AIDS

It is high time, I start looking for some smiles in my life.

So, let's just cut to the chase and start with AIDS. Now, AIDS is no laughing matter. I clearly remember being introduced to the possibility while sitting in Mr. Cattani's classroom in junior high. The school had television sets installed in every classroom, which was a very big deal. Part of the television contract at the time, included Channel One. Our school was supposed to listen to Channel One every day in exchange for all those TVs. Channel One is how I learned about Magic Johnson becoming infected with HIV.


My general "look" at about jr high age, notice hair scrunchie; I remember feeling my dress was scandalously low-cut

My son came home one day and out of the complete blue, approached me and asked if I had AIDS. Apparently, he had watched a film about AIDS (I am sure I was sent an email beforehand but I confess to major communication overload at the end of the school year).

Surprisingly, this conversation went back and forth a number of rounds. He seemed convinced I had AIDS. Finally, he asked if my mom had AIDS because "you know" I could have gotten it from her and passed it along to my children. I told him "No", yet another time and he then asked, "How do you know?" and I disrespectfully answered, "Because she would be dead."

There may be some truth to this: This past school year has been interesting in the way of girls for my boy. He was generally annoyed with girls last year. When he found out that the church name for girls who turn 12 in our congregation is, "Beehives", he incredulously asked, "is that because they sting you and buzz in your ear?" But, after a few weeks of school, I was happy to hear him announce, "some of the girls are actually pretty cool."

Triumph of Trevor Truelove - Papa

Middle School Miracle: each student checks out a laptop at the beginning of the year (in junior high). It is a pretty high tech gadget to trust an 11 year old. The school claims the laptops are worth $500 which would be the cost of replacement should the laptop need to be replaced. My son came home two days before laptop-turn-in-day saying, "Mom, I think I lost my laptop." I couldn't believe it. We went over every place he'd been at school. I even drove him to school early the next morning to retrace steps.

That evening, we determined his laptop must have been stolen. He dutifully wrote down three or four names of kids who could possibly be interested in stealing his laptop. That night, around 10:30 pm I got an email from a girl who sits across the table from him asking if we were missing a laptop. Hallelujah! It was like manna from heaven. I couldn't believe the laptop had been found.

Last Day of School - Island Sorbet Celebration

More end-of-school madness: on the last night before the last day of school, I was notified by my son that he had made a big plan with a "bunch" of other kids to ride their bikes "up" to school. My house is literally all downhill from the junior high so the kids were definitely planning to go up. They made their plan to leave at 6 a.m., giving them plenty of time to make it before the first bell at 7:45. I didn't think any kids would actually show up at the meeting place that early in the morning so I followed along and sure enough, one other boy was there, ready to ride. And, off the boys went happily arriving at the school around 7 a.m. giving them plenty of time to loiter. They had a blast.

Lastly, the ways my now twelve year old son have made me smile, just today are when he says things like answering my query of what his body would look like if I let him sit in the car while I ran inside the store: "a turkey carcass".

But, Mom . . .

Right now, my home is Harry Potter-crazed to the max. Since I read the first book to the kids last summer (Harry Potter turns 11 in the first book and my oldest turned 11 and received the book for his birthday, it was amazing timing), we have been on a wizard-muggle road to Hogwarts.

We are keeping the King County Library System hopping with all of the "holds" and checking out we are doing. We have the audio books, the real books, and the movies, just not all seven (from the series) at once. I think at this very moment, we have just one movie, two audio versions, and maybe one book.

I heard "damn" used in the story as I walked by the kids listening the other day. I channeled my inner Neil Fuller and said, "What are you listening to?" (only my brow wasn't furrowed and I don't think my voice was impatient --growing up, he seemed to ALWAYS walk in on movies during the worst part).

My nine-year old innocently looked up at me and said, "But Mom, this is damn good. You told us damn is a swear word when it is damn bad and this is just damn good. So, it is OK."

Out of the mouths of babes . . .

