TMI

Hmmm, wow, this is really personal. I'm not at all sure that I should be putting this out there. Of course, if you've known me for more than 20 years you may or may not already know the basics. Obviously it has taken me a while to get here. I kept telling myself that I just didn't feel like blogging. Seriously, I just didn't feel like blogging this. Also, I only have about a quarter page after this written. It really does get better from here. This is just the biggest molehill we had hit so far and I've struggled with writing the rest. Really, (spoiler alert) this is the climax and from here the falling action is just a bunch of lovey dovey, let's get married crap.

Well, apparently I'm willing to sacrifice dignity for...wait, what is this for? Fame, fortune, no. My "craft", perhaps. Attention, maybe, but as I cringe, I'm guessing that's not it in this case anyway. I guess I just don't care all that much about my dignity. If you could not mention to my husband that I've thrown him under the bus as well, that would be great. So, here goes...

We’d come full circle, back to New Year’s Eve, although this time I was pretty sure I would have a date. I just had no idea how that date would end.

The big dance was to be held at Fiesta Mall in Mesa. The church, the institute, someone… had rented Fiesta Mall in order to keep our precious young adults off the streets on NYE. Of course, they’d gone to the best to dj the dance and our buddy Dennis performed admirably as always. He was there with his adorable wife, Alisa. They had been pretty wrapped up in each other and hadn’t really been on the single scene anymore, so we hadn’t seen them for a while. When we went up to say hi, David and I were holding hands. Dennis was in shock. I honestly don’t know how this could have slipped past him, but he really was surprised that we were dating. I’ll leave that to him to explain.

We hung out with our friends, danced, and wandered the open areas of the mall. Finally, a year later, I got that midnight kiss from the one person with whom I had hoped to share it.

We had a lovely evening and played and had fun. We seemed to be getting closer to each other with each passing minute, which is probably why now suddenly seemed like the time to talk about our feelings.

Oh, feelings. Why do they always have to get in the way? In my mind, we were getting pretty serious. I did now possess a ring that had “I love you, David ‘90” inscribed in it. I thought there was no way I could have a secret from this guy. I decided now was the time to tell him that I had kissed his friend while he was away. It wasn’t really a big deal, after all to quote a famous dork, “We were on a break!” However, I didn’t want that guy to know something that David didn’t.

We got to my house after the dance and sat in the car “talking” for a while. I finally mustered up the courage to tell him. He was upset and I was upset and then we laughed about it and kissed and made up.

Then he told me that he had something he wanted to tell me as well. Deep Breath! Did I remember back when that girl came to visit from Alaska? Um, well yes, I did. It was only a few months ago. Well, apparently there was a little more to the story that didn’t really seem all that relevant at the time. Apparently he may have sort of underestimated the time that they spent kissing. He felt really bad about it and was so sorry, and I cried.

Now what was I supposed to do? I had just told him that I had kissed one of his best friends, but it was when we weren’t even really dating. But of course, we broke up pretty much every other week. But we weren’t broken up when he kissed this girl. What did this mean for our relationship? Top all this info exchange with the fact that it is somewhere dark thirty in the am on New Year’s Day. What drama!

I am about to press enter and put this onto the interwebs like a crazy person. Here goes... 

Dental disaster

I read once (on another blog, whose writer was probably jealous of certain blogs that we all know and love) that "Mormon" blogs are so lame because they only show one side of life. They are always positive and never let the reader see that their lives are not perfect. (If you never read "Seriously, So Blessed" you should look and see if it's still up. I heard the writer stopped. It is a hilarious spoof on the Mormon blog)
I think I'm somewhere in the middle. I'm definitely far from perfect and don't try to appear so. However, I also think, who wants to listen to Debbie Downer all of the time? So I sometimes vent here and sometimes not.
Today was more frustrating than life.
A little history, when we moved to So Pho, we continued to go to our family dentist that we had for years. Things were fine. After moving to Chandler, we decided that Phoenix was a little far to drive to go to the dentist, especially considering the plethora of dentists here.
There is an awesome dentist in our ward. If anyone needs a dentist, go see Marshall Hanson at Fountains Family Dental. He rocks! David went to Dr. Hanson and had fabulous work done to repair some old dental work. He bought their firm insurance and paid about the same that our insurance would have required. It was a big job.
Anyway, I took the girls to Dr. Hanson. They love him just like everyone else does. He is very gentle and kind. Unfortunately, the insurance didn't make nearly the same dent in the cost of Lauren's 6 cavities and Emma's sealant that she needs. So, we had to find someone different.
I searched the listings on the insurance website. The few reviews that I could find for dentists on the list were not good. Most, I couldn't find anything about. The several dentists that I know where not on the list. Frustration! Finally, I found a pediatric dentist that had good reviews and called them to set up an appointment. During the phone call the receptionist pointed out that since they specialized, instead of the insurance paying 80%, they would pay 20%. This wouldn't work for me.
I started looking again. I finally found a dentist that I hadn't noticed before, right down the street. I made the appt. We waited 2 weeks for Lauren to get home from Utah.
This morning we got up and went to the dentist. I sat filling out sheet after sheet of paper work. I talked to the receptionist about the insurance that we have. We had discussed it on the phone. SRP uses Delta and EDS. We have EDS. I'm not sure how this became confusing. Lauren is now in the chair, getting xrays and finding out that in the past 3 months, even more cavities have developed.
The receptionist calls EDS and while they are partners with the parent company, this dentist is not in their network. Somehow, I managed to get their address and phone number from my insurance web site, but they will not pay for the dental work. I pay for the work they have done so far on Lauren, but she still has a mouth full of cavities, Emma still doesn't have sealants, and I still have to go home and find ANOTHER different dentist for them to go to, all in the 2 weeks before school starts. I really wanted to punch someone in the face!

