Deep Thoughts

There are so many new diseases. And everyone has one. Bi-polar, chronic fatigue syndrome, various eating disorders. I'm sure all these things are very real, especially to the people going through them, and I mean no disrespect. I just think if we called them by descriptive names, they would make more sense. Such as, "sensitivity to people irratating me," "normal reaction to sadness and tragedy," and "I'm angry but don't want to/am afraid to show it so I'll just be tired instead."

I have a couple tics I'd like to break. One is the "twirling my hair" tic, and the other is the "bite the inside of my mouth" tic. I've been doing the TMH tic for years and I tried to stop several years ago. Then, in some magazine, probably "People," I read that Jennifer Aniston twirls her hair and I thought, hey, if she does it, it must not be that bad of a habit. A few days ago, while twirling my hair, I realized I don't have her money or her body and if I did, I could allow myself the TMH tic, but since I do have things about myself that could stand a little improvement, I need to lessen that one. The BTIOMM tic is a newer one and I think I'm getting a handle on that one. It's just a matter of being aware and saying, (quietly in my head) stop it.

Last night I was watching an infomercial for "Brazilian Butt Lift" (really).....a set of 3 exercise DVDs. It looked very interesting but I figured it was a scam. I googled it, then ebayed it. After that extensive research, I saw that it was a very legitimate exercise tape. But it was selling for big bucks on ebay. I bid on it, thinking, I just want to see what this sells for, and knowing that as the price rose, the acceleration would pop up on my email and I could see how much it actually sold for. Except that I did this late at night and there was only an hour left for bidding. So, now I own it, or at least it's on the way to my house. I did not mean to buy it. How great it would be if I really used it, exercised, got fit. Instead it will be like that old exercise bike that sits in the corner, never used, only I won't be able to hang clothes on the DVD. At least it gives me a reason to say, Brazilian Butt Lift.

It would be a plus if I only hit the snooze button once in the morning instead of seven times.

I wonder if my insurance covers "I could use a few changes and a heavy dose of motivation but I'd rather bitch and moan?"

Glitter Hole

Well, first I called this post "Family" and then was struck by how boring that was...then struck by how much angst I have at BEING boring, or at least writing boring things...like post titles that say "Family".....so then I made the conscious decision to try to not be boring. What happened? I came up with a good post title.

My family has reunions every 3 or 4 years. We like to stay in big houses where we can all fit because we like to eat breakfast together in our pajamas and play cards late into the night. It's difficult to do those things in a hotel when there's, at last count, about 35 of us. Now, this is just my brother, sister and myself, and our immediate families. Each of my siblings have 3 kids (actually adults now) with a few kids of their own. Except me, and I have just one young one. My brother and sister are about 20 years older than I am so their kids are my age. Anyhoo, this year we rented a place in St George, Utah. It had 10 bedrooms, two pools, a kitchen with two of everything including stoves, and a huge yard. There were 16 adults and 13 kids.

It started last Saturday. Twelve of my relatives drove into Flagstaff from Kansas and spent the night. I had planned on BBQing in the back yard so we could all be outside, as my house is not that big and there would be 15 of us eating and talking and lots of kids roaming about. The week had been beautiful weather-wise and tulips were coming up. But it's Flagstaff so instead we got a foot of snow on Saturday. Hahaha. Sunday morning we got up and planned to hit the road early to get to Vegas where we were going to spend Sunday night, along with the rest of the family who were going to meet us there. We had two, three bedroom suites at this timeshare place and we all wanted to get to Vegas early so we could explore, as a few of my family had never been there before. We had wanna-be gamblers, kids who wanted to see the dancing waters, and B and I thought we would get over to a bar called Money Plays to see my blog friend, Tyge. Out the door at 9:00 a.m. we got gas and headed onto highway 40. Three exits down we came to a very sudden and absolute stop. "Shit! Must be a wreck. We should be moving soon." I said. We did. We moved up about a half mile and were herded off the highway and back to Flagstaff. As we pulled off the highway and onto Flagstaff Ranch Road, my niece, Jennifer leaned out the passenger window and tried to talk to the cop directing us down the road and back on the highway. "Hey, we need to get to Vegas. How can we do that?" she hollered at him. Didn't even look at us. "Can't" was all he said.

After Internet and phone help, we found out it would be 11:30 before the road would open. So, we decided to go downtown and explore a bit of Flagstaff. Then, we were told it was going to be 1:30, then 3:30 before we could leave Flagstaff. Ugh!!!!! There WAS no detour. No where to go....well, except maybe drive to PRESCOTT and then up to ASHFORK. Hours out of the way. So, that's what we did. While we should have been in Vegas by 1:00, we ended up pulling in around 6:30. By the time we got to the room, unloaded bags, headed to dinner, and took all the kids to the dancing waters, it was midnight. Did I have time to play Roulette? Barely. Did I lose money at Roulette? Yes. Did I have time to win it back? No. Did we get to Money Plays? No.

So Vegas was merely a blink of the eye. A little over 12 hours and we were out of our rooms and heading to The Valley of Fire. We did stop first at The Palace Station for the breakfast buffet, which my brother had said was 4.99 (which was all I had left after playing 15 minutes of roulette), because he went in the day before and got the promise of a discount from the Asian lady at the counter....who wasn't there the next morning to okay it so we ended up paying the regular 7.99 price. Picture this; my sister at the register trying to explain that my brother, who was 25 people (who were NOT relatives) back, had SAID we get the 4.99 discount and the NEW Asian lady saying, "No. So sorry. Only with Palace Station card." And my sister yelling over the 25 people to my brother, who started yelling back about HIS story from the day before. At that point I just wanted to pay whatever it was gonna cost to get out of that line.

