Caution: Old People at Play

Overcast and cloudy weather makes me think of England.

It’s appropriate, because I was thinking of my favorite street signs – the best of which I saw in England. Much like our “SLOW Children at Play” (I’ll not crack any stupid jokes about those poor, slow children), in England they have a warning sign about – and I kid you not – old people. It doesn’t say anything; it’s just a drawing of two bent-over little old people. And I’m assuming that means to use caution, because there are little old people in the area who might be slowly crossing streets, etc. (Unless you’re in France, in which case, this warning would be more like: Beware the old woman who will beat you with her baguette if you get in her way while she’s running to catch the bus. You think I’m kidding.)

My favorite sign in France literally translates to: Changed Priorities Ahead. Now, that means that the right-of-way flow of traffic had been altered in an intersection. But the sign always made me laugh as I thought, “Good! No one needs a good priority-changing more than a lot of French people, anyhow!”

But last night as I was driving home, I saw the best road construction sign I’ve ever seen. It was one of those electronic signs that usually says, “Construction 9400 S. and State Street from 7/1/03 through 7/1/10, Expect Delays.” This literally translates to: We are going to hopelessly mess up this intersection, and your drive, for an unhealthy amount of time, for a reason unfathomable to anyone – especially you – except our one, highly-trained engineer.

But this sign said, “No construction on State Street until 9/2/03. Have a nice weekend!”

Nice. It ranked up there with the old people sign - mostly because it prompted an involuntary smile from me. Who says traffic people don't have a sense of humor?

Strange Inclinations

“It’s about time for me to start making pumpkin balls, so y’all get prepared!” –Rachel, another writer in my office

I work with some strange girls. (I don’t want to know what ‘pumpkin balls’ are.) But when I think about how strange they are, I have to recognize my own bizarre behaviors sometimes. Well, maybe not behaviors as much as likes and dislikes and inclinations.

For example, I love the smell of cement. I figure that’s because I loved the smell of wet cement as a kid, because that meant it was summertime, and I was usually running through the sprinklers and then laying on the warm cement to dry off. In any case, I love the way cement smells. Every day at work, I find excuses to take the stairs – simply because the stairwell is pure cement. I walk really slowly, and breathe deeply. And then I come out of the stairwell thinking…man, I’m strange.

Cantaloupe makes my mouth itch, and the texture of flan makes me want to gag. I can only eat yogurt at certain times, and tapioca pudding never. I think shrimp has a strange texture that renders it inedible, although I’m getting over that. The very idea of eating walnuts makes me sick. I love sour things, and once ate a huge bag of Sour Skittles, even though the sour sugar coating tore my tongue right up. I’ve started taking big ice cubes and shrinking them down to a more manageable mouth-size, and sucking on them until they reach a crumbly state – and I like to chew pellet-ice with my gum, because I like how the gum gets stiff, and I have to work it out with my jaw. I love the smell of new homes or fresh paint, but I can’t stand the smell of gasoline. I love the smooth feel of silky fabrics, and when I was younger I had a blanket that had a silky edge around it, and I would constantly run my fingers around it.

I’ve decided that I’m a very sensory person. But then, who isn’t? Help me out here – I’m not that weird. Everyone has these kinds of likes, dislikes, and inclinations.

Right?

"Baby Steps" Isn't a Bad Concept

"Hey...girls don't surf!" --Audrey Nolte, age 3

When I came out of the bedroom at the Nolte's house (Jesse's sister and brother-in-law) wearing my bathing suit and carrying a towel, Jesse's niece looked up at me and said that very thing.

We all kind of laughed and assured her that girls can do whatever they want to, and that when she was bigger, she would go out with her daddy all the time to learn to surf.

I walked out to the garage, and there strapped to the top of the car were four surfboards. Jesse, his brother, and brother-in-law were already out there. I asked, "Why four boards? There are only three of you."

