War in Heaven, Anyone?

So for all my fellow Lost-ies . . . wasn't last night's episode great?  Drama, emotion, ANSWERS.

And I don't know about you, but it seems to me that the whole light/dark agency-with-risk/sure-thing-but-no-progression War in Heaven theme that we Mormons know so much about is at the heart of the Jacob/Man in Black conflict.

And this is totally nerdy of me, and I'm supposed to be at the gym (sigh), but instead I'm going to do a little recapping.

First, the whole scene where MiB is giving Richard the dagger is strangely reminiscent of the serpent giving the apple to Eve in the Garden of Eden.  Richard knows that the MiB is asking him to commit a sin--murder Jacob--but the MiB is trying to convince Richard that Jacob is "the devil" and that there is "no other way" to get what he wants (his wife) unless he kills him.

MiB: The devil [Jacob] betrayed me. He took my body. My humanity. (!!!) The devil has your wife, and you are going to have to kill him if you ever want to get her back.

Richard: Murder is wrong.  That is what brought me here.

MiB: My friend, we can talk all day about what is right and what is wrong.  But the question before remains the same: do you ever want to see your wife again?

Richard: Yes. I do.

And the MiB hands him the dagger and off he goes.

Then the scene between Jacob and Richard on the beach:

Jacob: That man who sent you to kill me believes everyone is corruptible because it is in their very nature to sin.  I bring people here to prove him wrong. And when they get here, their past doesnt' matter.

Richard: Before you brought my ship, there were others?  What happened to them?

Jacob:  They're all dead.

Richard: But if you brought them here why didn't you help them?

Jacob: Because I wanted them to help themselves. To know the difference between right and wrong without me having to tell them.  It's all meaningless if I have to force them to do anything.  Why should I have to step in?

Richard: If you don't, he will!

Jacob: Do you want a job?  I don't want to step in, so maybe you can do it for me.  You can be my representative and intermediary between me and the people I bring to the island.

I also read Luke 4 last night (the chapter Richard's Bible was open to).  Was it wrong that I was searching for Lost parallels during my personal scripture study???   Anyway, some good insights there too.  The chapter is the one where Satan tempts Jesus (where they sit down and have a nice little chat, a la Jacob and MiB), and then the whole "no prophet is accepted in his own country" line and Jesus's rejection in Nazareth, along with the beginning of his miracle healings.  Also interesting  . . .

Anyway, thanks to my TiVo and my desire to avoid doing anything productive today--some juicy tidbits!  What did you think of last night's episode?

and p.s.--American Idol is outrageously horrible this year, is it not?

The Big 1-2

Last week was all about Elise. She turned 12 (I KNOW!) and had a lot of fun to show for it. It's hard for me to believe that my little girl has gone from this:

to this:

(Elise with her Grandma on the Big Day)

On her actual birthday (St. Patty's day, you know), she woke up to Harmon's doughnuts from Dad and took cookies to school to share with her class.  I told her I'd meet her at school with a special-ordered lunch (it's a new little b-day tradition that the kids are pretty excited about).  Elise chose Chick-fil-a . . . but little did I know that Chick-fil-a picked St. Patty's to do some crazy big promotion, so the lines were wrapped around the parking lot.  I had to frantically call the school to tell them to tell Elise not to fear, that I was on my way and she wouldn't go hungry on her birthday, but that I needed to swing by McDonald's instead.  I found her at her lunch table nibbling on a friend's fries, waiting patiently.  Although McDonald's "country chicken" sandwiches are a decided rip-off of Chick-fil-a's real thing, she was still pretty happy.

That night, Elise helped me make her favorite dinner, spaghetti and garlic bread, and both grandmas and grandpas came over to have some cake and sing Happy Birthday to Lou.  (Hey!  Those lyrics would fit:  "Happy Birthday to Lou, Happy Birthday to Lou!")  

In addition to the kicky new hat from Grandma Sweat Elise is wearing below, and a beautiful figurine from Grandma Hallstrom, Elise opened her Becoming Elise book:

Many of you helped with this book, and Elise and I are so grateful.  To commemorate her 12th birthday and her symbolic entry into adolescence and then womanhood, I decided I would make a book full of pictures and memories and advice from all the women in her life.  There was so much good advice and caring and support from so many of you, and it filled my heart with gladness to know that my daughter is encircled by so much love.  The book means so much to her already, and I know she'll treasure it all her life.  So thank you.

Then, after she opened the book, she pounced on present #2.  The present she's been yearning for over the last three years.  The gift that, for Elise, also symbolically represents her entry into teenagerdom (sigh).  Yes, Elise finally received a . . . 

Cell phone!

