Something Random I'm Going to Fill Out....

Here's another silly tag!

I am: the greatest master of superlatives EVER! ...est. Woo hoo! ;)
I know: next to nothing compared to Matt :)
I want: to live in San Diego forever
I have: a great marriage with a great man, and a fun kid!
I hate: when people hyper-train kids like they're pet monkeys
I feel: headache-y
I hear: the rain and I love it!
I smell: the rain!
I crave: pastries
I search: for pretty places
I love: being outside
I care: A LOT about being outside. where it's pretty.
I always: repeat things when superlatives and capital letters just aren't enough! (like how I love pretty places outside! :))
I believe: in giving good names to babies
I sing: like a white girl. too bad :-(
I write: my name over and over since I stink at drawing but want to doodle
I lose: trivia games or Balderdash against Matt
I win: strategy games against Matt and Balderdash against anyone else
I never: enjoy being somewhere ugly or being stuck inside all day
I listen: to a wider variety of music than people ever guess (even YOU, I bet!)
I am scared: of birds pooping on my head :)
I need: green! and flowers.
I am happy about: this totally gorgeous day, and being with Matt and Seth to enjoy it together
I tag: anyone suffering from insomnia like I have lately.... :)

Uh oh!

What Seth had to say after taking this game out to play with Matt:

"[GASP!] Uh oh! His brain is coming out...."

Inexcusable.

Imagine:

What if you were paid outrageous amounts of money to be good at golf, let's say. And every fourth or fifth hole, no matter where you golfed, no matter what the stakes, no matter what the weather or the opponents or what clubs or what score, no matter what, you are taken to a temperature-controlled, grass-controlled, humidity-controlled room to attempt an exactly-10-foot putt on a perfectly-level spot. You're given the exact same club every time—perfectly controlled so the conditions never change. Imagine the average golfer somehow—unfathomably!—often misses the shot. Would you allow yourself to ever—EVER!—miss?

Imagine you were paid enormous amounts of money to be good at, uh, scrapbooking. People judge your work and pay you accordingly (hehe). Imagine one of the criteria—20% of your score!—is that you take the letters S C R A P B O O K that have already been cut out for you, and glue them with the same glue that's always given to you (new and goo-free :)) into the outlines of S C R A P B O O K that have already been printed on a page. The paper is always the same. The glue is always the same. The shapes of the letters are always the same. And—unfathomably!—the average paid scrapbooker can't get all the letters inside the lines. Would you ever—EVER!—miss?! Say yes, and you're a fool!

Imagine you were paid enormous amounts of money to be good at, oh, let's say basketball. And every so often you're asked to stand on a line that is always—ALWAYS—the exact same distance from the net. You're given a ball that is always the same size. The other players are always asked to stand out of your way, and you're always given the same amount of generous time to contemplate your shot. The backboard is always exactly the same. The net is always exactly the same. The distance to the rim is always exactly the same. Would you ever—EVER!!!!—ever, ever miss?

Come on! How many athletes get the chance to have a perfect constant? Shooting free-throws is the biggest gimme in all of the getting-paid-to-do-things world! But how many games are decided by fewer points than free-throws missed? Too many! It's ridiculous. If I have to see another game decided by missed free-throws, soooo help me...! Whoever you are or whatever your lame excuse is, if you're getting paid millions of dollars—or getting a free education—to be good at basketball, it is inexcusable to have a free-throw percentage less than—I'll be very generous—95%. Park yourself on that free-throw line, the one perfect constant in all of sports, and figure out how to make that shot. Every time. Every time! All you'd have to give me to be a 100% free-throw-shooter is a gift certificate to a taco shop for every 25 consecutive free-throws. I could have been a 100% free-throw shooter in 5th grade for some of those stupid slap-bracelets or something...! But Hack-a-Shaq actually worked against a guy getting paid millions of dollars to do nothing in life but practice and play basketball? Are you kidding me?This makes no sense. (Don't even get me started on BYU's pathetic team. Even when they're good, they stink!)

Basketball players! Shape up. Your free-throw behavior is unconscionable. UN-conscionable.... Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Seth still NEEDS to do things....

Me: "Seth, ewww! That's icky. Please don't put cheese between your toes."

Seth: "But... I NEEED to, Mom. I NEED to put cheese in my toes."

(Then he tried to take a bite without using his fingers. He's very flexible! And dextrous, apparently. :))

Sorry.

An apology for the really pretty picture that is all fuzzy and not within the header box. I apparently don't understand blogger's header image procedure. It seems simple enough! But then...I fail. Miserably. Sorry folks.

25 Random Things

Everyone—and I mean everyone—is putting "25 Random Things" lists on Facebook. I've been tagged about 3824 times. Instead of putting 25 random facts about myself in a Facebook note, though, I thought it would be more fun to put 25 random things about Matt! On my blog! Yessss...! Here are some things you might not have known about my best good friend. :)

1. He used to play the violin, and still has one in the closet. (But is the only one of six kids to successfully drop out of piano lessons! Ha! Something he now regrets, even if he's still proud of it.)

2. He actually—and he's not joking—wants to go to North Korea. Also, Afghanistan! ("It's fascinating!") And wants to be dropped by helicopter (not joking here either) into some of the scariest parts of Africa to fix kids' hearts and other medical helps. I don't want to crush all his dreams, but.... The Congo? Seriously?

3. Growing up, he liked every single food he ever tried except for enchiladas (random...). (And he'll try any food, no matter how odd! Silkworm larvae, sea cucumber, strange animal organs, hottest spices in the world, dog soup... anything...!) 

4. Last year he ate the first thing in his life that he wanted to spit out: a stinky cheese in France (and he loves stinky cheeses!) that "tastes like a cesspool!" But he didn't spit it out. Just marveled that now he knows what people mean when they say they don't like the taste of something. (He now likes enchiladas, too, by the way.)