"Uhhhh...you're coming, aren't you?" was the response. Okay, so they were partially joking (they had three longboards and one shortboard for them to have an option), but it still kind of unnerved me.

At the beach, the boys ran out into the waves and started their fabulous morning of surfing. But I had these comments running through my head, spoken to me as we were driving to the beach.

"You are going to love surfing. Once you get the hang of it, you're hooked."
"Ooooh...look at the waves today! Perfect for learning!"
"Let us know when you're ready to come out. You get your pick of boards."

The inevitable happened, and Jesse came to get me to try it out. Now, truth be told, I kind of wanted to try - but knowing that Jesse doesn't get to surf often, and knowing that I would be absolutely horrible to work with, I was really hesitant to get out there. So, I went slowly.

Apparently you're supposed to charge the waves. For someone who hasn't swam in the ocean much in their lifetime, charging the waves wasn't my first instinct. (Let's be honest, my first instinct was to run the other direction.) But charging the waves gets trickier when you're carrying a board that's twice your size. Oh, but diving UNDER the wave? Yes, that's when the board slipped out of my hands, I got dragged under, and had a panicky I'm-going-to-drown moment. When I struggled to my feet (okay, so the water isn't deep right there near the shore) I felt a big WHACK behind my head. Yes, adding insult to injury, the board came around and smacked me in the head.

I kind of struggled to drain my sinuses of the ocean water, then tried to catch my wind. Maybe Audrey was right, after all.

I took my place back on the beach. The boys had a fabulous morning of surfing. I watched while a young brother tried to teach his sister a bit about surfing...only he had her practicing with the board on the sand, and then in the little tiny breaking waves. Ummm...maybe that's what I need if I'm ever gonna learn!

The rest of the day was spent with wedding stuff, but Jesse was satisfied, because the surfer side of his personality was appeased. I, on the other hand, developed a dull ache on the back of my head. Just a not-so-gentle reminder to take things a step at a time.

Everyone Should Have a Pit Crew

I want a pit crew... I hate the procedure I currently have to go through when I have car problems. –Dave Barry

Typically, I’m all about adventure. Well…sometimes I don’t know if I love it, or if I’ve just learned to be positive about the crazy things that tend to befall me. Because they do - crazy things just FIND me. Makes life interesting, I suppose. And goodness knows, one of my fears in life is to get bored.

Jesse and I went to Southern California this weekend to go to his sister’s wedding. It’s a long drive, but Jesse likes to think of it as a game to see how fast we can get there. (I had no clue you could get to St. George in 3 ½ hours from Provo. Apparently you don’t have to stop every 100 miles and wander around gas stations, like the girls and I do.) So we left about 3:30 in the afternoon on Thursday. Although we were in Jesse’s Subaru, I took the first driving shift. We usually talk a lot when we’re on road trips, so as we were heading past Beaver, we almost didn’t notice the rattling noise that started in the engine. Eventually it got louder and it was more noticeable. Then we slowed down, and pulled off to the side of the road, as we didn’t want to go further with the horrible banging noise that was coming from underneath the hood.

We were in the middle of nowhere. We kinda sat there and looked at each other. Neither of us had ever been in a car that had broken down before. Uhhh…what do people do? Okay - so everyone, at least once in their lifetime needs to have this experience. I've heard stories, seen it in movies...was this the point where we discovered that we were stalled near the hideout of a mass murder? Or do we get helped out by one of the Three Nephites?

Okay, no. In this age of cell phones, we obviously didn’t have a problem finding a tow truck to come get us. With an all-wheel drive car, they have to hoist the whole car onto a trailer bed, so that’s what they did…with us still in the car. And sitting in the car like that, we were hauled down to Cedar City.

I’m not a fan of Cedar City anymore. (That’s not to say that I ever was, but if I was, I wouldn’t be anymore.)