D'ya think she looks happy?  She's been doing a good deal of fiddling and texting and whatnot since Wednesday . . . but I have reminded her that, unlike many of her friends, she has a cheap-o TracFone and it does NOT come with unlimited minutes or unlimited texting.  I have a feeling there's going to be a bridge we're crossing when we soon come to it.

And you don't even want to HEAR my story about trying to transfer the minutes from Ethan's old, ruined, washed-in-his-pants-pocket phone (the one that made Ethan decide he didn't really want a cell phone after all).  In my attempt to hold on to all of those backed-up minutes, I was thrust into the third circle of customer service hell trying to get the transfer and activation figured out.  I guess my kids having cheap-o TracFones means that Mom isn't going to get top-notch (English speaking) troubleshooting help.  But after about three hours of getting transferred and misunderstood and generally run around, hallelujah!  The phone now works.  I'm not sure if those 250 minutes were worth it though . . .

(Hmm.  Looks like I told you the story after all.)

Then, on Friday, Elise had a small-ish party with her cousin Lauren, her "half-cousin" (as Elise likes to call her) Jane, and her two best friends Tayler and Haylie.  Here they all are, looking cute in the Big Chair:

After presents, we took off for Jordan Commons for dinner at The Mayan (cliff divers! bland, mediocre food!) and to see Alice in Wonderland:

The girls in The Mayan's waiting area

 At our table, right in front of the cliff divers!  

(Notice the sign letting us know we're in the "wet zone")

A little photo shoot outside The Mayan.

I love the shot on the serpent,

but when all the girls piled on for a picture

and this random kid in an orange shirt ran up behind them

and grabbed Lauren around the middle

just as I pressed "click" on the camera?

Priceless.

Alice in Wonderland was better than I thought it would be.  Granted, my expectations weren't too high since I don't really like Alice in Wonderland (my mom tells me that there's some psychological test that asks whether or not you're an Alice fan, and your answer's supposed to have some kind of meaningful insight into your psyche).  But it was a fun movie, and Helena Bonham Carter was great as the Red Queen.  I'm getting a teensy bit weary of the Johnny-Depp-as-Weirdo-We're-Supposed-to-Like character, but the visuals of the movie were strong and the story worked.  Alice was suuuuuper pale, though.  It was distracting.  Elise even leaned over and asked me, "Why is Alice so pale?" . . . and I couldn't come up with an answer, other than the fact that Tim Burton must think Pale People are all deep and thoughtful and interesting.  All the uninteresting girls in the movie looked much less sickly.  At any rate.

It was a fun night and the girls had a ball.  Elise's "birthday week" was capped off today by her entrance into the Young Women's program.  She stood up in front of the congregation and recited the 13th Article of Faith (she says it's the easiest one :-) and was so excited to go to Young Women's for the first time.  She's ready.  She's going to love it.

So Happy Birthday, my darling Lou.  We love you, and we're so excited to see what the next 12 years will bring!

Preschool? Already?

Yes, it's true. I just registered my baby for preschool this fall. He was so excited when I told him we were going to go visit the school (Learning Dynamics in Riverton)--he even asked if he could wear a back pack. And even though the child weighs almost 40 pounds, he's still my baby boy. Ah, it goes so darn fast.

I'm excited for him, though. He's really ready for preschool, and I think it'll be good for him--lonely little caboose-boy that he is. He's actually going to attend a 3 day a week M/W/F program with some of the other 3 year olds in the neighborhood, and I know he'll just love it. Plus, I'm hoping to do what I did back lo so many years ago when Jonas went to preschool: drop him off, then take my laptop somewhere and write for a while, then go pick him up. It was a good routine for me and forced me to focus on my writing. Although back then there wasn't wifi everywhere, so I didn't get sucked into the giant time-wasting vortex that is the internet (email! blogs! witty recaps of last night's television shows on Entertainment Weekly!). I must discipline myself.

And speaking of writing, I have an idea for a YA novel that's really coalescing. It's a dystopian novel set in the not-too-distant future, and with the success of The Hunger Games and other dystopian YA novels, I know the genre is pretty hot. I'm sure that, by the time I finish the thing, dystopian YA novels will be COMPLETELY passe--kinda like writing a vampire novel in 2010--but what the hey. I think I'm going to give it a shot. And I think I'm going to let my Mormon market novel that I started during NaNo sit on my hard drive for a while. It's not that I don't like the novel--there are a lot of things I like about it--but I'm really not sure if I want to write another literary(ish) novel for a Mormon audience. I'm just, I dunno, a little pessimistic about the market and my options if I continue to write for it. I might change my tune and return to it sometime soon (and I'm sure I'll still write some short stories or essays or even--ah!--poetry for LDS readers), but I'm not sure that pouring another couple of years of my life into this novel would end up being worth it. Kinda depressing, but kinda true.