5. He's an Eagle Scout, and REALLY very good at navigating the great outdoors. (If I had to survive lost in the wild, I'd want Matt with me!) 

6. He really—REALLY!—hates scouts. :) Loves the outdoors, hates scouts.

7. He knows a little something about virtually everything! If someone has a random piece of trivia they want an answer to, Matt's their man. (He'll usually start with a deadpan lie, though. Hehe.)

8. His hair is so coarse that when it rains, the water just sits on his head and doesn't soak in!

9. His hair is so coarse that it's broken hair clippers.

10. When his hair wasn't so short, he had a Jewish patient ask him if he were also Jewish. He was shocked that Matt said no and said, "but you have a Jew-Fro!" Matt loved that. :)

11. He never had a crush before me. (Believe me, I've tried to get it out of him!)

12. He wanted to go to Duke or Stanford, but in the end couldn't pass up the cheapness of BYU. (Which is ok, I guess, since I was fool enough to not even apply anywhere but BYU. We had to meet somewhere, I guess...! My narrow vision sort of limited our options. Tears, tears!)

13. We've gone out a lot with my parents and brother, Jordan—and people always think I'm the in-law and Matt is the brother. (The new face-recognition function in iPhoto thinks Jordan and Matt look alike, too, and keeps mixing them up!)

14. Matt speaks Korean.

15. He's also studied Latin, Chinese (Mandarin), and Hebrew.

16. We went to Costa Rica so he could "immerse" himself in a Spanish course, but we got too caught up in the scenery to schedule very many classes for him. Ha ha! (No regrets. :))

17. He can't really drive a stick-shift. Shocking!

18. Matt has wanted to be a doctor his whole life, but jumped through a bunch of specialities over the years. He's wanted to be an ophthalmologist, neurosurgeon, hand surgeon, pediatric orthopedic surgeon, pediatric neurologist, a medical scientist (M.D./Ph.D.), a general surgeon.... He finally found the whole package in pediatric cardiology.

19. He used to ski like a rat on fire, but now he insists it wouldn't be fun to ski without me so we do blues and greens together. Whenever I ask him if he just needs to go on a triple-black-diamond again, he can't believe I'd even ask. "And miss out on a run with you? No way!" :-D He likes me. :)

20. He's broken a lot of bones.

21. He was once pulled over for violating curfew while driving home in an old chunky astrovan still wearing stage make-up. Ha ha!!

22. He's had a lot—A LOT—of stitches, starting with trying to climb up a broken mirror when he was a year old. 

23. He hasn't had stitches in years. But he still breaks bones.

24. He's a Lost JUNKIE. (Even though he agrees with me that it actually sucks.)

25. He's color-blind. But that's not really as intense as people imagine.... He thought our green couch was tan, and our tan couch was green. And sometimes he thinks red-rock mountains are brown. As soon as someone tells him, "actually, that's red" or green or tan, his brain actually corrects it and he sees the right color from then on.... Interesting!

Twenty-eight is GREAT!

I had the best, BEST, BEST birthday EVER this year! (And thank you everyone who sent me happy birthday wishes! :)) A few of the reasons why I couldn't have had a better birthday:

Kashmiri Naan!

Not only did we go out for wonderful Indian food, we discovered the best treat of all TIME!! Kashmiri Naan! The way this restaurant made it was to die for. Cooked inside the bread was a mixture of finely-minced pistachios, golden raisins, cardamon, and cherries. Bury me now! I'm in heaven! Sooooo good.

Over the river and through the woods....

To Grandma's house he goes! Woo hoo! (Not that any snow or sleds were involved.... :)) I'm a tiny bit ashamed to admit how incredibly nice it was to be alone with Matt for a few days. Seth is pretty awesome! But it was still really, really nice to be childless again for a weekend. :) And Seth couldn't leave us fast enough. When Grandma came to visit he picked up his stuff and started right for the door, then took half a second to turn back to me and ask: "you going TOO?" And I said, no. And he already had his back to me again by the time he said, "ok! Bye!" Out the door.... Hehe. It's fun that he loves his grandparents so much—and that we've always lived by one set or the other. He loves it. Anyway, we slept in! And went out for a nice, leisurely meal or two! And it was great. :)

Birthday breakfast!

Matt made me yummy oatmeal with fresh blackberries and whole milk. Simple, but SO tasty.

A surprise chat with Jordan!

He's a missionary in El Salvador right now, and we miss him so much that even Matt hurts over it. (Matt's usually immune to things like that. If you ask him if he even missed me while he was a missionary, he sheepishly admits that, "well, it just wasn't unexpected to be away from you, so it was, you know.... It was ok. Sorry! But I still thought of you! I just didn't miss you.... Hehe." But he really misses Jordan. We all do. :)) Not only did Jordan happen to need some medical advice on my birthday, but he managed to catch Matt at the computer so they could chat for all of about four minutes. And not only that, but it was about a freak fainting-spell he had had the day before over just bonking his knee, the day after I had freakishly fainted having a stupid mole removed! Ha ha ha! To still be laughing over my silly dermatology adventure and then to have Jordan emailing on my birthday to say that he had done the exact same thing.... It was priceless. Kindred spirits!

And then...! Ooooohhhhh!!!

