BUT WHAT IS THE QUESTION AGAIN?

Do you ever feel as if everything is suddenly much clearer? The answer is right in front of you? Unexpectedly the top of mountain you have been climbing all your life is now somehow under your feet?

Now, I know that parts of my mind are gradually slowing down as I age... okay, okay, I admit it, I leave HUGE STACKS of gray matter trailing behind me anywhere I go nowadays.

But I am trying to remain optimistic about Alzheimer's taking over.

And look at it as refreshing to have almost every joke be one I haven't heard (i.e. because I can't REMEMBER hearing it), about being in agony ever time I read Pride and Prejudice about whether Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy are finally going to get together (wait, I was doing that before my brain injury, wasn't I?), and watching every episode of Firefly, Castle, and the movie Serenity over and over, again and again (do we see a pattern here as in NATHAN FILLAN?).

So I am never quite certain if I am having a epiphany or it is sometime I am simply remembering from before. But Sunday afternoon,, it hit me again - hard.

To quote John Lennon and about a hundred other people, love is the answer.

Everyone, and I mean everyone, is looking for love, acceptance and peace. The terrorists, the Republicans, the homeless people begging on the street, your neighbors who have the little yappy dog who barks CONTINUALLY all day and all night, the greeter at WalMart who looks so wore out, the candidate with the pasted-on fake smile and automatic handshake.

And I keep learning again and again that it isn't difficult to give everyone just that - love the people you come in contact with. It doesn't mean you take them home with you, it doesn't mean you think they are great, it means you LOVE them, just as Christ and Heavenly Father love all of us silly wayward mortals here on Earth.

  

Now I will probably also need to learn that tomorrow as well, because I will have forgotten today - one reason I need to keep this silly blog going.

TEN THINGS THAT MAKE ME HAPPY

 

So were you counting? Did you notice there is only nine? (Well, my grandkids count as two)

Yeah, but... well, who cares?

FAR FROM THE MADDING CROWD

 

I knew I was at the right house last evening simply by the sheer amount of Mormon Mom-mobiles double and triple parked.

Baby showers are almost a guarantee for first-time moms, but since we as Latter-Day Saints tend statistically to have more than the average 2.4 children, it often ends up being the only one shower.

From then on, the rest of the kids grow up with recycle, reuse, and pick up at thrift stores for their outfits and toys.

However, this lovely woman was having her first boy, which made a wonderful excuse for a party.

The kitchen was overflowing with refreshments, people and gifts, as well as a decibel level right around 80 (90 is considered dangerous). So I took my lemon-water, walked right past the table of frosted, dipped and over-all incredibly caloric-ridden hors d' oeuvres (and did you know that the term hors d' oeuvres originally was an architectural term? See what you find out on the Internet when you have no idea how to spell a word?), and went out into the main room.

I was sitting quietly on a couch, just listening to all the babble around me (not that it was meaningless chatter - I'm partially deaf, so almost everything around me is reduced to sheer nonsense if I am not lip-reading and can connect your words with what I am hearing), when I noticed a very nice young mother, sitting all by herself.

It's almost an odd form of the herd instinct - people in the same social, economic and physical attractiveness level seem to group together no matter where you are.

And the less wealthy, less elite, and yes, less pretty, are sometimes left by themselves in the corner.

I am oh-so-familiar with that sense of not-quite-belonging, so of course I immediately went over, started chatting (it has been said that I can begin a conversation with anyone at anytime - and yes, it is entirely true).

So we had a very nice visit, learned some things about each other that we didn't know, and didn't feel quite so disregarded.

And I am fully aware that every single one of those well-to-do, beautiful people have experienced that same feeling of isolation in different settings, with those wealthier and even prettier than themselves.

But how quickly we all forget.

DISAPPOINTMENT WEIGHS HEAVY ON THE PRIDE

"Assume" makes an ass out of u and me.

When the animal shelter people mentioned that Sofi would need to be seen by a vet, I somehow assumed they had a vet-on-call or a vet on the site.

Turns out there is veterinary clinic in town that will examine her... on Monday.

