This is for you Becks...

A few thoughts about summertime which seems to be the destination season. Every other season is just a journey to summertime:

• My mom bought me a short sleeved jersey sheath dress to just wear casually for the summer. I've worn it out twice and let me tell you...that dress is going to get me married. Or pregnant more likely. Both times I've had strange men stop and tell me (in nice ways and in naughty ways) what they think of my dress.

• I've been given the opportunity to teach swim lessons for a few weeks this summer. The way it all played out has been a much needed reminder that God has a hand in my life. In December our ward had a silent charity auction. The only thing I could think of to offer up was some swim lessons. Our ward has a lot of triathlon buffs and swimming is usually everyone's weakest leg. So I thought someone might be interested in learning better technique. But I didn't really want to do it. I got anxiety about having to be in a swim suit in front of someone, having a pervy dude win it, or worst of all having no one bid. I did it anyway and the guy that won it went on to suggest me as an instructor to his friend who had done all the registration for lessons at the beginning of the summer and was high and dry without an instructor. So during my current employment crisis I've gladly stepped in. I'm getting paid well, mom's are impressed and want to add more lessons which means more money, I'm getting a killer tan, and I'm making great friends with the woman I'm working for. All because I didn't hide under a bushel in December!

• Since the end of May I've had the chance to travel quite a bit. I treated myself to a trip to New York for my birthday and went and saw my friends Whit and Chad. I could live in New York just for all the food that's there. You could eat at a different place every night for the rest of your life.
  

• Stray observations: New Yorkers aren't rude, they are just very efficient. I watched a New Yorker curse out a guy trying to get past him as we were de-boarding the plane but then turn around and help an older lady get her bag down and let her go past. I just think there's so little space in that city that every movement or action is meant to be done to maximum effect. Also, in a land where smart phone batteries die quickly, the girl with the paper subway map is king!

• Last week I went to Alaska with my Dad's family. My dad in Alaska is like a kid in a candy store. The first morning we were there it was like Christmas morning for him. If they weren't already so established where they are in Dutch John I think they would move there. Alaska is everything you think is is and more: beautiful, remote, dangerous, cold, Repulican, everyone packs, wild. It was really crazy. We went on a hike and our host, my dad's cousin, who works on an oil rig, wore a giant handgun strapped to his chest in case of bears. Yikes. He also drove like a crazy person. I never knew if I should feel safer or more in danger around him. We fished a lot but didn't have much luck. My brother caught a king salmon and we watched a guy land a record breaking 350 pound halibut. That was cool.

• My favorite part though was our cruise in the Kenai fjords. I could've done that everyday that we were there. I saw otters, porpoises, seals, sea lions, bald eagles, humpbacks, orcas and we went right up the the face of a glacier and got to see (and hear!) it calve (I don't know why but that's what they call it when the ice breaks of and falls in the ocean). It was really cool.

So that's my summer so far. Garden is growing, so are the weeds. The wedding is fast approaching. And Kerrie finally bit the bullet and bought a ticket out here. I thought she was going to stand me up.

I'm going to do a better job of updating. I can't commit to weekly but maybe biweekly?

Cul de Sac

Imagine with me a hypothetical situation:

You're a female who was born of goodly parents who were members of the dominant faith in the area in which you were born. From a very early age you were taught about a plan for your mortal and immortal life. We'll call this Plan A. As you grew Plan A was taught to you over and over again by people you loved and trusted until eventually you realized that you had adopted The Plan as a part of yourself. You believed it body and soul and you knew that Plan A was the way you wanted your life to go. There was no other way really.

At about the same time you came to an age (your teens probably) where you realized that life could disappoint you you also realized that you can't control everything to get what you wanted. This was when someone wise told you that you should always be prepared and have a Plan B. You shouldn't forget about Plan A...it was still top priority but you'd be silly and naive to not have a Plan B, given that so much of Plan A depended on circumstances outside your control.

So, you spend a lot of money and a lot of time on Plan B. Its a good plan. It looks good from all angles (*cough summers off cough*) as a less desirable but satisfying substitute for Plan A. One day, all bright eyed and bushy tailed, you're ready to put Plan B into action. (Along the way you may have made some well intentioned but naive missteps trying to force Plan A into happening).

But...through some misguided and unhelpful counseling from a Certain Secondary Education Program at a Certain University and a sudden downturn in the US economy you are virtually unemployable and Plan B is looking like nothing more than an expensive piece of paper. You try for two and a half years to get Plan B to happen and its just not happening...You've reached a dead end. There's no Plan C.

Why didn't somebody tell me I needed a Plan C? Hypothetically...