Tosca!! What luck is this? Opening Night for the San Diego Opera was on my birthday! Which would have been fun no matter what, but they opened with my favorite opera! We almost—horribly almost!—decided not to spend the money. But, oh man! That would have been a devastatingly stupid decision. It turns out the San Diego Opera is a-maz-ing! (Our hopes hadn't been too high. We were so thrilled to be wrong!) Tosca has long been my favorite opera, but then San Diego's production made the other productions I'd seen look like community theatre or something. It just was...ahhh! Amazing. Matt couldn't even move during the first intermission. Just kept shivering and repeating, "that was amazing. Whoa. So creepy. Amazing. I can't move...." Hehe. (Matt had never seen Tosca—it was so fun to finally see it together!) And the second and third acts just kept getting better. It didn't feel like an American production, really—more like the British aesthetic where they aren't afraid to take their time. There were scenes where, ah!, the music would just kill you for how gorgeous it is, and nothing is happening on stage. It made it seem so much more real than the melodramatic opera story you normally see, with people strutting around and stuff just to fill time. Or when Tosca kills Scarpia, she actually took her time making her nervous exit—like a lady who hadn't woken up that morning expecting to kill a man. And he actually died sounding like he was dying! Like there really was blood coming up in his throat! How did he do it?! I wanted to die it was so good! I really love art—visual arts, music, plays, literature. But theatre, for me, beats it all by a million times. I lovvvvve it. And this—no question—was one of the best theatre experiences we've ever had. We would have paid three times that much if we had known how good it would be. (And now we know! San Diego has good opera! Is there any way this isn't the perfect place for us?! Woo hoo!)

And finally...

The sunset was amazing. The trees are blossoming like it's springtime (and some trees are still covered in autumn leaves!). Our flowers are thriving and it's been sunny and rainy, and warm and cool. It took us ten minutes to get from our house to the opera, and five minutes after leaving the theatre we were already driving along the coast...! Ahhh.... We were going home from Tosca, after a perfect day of wonderful time outside, great food and great opera, and Matt said (beaming as much as I was), "Well, Auburn, have you ever had a birthday in San Diego?!! With the best bread known to man(!) and the best opera production in the HISTORY OF THE WORLD?!!!!" And that about summed it up for me! Best birthday I could possibly imagine! Best day I could imagine! It was perfect. :)

Made me laugh

I saw an article today about the bad auditions in American Idol. And I enjoyed the final insult to a lady who really, really does not sing well. At all. Really. Not even a little bit. It made me laugh the way he mused about it. :) Hehe.

So why, then, do these "Idol" auditioners show up brimming with overconfidence, then open their mouths and sound like alley cats with bronchitis? And they're universally stunned --- stunned! -- when Simon and the rest laugh at them. Their family and friends have always told them how great they are, they say. Music is their life, they cannot imagine doing anything else.

On what planet do these people live? Do parents and friends really lie like that? Were they born with a selective ear problem that cannot translate their own vocalizations? If their hearing is this poor, do The Beatles and The Shaggs sound exactly the same to them? I guess this would explain why Celine Dion is popular, but somehow I'm not buying it.

That would be a reasonable explanation for the popularity. Ha ha! Must be a bunch of ear problems.

Thank you, Camus

"No problem, World. My pleasure."

Thank you for THIS!:

I think "A Perfect Achievement" may be an understatement. I love, love, LOVE this book. As diverting as the cute little Twilight series was for a short while, I've been really glad to have some quiet time lately to read something actually good. Hehe. (I don't get a whole lot of time to read! One of the reasons I rushed through the Twilight series more than I should have—it was so novel for a few days to have time!) So I reread The Plague—first time in, man, probably 7 or 8 years—and loved it even more than before. My only sorrow is that Camus didn't write in English—also, that I don't think the translation we have is as good as it could be. So I'm on the hunt for a different translation.... And then, I think, I could read this book a hundred times. So grim, but SO inspiring still. Really a fabulous work.

And then I read this:

HA HA HA!! Somehow I missed the memo that this is a controversial book. I just thought it was famous for being good or something. Hehe. I was feeling so great about reading after finishing The Plague that I just had to pick up another book right away. The Catcher in the Rye is short (always appealing :)) and has been sitting on our shelf looking interesting for a while, so I dug in. Ha ha ha!! This book kills me! I'm sure plenty of people find it awfully offensive, but I thoroughly enjoyed the character. Very witty and interesting—and every time he described phoniness, I wanted to die of laughter for how right-on he was. Hahaha!! So great. I was really looking forward to whatever crisis I was sure would come in the last few pages to make the book make some beautiful sense . . . . But, um. It ended without ever making a great amount of sense. Really a bummer, too, because the character was a goodie—could have really made for a great book. If anyone can tell me what the heck this book was supposed to be saying, I'd be in your debt. Unless what you have to say is, "he realized in the end, with his sister, that he couldn't be a 'catcher in the rye,' and that kids just need to grow up on their own."   No.   No way. If that's what the author was really trying to get at, he did a bad job of it. And I'm willing to believe that maybe this is a good book and I just missed the point—so fill me in if you know what it is. :) 

Next on my list: Heart of Darkness. Can you believe I've never read it? 

Another One :)

This morning I asked Seth what he wanted to eat for breakfast. He smiled and sighed, and said "Butter! Beautiful butter...." 

:-D

Some Funny Things

Here are some random funny things we've been surprised to hear Seth say lately....

A couple nights ago, he decided to stay awake until 1:00 in the morning (3-hour church meetings mess everything up! I'm not sure how Mormons have a reputation for being "family-friendly"! Three hours of church...? What about naps and food? Are we trying to torture small children? And moms? Hehe. Oh, the horror!). When cozying up to watch The Sound of Music wasn't working, I finally said, "Seth, it's about time to go to bed. It's LATE...." Without missing a beat he responded: "Nooo. It's NOT late.... It's Happy-Time!" 

Ha ha! I have no clue how he came up with that one.