From there we had to leave the car in the lot for the towing company. Apparently no one in town would be able to work on it, so the only option was to get it back up to Salt Lake. Wait…we had to get to San Diego for a wedding first. So we rented a car. But we had to rent it from a local hotel, and we could only drive it 150 miles a day – and pay the overage on the miles. Good grief. So we decided to drive it up to Provo to get my car.

Back to Provo. There’s nothing more frustrating on a road trip than to have to turn around and go home.

We got there late, and had to leave early in the morning. So Friday morning, we headed back down to Cedar City. There we dropped off the car and tried to figure out how to get the Subaru back to Salt Lake…without success. But at that point, all we wanted to do was get out of Cedar City. So we did.

Now, I’m awfully proud of Jesse. It would’ve been easy to freak out. But he didn’t – even though his poor car was broken. (Might I add that his car is only a few years old.)

I’m reminded of a quote by Gilbert Keith Chesterton: “An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered.” I love that quote, and it’s a good one to live by. But I’ll bet even Chesterton would be wishing for a pit crew in this situation!

Well, the adventures of that trip don’t stop there. But that’s where I’ll stop for today. Tomorrow, we’ll get into how I nearly ended up with a concussion from a surfboard!

Issues

Today is a Complaining Day. (No, I really dubbed it that, and my sister and I have made it a formal occasion by taking turns complaining about things. Last I heard from her, her left ear had closed up, and all she could hear was a high-pitched ringing.)

I have a problem with the fact that my scalp is peeling. Yuck. There’s a loose spring on my keyboard that makes a metallic ringing noise when I type, but I can’t figure out which key it is. I’m trying to write an article about stamping on clay, and I don’t know the first thing about it. The girl in the cube next to me is wearing a tiara today (enough said). The ice machine was out of ice this morning, so I put freezer-ice in my water. That ice was so old, it tasted like I-don’t-know-what, but it was horrible. My manager is being a control freak. My left hip aches for some reason, which brings back unpleasant memories of last summer. I was at the gym for two hours last night (kickboxing and Pilates), so I’m sore all over. And while at Pilates, I had the strong urge to throw something at the instructor, because for some reason, it really irked me to hear a tall, skinny blond tell us all to “squeeze that fat out of your thighs!”

Even on a good day, I would hate hearing a skinny blond tell me to squeeze the fat out of anything.

There’s a name for this mood, but I won’t get into it, because it will only irritate me more. Good grief – if anyone needs me, you may just be able to find me curled up on my bed, with my pink blanket, reading The Pirate Lord.

Pirate Literature

“Enough!” He planted his hands against the oak door on either side of her, pinning her between them. He raked his fingers through her thick, silken hair and twirled one coppery lock around his finger. Soft, so soft.
“Stop that,” she whispered, and gasped when he stroked one finger along the neck. “It’s not…proper.”
That made him smile. “Proper? You’re on a pirate ship, remember? You’re alone in a cabin with a notorious pirate captain…and I’m about to kiss you.”

I kid you not my friends, that’s a teaser for a lovely piece of literature called The Pirate Lord.

But first, let’s back up a bit to last week. I was away on a road trip, and the girls at work decided to take a book-buying expedition to a used book store. As I was unable to accompany them, they decided to pick out a couple of choice novels for me. (Wasn’t that kind?) Therefore, sitting on my chair when I returned were the following books:

- The Pirate Lord, by Sabrina Jeffries – a romance novel, selected for the fact that it was about pirates, and I’m a fan of Pirates of the Caribbean.
- Marianne’s Kingdom, by Parley J. Cooper – a gothic mystery from about 1970, with yellowing pages (and a wonderful cigarette ad in the middle), no doubt selected for the fact that it had my name in the title.

This morning our company’s server was struck with a virus (something about a vulnerable “hole” in Microsoft Windows 2000 and XP – don’t ask me, I really didn’t get it), and for about an hour and a half at work, we had to shut out computers down, and sit and twiddle our thumbs. Well, instead of reading the “Editorial Eye” as I clearly should’ve done, I picked up The Pirate Lord. Wow. If you have never tried to read a real romance novel, I would sincerely encourage you…to never even consider it.