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Growing up in Idaho

Yesterday, when I came upon a car with an Idaho license plate that had a capital "I" followed by a space and then some numbers, I smiled. You see, in Idaho, many people have a license plate number that is associated with the county where they live. It is pretty awesome to be driving around the Idaho, the Pacific Northwest, or the whole country :-), see an Idaho car and immediately have a vague idea of where the person is from.

I texted a friend whose husband grew up in Idaho, or at least spent 4th grade in Idaho (state history - instruction done in 4th grade), and asked which county starts with an "I". Boy, I really failed coming up on this one myself. Of course, I should have thought, "Idaho County". He came up with the correct answer and then followed up with, "What about 2L?" I immediately came up with "Leadore" but I think the correct answer is "Lemhi".

There is no such thing as googling the correct answer in this game, you know.

In case you want to refresh your learning, check this page out. I did and learned there is no such thing as "Leadore" county. Shoot. Don't tell Mrs. Matthews.

Church-related humor

My son is almost twelve years old. We had a discussion the other day about what happens when a young man turns twelve who is active in our church, which is that he will be given the priesthood and be able to join a peer group from church called, "deacons". This is fairly familiar to him as he watches the deacons every week, administering the sacrament at church and now his closest friends are turning twelve.

I haven't talked with him much about the girls his age, meaning what groups they join upon turning twelve. So, the other day, I mentioned his friends would be joining the "beehives" church. His reaction was very funny. His eyes got big as he quickly answered, "Why beehives? Is it because they sting you and buzz in your ears?"

I've not considered this angle of the group named, "beehives" at church. In fifth grade, he observed the girls were very bossy, in fact once he said, "I don't ever want to marry one of those pesky girls." Now in sixth grade, he is having more of a mixed experience where he does still see some "won't even consider my input" girls but he has also mentioned that the girls are actually kind of nice :-).

The other "church" funny I want to remember is from the day we visited Grandma's ward in Idaho Falls. The song that was sung partway through the meeting was, "Master the Tempest is Raging" which I quite like. It talks about how Jesus Christ can both calm the literal storms of life and the figurative storms in our lives. When I mentioned that I really liked this song,  he replied, "So, did you sing this at your wedding?" 

Can you imagine? I hope Darren didn't think of that day as a raging tempest -- hee hee.

My Blue-Eyed Screamer

"Townsperson" in church Christmas program, watch for
photobombing brother in background

My little blue-eyed girl has caused me pause to smile a number of times recently so I just must write about her today.











She is my Christmas girl. She had her calendar on December all of 2014. I noticed, she already had December 2015 up this year :-). She begins counting the days very early.

She loves kittens too

About a month ago, we proposed an idea to the kids that if Christmas could be smaller (in numbers of presents), we could drive to Idaho for our "main" gift. Our son immediately wanted, "all in, 100% yes". Our older daughter needed some time to think it over, but after two days she said, "I'm 75% yes" soon after becoming a 100% yes.

Our blue-eyed wonder, though? Well, she was pretty emphatic from the start saying, "No. I want presents. Christmas needs to be here in Redmond."

Later, we decided it would be fun to surprise the kids with "tickets" to Idaho on Christmas Day, thus fulfilling everyone's wish.

Darren went all-out on designing really fun "Moss Train Express" tickets using a laser printer from work. He printed it on plastic, which is beyond my technological scope. Anyway, one of the tickets (to our daughter) said, "You and a sister of your choice are invited to board the Moss Idaho Express tomorrow morning at 5 am, meet on platform 9 3/4 (reference to Harry Potter, which has been all the rage since reading it as a family in July). Our son's ticket said that he and the father of his choice were invited to board the train. I then asked, (the wording on the tickets was a surprise to me as well), "Am I invited?". To this I learned, not only was I invited but I was the conductor!!

Opening these tickets was great fun. Daughter Numero Uno was jumping around the room and our son just kept saying, "Really?" or "Are we really going to Idaho?" I guess our youngest was OK with it all because she tagged right along.

I'll save the Idaho Fun for another post, but in the meantime, watch out for a striped-out-smiler in your neighborhood. She's a keeper!



She is very insistent that this totally matches