A couple weeks ago we were driving in the rain. Seth, always so astute, stated the obvious: "It's raining." Which gave him some sort of exciting epiphany and he started repeating something over and over, trying to help me understand. I just wasn't getting it.... I'd repeat what it sounded like, I'd ask him questions, but we just weren't making any progress. After a couple minutes of this, he finally full-on sighed, and said: "I'm telling the truth, Mom! I'm telling the truth!" Ha ha! Oh man. It killed us. I would love to know what he thought that meant. Right after that he said, "Mom [somethingsomething] ABC's" and said the phrase again that I hadn't been able to understand. The ABC's clue (I thought that was clever of him :)) finally tipped it off for me. He was saying "rain starts with the letter RRRRRRRRRR...!" He was telling the truth!

Last night he wanted to turn the light on in the car, and wasn't buying our faulty logic about the light making it harder for Dad to see while he was driving. I said, "I know it sounds weird and doesn't make sense, but it's true! We have to keep the light OFF right now." And he said, "No. It's NOT so weird.... It's HORRIBLE!" Ha ha ha! And then he asked us again to turn the light on because "I NEEEED to see." 

And speaking of things he "needs" to do, that's just about everything lately. 

"Seth, please don't kick the seat in front of us." Seth looks up all cutely: "I NEED to." 

"Seth, why are you doing that?" Seth: "Cuz.... I NEED to do this. I NEED to."

"Seth, you know we can't play with the plug. That could hurt you really bad." Seth: "I HAVE to, Mom. I HAVE to play with the plug. Right NOW."

He always says things with such sincerity that he's mighty hard to resist.... Hehe.

Oh, and let's not forget that he held our friend Elizabeth's hand the other day, looked into her eyes and said, "you're cute!" HA HA HA!! Where is he learning this behavior? When we told Seth we loved him, instead of saying "I love YOU" like usual, he leaned out of my arms toward Elizabeth and said, "I love HER!" There you go. True love. :)

Merry Christmas!

Well, it's Christmas—and Seth is asleep, I can't sleep, and Matt is at Children's for the morning. So here is our year in review! I saw this on a couple blogs and copied. :)

1. What did you do in 2008 that you'd never done before? Vacationed for a month with a kiddo, and only 2 carry-on bags! YES! Believe it! And camped in a foreign country (8 days straight :)). 

2. Did you keep your new years' resolutions, and will you make more for next year? Our new years' resolution last year was to figure out how to move to San Diego. And we did! Woo hoo! I can't think of a resolution this year.... 

3. Did anyone close to you give birth? Seth has three new cousins this last year. And a few good friends had babies, too.

4. Did anyone close to you die? Matt's Grandma Williams.

5. What countries did you visit? England (and Wales... not technically another country, I guess...), Italy, and France.

6. What would you like to have in 2009 that you lacked in 2008? To be migraine-free. 

7. What date from 2008 will remain etched upon your memory, and why? March 20th. Match Day! (We looked toward that date for four years.... Maybe longer. And then it was GREAT.)

8. What was your biggest achievement of the year? The Match!

9. What was your biggest failure? Not curing this headache problem. 

10. Did you suffer illness or injury? Matt broke his knee (he has a bone fragment floating on his knee cap now! Ew!) and suffered a Seth-inflicted recurrent eye injury that he just figured out is really cold-sore herpes (on his EYE! augh! antiviral meds are working great, though). I tore some tendons in my foot. We all got our usual bouts of hospital-shared viruses. 

11. What was the best thing you bought? Plane tickets. 

12. Where did most of your money go? Tuition. Then our house. (I know SoCal is supposed to be wildly expensive but, believe it or not, tuition was much more.... Glad to not be paying that anymore!)

13. What did you get really, really, really excited about? Match Day! Graduation! Moving Day! Woo hoo!!!

14. What song will always remind you of 2008? We heard American Boy literally a dozen times a day—at least—when we were in Europe (I'll never forget walking past a pre-teen German boy who was trying to sing it to his grandma... ha ha!!). Then we came back and no one had heard of it. When the radio stations finally started playing it as "a brand new single" we had to laugh—and also soak up the feeling of being in a pizzeria in Rome, or something. We totally got sick of that song, but it's full of happy nostalgia now!

Compared to this time last year, are you:

15. Thinner or fatter? Just the same, I think.

16. Richer or poorer? Eesh. It seems like we're able to spend exactly the same (which isn't a lot). However, the difference between what we were taking out in loans last year and what we're earning this year is at least a $90,000 raise! [whistle]

17. What do you wish you'd done more of? sitting at the beach at sunset, but the sun started setting too early :-(

18. What do you wish you'd done less of? going to doctors about my headaches. ugh.

19. How will you be spending Christmas? With Matt and Seth at home. When Matt gets home from work, that is.... Hehe. (We might have "Christmas" on another day. Then again, Matt might get home really early. We'll see! :))

20. Did you fall in love in 2008? With Michelangelo. (And pastries and pizza.) So did Matt. Ha ha!

21. What was your favorite TV program? The Mentalist.

22. Do you hate anyone now that you didn't hate this time last year? Ha ha!! No, I think all the people I hate I already hated last year. (Huh?!) Actually, I honestly don't think I hate anyone. Hillary Clinton...? Hehe.

23. What was the best book you read? The Souls of Black Folk, W.E.B. DuBois; The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis

24. What was your greatest musical discovery? I saw Stravinsky's Rite of Spring in concert and (gasp!) actually liked it! No.... Loved it! I still can't believe it....

25. What did you want and get? San Diego. :) Flowers. Green. Ocean! Gorgeous and pleasant time outside every day. Heaven! 

26. What did you want and not get? A dinner alone with Matt in some romantic spot in Europe. Oh well. (We're still so glad Seth went with us. :)) 

27. What was your favorite film of this year? Uh.... Was anything that great this year...? We haven't seen many movies lately.

