Until This Happened . . .

So last weekend was great! I got to spend the whole time out of town with my writer peeps. On Friday we went to dinner and watched amazing fireworks. The show was even more exciting than usual because several of the fireworks exploded on the ground. Not sure if anyone was hurt, but there was definitely an ambulance or two making its way right around the area. On Saturday, I read an ARC (Advance Reading Copy) for James Dashner's The Maze Runner. I love a mystery, so this book was a lot of fun. It comes out on October 6th, so definitely go out and buy it or pre-order it.

And if you want a more detailed idea of some of the events that happened this past weekend, you can check out Brodi's blog. Just so you know, I only claim like 37.5% of the things listed. We also gave Emily a make-over in her quest to be "hot." Bree did the hair, and I did her make-up.

And here's what happened at the house while I was away. Let me first preface this story by saying that Maile loves to draw pictures where things are getting destroyed. Some might say she has a very vivid imagination, but yes, it scares me too. Anyway, she was drawing such pictures while I was gone, and Grant suggested she draw some "happy" pictures instead. So she drew a nice scene with a house and a family. She showed Grant, and said, "Happy?" He approved. Then, under her breath, she said, "Until this happened . . ." And then she drew a huge dragon just outside of the house.

I guess it's good to know that nothing changed while I was away.

Wild and Crazy Dogs

Great news! I found out my friend Emily Wing Smith is a finalist for the 2008 Utah Book Award (Young Adult Division) from Utah Center for the Book. Congratulations, Em! I got to spend all weekend with her and all my writer peeps. Thank you, Brodi for hosting us! We all got a lot done, and I had an epiphany for how my book should end. I was able to get most of the new ending written while we were there. I'll elaborate on the weekend later because I still have catching up to do from last week.

I dropped Kea off at soccer practice and didn't want to wait around for it to finish because it was a million degrees outside. So we offered to take the coach's youngest daughter with us because she is good friends with Maile.

Conversation between Maile and her friend H. on the way to our house:

Maile: Do you have any pets? My mom won't let me get any more pets until I turn 12.
H: We have two dogs. Max is a boy dog, and Sassy is a girl dog.
Maile: We used to have a dog, but he was crazy.
H: Our dogs are crazy too. If you bite Max, he'll bite you back. And Sassy is really wild.
Maile: That's why you shouldn't tap on the glass when there's an animal inside.
[I think she's referring to something we said regarding amphibians at the pet store, but I have no idea what she's talking about here.]
H: And if you have a wild dog in your house, and he starts to sniff, you better get ready because it means he's going to poop or pee in your house.

Oh, the things you can learn from kids. 1) don't bite dogs and 2) get the dog out of the house when it starts to sniff.

Franistan

Once a week, I have a phone conference with my programmers and this genius in New York who used to work with IBM. We discuss things like Laplace Transforms, Fourier Transforms, N-grams (bi-grams, tri-grams), and hidden Markov models. I only bring these up to suggest that this guy is brilliant. And so are my programmers. I, on the other hand, am a total idiot. Anyway, this guy is incredibly smart, and yet during our conversations he'll say these really random things like "Evolution is not going to produce the best way of doing something," or he says "For example, let's take a word like Franistan."

When he said "Franistan" I was thinking, "Ha! Maybe this guy isn't as smart as he seems." And really, when I thought that, I was trying to tell myself, "At least I was smart enough to know that that wasn't a real word." So it turns out that Franistan is actually a word. You have to look it up in the urban dictionary, but it means "a fictitious or unknown auto part." And the example they used is "Well, your franistan housing is cracked. We're looking at about $1500 total, parts and labor."

So yeah, I'm still not that smart. Other things to add to my list of things I feel I should be smart enough to figure out, yet at some point they have made me feel completely inept:

1) smoke detectors (Duh. This should have been at the top of the list. Thank you, Natalie.)
2) Discussions with Mr. Franistan.

Anyway, I had this conversation with Kea last night:

Kea: Hey, Mom. Want to know something about Maile? She's an evil genius.
Me: Why do you say that?
Kea: Because she can take anything I say and turn it against me.

