Shoo Fly Pie

For those of you who don't know, I visit my grandma most Thursdays at her assisted living community, the Seville. I head down to Provo around noon, eat lunch with her and a group of her friends, stay the afternoon, and I'm back by five.

Lunch at this place is THE event for the day. For most of the residents, it's the only reason they come out of their apartments. All the old ladies form lines at the elevator with their little walkers and take their customary seats with all their friends. Then the "waiters" come out in bow ties and white shirts and serve the residents their three course lunch with desert. The whole affair takes almost two hours.

About six weeks ago, the menu listed "shoo fly pie" as the desert for the day. All the old ladies I was sitting with were quite excited. I guess they really like shoo fly pie... Mabel, who is almost completely deaf, was particularly excited. Anyway, we're eating lunch, and visiting about their kids and grand kids, and talking about the week since I last saw them. Finally, the waiters come out to serve desert, but before they do, they stop by each table and briefly talk to each of the residents. Jeni, our server, comes to our table and explains that the cooks accidentally burned the pie that morning, so we're having pineapple surprise, instead. Mabel, who can't hear very looks at me to interpret.

"Jeni says they burned the Shoo Fly Pie today, so we can't eat it", I shout in monosyllables.

Mabel looks at me incredulously. "What? No Pie?"

"Sorry Mable, she said it's burned, but this pudding looks pretty good."

"And you believe her story?" Mabel is sitting here looking really dubious about this whole burnt excuse. And really disappointed. And I can't help laughing.... like the the management would lie about burning the pie...

So this last week, when I get down to the dining room, I see that Shoo Fly Pie is once again listed as the desert du jour. Jeni assures me that this time, the pie is not burnt. I patiently sit through an hour and half of lunch. I'm excited about the prospects of finally getting to try Shoo Fly Pie, the likes of which is enough to make Mabel call the entire staff at the Seville liars.

Finally, lunch is over. They bring out the pie. And it turns out... I don't even like Shoo Fly Pie...

Best Speech Ever

Okay. I'm about to commit a little heresy here. Please. If you are offended by the letter U, the color red, Utes, or anyone who attended or is attending the University of Utah... Please, click away now. I'm about to quote a speech made by a graduating Ute... But first, a little background.

I am a cougar, through and through... I promise. But, sadly, there simply isn't enough room in Provo to house everyone who wants a quality education. So naturally, they just had to build another school in Salt Lake. Unfortunately, I do have a roommate who attended and graduated from the U. She is great, despite that fact. And, being the good friend that I am, I attended her commencement ceremony on Friday morning, when I was invited.

I was pleasantly surprised when the following speech was given by one of the graduating English degree undergrads. It was a great speech. So great, in fact, that I have posted it here. I have to admit that I aspire to be as great a writer as she is, and I dearly hope that she someday writes a book, because I am enraptured by her style...

To avoid any plagiarism claims, the speech was not written by me, I do not own it, and I do fully attribute the following to its owner, Brittany Anne Gadbury. You can see the original posting of the speech, as well as pictures of the speaker at this website: http://unews.utah.edu/p/?r=050809-2

May 08, 2009 -- "When I asked my father what I should write for this speech he said, "Tell them you were supposed to go to UCLA, where there are more people on one block than there are in the entire state of Utah." Such lessons may be humbling, but they can cut powerful new pathways that we never could have projected for ourselves. I've learned that the only obstacle to freedom is one's decision to idle in fear, and against the potential opportunities of those pathways.

I came to the University of Utah to gain a B.F.A. from one of the most highly accredited modern dance programs in the nation. It is to the outstanding credit of this singular liberal arts institution that I stand here now a graduate from both the College of Fine Arts and the College of Humanities. My first semester was full of dance, and jazz history in the evening, and in the mornings I took Mark Matheson's English 1110.

Each time I exercised articulating myself in this academic forum I grew more uncomfortable withholding myself from the potential of my experiences. This was the most profitable fear that I could have. This university became the setting that challenged me beyond my experience, outside of my boundaries, and into the power of agency over my limits. This was a workshop where my observations, my deconstructions, my projects, my inquiries, my ideas were awaited. Day by day I made the choice to either stretch or ease myself socially, academically, and intellectually.

My education here changed everything for me. It demolished and re-built my understanding of who my peers could be-coming from innumerable histories and experiences-and offered me the equalizing status of "novice." Faced with the unknown we are all equal. The key to progress is to understand that we never know as much as we think we do, especially about other people. Thus we must ever micro-macroscopically re-adjust with each lesson. "Change is my shepherd, I shall not want. We are guarded by change, flux, and overthrow," said my intro to modernism professor. I am reminded that the gift of this institution has been the opportunity to grow, if I choose it.