28. What did you do on your birthday, and how old were you? I turned 27 and I can't remember what I did! (Old age.... ;))

29. What one thing would have made your year immeasurably more satisfying? It was a great year.... :)

30. How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2008? What will fit in a carry-on? Also, I refuse to wear a maternity shirt. (What is with that insanity? You all look pregnant, people!) 

31. What kept you sane? Matt and Seth. (And grandmas taking Seth every now and then. :))

32. Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most? Did I fancy? Hehe. Barack Obama was totally fascinating—even if I didn't vote for him. And Joe Biden is hilarious. Ha ha ha!!

33. What political issue stirred you the most? San Diego's Prop D! And it passed! (Makes the alcohol ban on all beaches permanent! Thank you, voters.)

34. Who did you miss? Since our year of luxury ended, I miss Matt when he actually has to (gasp!) go to work. That was a long time of being together all day....

35. Who was the best new person you met? We've made some good friends here! And I just met Kristin's baby, Evelynne, who was SO fantastically fun. :)

36. Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2008: Being outside is food for the soul! Can't live without it.... :)

37. Quote a song lyric that sums up your year: Here Comes the Sun says it all. :) The smile's returning to the faces! :)

The Secret to our Success

Many of you may look at our life and wonder to yourselves, how do they do it?! How do they stay so happily married in the face of such hardship?! (Hehe.) Years of medical school. Years of snow. A wild child. (Just kidding. He's delightful. :)) Memories of (gulp)...no, i can't say! (But our whole "falling in love" and "honeymoon" phases could have failed right away given the anti-ambience of our stifling locale! Ugh.) Years to come of residency, and years to come of eating the same three meals over and over. Hehe (I'm not very creative with cooking). And to make matters worse, it's now the 7th year of marriage, which is the most common year of failure! How do they do it? Well, wonder no longer! I'm going to tell you the secret to our success! It's (are you ready?) . . . sharing one car! [oohs and ahs from the audience, then thunderous applause!] Yes, yes! It's true! Nothing can bond two people quite like sharing a car. Hehe.

We've spent the last seven years or so anticipating that we may soon need a second car. We keep deciding to wait and see how it goes, and then we keep "ending up" in the perfect situation to still have just one. It actually feels kind of Providential. No, not kind of. Very. (It's amazing how when you make something good your priority—in our case, maximizing our time together—you're blessed with ways to achieve it.)

When we got married, I managed to get a job on campus (I know all of BYU's admissions secrets! :)) while Matt finished school—we rode there together, rode home together. Excellent. When Matt graduated and we moved, we were both looking for jobs all over San Diego county and thought, ok, now we're for sure going to need another car! Bummer! But then, guess what? Matt got a job at UCSD and I got a job down the street. No joke! So we commuted together, ate lunch together, and life was great. Then Matt started medical school and we said to ourselves, selves, we are gonners this time. Time to get another car. And then I got a job two blocks away from the medical school.... You may be wondering if this is all a lie. Too impossible. No, not a lie! Well, was I looking for jobs just nearby, then? No! I was looking all over Denver! And I end up a couple blocks away.... I'd drop Matt off at school, then head over to my awesome, amazing special ed kids, and we'd both finish about the same time and go home together. Once or twice a week, Matt was even able to come help in our classroom! It was great to spend so much time together. But what would we do when Matt started his third year and would be working in hospitals and clinics all over the place? Get another car...? Wrong again! Because I just happened to have Seth just as Matt finished his second year of med school (and, believe me, we had no measure of control as to that timing)—he had a couple months when all three of us were home all day together (heaven!), then he started his 3rd-year work. I left my job to be home with Seth, so we just drove Matt to work and picked him up. (And on impossibly miserable days when there was no way we'd go out in the heat or cold, Matt just took the car.) By the time we were moving to San Diego again this year, we were hooked on sharing. :) And found a home only a few miles from his hospitals, so sharing is super-easy.

And here's why it's the glue that holds us together. (Hehe.) It's so nice to feel like we're sort of living the same life! All from just sharing a car...? Well, kind of! This week we have another car around and, while it's been nice to not get up at 5:30 in the morning to take Matt to work, I'm sitting here feeling like I haven't seen him since we went to bed last night. I kind of sort of woke up very, very briefly while he said good-bye this morning.... And then he left. Off to his life, while I stay here with mine. And then he'll come home who knows when. And we won't be getting in touch with each other about how the day is going and when he thinks he'll be done with his patients. As convenient as it is, we're looking forward to giving back the second car!

I know it's bound to happen sometime that I just can't get up with Matt anymore—kids will be going to school, or whatever, and we'll be glad for another car. But, for now, we love that we've always gotten up together, spent a little more time with each other, gotten in touch with each other during the day, seen each other a little earlier when work is done.... It sure beats a foggy, early-morning kiss good-bye! And helps me feel, too, like I'm a little more a part of his "work life"—like we're doing that together, too. Anyway, it's nice. Who knew having such an inconvenience could be so rewarding? :)

(The video didn't make it to Google Reader.... But it's on here.)

You've probably heard about the tragic plane crash in San Diego this week. I hope you've also had a chance to see this good, good man speak to the press about it. A military jet returning to Miramar crashed into his home when the second engine failed only two miles from the runway. The pilot ejected safely after attempting to steer the jet toward an empty canyon. 

Imagine the sorrow of this poor man. While he was at work, this totally insane mishap took the lives of his wife, his two baby daughters (one was 15 months old, the other a newborn), and his wife's mother who had come from Korea to help with the new baby. They had only moved into the home a few weeks ago. 

When we first heard of the crash and it still seemed like maybe there weren't any casualties, both Matt and I were questioning of the pilot's decision. Did he really eject and save himself while this plane was about to crash into people's homes? Seriously? We wondered. . . maybe he really had no control over the plane and had no choice but to bail. Or maybe he was panicked for his own life and was hating himself for not doing more. . . . 