At least Soft has a new collar and a "I AM ADOPTED" tag on it - I can still visit and walk her every day - and I guess we simply have a few more days to bond.

But wait - Monday is that exciting-and-highly-anticipated-holiday of (drum role here, please) of COLUMBUS DAY.

Which is the celebration of the date that ... er, Christopher Columbus was born? Accidentally landed on an American short, still thinking that he had made it to India?  Or the day he uttered the immortal words, "Hey, do you guys think we should stop and ask directions?"

So I guess I still need to find out if the vet is even OPEN on Monday - or  deal with the disappointment for one more day.

Hand me another tissue, please.

CANIS FAMILIARIS

I went today to our local animal shelter to begin to think about possibly of maybe finding another dog.

My husband has accepted a job in Iraq for the next year, assisting the new government to develop a new form of criminal justice other than hey-we-think-this-guy-did-something-so-now-shoot-or-hang-'em.

So although we have a lovely greyhound named Delilah, she is perhaps not a, eh, threatening and/or defensive symbol.

Murray, although one of the sweetest dogs in the universe, would bark fiercely and at least sound like a dangerous animal.

So at the animal shelter this morning, I will admit that I did walk right past the kitty cats, toy poodles and large lizards.

I also passed the multiple pit-dog and Rottweiler mixes.

And when I got to Sofi, she was the first dog who was not barking frantically, the first who did not jump up on the fence, and she licked my hand.

I will post photos tomorrow of her when we get home.

NO, IT WAS NOT UTAH

Twice a year, church for us Mormons is televised from Salt Lake City. Extremely dedicated members will still dress up, go to the chapel to sit on uncomfortable metal folding chairs in the midst of the wildly echoing cultural hall and watch the broadcast.

But since these are usually the same people who frown at Diet Coke, chocolate, and shorts that end above your kneecap, I watch from the comfort of my home and my pajamas, with the cat on one side and my new iPhone on the other.

Most people in the U.S. are vaguely acquainted with someone who is LDS - this woman they worked with - a cousin who joined the Church - and isn't that cashier at Safeway one of them?

Certain associations always seem to pop up - BYU, polygamy, and aren't y'all Republicans?

But one of these links has been used several times in the last month, and has gotten under my skin enough that I am writing about it.

"The Mormons settled in Utah," "Mormons colonized Utah," and "Mormons fled to Utah in the 1846."

NO, THEY DIDN'T. They settled in MEXICO. 

Members of the church had an extermination order placed  on their heads (which interestingly enough, was not rescinded until 1976) in Missouri (and was based on a whole LOT of misinformation on BOTH sides) - so they weren't simply moving out of town...

THEY WERE LEAVING THE COUNTRY.

EMPTY SPACE

I live in a both a very full and an extremely empty environment.

My bedroom is stuffed with filing cabinets, wooden boxes, every possible office supplies that could conceivably be used in a home office, enough writing materials for approximately 23,963 full-time professional writers as well as every DVD commercially available for The Office, anything with Nathan Fillon, and all film adaptations of Jane Eyre since Orson Welle's in 1944.

My closet has stacks of school supplies (on sale at Target after school begins for about 10 cents a piece), fourteen yellow and/or green comforters for an area which can brag of the average temperature of 72 degrees year-round, four large plastic containers of shoes randomly purchased because I liked the color/pattern at the time as well as three only partially finished quilts.

I have books that range from LDS Institute Manuals on the New Testament to science fiction as well as Judge Judy's "Beauty Fades But Stupid Is Forever." I owe every color Sharpie every made. I have probably 128 Bic Blue Retractable Pens, and about 995 calling cards with my former phone number on.

But I now have an empty space that I'm not certain how to deal with.

Per my request, my son moved my dog Murray's old Queen-sized mattress into the spare bedroom.

 

Cenophobia is fear of empty space - or the necessity of filling up 'white' space.

I suddenly am overcome with that irrational alarm of insecurity; a place that has always been filled with at least the memory of unconditional love, warm fur and doggy breath, is empty.