In fact I think we're going to Lagoon again on Thursday.