If we had questions, I can't imagine what might have gone through this young father's heart. He spoke to the press the day after the accident and—imagine—asked us all to pray for the pilot, that he would not suffer because of this accident. He called him a treasure for our country, and said sincerely that he didn't blame him at all. It was heartbreaking when he said that he knew others had experienced even more painful things than this, and "please tell me how you do it—I don't know what to do. . . ."

I can't stop thinking about this man....

I've thought about how litigious our culture has become—how quickly we seek to lay blame on someone when we suffer. But here is one man who, in the crux of his unimaginable suffering, and not even knowing enough details to really be sure the pilot had done all he could do, here he is asking the public to remember him—the pilot—in our prayers. What an inspiring example he has been—a truly Christlike example in this tragedy.

I'm sort of hesitant to post this news video—I wish the extra commentary didn't make the story so trite. But I do hope people get a chance to hear Dong Yun Yoon's words. (His press conference—I think it was 7 minutes long—is probably on the internet somewhere unedited. It's worth watching.) I believe so much in the inherent goodness of mankind—of our truly divine natures. We are subject to so many frailties in this mortal world, and are rarely able to avoid them enough to act up to par with that nature. But we see so much goodness. We really do. And this week, Mr. Yoon showed us some of that great Light. It makes me feel so incredibly petty for the little grudges I sometimes hold. . . . I hope I can continue to grow away from that, and learn forgiveness and love like our infinitely forgiving and perfectly loving Savior. And I'm thankful to see His light in others.

Something Funny. . .

I read the Twilight series.

Ha ha! If you're not laughing right now, you probably don't know me. But, believe me, it's funny. I laugh every time I think about it. I read the Twilight series! Ha ha ha! (See? :))

Not that I never read easy-to-read books, because I definitely do. I just don't tend to be very interested in: A) novels written for 13-year-olds; B) novels everyone—everyone—is reading (makes me very skeptical... :)); C) novels written for 13-year-olds that 33-year-olds are acting like 13-year-olds over. Oh, and D) novels about vampires. Hehe. 

But, here's the funniest thing: I actually liked them! Ha ha! Not in a way to make me carve "I heart Edward" into my furniture or anything. . . . Hehe. Or to bang on Barnes and Noble windows with 100 wild women to get the newest release when the clock strikes twelve. . . . But I liked them. :) So much of the story was really very sweet, and I think Stephenie Meyer actually did a really decent job at creating interesting, whole characters (for the most part). It was kind of fun! 

(Oh, and don't worry—no spoilers here. :))

Here's my great sorrow, though. . . . Oh! The agony! I think my favorite book of the series was Twilight—and its big climax could have been SOOOOO good. You know. . . . The part with the. . . hand. . . . :) OooOOOoooh.... [While I shudder.] Could have been amazing. But it kind of fell flat. I finished and thought, argh! If only she hadn't written it from Bella's perspective! And by the fourth book, when she did experiment with writing from another perspective I was seriously mad at her. Why not in the first book?!!! Why?!! Why?!!! Seriously, it might just be silly teen fiction about vampires, but that one scene could have been a really awesome conflict. I drool just thinking about its awesomeness! But it doesn't exist. So sad.... (I do predict, however, that she's going to pull an Orson Scott Card one of these days, and rewrite the series from Edward's perspective. And then—then!—we'll get that scene in all its glory. We'll see! I think I'll be right. :))

One reason I had fun reading these is that the writing style totally made me laugh! Back before I had even heard of these books, a friend of mine asked if I'd read them, saying they totally reminded her of me! When Matt read them a long while later, it dawned on me that those were the books she was talking about—I told Matt what she had said and he started laughing his head off. "It's true! They totally sound like you! HA HA HA!!" And several others agreed as well. It made me curious to read them! But I didn't, and then I forgot again about all those people talking about it. When I was a couple chapters into Twilight, I suddenly had the thought that "haha! This sounds like me!" And then I remembered that I wasn't the first to think that. Hehe. Anyway, that made for some fun reading for me. Bella talks just how I talk in my journal! See what I mean that my posterity will have the all wrong impression? But I can't help it! It's just too fun to write that way! :)

So Bella and I talk much the same way, but there are also lots of other reasons we're kindred spirits! It was like reading a really tripped-out story about myself! (Not that I attract impossibly perfect vampires. :))

• She's lethally bad at volleyball! (Don't ever, ever ask me to play. Really. :))

• In high school, she was totally disgusted with herself when she was dumb enough to crush on someone.

• But she hardly ever had a crush on anyone. And she always rolls her eyes at shameless flirts. Hehe. (So dumb. Flirts are, that is. :))

• She'd rather wear jeans! Always. :)

• She loathes the idea of school dances. 

• At any time, she might randomly start comparing life to a scene or character in some book her audience probably hasn't read. :)

• She uses m-dashes and ellipses liberally—as in this sentence—to add dramatic impact to her run-on sentences. . . . Yes!

• She often accidentally led guys on (sorry all...lots of you... :-|) and then acts the same way about letting them down that I always did. Very stressful. ;-)

• She inherently distrusts any female who appears to spend more than two minutes on her hair and/or wears too much make-up.

• She always has a guy sneak into her room for the night. (Oh, um. . . . Uh. . . . ;))

• Her sense of humor is exactly like mine! Haha! Exactly! Especially when she'd crack some cynical little joke in the midst of some actually-horrible thing. That's me! Made me laugh.

• Oh, and she also deals with pain exactly like me. I was totally in her head on that.

• She's almost entirely unreadable and hard to get to know. Does not wear her heart on her sleeve, whether she wants to or not (but she usually doesn't want to :)).

