Bigger or Better: Life outside of Texas

 Lately, the prayers in my church congregation have been quite interesting.  There are a couple opportunities for prayer variations, because we have the opening prayer, prayer over sacrament bread, prayer over sacrament water, and the closing prayer. Normally the middle two are fairly consistent, because each is a written prayer that the priests read aloud. But a couple weeks ago, a new priest had the task of reading the prayer, and he read aloud the label "Blessing On The Water" too. I mean, he's not wrong... but it was unexpected. Then we had the closing prayer that seemed to include a timestamp for God's future reference: "On this morning, Sunday, November __ 2021, Our Father...." My personal favorite is the greeting-style: "Good Morning, Heavenly Father...." And we periodically get a person who begins with "Let us pray." That one is common-enough that it seems like just a different flavor of oration. Today the closing prayer seemed to

I'm sure a lot of thought goes into the build of a car, but sometimes I really gotta question the logic behind some of the mechanisms. Like, how my husband has to take off the left front wheel in order to access the car battery. I know this wasn't just an oversight, because the engineers added terminals accessible from under the hood, so that you can still jump the battery without having to undo some lugnuts. But there are some things that you don't find out until you are in a specific situation. Like getting to your car after work, realizing the battery is absolutely dead--no lights, no sounds, nothing--and you need to get to your jumper cables in the trunk, but discover that the "pop the trunk open" button does not  work without battery power, and unfortunately the trunk doesn't have a keyhole. And it's a compact car, non-hatchback. Thankfully I was able to reach the cables by accessing the trunk through a small opening in the back seat--a secret hole th

 As an aside, it is easiest to learn something new every day if you forget what you already knew. I am discovering that as I have to quickly re-learn various medical skills/facts that I haven't used in the past 2 years. [btw, in case you're wondering why it is easier to learn the same thing, it's because I already have all of the sources that I used the first time through.] This past week, I learned which way was north in relation to my apartment. I had thought the sun rose outside our bedroom window, making that direction east, making the left side north if I were facing east. Turns out the sun sets  out our bedroom window, making that direction west. I would have fared better just randomly guessing which direction the window faces, because north/south is closer to west than east is [so 3 out of 4 would be more right than the very wrong answer that I chose]. And another thing: did you know that although shredding mushrooms in a food processer does get the mushrooms in smal

I should not enjoy puns so much. And I shouldn't use puns when I'm doing serious reflection. And I especially shouldn't use puns if it doesn't apply to a situation...yet here we are. Apologies. This post is not about dolphins at all. It's about seals, or rather, a scene from a nature documentary with a little vignette into a particular momma seal's life. As you'd expect from nature, her life is hard. She is desperately fighting off the advances of a bull seal, because she isn't ready to breed again, as she is still raising her newest pup seal. And suddenly her situation is poetically oxymoronic--she is so busy turning away a would-be suitor that she doesn't notice her baby slowly drown in the tide.  In case you didn't notice the paradox, I'll recap: she's not ready to have another baby, because she still has one on her hands [or flippers...] , but in her vehement denial of a [pushy, testosterone-crazed] potential-boyfriend, her very reaso

 For the last few months, I've been taking advantage of DC's fabulous indoor pools [putting on sunscreen is too time-consuming] to exercise. It did not take me (or the lifeguards, for that matter) long to figure out that I was often THE slowest swimmer out there, or that I was swimming unconventionally. Those two might actually be related. I don't think I have a single normal stroke to get me across the pool. When I do my version of the backstroke, I keep my arms underwater and pull them from shoulder-height to hip height--basically like flapping my arms to fly. And contrary to what one might think for a fairly-inexperienced swimmer, I do not doggie-paddle--mainly because I dislike the strain it puts on my neck (but also because when I swim on my stomach like that, it feels like pressure from the water is preventing full lung expansion) .  It should be fairly easy to pick me out from all the other swimmers in their respective lanes, because I am the only one without goggles

 When Mark and I visited my parents, we took a boat trip in the nearby water-- water which was "fine" in the "Frigid as Ice and Nearly as Excruciating" sense. My face in reaction to the temperature of the water To be fair, it only felt "fine" for the first 5 minutes or so. After that, the experience kind-of overwhelmed my senses. Also, I was concentrating on getting up on a wakesurf board. My brother giving me a pep talk before I went in Eventually I succeeded, but in the meantime Mark enjoyed taking pictures of my efforts. Me actually up! Oh well. I returned the favor.

