Happy Halloween

I'm the one on the right

Halloween on a Friday - I used to live for this confluence of events.  I mean, I love Halloween any way that I can get it but on a Friday, when I have two days to recover... it can't get better than that.  I used to have some epic costumes, too.  Always home-made - back then, Walmart hadn't started doing its "Fat Chick" selection of costumes (not that I would have anyway, but still - a big ol' FU to WalMart anyway.)  There was the year that I put 14 pounds of product, an entire bag of bobby pins and some major pink hair spray into my hair, piled it up on top of my head in a major faux hawk, along with a homemade pink tutu and some little pink Chucks and another 14 pounds of gold chains and went as Mr T's Fairy Godmother. Or the year I wore black fishnets, a black skirt, a white bustier and a bunny tail and ears, along with a fake AK-14 and went as Hugh Hefner's worst nightmare. 

At any rate - this year, I'm going as myself, circa 20 years ago.  The me that had just met Roger a month ago, and wasn't sure about him yet, but thought she might be falling in love.  The me that still went out and painted the town red whenever she wanted to, rather than staying home with my husband and puppies (not that there's anything wrong with that.)  The me that laughed - a lot.  Sometimes over really inappropriate things.  So Roger and I are going out to see Lewis Black at the Arlene Schnitzer Auditorium tonight - hey, the 29 year old me appreciated comfort and classy surroundings too - she just couldn't afford them. 

Hope you all have something to dress up as too... enjoy yourselves!  Happy Halloween.

Ok, enough death already

I just found out that my friend Terri from my cancer support group passed away.  This death... this death makes me angry.  She was a wonderful woman - funny, loving, open hearted with lots left to do in this life.  Her husband is a terrific man who was devoted to her, and I know his heart is broken, her children are great kids, but they still need a mother's guidance - heck, even some of her son's friends looked on her as a mom-substitute - they're going to be missing her as well.  Cancer is a senseless, frustrating, terror of a disease, and people have to deal with it every single day.  Why on earth Ebola gets all the attention is beyond my comprehension. 

At any rate... goodbye, Terri.  I will miss your hugs and your smile and your sense of wonder with the world.  You were the kind of teacher I would like for every child to experience, you were a wonderful wife and you were an instant friend.  I hope you are pain-free and have a pleasant garden to wait for Carter in.

Back Home - not quite ready to process the funeral itself yet.

Snippets from the trip itself, though...

Roger was amazed to find that there were places in the United States where the speed limit went above 75.  I think he took it as a personal challenge.  Let's just say that we made it from Cedar City to Vegas in under 2 1/2 hours - and that was with parts of I-15 down to just 1 lane.

He did take time to question some of the naming choices made by my founding fathers - or at least the pronunciations thereof.  For example, Hurricane and LaVerkin rhyming, Kanarraville, Virgin...  I brought up Kalamazoo and Hell in Michigan, not to mention Willamette, Couch, Champoeg (that's pronounced Shampooy for you non-Oregonians).  That last one shut him up.

The Tuscany Suites in Las Vegas were... adequate.  I think if we had gotten in sometime before midnight, I would have like them better, but while the concept was cute (a bunch of villas arranged around a main house), the toilet was about 6 inches lower than I am used to (I'm spoiled) and clogged immediately.  Not something you want to deal with after 6 hours of flying a sub-Greyhound airline and arguing with Hertz.  Oh, and in the 6 hours we were there, I heard at least 7 police sirens.  Admittedly, you don't generally to go Vegas to sleep, but it would have been nice to get at least a couple of hours.

There's No Place Like Home

I'm heading back to Washington, Utah tomorrow for Grandma Lova's funeral.  Well, sort of - turns out that there's no room at the inn.  They're holding the Senior Games in St George, so the hotels are all completely booked.  Somehow, the fact that there's no room for me in my hometown seems... a little too Morrisettish. 

It's not really my hometown anymore, anyway.  The Washington that I knew and drifted in and out of for most of my childhood isn't there anymore.  It's been overtaken by snowbirds and Californians, and land that struggled to provide for 400 or so farmers and ranchers now has over 20,000 residents.  Quentin Niessen's general store is long gone, and I'm betting that they don't show movies on a bedsheet in the wardhouse courtyard on Friday and Saturday nights anymore, either.  Grandpa's ranch is filled with condos now.  I'm not saying that it's a bad thing - just that it's not what it was when I was born.

Maybe that's why they say you can't go home again.  When you do, it's not there.  And I'm not sure why I'm feeling so nostalgic - lord knows I don't miss the 118 in the shade with no air conditioning, or the red dirt dust that clogged everything.  I do kind of miss them testing the air raid siren every day right at noon, though.  And the bookmobile.  I really, really miss the bookmobile.  And the knowledge that everyone in town knew me as Lova and Dewane's granddaughter - you know, LaRae's girl.  There's something very validating about roots that stretch back a century or so.  But when a town grows like lightening, those roots tend to snap.  Maybe that's what I miss.

801-673-2296

That was home base for me when I was growing up.  We moved around pretty much constantly, but 801-673-2296 - that was Grandma and Grandpa's home number, and I knew that I was always
welcome there.Things do change - eventually, it changed over to a 435 prefix, but it was still a constant well into my third decade.

Nothing lasts forever, though.  I just got the phone call from my mother that I had been expecting/ dreading/hoping for.  I know that sounds strange, but for the last few years, my grandmother has been trapped in a haze of short-term memory loss, with one of the few conversations that kept coming up every 15 minutes or so being "I guess God doesn't want me".  It broke a little bit of my heart every time I heard it, and I was hoping for Grandma to know she was wanted, and loved, by the God she was so faithful to.  I hope she's going on to eternal glory with Grandpa - or at least a pleasant cottage where they can be together and get on each other's nerves enough to know that they love and are loved by each other. And I'm also dreading knowing that those of us here are going to be without her love for a little while.  But that's the way life is, I suppose.