By the end of that first fall, I'd declared an English minor, and went on to London that summer for a literature intensive at Regent's College. Another spring I found myself teaching workshops for Black Heritage month on a reservation in Mexican Hat with the Governor's Martin Luther King Commission. A subsequent winter I went to study in Cuernavaca, Mexico and spent solitary hours amongst the quiet ruins of the Puuc Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula. Another summer I climbed Outside Corner on JHCOB Wall in Big Cottonwood Canyon. While that doesn't mean much to many people, it means miles to a girl afraid of heights who had never climbed a fence.

What do all these have to do with the moment my English minor became a major, the hour I heard Katherine Stockton speak at a farewell luncheon to Karen Dace, the first time I heard Stephen Tatum expound on the loss of history, Dr. Samuels shake down what it means to be a native son, or the few lines from Paradise Lost that ruptured any poetic reservations I had? Each season carried a transition between something known, and something new, and I was changed, and it began here.

Every moment here has been a self-integrating study in complicated humanity. We have gained tremendous education that still cultivates in our fertile minds. We've completed these years, some of us against significant odds. We've learned we know nothing but what we do. When latterly something is foreign to our experience, our expertise, our minds-like graduating-then we've nothing more to lose by side-stepping paralysis for potential. We've been prepared by practice.

Now is another hour to acknowledge the potential of this present liminal threshold, and make another choice. Bless God for every moment, every trial, every challenged doubt, every brick heavy textbook, every debate, and every heart break. Your very state right now is the culminated future of your history. And blessedly, there's growth to go. Donald Revell said, "The present is prophetic, it presents the future to itself." There is more happening now than your bones readying to stabilize your form so you can culminate this ceremony. Step forward and present the next lesson to itself."

sunburn

I'm addicted to sunshine. I can't get enough of it. So last week, when Utah finally got some nice weather, I took advantage of the opportunity to be outside. I dug my swimsuit out of winter storage and found my beach towel. I grabbed a book, ipod, and sunglasses and headed for the park. I had all the makings of a great afternoon in the sun... except... sunscreen.

And now, I'm paying for it. Actually, I paid for it all weekend. It's just escalated today into the itchy healing phase, and my roommate keeps yelling at me to stop...

I don't regret it though. There's nothing better than falling asleep under the sun. I can't ever top that goosebumpy feeling I get when I can feel the sun on my skin, or the faded washed out colors that I see in the world around me when I've been asleep with the sun on my face. I crave it all winter. So I don't even feel bad about being sunburned, or that I spent all weekend freezing because my body was losing so much heat through the burnt skin. I don't feel bad at all, even though I'm going to spend the next 3 days itching like crazy.

... I'm just so glad winter is finally over...

Marshall's near death experience

It's been awhile since I blogged about my hampster, so I thought I would update you on Marshall.

In case you missed it, I got a dwarf hampster a little more than three years ago. And I like him a lot. I'm not exactly a pet kind of person, most of the time. As I said once before, I tried goldfish, and after killing four of them in as many weeks, I gave up on pets, until I got Marshall, my dwarf hampster. He pretty much rocks, up to the point that he's low maintenance, and doesn't bite. Despite the fact that I love my hampster, I am not the kind of person that gets super attached to my pets. When I have a dog, someday, and he gets some kind of awful disease that needs surgery and medication that costs more than my car, I'm not going to do it. I love animals, but they aren't human... sorry...

So anyway, back to Marshall. Dwarf hampsters, according to my research, live to 2.5 to 3 years old. Marshall turned 3 back in February. So I've been pretty much been expecting Marshall's demise just about any day now. A couple weeks ago, I was getting ready for bed, and I realized I hadn't heard from Marshall all night. You see, usually, hampsters run on their wheels all night, since they are nocturnal animals... they can run up to 8 miles in a 24 hour period. So this one night, I'm already in bed, reading, and I'm getting ready to turn off the light. And I suddenly realize I haven't heard his squeaky wheel all night. No noise. I turned off the light and laid there for a little while, waiting. Still, nothing. So I figured Marshall had died. And I was a little bit sad.

Since I'm a lazy person, by nature, I decided I would deal with it in the morning. I spent at least 30 minutes thinking about it, before finally falling asleep. And then I dreamed about Marshall being dead too. I dreamt about his funeral, and how I'd deal with his body, which turns out to be kind of problematic, since I don't have a yard, and my really good friend, Kristen, who does love animals as if they were people, would have to come, and she would not be okay with a shoebox in the dumpster.

So I get up in the morning, having thought about Marshall, pretty much all night. I get ready for work, make my lunch, and do just about everything else i can before going to deal with Marshall's little body. Then, once I had nothing else to do, I grabbed a ziploc baggie and opened Marshall's cage. I picked up the plastic house he sleeps in, ready to take care of business.

It turns out that Marshall was not dead at all... but just taking a break from excercise.

...and now, Marshall is setting a record for the oldest dwarf hampster...