• Her modus operandi (ha ha! That's such a ridiculous term!) is self-control! I was more than totally in her head about that. Bella never would have wanted to get drunk—way too creepy to not be in control. . . . Riding on the back of a vampire. . . ? Having needles stuck into you? Being really. . . thirsty? ;) I was always in her mind with stuff like that because I'm exactly the same! 

It was kind of weird! The only times I didn't feel like I was actually reading about myself were when she'd tell someone off with some beautiful quip—it was always the exact kind of thing I'd think but not have the guts to say. Then again, my life hasn't been quite so intense as Bella's. Hehe. Maybe under considerably more pressure, I'd actually say those things. :) If I hung around with vampires, that is. Ha ha! Anyway, it definitely amused me. Me and Bella. Twinners. :) Go figure. 

So my basic take on the stories were that Bella was fun, and that Stephenie Meyer definitely succeeded with Edward. (Could there be a better Prince Charming? The impossibly beautiful and powerful man who loves you SOOOO much he won't. . . um. . . . eat you. . . . Ha ha! Oh, but of course he really wants to. Because he's sensual that way. . . . Hehe.) And all the Cullens were great. Very intriguing. But I hated—loathed!—the whole Jacob sub-plot. Blech. When it was clear he wasn't going away, I almost stopped reading! Halfway through the fourth book I was starting to find him a little interesting. But up until that point, the whole Jacob story was really lame—and totally brought out things that were entirely uncharacteristic of people! It just didn't make sense. It was lame. I hated it! ("I look upon you with a disgust that amounts to absolute detestation!" :)) I don't think Ms. Meyer got in the groove on that one until it was way too late. . . . (However, to be fair, my favorite chapter in any book—since the hand scene wasn't quite what it could have been—was the one called "there are no words for this," or something like that. It was excellent!)

The rest of my take is summed up with saying that the first and fourth books were my favorite. And the second book was mostly really painful and boring. And the third book was somewhere in between. . . . :) Overall, I enjoyed them about 1000 times more than I expected.

Anyway. . . . Twilight books. They amused me. :) And kind of fun to have such a totally easy read. I don't, however, suggest reading the whole series too quickly. Hehe. I was trying to get the whole thing over with so I wouldn't have to bring any books home with me (from Matt's mom), and I definitely over-consumed. Ha ha! My dreams have been insane. It's really ridiculous! It reminds me of when we watched the entire series of Lost in a just a few weeks a little while ago—bad, bad idea! (Don't do it!)

Oh, and inquiring minds keep wanting to know if we're going to see the movie. :) Eh. Not without a substantial bribe. :) All we needed to see was a picture of "Bella" and "Edward" staring longingly into each other's pathetic teenager eyes to know we'd never see the movie. They were no WAY Bella and Edward. Fun books, but I'd bet my life they made a painful movie! Coffee-shop-flirty-nerd-emo-"Edward" and too-much-makeup-"Bella" can't be as fun a story. . . . :) And I can't watch movies of books, anyway, without the movie images replacing what my own imagination came up with (hence the reason I despise animated scripture videos—I'll never be able to picture Abraham and Isaac as non-cartoons again!). So. . . . No. No movie for us. Besides, it looks like there are a bunch of good movies coming out soon! We've gotta save up. :)

So tardy, I know—but I'm still in a Thanksgiving kind of mood! We've been out and about, and then tired, and then decorating for Christmas, so my pathetic little blog has been neglected. Then I thought it seemed anti-climactic to come back after so long without a post that was really, really special. :) Oh well, though—I'm back anyway!

I hope you all had a magnificent Thanksgiving full of much giving of thanks. And turkey breasts instead of whole turkeys. Ha ha! We were at Matt's parents' house for Thanksgiving—when whole turkeys were on sale for only $9.99, that seemed like a great deal. Until the gorgeous, perfectly roasted, tantalizing bird turned out to be. . . FROZEN on the inside! I had to laugh. I don't think I've ever seen a frustration-free Thanksgiving when a whole turkey was involved. They're just trouble. :) I feel to write yet another Ode to the Turkey Breast. Hehe. (Yum!)

We had a fun Thanksgiving—and even felt full of much thanks. :) A fun anniversary, too! I think our anniversary will be on Thanksgiving maybe. . . next year? That will be kind of fun. When we picked our wedding date we had mischievous plans to visit family for Thanksgiving, then ditch the kids and go off for mini-honeymoons by ourselves! YES! Muwahahahaha! But so far. . . we have yet to implement that plan. . . . Maybe next year will be the year. :)

Happy Thanksgiving. And Happy Christmas, too! :)

Mouths of Babes....

The other day we were in the car and Seth asked where we were going.

"We're going to Walmart! Doesn't that sound FUN? Wanna go to Walmart?!"

And he flatly replied: "No. NO go to Walmart.... I want to go to...CIRCLE Walmart."

HA HA HA! (I'm not sure if Target would appreciate that or not.... :))

Number One!

(Does anyone else enjoy The Most Extreme on Animal Planet? I love their countdowns! Maybe I should start doing "most extreme" countdowns of my own.... :))

And now, the moment we've all been waiting for! The unveiling of my favorite, and also Seth's new favorite (he asks to watch it over and over again! Yesss...:)) and also Matt's favorite-by-suggestion movie scene OF ALL TIME! There are so many layers of insanity! And nothing could thrill more than insanity! :) We have an insanely good and insanely dark Mozart piece providing the mood. We have Mozart going insane. We have a young Salieri going insane while watching Mozart be insane. We have an old Salieri who has been insane for years! On stage, there are a bunch of characters not only going insane, but also being DRAGGED TO HELL! Oh, the thrill! (Incidentally, Salieri has plans of his own to "triumph over God," just like the guy on stage who, oops, is... dragged to hell....) Add to that some good ol' 18th-century pyrotechnics and you have a recipe for a really great scene. :) I love it, love it, LOVE IT! Enjoy!