Let's see, anything else? Ethan's band teacher asked him if he'd play the tuba next year, so that should be interesting :-). We're gearing up for baseball and Jonas's coach seems like a really nice guy. Forrest is assistant coaching, so that should be fun. And Elise is going to be 12 NEXT WEEK! Her feet have grown two sizes in what seems like three weeks; she's wearing a women's size seven. Seriously? Seriously. Then two weeks after Elise's birthday it's Forrest's birthday (the big 3-9), then Jonas's birthday, and then . . .

We're going to Disneyland! I knew there was something I'd forgotten to mention here on the blog. I'm not going to say when, though, so the thieves out there in internet-land don't try to locate our house and steal my jewelry. (Seriously, thieves, my jewelry box has like 9 pairs of cheap Target earrings, a half dozen tangled up necklaces, and a $10 ankle bracelet I'm too shy to wear. So, you know, nothing to see here, move along, etc. etc.) I'm excited about the trip, though. We haven't been to Disneyland since before Wyatt was born, but now that he's three we thought he'd really enjoy himself. And I admit I'm a fan of theme parks. Very uncool, I realize, but what can I say? I like a good spin on the Matterhorn.

And now back to work! I'm supposed to be cleaning out my closets. The changing of the seasons plus the fact that I dislike pretty much every single shirt I own is a sign that a purge is in order.

Negligent

My goodness, I haven't been a very good blogger lately.  But I refuse to be held hostage by my blog!  I haven't been any busier than usual, really.  Just not feeling the blogging mojo.  But today?  Today I suppose I'm feeling it.  Wyatt is asleep on the family room couch, still wearing his little green track suit jacket that he wore when we went to Target.  Forrest is off to the airport, the other kids are gone to school, so the house is quiet and still.

Mmmmm.  I love a quiet house.  Except for the fact that I still have this inexplicable tinnitus (eeeeeeeeeeeeee!) so I have a harder time following Depeche Mode's wise injunction to "enjoy the silence."  I'm hoping that my tinnitus will someday disappear, much like my inexplicable tailbone pain that went on for a year and a half and then suddenly went away last summer.  Forrest keeps telling me I should go to the doctor, but what do I say to that?  Doctor, schmoctor.  She's going to look at me and say, "Hmm.  Tinnitus.  Yeah, that's weird.  Now that will be $30."

So a few random updates:

-Got my hair cut and colored on Friday and I officially don't like it.  Too red.  Or too something--too fake looking.  Halloween-hairish.  Luckily Forrest has assured me that he DOES like it, and I believe him because he is not a man of hollow compliments, but I've had other responses ranging from concerned silence to my dad's proclamation that my hair looks "interesting," which is just about as opinionated as my dad ever gets when it comes to my personal life choices.  So, yeah.  Halloween hair is not a unanimous winner.  Luckily it will fade some with time.

So Andi and Amy and my one committed reader from India (the only people who might be interested in seeing the new 'do who might not have the opportunity), here's a shot of me, all hair-dyed, in my office chair.  Note that this is the-middle-of-a-Target-shopping-laundry-doing-day hair:

-I attended the AML conference on Saturday, in all my unnaturally tinted glory.  It was a lot of fun and I was able to spend time with some good friends and stand around in smallish circles of smart people nodding my head and appearing thoughtful.  And also giggling through a presentation of Corianton, the very first Mormon feature film ever made.  It was rescued from Orson Scott Card's mother's barn (long story) and has been painstakingly restored, so now we get to see the Nephite guy in the court jester outfit and the lascivious Zoramite temptresses gyrating around in Vegas-style showgirl costumes.  And dialogue ranging from, "Thou dareth not ensnare me!" to "Seriously, Shiblon."  It was a riot.  Grandpa, you would have loved it.

I also got to participate in a panel discussion of Dispensation which I thought went well--and was pretty well attended, which was nice.  Now if I can just get people to call it Dispensation instead of DispensationS!  (Yeah, yeah, Chris, you were probably right on that one . . .)

-Other than Apollo Ohno's speed skating, I never felt like I was able to sit down and really enjoy the Olympics like I usually do.  I even missed the Canadian ice skater's short program, the one she performed right after her mother died, which I hear was electrifying.  Dang!

-Tonight is Jonas's baseball tryouts.  Ethan has decided not to play this year, since he'd be moving up to Babe Ruth level and competing against fully pubescent 15 year olds with goatees.  He's going to do flag football again, though, which is fun (and a lot less stressful than baseball, which is also fun.)

-Elise is going to be 12 soon!  We're finishing up her Faith in God award (she taught a very nice lesson on the first vision last night to fill a requirement) and keeps trying to wear eyeliner.  Ahhh!

And now the kids are arriving and Wyatt is rousing on the couch and I need to make copies of my Webelos permissions slips.  And I promise I will post again in less than two weeks and two days.