A LITTLE TIME TO GET LOST

I am leaving home for six days, and I am terrified.

I'm not scared of flying - I've flown over the Pacific ocean enough times and watched "Lost" more than anyone should - and I am convinced if I ever am in a plane that crashes, it just means I'll be stuck with Sayid for at least four seasons - YES!

And even though I am going to what is probably the most BORING small town in the universe (look up the word "stodgy" in the dictionary - there is a photo of my mother-in-law's home town next to it), I am certain I can sit and nod and listen to her stories and mentally be a thousand miles away... hmm, perhaps with Sayid.... no, don't go there.

But I am leaving someone else in charge of my house... and my animals... and even the neighbor's animals (I'm watching them while they're in Texas).

My son.

I know he will feed the animals - I'm just worried about WHEN .

I am certain he'll separate the horses - I'm slightly concerned about him remembering to put them BACK.

He will walk the dogs... sometime.

And I am UTTERLY CONVINCED that my house will be standing when

I get back in six days....

But just barely.

So is there anyway that someone can guarantee that I AM gonna get some time with Sayid?!

I'll be able to leave happier then.

YES, A GIFT CARD FOR STAPLES, PLEASE

So many things in our lives are completely out of our control.

I cannot change the weather - although I can live where the weather is almost perfect. I have no influence on the state of the economy - although I do my best to financially support my local Target. And I cannot control the chronically depressed state of several individuals in my immediate family - I just try to keep their medications current and prescriptions active.

Living some twenty years as an military spouse, I have learned to accept multiple (and sometimes complete surprise) moves - assignments in which my husband could not let me know anything about until years later (including calls in mid-day to say, "Honey, I'll be gone for a little while" and then nothing else for a week) - and even once when he brought his "wife" home around midnight when they were working late enough on a mission (to which I replied, "so you DO know who you are sleeping with the rest of the night, right!?")

We even got to live ten years in the state of Maryland - which, by my limited definition, was hell.

So maybe I became just slightly MORE than a little compulsive about the small number of things which I could control.

I became (and have remained) adamant about certain brand foods, even through the period of lower-enlisted poverty - Kraft Macaroni and Cheese - Ben and Jerry Ice Cream (when available) - Simple Green (back when you had to hunt for it) - Dove soap (long before the dippy "2/3 lotion! Be proud of your self!" campaign began).

And I believe my clinical obsession with office supplies developed along these same lines.

My third job (after becoming a mother) was with a non-profit health organization - and I was the one in charge of ordering office supplies for THE ENTIRE STATE. Well, for that particular non-profit organization. And for the 47th smallest state in the United States. Which is actually only 240 square miles larger than the county I live in right now.

Okay, so maybe it wasn't that big a deal.

But it started this fixation on ANYthing that is sold in office supply place - folders, paper clips, markers, Pendaflex, desk organizers, bulletin boards, white boards, memo pads, three-ring binders, spiral binders, stapler removers, calendars.

Except pencils.

I hate pencils - I mean I HATE them. I must have repressed some memory of being abused by a No. 2 Ticonderoga sometime in my childhood and just have not discovered the correct therapy to overcome it.

However, I am now establishing SPAWM (Society for Prevention of Abuse by Writing Mechanisms) as a non-profit mental health resource for all pencil-abused individuals who need assistance in their tragic plight.

So now I am, once again, IN CHARGE OF ORDERING OFFICE SUPPLIES.

I am so happy.

TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS

Having a job outside the home requires several things.

One thing is a 'work' wardrobe.

When I was working at BYU, the dress code forbade blue jeans. I was working on a night custodial crew - so I wore overalls - every night. And nobody could complain because they weren't blue jeans.

And when I worked for a pharmaceutical company - as a reward for getting our first drug FDA approved, our CEO gave us the okay for casual dress for the entire summer. And everyone liked it so much, he kept it for the rest of the year.

And with working, you have MAJOR food issues.

Most places, you put your name on your lunch (or in my case I just kept buying funky lunchboxes on sale that no one else in their right mind would want to claim), and hope that most individuals keep their dirty fingers out of your chocolate pudding.

Sodas, however, are difficult, if not impossible, to label.

And they get taken.... a LOT. Unless you drink something like diet bourbon dosed with lemon... no, actually, that would probably be taken FIRST.

Thankfully, I went back to a regular job not that long after leaving Germany.

And Germans do not believe in refrigerating a lot of things. Beer is warm, milk is so ultra pasteurized that you keep it in the cupboard, not the cooler. So you get used to it - and room temperature sodas were the norm.

It only took a few times of my Diet Cokes disappearing for me to come up with the ultimate solution.

Keep them at my desk, not in the fridge.

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HOWEVER, I am no longer working out of the home AND my Diet Cokes are STILL disappearing - and I'm in Arizona and I am NOT going to settle for non-chilled sodas anymore, so keeping them out of the fridge isn't an option anymore.

Solution?

Keep those stupid plastic six-pack thingies ON. And the two males in my house somehow are stopped by the simple effort of having to take REMOVE them.

NED, JIM AND MAL

I owe a great deal to my oldest daughter.

She introduced me to Diet Dr. Pepper, wearing tights in addition to heels higher than 1/2 inch, and to the short-lived-but-cult-classic television show "Pushing Daisies."

She tried to explain the plot to me, but decided it was just better for me to watch the show on DVDs, and she was correct.... again.