 It's amazing how golf, as a concept, can be applied to other sport objects. Miniature golf wasn't much of a stretch, but frisbee golf and soccer golf certainly are creative takes on the game. [left to right] Julie, Dave, Ericka, Russell, Mark When Mark and I visited family in Utah right after our Idaho family visit, one of the first things we did--both with his brother's family and with my parents--was a golf alternative. As I've mentioned before, I am not very athletically coordinated. Before every kick in the soccer golf course, I had a brief moment of panic as I tried to figure out what foot to use (they're about the same in strength and accuracy [aka terrible] , so it doesn't particularly matter). One of the holes required crossing a little stream, and of course my ball went right for the water. After I rescued my ball and prepared for a second kick right at the edge of where I had gone in, I heard my sister-in-law tell one of my nephews that he needed to k

 Have you ever run into a friend in a place you weren't expecting them to be? I have stumbled into a Utah nursing classmate years later in Texas, a Texas friend in DC, and Utah relatives in Missouri--all unplanned--but for some reason I wasn't nearly as shocked for those as I was when I ran into my husband in Idaho Falls. As a reminder, we had traveled to Idaho Falls together, but honestly he was the last person I was expecting to see in the restaurant. The "Ploughman's Melt" and the "Oinker" It goes like this: I have a friend (from Texas) who moved to Idaho Falls with her husband, so when I'm in the area, I like to see her [aka Melissa]. Mark (from Idaho Falls) has friends who are still in the neighborhood, and he likes to meet up with them when he's in town. Thus, when we were in Idaho earlier this month, we arranged to hang out separately with our respective friends. Mark had plans to go to some particular restaurant [with the word "Eagle

 [Just some meta-writing here. Isn't it great how the title can mean "Idaho & me" as well as "Idaho home"?] Scrolling through my pictures of the Idaho part of the trip, I get the impression that we spent most of it in a museum or zoo...but mostly the zoo.  And that's where words are important, because no, I didn't take pictures of the "Olympic Swimming Aerobics" class I went to with my mother-in-law, or the mornings where we just chilled in the living room [and maybe watched "Leave it to Beaver" with my father-in-law]. I also didn't photograph the meals at their home with the time-honored plate and flatware settings, the trivets, and the rotating placemats [this is why Mark is better at proper table-setting than I am]. Or a compilation of my losses at bowling, blacklight miniature golf, or anything else that requires hand-eye coordination. Also, no pics of our rounds of hand-foot canasta [or the one-page list of rules for the

 I just got back from a long-overdue visit with my family. Lots happened. So we're going to take this recounting in stages. Stage 1: Airports First thing to confess is that I had a lot of problems with my water bottle. I bought a liter of water after passing through the security check, and amazingly I dropped it at least a dozen times in 3 different airports, all in one day. When we later started our trip back home, for some reason the TSA threw out my [empty] bottle, so I once again purchased a liter of water and unsurprisingly dropped it on the floor. Mark told me that I was allowed one more bottle-drop, and then he would have a coronary. Fortunately for his health, I did not  drop it again...but I did leave it in an airport shop and have to go back (minutes later) to retrieve it.  May this not be a foreshadowing of how I manage future children. Really, that's all I've got for airport stories [oh, except for the little vignette that Mark and I tried some "salted Cook

 I think it is time to argue about something inconsequential: Euro Cup Semifinals. This is a big leap for me, because usually [like, 99% of the time] I don't care enough about sports to offer any sort of opinion. With that in mind, don't expect any subtleties in my analysis, because I literally do not have the knowledge base to go to that kind of depth. TBH, consider this analysis more of a vent. I'm venting. England should not have won the match against Denmark. Sure, going into the game, they were the favored team, but I don't think that showed throughout the ~120 minutes of play. For the first half, Denmark had more shots on goal [and other stats, but I don't remember them exactly, and as I'm a novice in searching for game stats minute-by-minute, I can't find them to quote here]. Damsgaard's free kick was not only the first goal of the game, 30 minutes in, but also extremely good. Sure, England's goal in response was good, but the winning goal tha