Just go ahead and give me the parent-of-the-century award right now for being the mother responsible for raising the child who will eventually destroy the world.

Smirking Grass

Sometimes Kea says stuff that makes you think, "Wow, this kid is really intelligent." And then other times she says stuff that makes you wonder what's going through her head. For example, she recently had this conversation with Grant.

Kea: Why can't a woman be president?
Grant: A woman can be president. In fact, President Obama had to beat a woman in order to become president.
Kea: Oh. Well how do they choose the president?
Grant: People get to vote for the person they want.
Kea: That doesn't seem like a very good way to choose.
Grant: Well, how do you think we should decide who gets to be president?
Kea: I think they should play a game of hide and seek.

Or this conversation with me that happened on one of our late-night walks (and by the way, she's talking about waist-high grass in a field by our house):

Kea: I think the grass is smirking at me.
Me: Grass can't smirk.
Kea: No, I'm serious. It really is. There are two blades of grass that are close together like eyebrows. And then there are pieces of grass that kind of look like a mouth when they come together, and it's smirking at me.
Me: You're kind of crazy.
Kea: I know. But the grass is really freaking me out.
Me: That would be the definition of crazy.

In other news, we have been listening to Taylor Swift songs NON-STOP. Fortunately, I actually like Taylor Swift. A lot. Thanks to a Facebook friend, I found this Youtube video which I think is kind of cool. It's a Love Story (Taylor Swift) and Viva La Vida (Cold Play) mish-mash.
Just FYI, I will never do anything a fraction as cool for my daughters--although I would if I could, and it's the thought that counts, right?

Cuddly Green Anoles

Fact: Maile's jokes are rarely funny.

Example:
Maile: Do you want to hear a joke?
Me: Is it funny?
Maile: Yeah.
Me: Okay, let me hear it.
Maile : Why did the king go the distance?
Me: I don't know. Why?
Maile: Because he needed to get croaked.
Me: Huh?
Maile: A croak for his tooth.
Me: Oh. You mean a crown. You get a crown on your tooth. And then the first part probably would have been, "Why did the king go to the dentist?"
Maile: Yeah, that's the way it goes.

Anyway, here's the latest update on the Emperor Scorpion: Even Maile has determined her pet is boring. Why? Because they do absolutely nothing. They don't even really care for eating, and they live these extremely unfulfilled lives. As a result, Maile has determined that next year for her birthday, she would like to get a more "cuddly" pet like a Green Anole. Um, how many people cuddle up to an anole?

I Hate Toilet Paper

Not really. I don't hate toilet paper. I only hated it yesterday because I spent an obscene amount of time in the bathroom at work the other morning. Before you think this is too much information, let me clarify. We have those toilet paper holders that carry very large rolls hidden behind a plastic cover. For some reason, I couldn't find the end of the very large roll.
Thus, I craned my hand up the little opening and spun and spun the toilet paper--one way, then the other--to no avail. And then I started clawing at the roll to create a new "end" but wasn't successful. It took long enough that I wouldn't have been surprised if a co-worker had been waiting outside with an armful of air freshener when I finally finished. But the thing that frustrated me the most is that toilet paper should never make anyone feel like a total idiot.

So here's my list of things I feel I should be smart enough to figure out, yet at some point they have made me feel completely inept:

1) Toilet paper (of course, because that was the whole reason for my ranting blog post.)
2) Kite Flying (the reason for another ranting blog post.)
3) Filing Taxes
4) Transformer toys
5) Vending machines that accept dollar bills but when you actually put the dollar in, it spits it back out.

Unfortunately there are probably many more. Any of these make you feel like a moron? Or is it just me?

Showers = Waste of Time

On Saturday, we went to an Open House for a new temple. Maile thought the inside was absolutely beautiful and said, "Wow, this looks just like Vegas." As sacrilegious as this may sound, this was actually, for Maile, the highest compliment she could have paid. It really was gorgeous.

