WORKING BACKWARDS

I have been away from here so long that in order to move forward, I must work backwards.

Let me start with yesterday.

And to start with yesterday, let me share with you a quote from my new favorite book, Lemony Snicket's "Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid." Hilarious. Hilarious and true.

Page 59
"When people ask you if you play a certain sport, it is likely that they are very good at that sport and are hoping you are only mediocre so that you can waste an afternoon losing a game. In such instances the safest action is to run away very quickly as soon as the question is asked."

Yesterday I went to a swim meet. Swimming is the only sport I am actually any good at doing. Every other sport, including those on Wii Sport, is one which I have so shot at (no pun intended), so I do run away very quickly as soon as anything having to do with sports comes up.

I can handle watching a swim meet, though. It would have been nice to watch Lane swim in the swim meet, seeing as he was the whole reason I was there in the first place, but that didn't happen. What did happen is this:

Lane called me at 3:00 and said, "Mom, are you coming to my swim meet?"
To which I replied, "Doesn't it start at 3:30?" "Yes," Lane responded, "But I don't get to swim today. I just found out while I was on the bus over here, so can you come get me?"
So I went to get him.
Once at the swim meet place I called Lane on my trusty little cell phone and asked him to come meet me outside. "I can't," he said, "the coach has to see you come inside and get me." Whatever.
Has the coach not seen that there are NO PARKING SPACES ANYWHERE NEAR the pool? Is my child NOT in HIGH SCHOOL and capable of walking outside by himself? Apparently not! So I parked about a mile away, and headed in. Once in, I found out that the reason Lane was not swimming was because the school had not given the coach the information that Lane (or, shall we say, Lane's Mom) had paid the participation fee. So I showed the coach, who definitely had no idea how far away I had to park, the receipt for my check, and Lane was suddenly eligible to swim.

Meanwhile, Joshua was about to be let out from school, and had no one to meet him or tell him where I was. Oh, trusty cell phone, how I need one of you for each of my children!

So I trekked back out to the car, drove to Joshua's school, drove back to the swim meet, parked an additional three miles away since even more people had come to the meet by this time, and rushed in to watch Lane swim.

Except that I never got to see him swim, ever, because he was in the very first event, which took place while I was getting Joshua from school. And after swimming the very first event Lane got so sick to his stomach that he spent the next 45 minutes in the bathroom, throwing up.

Not knowing any of this, Supportive Mom (that's me, by the way), spent the next 65 minutes standing on rickety metal risers in tropical rain forest humidity scanning every single swimmer for someone who might be Lane. That's tricky to do when they wear swim caps! It's also tricky to find your child when they don't carry their trusty little cell phone around with them at a swim meet (understandable, I suppose. I mean, really, where would they put the thing?) or when hunched over a toilet bowl, throwing up.

Finally I found him; black circles under his eyes, wet bum-print on his shorts, straw-like hair sticking out in all directions. He was quite a sight. We both should have gone running at the very first mention of athletics, and all that's required to support them (tee hee, tee hee...).

However, if I hadn't been at the swim meet, I wouldn't have seen a lovely thing, despite missing my own child's endeavors. This lovely thing I saw was a relay race, and in this relay race was a young man with Down Syndrome. He swam as quickly and skillfully as many other young men around him, which was impressive in it's own right. But what was most impressive was the response and interaction that his teammates gave him. Boy, oh boy, did they cheer him on. Boy, oh boy, did they give him lots of props and man hugs and smiles when he got out of the water. It was touching. I thought how neat it would be if everyone could be treated so well, no matter who they are or what their differences.

But wait! I haven't told you the lovely thing yet!

I kept watching this one team, and you know what? That is how they treated everyone on the team, no matter who they were or what their differences. I'd like to meet the coach of that team. In fact, I'd like to meet that team! They showed me something truly beautiful. Come to think of it, watching the men swim the butterfly stroke wasn't half-bad, either.

LESS WHINY

Yes, less whiny, but still exhausted, and still definitely missing my boys! I am certainly NOT cut out to be a world traveler.

But I got to feel less a traveler and more at home this past week as we ventured down south from Tokyo to the area of Kyushu, Japan. Kyushu is where I spent a year teaching with the JET program after I graduated from college in the mid-90's (now if saying, "Mid-90's," when referring to an era, not a temperature, doesn't make you whiny, I don't know what will!).