 'Tis the season for allergies. Normally, the spring/summer allergy season gives me a bit of sneezing and some itchy eyes. Nothing that a daily Claritin can't handle. When it finally starting warming up in April, I started daily Claritin and Flonase and trusted I'd be fine. I think you can figure out that it is not fine. One fine day in late April, I decided to go on a run to the grocery store [I mean literally a run; getting food motivates me to exercise]. I wore a mask and sunglasses, and these in theory should have prevented my body encountering many allergens. So I was caught off-guard when I started sneezing heavily in the grocery store. To put it vaguely, my mask became the nose-equivalent of a diaper. I had my husband pick me up. the test It took several days of heavy doses of Benadryl to finally control the sneezing. The misery was enough for me to find an allergist, consent to be pricked with 60 different allergens, and then start a 5-year regimen of allergy shots,

Communicating is hard. I just want to start this post by saying that premise, because I am so nervous that I won't present my thoughts accurately.  Yesterday I read a news article about a "mormon sex therapist" [aka a therapist who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, who counsels on topics relating to sex, but doesn't have any special authority from the church] who was excommunicated for advocating against Church stigma associated with pornography, masturbation, same-sex marriage, maybe other stuff. This is a tricky topic; some may think I should stay out of this mine-strewn controversy. But I think this is important, even social-life/death important. From my understanding of the event, I see two primary issues: the differences between society and religion, and religious rights. Parts of society have become more accepting of porn use, masturbation, same-sex marriage, to name a few. Most of those I consider to be in the I-don't-understa

 For some reason, I have been thinking about wishes. If a fairy godmother appeared before me, or I found a genie, or the panel on Miss America inquired, or Santa Claus wanted to know what I wanted, or I saw in a vision God asking what I would that He give me, what would I say? Anywhere from my 20s on down, I couldn't imagine asking for something intangible. I remember swinging on a swing as a kindergartner, absolutely positive that when I opened my eyes, I would be wearing a beautiful pink princess dress because God would know that's what I wanted. [Frankly, I'm glad I didn't end up with a dress, because how useful would that be to me now, several sizes bigger?] There was always some new toy, or an enticing dessert, or a best-seller book that I could ask for, and be satisfied with. Why would all the beauty pageant contestants on Miss Congeniality  declare they wanted world peace? And certainly all of the wishes in the lyrics of "Grown Up Christmas List" were

 I am sure that somewhere in my blog posts I have mentioned that I am not really sporty--I have nearly-missed hitting my father-in-law's head with a golf ball; I was so terrible at my attempts to play racquetball with Mark that he has not even bothered trying to play tennis with me; and my teacher in a college badminton class actually laughed at my efforts. Well, that hasn't changed. a representative photo for visualization purposes About a month ago, Mark joined a local softball team [it's such an easy game to social-distance in] , and has twice called upon me to toss balls to him so that he can practice his batting. I warned him beforehand that I am fairly incompetent at sports, but he didn't have a whole lot of available options in this pandemic life, so me it was that threw ball after ball after ball in his general direction. And when I say ball, I mean it in both senses: I was underhand-tossing a physical ball, AND I swear 99% of them were balls-- not a strike, not

Sometimes it's tricky to find something mundane enough to blog about.  But I came up with one: Movies that made me cry. Firstly, there's Lassie . I was a kid. Don't remember anything about the movie, except that I cried really hard at the end. Then, from college years, Meet the Robinsons . I was homesick, okay? That wasn't the only animated  movie that got my lacrimal glands working, though. I also teared up for Inside Out . Every time I watch it. Artificial Intelligence made me weep, too, but I feel like that is totally understandable. Who wouldn't when presented with an innocent little robot kid? And that brings us to the outlier in this list: the Broadway musical Hamilton . No small kids involved. No self-sacrificing dogs, either. Definitely no robots. But boy, I could not speak for several minutes after the ending because I was so moved. Funny things, emotions. There is something beautiful about inexplicable moments like that, when the Pathos surprises the Logo