I'm open to any and all sincere suggestions for a Plan C. I don't know which direction to try in anymore. If you were debt free and unattached what would YOU do?

Yoko Oh-No!

I doubt I'm the first to make that pun...

I've been watching the Beatle's Anthology on Youtube at school while I do my recording and other mindless housekeeping tasks. I recently got to the part in the narrative where Yoko makes her creepy, unwanted appearance. Of course I don't like Yoko as a rule but today I realized why. Pre-Yoko John was always laughing, smiling, joking. He had a great sense of humor. Then Yoko came around and there wasn't a single smile between the two of them.

Seriously. No smiling. They kept talking about how in love with each other they were but doesn't love make you happy? They look so gloomy and serious all the time.

If I ever fall in love with someone and you see no smiles, please someone do what you have to to get rid of me before I break up the band.

The Interpretation of Amputation

Couple nights ago I had a dream that I found a small lump on my right hand. In my dream I saw a doctor for something routine like a physical and thought maybe it would be a good idea to show her (the doctor was a woman...I bet you assumed it was a man didn't you? Racist.) the lump.

Without doing anything more than looking at it the doctor gave me some serious news.

Dream Doctor: Yes, we'll have to amputate.

Dream Me: I'm sorry?

DD: Your arm. This is very serious. You'll lose your arm below your elbow.

DM: That seems pretty severe. Don't you want to biopsy it? Or maybe just cut out the lump?

DD: Nope. I've seen this before. Amputation is the only solution.

DM: I think I want a second opinion.

I woke up and did a quick count of my limbs.

Later I shared my dream with my aunt. Who helpfully had her dream book (a book that interprets your dreams...it was like a dream dictionary) out in her car. She ran and got it.

First she looked up lump (see also tumor/cancer) which represented hopelessness, self-pity, loss or waste of life.

Then amputation: something in your life, a belief, is weighing you down, holding you back that you need to let go of or cut loose (a little on the nose maybe). Amputation of the right arm specifically meant that you aren't giving enough to yourself or others (left hand meant you weren't receiving enough).

Finally a doctor in a dream represents a spiritual guide to help you on your path of healing.

Eerily, this kind of hit a mark with me. Maybe my aunt is the next Joseph. I'll keep a sharp eye and see if she predicts the death of a baker.

After the interpretation of my dream my grandma asked my aunt to look up what it meant if she dreamed that she went to Wendover with Brother and Sister Johnson to help them find a condo...the dream dictionary is good... but I don't know if its that good.

Stray Observations

• Last week I learned the hard way to not show un-previewed videos in my classroom. In the thirty seconds it took me to realize we were in trouble and get to the VCR my ninth graders were granted the sight of some wildebeests humping and a topless Masai woman. The room filled with their cries of indignation and faux-lost innocence and threats to tell parents/administration. As soon as I turned it off and told them to get out their books they were all mad we weren't going to forge ahead and finish the video. Everyday since then I've had at least one student ask if we were going to finish that video.

• I'm convinced that my geography students will always find the most potentially inappropriate name of a physical feature/place and that's the first one they learn/yell loudest during reviews/never get wrong on a test. This unit's name of choice: Djibouti, natch.

• I had a text conversation with my sister recently where she expressed that she wouldn't be upset about not going to prom if it wasn't the only thing people could talk/think about. I told her I felt the same way about marriage or "prom for adults".

• Speaking of prom I had a memory the other day of my own prom experience. My date was the class president and somehow I ended up being nominated prom queen (nobody was more surprised than me). The whole thing was rather silly. I remember after the nominations were announced in the morning announcements there were three popular, pretty, cheerleaders in my class seated in front of me. Overhearing their conversation I heard them list the three other nominees...And then ask "Who is the fourth girl?" Indeed. I sat and wondered if I should enlighten them and face their reaction or just let them live in their ignorance.
  

• A student came into class singing the new Lupe single. When I asked him if he liked Lupe he looked surprised and asked "You know Lupe?" I replied in the affirmative. "Did you like, go to high school with him?" Bless his heart.

• My ward had a mingle recently. The item served? Corn dogs. Best. Mingle. Ever. I didn't even talk to anybody. Just ate two corn dogs. Best. Mingle. Ever.

• Within the 24 hours of April Fool's day I learned that 4 of my friends were pregnant. Only one of them was a joke. Congrats ladies! And happy appendicitis Aaron Bullen!(?)
  

Picking Flowers

My Grandpa Barton passed this week. It was expected and honestly a little relieving. For the past couple years he's been deteriorating and it was hard to watch and hard for him to experience, I'm sure.