Our first stop in Kyushu was to the city of Hakata/Fukuoka. We walked and walked and walked and walked, and saw lots of temples and shrines. Kind of like what we did when we were in Tokyo, only with fewer crowds.

Then we left the crowds all together and headed for the countryside.

Here we met up with my dear old friend Okamoto-sensei, with whom I worked at the Bungo Takada Junior High School in a decade long, long ago. The picture doesn't show it, but we were hugging and crying and hugging some more for quite some time after she came to pick us up at the Yanagigaura station (yeah, that's a tongue twister of a name!). It was pretty darn happy, and a bit louder, I'm sure, than the normal Japanese greeting at that station!

Okamoto-sensei took us to her home, where I found a painting of this beautiful geisha-girl that Okamoto-sensei had painted after I went home to America. Flattered, flabbergasted, flummoxed...I can't even begin to find a word that describes how it feels to be the subject of some body's artistry!

We spent the day hugging and laughing, sharing pictures and stories, and visiting some great sites. Usa shrine was first,

then the 500 stone Buddhas,

topped off with an evening trip to BungoTakada later that night. There we visited my old apartment building, the new "Showa Era" museum, and more friends, the Takakura family (for whatever reason, those pictures won't load onto the computer just yet...).

Sunday I got to visit my friends at church in the tiny little Nakatsu Branch, population 6. Our six visitors doubled the "congregation!" It touched my heart and strengthened my own testimony and desire to follow Christ, getting to see these beautiful, dedicated people coming to church week after week, year after year, despite their meager numbers.

It was all so very wonderful. Pretty much worth becoming a world traveller after all.

WHINY

So here I am in lovely Japan. We've run ourselves ragged seeing everything and anything possible in this amount of time. We've been to the fish market, a couple of high observatories, huge shopping centers, famous shrines and temples, our own Latter Day Saint Temple, parks, restaurants, and--of course--the subway, subway, subway. It's been an amazing experience for me to come back here.
Today we head south for Hakata, and a chance to see my friend Okamoto-sensei. That will be wonderful, as well.
Still and all, I am the biggest whiner. My darling husband has provided me the opportunity to be half way around the world, and all I really want to do is go back to the three wonders of my world. I miss my kids desperately. That's a good lesson to learn!
Ja, ne!

DANCIN' DANCIN' DANCIN'

Lindsay, Dave, and I went to see Colin dance at BYU's annual "World of Dance" concert.

Ah, the memories. It used to be us, coming out and greeting the audience after a show!


Dave and Lindsay, who met through Folk Dance, make a great partnership--dancing through life (Awhhh...)


Now it's baby brother's turn.
Doesn't he look good in eyeliner (Yikes!)?

THEN...

I had another most magical dancing moment!

I got to go to the SYTYCD concert with a bunch of my friends from the theater.

We had tickets in a VIP box, complete with waitresses and drinks and snacks and a full evening of sheer ecstasy. It was so very marvelous, I can't even begin to describe it! Absolute heaven for an absolute fan. For you fellow fans out there, know that Katee really was/is the best and should have won. Will was amazing to watch on stage. Twitch and Gev were quintessential entertainers. "Bleeding Love," the Bed Dance, "All By Myself," "No Air," and the pas de deux really were as wonderful live as on TV. "Five Guys Named Moe" was absolutely outstanding in real life, and Will absolutely stole the show on every group number. Gev's solo was standing ovation material--I think I lost my voice cheering for that one, and I am not a hip-hop fan! Jessica was blah, just like on TV. And even the Bollywood number looked cool that evening. I loved every moment of the experience. Happy Birthday to me!

THEN...

The Homecoming Dance was last weekend and both Evan and Lane attended. It was, in fact, Lane's very first date (he doesn't actually turn 16, "legal" dating age in our household, until the end of October, but we okay-ed the dance at school and dinner at our house). Lane went with a lovely young woman named Alydia, and Evan went with one of her best friends, Kennedy. But did Evan and Lane double date? No way, Jose. Evan would have none of that double-dating with his younger brother stuff!

Hence, we only have single pictures of Evan.