"And NOW...

The madness began in me....

The madness of a man

SPLITTING IN HALF!"

Love it. :)

And I love you, Mr. Editor, whoever you are, who did such a perfecto edit. In the words of Denzel Washington from favorite scene #3: you AMAZE me!! :)

And now in the words of the fun emperor in Amadeus (which is where this scene is from, by the way): "Well! There it is!" Since this top ten list is now complete, I feel I must recognize some honorable mentions! The bowl-fixing scene in The Road Home (a Chinese film that we LOVE—definitely in my top ten movies of all time! And it's a simple, sweet, pretty movie that I'm pretty sure just about everyone would relate to and love. Go find it! You won't regret it!); a few scenes from Stranger than Fiction (another top ten movie! Favorite scene is probably his interview with Dustin Hoffman. Ha! "King of the trolls...?" Or maybe one of the end scenes. Who knew Will Ferrell was such an amazing actor?); OH OH! the Al Pacino-with-the-gun-behind-the-toilet scene in The Godfather! (probably should have been in the top ten! I've only seen the edited version of the movie on TV, though, so I guess I forgot to remember I've sort of seen it...); the near-end of Pursuit of Happyness; the end of Psycho.... I'm sure there are some goodies I'm not thinking of! Any honorable mentions posted in comments will be honored (meaning I won't delete your comment, and it will live through the ages! :)). 

Number Two: The bad blood between Ronny and Johnny. Ha ha!

"What is life?! They say bread is life. And I bake bread—bread—bread. And I sweat."

HAHAHAHA!!! Oh man. I'm already laughing just thinking about putting up this scene. The first time I saw Moonstruck was with Matt and also Amy. When it got to this scene.... HAHA! We were rolling. (I'm almost as amused at the thought of us as I am at the thought of the scene! :)) If you ever want to entertain one of us, all you'd really have to do is blurt out: "I DON'T CARE! I ain't no freaking monument to justice!" (And even better if you go through the motions of the next couple of lines. :)) 

Or a decent runner-up might be: "Crissyyyyy! BRING ME THE BIG KNIFE!! [I won't do it!]...She won't do it... Do you know about me?" Haha!

And a note to anyone planning to audition for, say, a high school play or something: this would make a great monologue! I wish I were still doing stuff like that so I could figure out how to make it work for myself! :)

The basic plot before this scene is that Loretta (Cher) is engaged to Johnny, a totally boring and sappy baby of a guy, but a safe choice I guess (her first husband was hit by a bus, making her majorly superstitious about falling in love...). They get engaged, he immediately leaves for Italy to see his dying mother, and he begs Loretta to pleeeeease, while I'm gone, find my brother Ronny and invite him to our wedding! "We haven't spoken in five years.... There's some bad blood between us!" Johnny and Ronny—the bad-blood brothers. :) So Loretta goes to the family bakery to talk to Ronny (when she tried the phone, he quickly hung up after yelling: "THIS WRONG CAN NEVER BE MADE RIGHT!!" Haha!) and gets this great rant. Plus, an explanation for the "bad blood." 

It's Nicolas Cage at his finest! (I didn't even know I could like Nicolas Cage until I saw this. :)) Unfortunately, I have no idea if the beauty of this scene still comes through when you haven't seen the first 20 minutes of Moonstruck. But I'm posting it anyway. I hope you enjoy it! (And that it doesn't seem like a serious scene, because it's definitely not!) Go watch the movie—it's hilarious!

(The clip keeps going, but the first half is this great bakery scene—ending with a funny, pathetic little spiel that Matt especially loves from the girl who wouldn't bring him the big knife. I think the rest of the clip might end a tad bit scandalously so, you know, proceed at your own risk...! Hehe. No scandal in the bakery scene, though. Just loveliness. :))

Number Three: Oh, sweet Benedick! God give me PATIENCE!

Ha ha! This scene from Much Ado about Nothing KILLS us. SO great! This kid-like frolic in a water fountain is what a confirmed bachelor is reduced to after overhearing (from lying trickster matchmakers!) that the woman he loathes and continually fights with is actually in love with him. And when she overhears the same about him (from more lying trickster matchmakers), she melts just as bad. It's the best set-up ever! Made all the better by the great monologues about, "ew, I'll never fall in love!" and "I'm so excited to have just fallen in love!" Shakespeare is so great. :) (Especially when people know how to make him fun like he meant to be! :))

Kenneth Branagh's monologue always makes me think of my brother, Jordan. When he was only nine years old, I used to find him alone in the tv room watching movies you wouldn't expect a kid to enjoy. This was one of them—he watched it all the time! When Benedick gets all lovesick for Beatrice ("I may chance have some odd quirks and remnants of wit BROKEN on me because...I have railed so long against marriage...." hehe :)), he asks the question, "shall quips and sentences and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career of his humor? NO! The world must be peopled!" Ha ha! Every time, Jordan would just start cracking up. It's a funny line, for sure—but made SO much funnier now that we always picture this cute little 9-year-old cracking up over it. 

I couldn't find any reasonable soul online who made a clip of just this scene. But if you think, "hey, I'd like to spend 10 minutes watching the funniest set-up of all time!" start the first clip (you can skip the first minute), and by the end you'll feel like you just have to start the second clip and watch the first minute to finish the scene. :) If you like House, you'll enjoy seeing Robert Sean Leonard being so silly.... Hehe. A bunch of silly people in this one: Denzel Washington, Kate Beckinsale, Emma Thompson.... Great movie. :) GREAT scene! Number Three on our countdown!