 I like watching life. I'd like to say I love all life, but then I remembered cockroaches, so yes, I am a bit particular on which lives are watch-worthy. Birds are watch-worthy. I've had friends with pet birds before, but they seem mostly smelly and confined [the birds, not the friends], so for Christmas I asked for--and received--a window bird feeder. We always hear birds chattering outside our window in the evenings, but it took them 3 months to notice the feeder was there. And none of them are perfectly well-behaved. The cardinals chase off the smaller brown birds (I think they're a type of finch, or sparrow, or catbird?? I'm not a bird-watcher, despite watching birds) even though there is adequate room for both to feed. Meanwhile, the brown birds tend to sit on my potted plants (which by itself is fine) and pick off sprigs from my thyme plant (which is NOT fine. They don't even eat them, or take them for nest-making; they pluck them off and promptly drop them o

 One of the most eye-opening things I have learned from the ongoing pandemic is that I don't need to personally have any type of social/familial relationship with victims of SARS-CoV-2 in order to have my life derailed. This truth actually makes me feel really guilty. I am not grieving the loss of anyone close to me. I am not the recipient of any racist actions stemming from the pandemic. But my body still seems to feel I should jump the tracks from [relatively] normal functioning to...something else. My symptoms: I have never been obsessed with food--even though I like baking--but now I think about what to eat ALL THE TIME. One of my favorite things about eventide these days is that it is such a short time of consciousness between bedtime and breakfast-time. I think of it as a very-toned-down Christmas every morning: Hurray! It is time for my favorite meal! A couple years ago, one of my friends told me that she is always thinking about what she can eat next, even if she has just h

 In early January, while taking cardboard boxes down to the recycling bin in our apartment complex's underground parking, I noticed a cat-sized furry animal make a break for the back corner of the garage. Following up on this highly-suspicious occurrence led me to discover, behind a lean-to of plywood and sections of drywall, a cat [cats tend to be cat-sized, so I wasn't exactly surprised]. While I had, months earlier, seen a mouse in the garage, I doubted it would keep this feline fed, so I went across the street to the convenience store and bought a can of cat food.  Thus began a multi-week venture of me feeding the kitty. Though skittish at first, he would purr up a storm once I started scratching his head. I was smitten. He never tried to bite me. He never tried to scratch me. But I could scarcely fail to notice that my nitrile-gloved fingers would come away black with soot and dirt after petting him.  I decided to fix this. I got some old hand-towels, a torn-up sheet, and

I think, as a member of a privileged group of people, I am guilty of obliviousness. Right before starting local enrollment in a COVID vaccine clinical trial, I was trying to explain to another nurse practitioner--who would be working with me on the study--that it would be pointless to get fitted for the N95 masks that the primary study site had, as we would be in a mobile clinic with a completely different type of N95. That turned out to be wrong, because through most of the recruitment phase we worked right at the primary site, but the logic itself is sound. There were several other instances like that with this colleague, but what exactly they were doesn't matter much for my point. What I do  want to say is that she later brought these instances as examples of times I hurt her feelings or insulted her. And honestly, although I still  don't understand how she does not grasp what I was saying, I also have to admit that, at least in not understanding her, she has a valid complai

 The only dependable Christmas tradition we have in my family (besides getting presents) is watching The Muppet Christmas Carol . I lucked out in marrying Mark, because his family has the same tradition; it makes honoring family rituals a lot more concise. I have been thinking, after watching it Christmas Eve, of how it tries to explain the concept of Christmas to Mr. Scrooge. There is a hint of religion in there, but mostly it defines Christmas as a loving time of year that does people good. Which is accurate, but not complete. As I thought of how I could distill Christmas into a concept, I hit upon Hope. Hope covers the most basic understanding--a child's anticipation of gifts, say--while also holding up to philosophical scrutiny and religious study. Hope for the humanity of mankind, hope that things can become better, and lots of other examples, but I want to concentrate on one: the Hope of A Chance. For many thousands of years, people have been born, and people have died. Amazi