He doesn't look very happy in these pictures, but his reports to us confirmed otherwise!

Luckily for us, Lane had dinner at our house, so we got to play fly-on-the-wall, as well as waiter/waitress (Michael, Joshua, Keri and our friends the Steck's all dressed up in oriental robes to serve Chinese food to the party go-ers), chauffeur (Michael), entertainer (Michael and Keri), and housekeeper (Keri, Keri, and Keri) for Lane's date. It was so much fun getting to be a part of it all!

And here the gorgeous couples are: Lane and Alydia, Kaitlyn and Cody.

And THEN...

I found this YouTube video:

Which reminded me of the fabulous places I will be visiting soon (as in, I'm leaving tomorrow morning at 6) as Michael and I travel with his parents to

JAPAN!!!!!

I'll have to make my own video as I dance my dance, prance my prance, and be so happy to be Keri Vance!

MY MOTHER

There's a particular picture of my mom and dad when they were young and in love and in college (now they are slightly older and in love and not in college) in which I think my mom and I have the same exact hairdo! I am also pretty sure that we have the same shirt on. The only thing I'm missing, other than a handsome man with his arm around me, is the enormous tissue paper flowers in the background (any of you techno-savvy siblings of mine know the picture I'm talking about? Put it on here, will you?). I am my mother.

A few days after Retro-Keri made her appearance, she went in for another haircut. This haircut is short and a little spiky. This haircut made Joshua say, "You look like Grandma." I am, indeed, looking more and more like my mom all the time. Not a bad thing...just weird. In order to pull off short hair I have found that make up and earrings are imperative. And if I wear make up and earrings every day, then I really am my mother (and my mother would be so proud of me--as well as in shock!).

The other day Evan and I were having a conversation about his life. I heard my mother say--out of my very own mouth--"Just because I don't agree with you doesn't mean I don't understand you." I am my mother.

Michael and I went out on a date the other night, and this is what I walked outside and saw. Isn't it gorgeous?! I ran inside to get my camera, and Michael said, "You are turning into your Mom and sister!" Not a bad couple of people to be. My mom sees beauty everywhere--even in my short hair (I hope). I should be my mother!

ABOVE AVERAGE

My sister Lindsay posted the following list on her blog. It is a list from the Big Read, a National Endowment for the Arts program designed to encourage reading. Of their top 100 best loved books, it's estimated that the average American adult has read only 6!

The books I have read (and remember well enough to have them count) are in bold.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveler's Wife - Audrey Niffenegger (well, currently reading. Does that count?)
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid's Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones's Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte's Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

I am so above average.

I am also extremely curious as to how some of these books ended up on this list? I'm no literature expert or anything, but why The Lovely Bones and not Cold Sassy Tree (a personal favorite)? Why Moby Dick but no East of Eden? And please tell me why, oh why, is Bridget Jones' Diary on any list at all (other than the "I'm pretty embarrassed to admit that I've read this book" list)? Also, they have Shakespeare's Hamlet and The Complete Works of Shakespeare on the same list and there's a Chronicles of Narnia redundancy, as well. I figure that gives me two extra places on this list of 100, so I pick my most recent literary obsession, The Outlander, and for fun, James Thurber's The Wonderful O to fill in the blanks.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I've got some reading to do...only about 50 more to go!

The above list is the one I found on Lindsay's blog.
The next one is the actual "Big Read" 100 faves list.
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen 41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell 59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl 75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie

SMART

How I know God loves me:

• On September 1rst (September is MY month: month of my birth, month of school starting, month of leaves changing, and month of cooler weather) there was a hail/rain/wind storm and I got to stay in bed all morning, reading a book.
• My father in law took me to a movie (a good enough reason to get out of bed), and it was cold enough for me to wear my new sweater ($5.99 clearance deals are another bit of goodness in my life).
• I accidentally (euphemism for "stupidly") put a bid on two identical ebay items. I won the first, and had to hope against hope that someone would place a higher bid on the second. That nice someone did, so I didn't have to buy it, too.
• I am married to Michael. I wasn't smart enough originally to know what a great guy I was getting when I got him, but I keep figuring it out ever since then!
  

And the main reason:

• God told me so, right inside my heart (Doctrine and Covenants 8:2), and I believe Him!

So, how do you know God loves you?