The Valley of Fire was about an hour outside of Vegas on the way to St George and kind of cool. Big rocks colored various reds and pinks and oranges. When you have nine cars caravaning it can get a little tense when someone needs to make a bathroom stop or wants to read a road marker but four of us had walkie-talkies and that worked okay. We made it to the trail head and hiked a bit. At that one stop there were people (my family) crying, laughing, exhausted, raring to go, excited, angry, loving, impatient, positive, negative and nervous. I decided right there that a family that big in one place is like a whole city, what with all the varied emotional content. After all the driving I had done the day before, I was just ready to get to St George.

The house was great. Two of the bedrooms were bunk rooms so the girls had one and the boys had the other. The other eight were split among the adults. The jacuzzi didn't work the first night so we had to call the pool guy. We had a talent show, a secret family society initiation, and several group cooking experiences. We watched DVDs of Ann and Jay Divine, our parents and grandparents, the two people we all had in common, and remembered them and talked about them and told stories. On the third day, my nephew Neal went to the BLM and found information on a great place called "The Glitter Hole." It was a several mile drive outside of St George on windy dirt roads until we came upon a couple mounds of what looked like broken glass at first. But then, when we got out of the cars and walked over to it, there was a huge pit on the other side filled with Selenite. There were a million pieces of it and the walls of the pit (a good 50 feet deep) were lined with it. It was awe inspiring. (Okay, so isn't Las Vegas a Glitter Hole too? Get it? The blingy, wild, sparkling city lights of Vegas and the hole filled with sparkling smooth glass-like gems. Oasis in the desert! Both of them.)

On Thursday morning, we all packed up and went our separate ways...California, Wyoming, Florida, Kansas and Arizona. One thing I particularly liked was that we all stayed until everything was done. No one left before everyone could leave. We all drove out the driveway together.

Is Spring Break Over Yet?

I always tell my students, Please, please come back after spring break. It might be tempting, because of the glorious weather and the glimpse of freedom, to never come back. But do. Come back after spring break. And then, I did what I tell my students not to...I didn't come back after spring break. Not to class, I mean here. I didn't come back here after spring break. I got busy, I had fun doing other things, and I stopped writing. Now I'm back. But I had a great spring break :)

A lizard played an April Fools on our cat. Magpie has proven herself to be quite the criminal. She's brought several dead birds into the house through the dog door. A few more have been left by the door on the back porch. April 1st I heard her outside meowing to come in. I opened the door and she slipped through my legs into the house and I saw a poor little lizard, dead as a doornail on the patio. I love those little guys, so on the off chance it was still alive, I poked at it a few times to see if I could rouse it. Nope, dead as could be. I left it out there and scolded Miss Kitty. About an hour later I happened to glance out the window and I saw that lizard limping over to the side of the house. Holy Schmoly! The damn thing WAS alive. I kept the cat inside for another hour and by then the lizard was up and running. All fingers and toes unfurled and functioning. After making sure the lizard was gone, I let the cat out. That cat went right over to where she left that lizard. Gone! She looked all over the patio. It was pretty funny, seeing the cat looking perplexed. I imagined that lizard....yeah, you thought I was dead? You were going to come out and bat me around some more? April Fools cat!

Jay and I caught a Phoenix Suns game over spring break. We also saw K-State play an NCAA game in Tucson. We saw The Body exhibit at the Museum of Science. I cleaned my house and I put a bunch of stuff on ebay. I read a book during the middle of the day. See, I've never JUST taught school (aside from my oneyearofopus) and so usually I worked all through spring break. Spring break meant nothing except that I had to figure out where Jay was going to go while I worked my OTHER job. This year I got the week off and it was wonderful. Kind of makes me want to be a teacher :)

Ever heard of Bountiful Baskets? Google it. (I'd put up links but I am not skilled enough to do that while still being lazy) Fifteen bucks a week and I get tomatoes, apples, mangoes, carrots, asparagus, lettuce, onions, pineapple, etc. It's CRAZY. Two bushel baskets of food. So, I end up with food I don't usually buy and I have to figure out what to do with it. I made an apple pie. From scratch, baby. I slice mangoes up and eat them for breakfast. I made sweet potaoe mashed potatoes last night. Cheap AND tasty. Check out Bountiful Baskets.

Oh, and B fired a plethora of pots (actually vases, mugs, a VERY cool watering can, and some other beauties) at the NAU soda kiln this last week. It's such an amazing, yet time and energy consuming process, and still so worth it at the end. There are so many talented artists throwing clay here in Flagstaff, and then a few of them get together and load the kilns, fire for 5 days, and when they open the kiln, you just have no idea what happened in there. Did things explode? Did their glaze and the soda combine to create wild blues and reds and greens? Did the best favorite piece of all time crack apart like an egg?
The anticipation is big and yet one should never expect anything. Hope without attachment.

I am so ready for summer. This year the raised bed gardens are ready to plant, the patio is begging to be sat on with a beer, and the chickens are laying again. A month and a half of school left to teach......ahhhh.

As for spring break....I truly had several students in each class disappear. And they were so close.