He was such an active man. Excellent skier and tennis player, savvy businessman, devoted father and husband and a tireless servant of God. He served a full time mission in the central US, as a bishop in California, stake president in Chicago, Mission President in New York, New York and Temple President in Chicago. I'm sad he's gone but glad that he's already probably begun to work on the other side.

In his memory I wanted to share an anecdote that doesn't exist in my memory but one that my mom shared with me at his viewing.

My mom married Mark just after my second birthday. Mark's parents were serving as Mission President in New York City at the time. My brother Ryan showed up nine months later and as soon as he was old enough to travel we went out to spend some time with Grandma & Grandpa Barton. (Coincidentally I celebrated my third birthday on the trip and Elders Hunter and Holland were passing through the mission home at the time and thus were at my third birthday party. Elder Hunter remarked how much I looked like my grandmother but no one had the heart to tell him we weren't related by blood).

When it was time to go to church with Grandma and Grandpa my mom pulled out a new, floral, dress that she had not cleared with me before packing and like any good three year old I refused to wear it. (Apparently I was rather picky about my clothes.) Drama ensued. I was crying, which made the baby cry, which made my mom cry...etc. Mark had me pinned while mom tried to put tights on me. Mom said at one point I bloodied my nose from the fierceness of the struggle. (poor young mom dealing with her unruly child from a previous marriage under the roof of her brand new in-laws who happen to be the mission president of the New York, New York mission.)

At one point my grandma poked her head in and said "Heather, if you don't stop this right now you'll have to go to church in your slip!" "Great!" I replied hopping to my feet (I also had a great love of wearing only my underwear publicly. If you've lived with me you know that not much has changed.)

The battle raged on. Finally my grandpa popped his head in. "Heather, would you like to go out to the garden with me to pick a flower?" The room held its breath. "Yes." "Well, get that pretty dress on and come on!" Done deal.

No little girl can resist picking flowers with her grandpa.

DOA

Prepare yourselves for something truly awful:

Over the past year I've gone on more blind dates than anyone I know. I've lost count of how many men I've met. No exaggeration. Its far less fabulous than it sounds. I've tried to approach dating with the openest mind ever. I believe that you'll never make a basket if you don't shoot the ball. So I've been shooting the ball a lot.

Essentially my MO has been: if he has the guts to ask me to dinner I have the guts to say yes.

I think I'm done operating that way after tonight.

The back-story is pretty good all on its own but the punchline trumps it so I'll make it short.

At my cousin's wedding luncheon in June, my parents sat at the same table with two single friends of the groom. They were charmed. My mom thought I might enjoy going out with one of them. At the time my mind was at its openest to any and all dating experiences so I agreed. The man was given my number.

It took him 6 months to call me. The phone call was awkward. The lunch date was fine. I didn't hear from him again (which was more than fine) until after my mom had run into him at a mission farewell of one of my brother's friends. He asked about me and that incident must have encouraged him to call me again. After another PAINFULLY awkward phone call earlier this week I agreed to have dinner with him tonight.

The following conversation occurred during dinner and is in no way a fabrication or an exaggeration:

Me (trying to find something interesting to talk about): So do you live alone or do you have roommates?

Him: I have roommates...pause...well I live with my parents...pause...they're eighty so I help take care of them

I've never been great at math but I started crunching some numbers...

Me: So they must have had you pretty late. Were you a surprise there at the end?

Him: I'm not even the end

Me (starting to freak out): You grew up in Cottonwood Heights right? How old is your youngest sibling? Maybe I know them from school.

Him: You're in your 20s right?

Me: yeah...

Him: My youngest sibling is 40...I'm 47

You did not read that incorrectly. I'll type it again to make sure everyone got it...47!!!!!! That's within 5 years of my father and 4 of my mother. I feel sick as I type this.

He knew the date was over as soon as that number dropped. He had to of known (as I did but for very different reasons) that this date was DOA.

BUT WHY DID HE CALL ME IN THE FIRST PLACE?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?! First date, fine. Its blind neither of us know what to really expect (except he had met my parents so he had to have had a good guess about my age). But why did he call me for a second when he knew he was so much older than me?

This has really pushed me to my limits. I'm done. Tapping out. I can't do it anymore. No more guilt about missing opportunities. My mind has been so open my brain has obviously fallen out. From now on I'm only going on dates I want to go on. Which is almost the same as saying I'm never going on a date again. I'm adopting a cat, naming her Emily Dickinson, wearing a zip up hoodie to work, keeping my ibuprofen and tampons in a fanny pack and pulling my hair up with a chip clip.

I'm sure this will all look better in the morning right?