I was talking with my friend

And she told me about a checklist that her friend had discovered while working in DT. It was a sorta goal sheet for one of the guys. Goal number one was "Kiss Loretta." This was followed by a smiley face and a check. Goal number two was "Take Loretta on a date." This was not followed by a smiley face and a check.
Oh, those BYU students at DT. Such players...

A 5-minute photo-op leads to musing

I was going to be in bed by now, as it's 2am, but whatever. I started watching more news clips. Sometimes I think I'm addicted to news and political banter like a mid-western housewife needs her afternoon soap operas. I need my "stories" to survive, or something.

I have some questions in this entry that I'd like your help with. I know that the length is a little bit on the long side, but I'd like to know your ideas.

Anyway, I was watching the clip of President Bush today in one of those photo-op, 5- minute on-camera discussions. He was sitting next to the President of Iraq who's been visiting. (He's actually on a 3-week, lose-weight-quick trip. No. I'm serious.) Pres. Bush said something that really fascinated me more non-politically than anything, so don't worry this isn't gonna be a political rant. Hang on, I'm gonna transcribe what he said:
"Now, Mr. President, it is important that you succeed. Failure in Iraq would endanger the American citizens, because failure in Iraq would embolden the enemies of a free Iraq." Then the President continued, "We must not allow Al Qaeda to have a safe haven in Iraq. We must not retreat in the face of the unspeakable violence that they perpetuate on your citizens."

The thing that struck me when I hear our President talking was the line "Failure in Iraq would endanger the American citizens." The reason that I mused on this line for a while was because it reminded me of service. I started to think about something that Bishop Ogden once told me about his first date with Sister Ogden, which was BYU's Preference. He said that he didn't know her very well, but what he did made him respect her. He then told me that he wanted to make sure that everything he did on their date would ensure that she had a good time; he was thinking of her joy and happiness.
Then I thought of a story that G&K's dad told a couple of weekends ago about the time that he took to two oldest kids, Peter and Karl, to so-and-so widow's house "to do a random act of kindness and clean up her lawn a little." While they were out working, she came out with a broom--"I didn't know what she thought she could do with it"--and asked what the three of them thought they were doing. He replied, "Don't worry, we're just cleaning up your yard a little bit here." Well, she put down her broom and said, "Oh, okay. Thanks."
Why was I reminded of these two stories? Because they're stories of people doing things for others for the reason of doing things for others. The widow's first instinct was to suspect foul play, and was surprised when it wasn't--and that's 25 years ago in podunk Laramie, Wyoming.
We're all about the "what's-in-it-for-me" attitude. We've forgotten a lot of the helping others for the sake of their life being a little easier, or happier in the case of Bishop Ogden. Dating around here is all about "what can I get out of it" and not much anything else. We even talk about doing service so that we get that warm, fuzzy feeling.

So going back to President Bush's statement, maybe this is part of the problem in Iraq. We're telling the Iraqis and their highest official, "Look, failure is bad for us Americans. Get a move on and help us." Well, it's true, Al Qaeda having footholds all over the place is really bad for us here.
But instead we should be saying to the Iraqis, "Look, your lives will be markedly better if you push out the leaders of this sectarian violence and the perpetrators. You will be able to live in peace." These people are told to sacrifice for us, and not necessarily for them. Hmmmm. Maybe then they would begin to understand how vitally important all of this is to their own survival and joy, to say nothing of their own peace.


All of these things have me thinking tonight, "Venom, do you help people for the right reasons? Are you only looking out for Number 1? Are you even just looking to yourself first before you look to others to help them because they need help or some happiness in their lives? Maybe even just a brief respite from the difficulties of this mortal probation? Why do you serve? Do you serve? Are you a selfish nitwit?"

These are all my questions tonight. Now I'm going to try to be better. Hopefully I'll recognize people needing help and will want to help them so their life's a little easier and not whether or not it's very convenient for me.

Some more anecdotes

Kathy accidentally spilled flour all over herself and on the floor today by the pantry. I heard this little thud, then Kathy saying "Zut!" It was pretty funny. Flour's terrible to try and clean up. It takes like 7 vacuumings and 10 sweepings. Then you find some more.

I really like washing clothes by hand. I squirted cherry juice on myself today and had to wash a shirt by hand in the sink. My how I enjoyed myself. If I ever build my own house, I want to install something like this, or like this.

I babysit the cutest girl ever. Her name--well what I call her--is Norinha (Noriña).
I have altogether too much fun while I babysit her. So much so that I get nothing else done for those three hours. She makes me laugh out loud. She's really friendly, rarely cries and not for very long when she does. She's extremely amiable.
One of her favorite things are spools of thread, as you can see in her left hand of this picture:


Her mom's my friend from the master's program. Today her parents took me out to lunch at Tucano's as a thank you for babysitting her. It was pretty tasty. Norinha's old enough to eat big people food, and she sure had tons of it. It was really funny. She liked the shrimp. She also enjoys sucking on limes and lemons a whole lot. Doesn't even make a sour face. Pretty impressive if you ask me.
Have you had a Brazilian BBQ (churrasco [shoe-HAS-coo])? It's really, really, really tasty.
And their pineapple is to die for! Here's the trick: a light glaze of honey and brown sugar. Try it.

A couple of questions

How does one quantify the quality of a good lesson at church?
I mean this from the view of the teacher as well as the ward member listening?

How about how much milk is too much to drink in 6 days? Is two gallons okay? Because I certainly enjoyed them. Got one late Wednesday night, another on Saturday after going 8 hours sans milk, then just bought another one tonight.