After that, I attended a bridal shower for my cousin and later hung out with some of the same cousins afterwards. I totally love my family, and if possible, I love some of them even more now. But before I share why, let me first explain something: I hate showers. Not the bridal/baby shower kind but the kind that make you clean. Some people see it as their time to think and relax. I hate them. It's not that I don't like to be clean. I hate them because they are such a waste of time, and taking a shower implies so much more like the fact that I have to do something with my hair. This weekend I found out that my cousin and my cousin's wife hate showers as well. I think I'm going to start a support group.

In other news, I saw a screening of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince tonight. I don't think this one comes out until Wednesday, so all I'm going to say is that J.K. Rowling is a genius, I envy her character development skills, I am mad at her for not sharing her brilliance with me, and the movie was very well done.

Compliment

For a short time, Maile had five boyfriends. She couldn't decide between them because boy 1 was tall, boy 2 was funny, boy 3 could run really fast, boy 4 was smart, and boy 5 was really good looking. She informed me the other night that she's narrowed the choices down to two. I asked Kea if she had a crush on anyone, and she told me she didn't. Her best friend is Jake, but no, she doesn't have a crush on him.

Kea: But I do know of one person who has a crush on me.
Me: Who?
Kea: John
Me: How do you know?
Kea: Well, I turned around to ask him a question, and he kissed me.
Me: So what did you do?
Kea: I kinda panicked. [She waves both hands in the air.] And it was totally random, but I said, "Compliment."
Me: Huh? You said, "Compliment?"
Kea: What?! I was panicking, and I was so under pressure. And really, he kissed me twice so it was like, "Com," and then he kissed me again, and after that one I said, "pliment."

The past few days, whenever something unexpected happens, I've been waving my arms and saying, "Compliment." So far, I'm the only one who seems to think it's funny.

A Concert and My Identical Twin

My boss often says, "Nepotism: Not only do we believe in it, but we also practice it." As a result, my sister is working for me this summer as an intern. My mom works for me on Thursdays, and I recently hired my brother to shoot video stuff for us. It will be very interesting, but I am excited to work with family.

So last night I went to an Indigo Girls concert with Grant and other friends I adore. It was amazing! And even more amazing is my camera that can take stalker-like pictures. The opening act was Gregory Alan Isakov. (Yeah, I'd never heard of him before either, but he was pretty good.)
And then Emily and Amy lit up the stage. Such a great night. The weather was perfect. The music was incredible.

Anyway, I usually go to lunch with my writer peeps on Wednesdays, but unfortunately I couldn't meet them today because I had a last minute conference call scheduled at the time I normally meet up with them. That made me sad because my writer peeps are awesome, talented ladies. What made me happy, though, was that I got to go to an early lunch with my cousin, whom I try to see as regularly as possible. My cousin is like my twin. We think the same, and she reacts to things exactly as I would. I can tell her anything, and she completely understands me. She would tell you that our personalities are identical. (We don't look identical, however. She is skinny and hot, but I try not to focus on that difference.)

The funny thing is that no one else agrees with us. This includes our husbands, parents, and everyone who knows both of us, yet we are convinced our minds function exactly the same way. And the thing I love the most about my cousin is that she would totally "be on my side, even if I was wrong." (That line was stolen from a Taylor Swift song, by the way.) Everyone needs a person like that. Who's yours?

July 4th Weekend and Happy Birthday Kristen

Highlights from last week and July 4th weekend:

1) A young man (on the slower side) sees Grant in a store and says, shaking his head, "Oh, my mom's never going to believe that I saw Hiro." If you don't know who Hiro is, you need to watch "Heroes."

2) Maile's nightmare (as told by Maile.) First there was this fire. Not the kind where you lose your job, but the kind that burns. And then there was a castle, and there was a ghost in the castle. And he could see our family in a crystal ball, and then he teleported to our house. So we ran away, but he teleported to where we were again, and then we were all dead.

3) We went camping with my brother's family.

The kids made s'mores around the campfire. The girls did chalk drawings. Kea caught two fish.
Maile was only on the boat ten minutes when she said, "I'm not going to catch anything. Let's go back." I believe she got her patience from me.

4) All-you-can-eat-sushi with good friends.

