Dave's been reading again, and his latest paperback book is: Monsoon. Speaking of weather, we've had some. Again. First it snowed in Riverside for about fifteen minutes, alternated with hail with some of that. We had a freeze that lasted several days, wiped out many of our plants in our front garden and millions--no, probably billions--in the California citrus crop. So that prompted clever (!) letters to the editor of our local paper with lines like "I'd pay attention to global warming if I weren't so cold" and other similiar brilliant nuggets of truth from out here in the Inland Empire.
We have our book of literature,
Inlandia, which made news all the way out to Perris, up to Barstow and down to Temecula. I'll bet you didn't hear about it, but it did sell out of its first printing (they didn't say how large it was). Weather's a huge topic out here this month. Today it's 80 degrees and they expect 84 tomorrow. My wardrobe is so confused.
Life goes on in this household with Elizabeth commuting her tiny commute. However in that commute the same ratio of nutty drivers are still present, drivers who won't let me change lanes, or decide to change theirs into me, or go slow in the fast lane. You know. The hazards of the freeway. These two English classes are better prepared than Fall's, or at least they seem to be. Grading goes faster when I don't have to parse out what they're trying to say before they say it. Some riveting personal experiences in this batch of "Remembered Event" essay, reminding me again how fortunate I am to have the parents I did, and the siblings I did, and to be raised in such a healthy way. I owe my parents a great debt.
Dave is heading into a review of the literature for the chemical chromium, which is found in anything that's got chrome. It may be an essential element, Dave says, so it's complicated. What this means is hours of reading documents, letting them percolate in his head, then he pours them all out into a huge document that wraps it all up with a bow. Okay, maybe no bow.
I bore my testimony today in Relief Society, and cried for the second day in a row. (The first day was during a tender talk yesterday in our Tri-Stake Women's Conference.) In my testimony I talked about prayer, how we're all praying for each other, and how much it meant to me today to hear the Stake Council pray for the members of the stake, as individual names had been called out before the prayer began. I mentioned that, then talked about my calling, and how I thought it would be easy but that many curve balls had come my way. I have been borne up, however, by angels on the right and angels on the left, and was grateful for small and large answers to prayer. Afterwards, one woman came up and said, "You'll find a cook for camp--I just know it." (She was cook last year, but is pregnant this year.) Another woman came up and said, "You'll figure out how to guide those Young Women in your care." (She was a past YW president.) Others mentioned other issues in my life, other curve balls, so to say.
I hope you are fielding all your curve balls, sliders, change-ups and sinkers. I am thrilled to have such a good dug-out (the kids and their families and relations) to help in this old game.
Here's a camelia from our garden. I also have some lovely pink ones as well.
A shot of the YW/YM skating party last Tuesday at Roller City 2001. It was early, so not many were there. Grand total was 109 folks. My YW leaders and I served nachos, pink and white animal cookies with little dots on them and soft drinks.