With the combination of tightly scripted witticism (Ned: "I hate secrets too." Chuck: "What?! You love secrets. You want to marry secrets and have little half-secret half-human babies."), vivid color saturation in nostalgic yet completely unreal staging, and pie-makers in impossible romances while solving murders, the one word repeatedly used in every review I reviewed (wow - reminds me of the song "see what condition my condition is in")- "quirky."

Ned, who is The Pie-Maker, is the definition of quirky - shy, retiring, secret powers, and desperately in love with a woman he can never touch.

And his hair is perfect.

My son has done his share of opening-mommy's-eyes, to things such as Carl's Jr. menu, 101 ways to completely destroy a bathroom, and the television also-short-lived-but-cult-classic series "Firefly."

He had a copy of "Serenity," the movie made after the show was cancelled, which I automatically had dismissed simply by the creepy DVD cover - spooky, greasy-haired girl and lots of weapons. He finally got me to watch it, and I immediately fell in love with it, and then catch up on all the episodes from T.V.

Another very unique show and script ("It's shiney, Captain!"), a science-fiction, star ship western complete with holsters, cows and back-water planets with mass-produced bad art and underground smugglers of wobbly-head geisha dolls.

And Mal, the captain, is a man who has lost both a political and personal war - burnt by love, bitter and suspicious of anyone outside of his crew. He wears leather suspenders and has the coolest eyes ever.

And I must give my daughter credit also for gently guiding me (translation - hit me with a baseball bat until I paid attention) to "The Office" (the American version), which fortunately has NOT been short-lived and is still on the air.


And of course the main reason I watch it is because of Jim Halpert. Perfectly to-the-limit touseled hair, tall, lanky and simply the sweetest guy in the universe.

Do you see a pattern developing here?

Yes - I am apparently going through some midlife crisis where I get crushes on younger men.

I obviously need help.

But not just yet. Please.

REALITY INTRUDING INTO DREAMS

Yesterday I had two extremely intense dreams.

No, not last night - yesterday when I was trying to catch up on a lot of hours of missed sleep.

In the first one, I was a Muslin woman, in some kind of underground city. I was picking up trash that had been flung all over the sidewalks, and there were people pointing their finger at me and laughing.

The second dream was trying to convince my family (who, as happens in dreams, were completely different people that I am actually related to) that I had to get some sleep (this is some of the reality intruding) and if they would just leave me alone and let me rest, I would stop going as crazy as I was getting in the dream (which, believe me, was pretty insane... but this is also a dream where John Krasinski becomes a close, family member).

Pysch 101 would explain #2 dream - I'm exhausted, I've got several people tugging at my hemline, and I have an extremely unhealthy crush on the character of Jim Halpert.

And #1 is very clear to me.

I've been reading a book by Karen Armstrong about the prophet Muhammad. Very readable and respectful to Islam, but also a very human look at the prophet and his people dealing with a growing religion.

I don't think it occurs to many Latter-Day Saints that we have a lot of similarities to Muslims. We both have a latter-day prophet - we were both pushed out of quite a few areas before we found somewhere we could settle - we were pioneers in women's rights (yes - Muhammad was, for his time, a radical supporter of women's right).

Perhaps because of reading this book, I feel a sudden affinity with Muslims.

And although it wasn't as much fun as having Jim Halpert (perhaps I should rephrase that), it makes sense for this to show up in my dreams.

MY SON, MY SON, WOULD GOD I HAD DIED FOR THEE, MY SON

My dog went to the vet's early this morning for some routine dental work.

And came home late late this evening unable to move his tongue or his back legs.

He's going to be fine - but he has had most of this teeth removed, he is still bleeding from one side of his mouth, and he is moaning with almost every breath he takes.

The feeling of deja vu for me is overwhelming.

When my daughter was six or seven, she had to have eight teeth removed surgically. And I could not convince her to take the pain medication when I brought her home - so in about two hours, she was in severe pain.

It's so difficult to see someone suffering when they have no concept of why they are in such agony.

And tonight, driving home with my dog's head in my lap, trying to comfort him and also drive a stick-shift for 21 miles, I had a spiritual insight.

This is what God feels like, most of the time.

He loves us, so completely, and continually sees us in pain, hurting, without any real idea of why we are suffering.

And He wants so much to tell us, "It's just for a moment! It's going to end really soon! It's going to be okay!" And He listens to us whimpering and moaning and wallowing, not understanding that the hurt is just temporary, it's going to leave, and we will gain something from it.

Murray will be pain-free from his teeth that have been hurting him for a long time. But he certainly doesn't understand that right now. And all my reassurances in the world aren't helping.

Heavenly Father, I'll try to be more patient next time when I am hurting, and attempt to trust You more.

AN EMPTY HOUSE

Many empty-nesters moan and groan about how lonely & empty their homes seem when the last child moves out.

When my youngest moved out (finally), I cheered and celebrated (TWO extra bottles of Diet Coke and a sandwich from Quizno's).

It left only one male creature to pick up after... let me clarify that, one HUMAN male to pick up after.

I still have the dog, horse and cat, but they take care of their books, usually don't leave laundry half-done, and rarely leave any dishes unlicked.

The dogs are always more than willing to warn me of dangers such as the UPS man (somehow the FedEx guy is perfectly okay), the garbage truck, and rabbits grazing in the back yard.

But today, both of the dogs are at the vet's getting their teeth cleaning.

It's oddly quiet.

And I'm not at all certain that I like it.


I guess I am now slightly sympathetic to those people who do moan about their kids leaving.

I miss 'em.