But the cover, with the quintessential brawny male (a pirate, no less!) with the rippling abs and open shirt waving in the same breeze that’s ruffling his long, silky hair – was absolutely priceless, and worth any intellectual pain I may have suffered in reading a chapter or two. Hey, at least I was spared the depiction of a female practically falling out of her top. Let’s remember to be grateful.

Let’s not forget the review on the cover. “Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful! I couldn’t put it down.” That was by Rexanne Becnel, who wrote Dangerous to Love. Ahhhh…so romance novelists read other romance novelists novels. It’s all coming clear now.

I’m cured of pirates.

This Is How Pollyanna Changed a Town

“My mom can make lemon meringue pie out of rotten lemons!” –Nancy Kennedy (a writer in my office)

Yes, I heard this as I passed her in the hall today. So, apparently when life hands you lemons, you can make lemonade. But if it’s even worse, and you get handed rotten lemons, you can learn to make lemon meringue pie!

I just don't think I want any.

So, I was really sick yesterday. I absolutely hate being sick - mostly because I don’t know how to handle it well, since I’m awfully proud of my immune system of steel. I turn into a wimp. I’m sure you’ve all experienced the feverish workings of your brain when your stomach is terribly upset…how you can’t concentrate on anything except the alien activity that MUST be going on inside you. But now I feel much better, which makes it easier to reflect on things I heard during the day yesterday.

In church, a woman gave a talk about being happy where you are, and being grateful for all the little things. I wasn’t grateful for much at the moment, but now I’ve given that some thought. It’s kinda interesting to think of some of the little things that make you happy every now and then. Cheesy, but you should try it.

For example, I’m happy that I don’t feel like throwing up today. I’m glad it’s rained a bit lately so I can smell the wet cement. I’m glad there was a genius on the planet who figured out how to make the cocoa plant into chocolate. I’m glad there are “granny gears” on my bike – and will be even gladder (yes, that is a word) when I know how to use them properly. And I’m grateful that Jesse never makes me wonder whether he’s excited to marry me or not.

Oh, and I’m really happy that I heard a new 3 Doors Down song on the radio this morning – instead of the horribly overplayed “Love Me When I’m Gone.” (Does that song make anyone else want to poke their own eye out?) That may have made my day.

Living Life in Pink

Wow. So here I am. Thanks to Sloanie.com, La Vie en Rose is now live! Now, let me preface this by saying that yes, I am a writer. But no, that doesn't mean that every entry will have literary merit. Let's be honest - not even every article I turn in for publication has literary merit.

Let's also get out of the way that I am engaged, so although I'll try not to make this a forum for relating all the details of my wedding planning (which may make more of you sick than intrigued), as with anything I try to do in life - fiascos happen. The wedding planning has been going along alarmingly smoothly, so that means a big disaster awaits. Rest assured you'll be the first to hear about it. Unless it's just not funny. (But hey, when aren't my disasters funny?)

As for the title, La Vie en Rose simply means something about seeing life through rose-colored glasses. It's actually a rather silly song that I learned about from the movie Sabrina. (And if you translate the term directly, it means "life in pink." Of course...who doesn't want to live life in "pink?") What I like about the term is that sometimes you really can see life through the eyes of an optimist. And for the most part, I love seeing life that way. And being in love intensifies that, I think.

But, quite frankly, stupidity frustrates me to no end. Especially in people that should know better. I was at Six Flags/Magic Mountain on Monday (an adventure in itself) and I saw a kid with a t-shirt that said, "No, stupidity is not a crime, so you're free to go." I want that shirt some days.

In any case, enough of that. I love to write. Observations on life, whether optimistic or cynical, are fascinating to me to put into words. Oh, but my favorite part of writing is recording the hilarity of life, too. So, I hope you enjoy La Vie en Rose. :)

Welcome to Mar's Blog

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