5) Family BBQ at a park. My cousin brought a fire pit so we could cook s'mores. The two of us tried to get a fire started and failed miserably, so then she got some lighter fluid. My uncle poured some on, but it still didn't help much. And then my cousin poured some more onto the fire, and the flames jumped into the can. So the fluid in the can caught fire, and she hurriedly put the can on the grass. But then the can tipped, spilling the fluid all over and catching the grass on fire. I tried to stomp out the flames, but the fire kept spreading. Finally my uncle threw a blanket over it, and we were able to put it out.

6) Grant singing Wild Thing while playing the game Karaoke Revolution. I'll try to get video from my sis-in-law.

And finally, Happy Birthday to my sister Kristen. If you count the candles, you'll see she is turning 4 today. (Maile insisted on being in the picture.) Amazingly, Kristen and I have never ever gotten into a fight. This is probably because she is the peacemaker in the family. She is a fabulous mother, wife, and a good example for all of us heathens in the family. Happy birthday, Sis!

Let's Go TRY to Fly a Kite

Flying a kite is hard. They make it look all easy when you watch the youtube videos but don't be fooled. Kea and I tried the other day, and we could not get it into the air though we made about a million attempts. I tried running back and forth across an open field with the stupid thing because Kea said I was the faster runner. Apparently I wasn't fast enough. And I'm old. Way too old to be running back and forth across a field, looking like a fool, dragging a kite behind me. So old that I almost sprained my ankle in a surprise hole, and my right butt cheek is really sore from trying to run at speeds higher than I am capable.

I am pretty sure only smart people are supposed to fly kites.

Maile v. Church

I've just discovered the "Follow" widget for blogs. Actually, I discovered it a while ago and added it to my blog. But it's only recently that I've realized how cool this thing is for following other people's blogs. Definitely a time saver. I am now following about a million blogs, and it lets me know when a blog on my list has been updated. Pretty cool. And you should follow my blog. Just click that button over there on the right because I'm getting this serious inferiority complex. All of my writer friends have some crazy numbers where followers are concerned. Holy Shnikeys. They are also really good writers, so that kind of adds fuel to the low-writing-self-esteem. Boo. Okay, not really. I don't have a low-writing-self-esteem. I would probably benefit a lot if I cared more about how what people thought of my writing. It might be good if an editor reduced me to tears. But alas, I am cold-hearted, and I love critical feedback. And the other thing is that my friends blog about writing; whereas, I just blog about my family, which is generally boring.

By the way, anyone notice that my blog posting is pretty inconsistent. For a long time I was writing on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. But then I got off schedule and started blogging all over the place. I'm just spontaneous that way. Maybe it's fortunate I don't have too many followers.

Anyway, a long time ago I promised to blog about how Maile doesn't like to attend church. I'm not sure why she doesn't like it because she always has a good time once we're there. Doesn't make sense. She has tried many times to come up with excuses for why she should miss church, but here are some of my favorites:

1) I'm really hurting right here. [She points to the side of her neck. Not her throat, but her neck.]
2) Instead of going today, I've decided that I'm going to watch the Prince of Egypt [story of Moses] because I would like to learn about church stuff . . . just not at church.
3) Since it was my birthday last week, I don't have to go to church today do I?
4) Why don't we pretend to go to Nana's house? And then we'll pretend that we went to her church, and now we're back home, so we're done for the day.

Of course, if you've been a true follower of my blog, you'll also know that every time she feigns sick, I make her go, and she throws up somewhere along the way. But that's beside the point. Her lack of enthusiasm is the point, and I think it stems from the fact that I am not in primary [children's Sunday school] with her. When we first moved here, Grant and I taught a nursery class, and she was in it. And then I was called to be Primary president, so she was with me every Sunday. Then I was released, and for the past two years, she has had to fend for herself, which is psychologically difficult for this child, especially when she knows I am in the same building. But the umbilical cord has to be cut at some point.

She was recently asked, "Who is the president of our church?"
Correct answer: Thomas S. Monson
Maile's answer: Thomas S. . . . . . . Obama?

It is for these reasons that she is content going to the middle kingdom. Yes, Houston, we have a problem.