Kathy's most ubiquitous nickname is Stick (she used to be stick thin). Gretchen's most common nickname in her family and around here is Newt (long story). Sometimes when they think they're being so funny, Gretchen calls Kathy "Stick-er." Kathy responds in kind by calling Gretchen "Newt-er." Say both of those out loud. Yeah, they think they're so funny.

Oh, the garden's growing. Here are some pictures here, here and here.
I'll get some more garden updates soon with more pictures.

For an hour

That is how long I spent laughing while reading this. The entry is funny enough, but the comments. WOW.
I was in my front room at the computer and Gretchen could hear me out back, down three floors and across the parking lot.
Enjoy.

From the Latin for 'dashed together, violently shaken'

I love softball. It is a beautiful thing. I especially love 3rd base, called the "hot corner" because it gets so much action and it keeps you on your toes. BYU softball intramural play has an out-of-bounds line about 10 feet away from the 1st and 3rd base foul lines. If the ball goes over the 2nd line, the runners advance a base. Well a girl from the other team was barreling into 3rd and the ball got thrown into pitch from the outfield. I could tell that the ball was going to sail over Larissa's head so I went sprinting (not the Swenson slows defect) for the ball, so that it would go over the line and the girl on 3rd would have to stay put right where she was, no run scored. Well, I ended up diving after it, stopping it one foot from the out of bounds line. I wheeled around on my back and tossed the ball to Larissa to make sure that the girl stayed at 3 bag. Then I realized how hard I had impaled by bun into the back of my head when it had slammed against the ground. I went to get off my knees, and uh, sorta fell over. I then tried to get up again and realized that it was a no-go. The ump came over and I realized that if I didn't get up, they'd begin to suspect something. So I popped up and said that I was fine. I actually got one of those courtesy clap/cheer thingies that you see in college and pro games. I've lived a full life now.
So I played the rest of the game, because it was an AMAZINGLY FUN game. Laws almighty, it was fun.
After the game I talked with Riss for an hour+ by my car. By the end I realized that I wasn't exactly standing up anymore, but leaning. Not the While You Were Sleeping type of leaning, as there was no hugging involved, nor a goofy guy named Joe Jr. So Larissa followed me home to make sure that I'd get there.
I made it upstairs and then promptly was flat on the floor. After Gretchen going thru a long list of symptoms on WebMD, we determined that I probably had a nifty little concussion of the occipital lobe. It was also at this time when Gretchen read, "However, don’t ever get back in the game until your doctor says it’s OK" and then glared at me for playing the inning and a half left in the game. It was a fun game! G and K kept me up, checking my eyeballs for random dilation problems while we watched Batman Begins.
I finally was able to go to bed at 3:00am. Gretch came into my room at 6:35 to check on me, again. "OK, Venom, open your eyes, let me see the dilation." I guess I passed the test.
Right now I'm in my pyjamas, still, at 2:11pm in the middle of Fellowship of the Ring, the extended version. I'm thinking about texting Gretch something about passing into the Shadow World.

Also on a totally unrelated note, I'm craving Chinese food. Before anybody passes this off as unimportant, remember that I've had 5 feet of roast beef, provolone, cucumber, lettuce, tomato, pickle, mustard, oil & vinegar, salt & pepper on wheat sandwiches in the recent days.
Wait, maybe this is related. It could be due to a bump on the head and a switch in craving. Hmmmmmm.


Lucy: [to Jack] Okay, um. What do you mean by the leaning thing? You mean because he gave me flowers?
Jack: And then you *leaned*
Lucy: And then I leaned.
Jack: Yeah.
Lucy: Okay, how did I lean when I leaned?
Jack: It was a lot different from hugging. Hugging's very different. Hugging that involves arms and hands; and leaning is whole bodies moving in like this
[leans toward her suggestively]
Jack: . Leaning involves *wanting*... and *accepting*. *Leaning*...
Joe Jr.: Hey Luce! Is this guy bothering you?
Lucy: [Laughs] No, no.
Joe Jr.: Are you sure? Because it looks like he's *leaning.*

A few anecdotes

On Friday night we were writing out runner's bibs. I had a couple of bags of Jelly Bellies in my cargo pants pocket. I wanted a juicy bear Jelly Belly, but accidentally grabbed an advil liqui-gel and popped that instead. I crunched it and the gel exploded into my mouth. Oh my laws, it tasted uber nasty. Then my mouth went numb and I had a hard time controlling my lips for a few minutes. It was dang funny.
At church on Sunday I tried to convince Gretchen and Kathy to intro me as their *non-member* roommate. Gretchen refused. But then she proceeded to share her scriptures with me, holding them for me and pointing to where we were on the page. She did the same for the Spencer W Kimball manual. She thinks she's so funny.
Tonight we had a softball game. There was one inning where I couldn't field the ball to save my life. Anyway, one of the outfielders threw me the ball and I tried to get it on the hop. It took a mad leap and went right off of my mitt and hit me on the crown of my nose. It was great. I wandered around the field for a bit after I tossed the ball into the infield. Good thing I don't get nosebleeds. Or bruises. The nice thing is that after I get hurt or dinged I usually play a little bit better. I smacked a nice hit the next inning right into the center fielder's mitt. It was a pretty hit. The center fielder barely had to move.
I had another sandwich.
I can't stop eating LifeSavers Fruit Tarts.
The garden's looking pretty. It's got some sprouts. I'll post a picture.
Those are today's anecdotes.
How many of you think that Portuguese is a weird language? I'm taking a poll.