What does it all mean?

So, I'm back from Utah. Except that I've actually been back for over a week. Instead of staying up in Koosharem for the 4th, we thought that my mom had a heart attack and came home on the 26th. So we've been spending time with the rest of the family that came to town and fighting with Mom to not overdo, when she is a classic overdoer.

Well, I think I will post the next installment of the David saga.

In my family, we have always gotten together with the extended Bogle family on Christmas Eve and then had a quieter Christmas at home and visiting my Pickering grandparents. After Grandpa Pickering died, Grandma would usually come to our house, or even sometimes come to dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Bogle’s. This was a big to-do. All of the cousins that lived in town and often the ones who didn’t would gather for a traditional Mexican dinner of tamales and chalupa. I’m not exactly sure where our chalupa comes from, but it is heaven. Start with a base of corn tortilla chips, top with the chalupa (pork, pinto beans, and green chili) and all the fixings, cheese, lettuce, tomato, avocado, salsa, sour cream. Later in the evening, Grandma would bust out the ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. Every year, without fail, this was Christmas Eve dinner. This year, I had let my Grandma know that I would have a guest coming with me. Oh My Gosh! (To paraphrase The Fantastic Mr. Fox, It’s kind of a big deal, so don’t just say okay.) This was David meeting my entire family. Think My Big Fat Greek Wedding except in a parallel universe where everyone is kind of midwesternish and less dancy.

Now would probably be the time to mention the missing member of my family. My older brother, the one who had teased me and tormented me and overprotected me from other boys, was in the army, stationed in Germany. We were in a constant state of waiting to hear if he was deployed to fight against Saddam Hussein. His wife and daughter were with him, probably wondering a lot more than we were. At least I didn’t have to worry about anyone commenting on the size of my plate in relation to the size of other things.

In my opinion, the evening at Grandma and Grandpa’s went well. We had the traditional tearing into the presents from relatives. Grandma wrapped up a bag full of pistachios for David. He seemed appreciative. I’m sure my Grandma wondered about that too, what to gift this boy who really hadn’t been defined as yet. Of course, I knew that we grew pistachios and we had the same giant box full in our cupboard at home that my grandparents did. But hey, she did wrap it up in a gift bag.

Afterwards, we got to the big show. David and I went out on our own. I gave him his beautiful box (that I had pain-stakingly rewrapped). And he gave me a bag. I pulled out a big white teddy bear. Kind of typical. Kind of boring. Kind of wearing a ring.

No, not that kind of ring! But a ring none the less.

It was a gold band, a pinky ring, with “♥ I love you, David ‘90” engraved inside. Well, let the wondering begin! What did this mean? Or did it mean anything? It was definitely time to talk.

We’d come full circle, back to New Year’s Eve, although this time I was pretty sure I would have a date. I just had no idea how that date would end. 

Holidays are fun!

Well, we're headed off to Utah for a while so this is the last installment for about 10 days or 2 weeks, whichever comes first.

So, about a week later, we’re at his sister Karen’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. Everything was going swimmingly, ya, that’s a good word, swimmingly. His family was all very nice. Of course, I’d already met his Mom and Dad spending time at their house. (Actually meeting them for the first time has dissolved from my memory.) Now I got to meet his older sister and her 6 kids. She had just had a baby about a week and a half before, and was now hosting Thanksgiving dinner at her house. Ya, that’s not intimidating. David’s other sister was in rehab at the time.

I held the baby and enjoyed Thanksgiving dinner. New for me, to have stuffing with nuts in it and things just slightly skewed from the traditional dinner I was used to and had never experienced with another family before. The little kids ran all over the house. This part was my element, having 7 younger siblings myself. It was all very family and holiday. David was sweet and I was happy.

Now, you can see that our holiday history was sort of hit and miss and of course we had the biggie right around the corner. “Christmas is coming the goose is getting fat.” My dad loved to sing this little ditty and remind me of the way I would sing it as a little girl. “Tristmas is toming, the doose is detting fat.”  This year, I stressed about what to do with this semi-permanent boyfriend. I thought things were getting more serious, but I had thought that before. What do you get for the person you want to spend every minute for time and all eternity with? And what is he going to read into it? And what will he get me? (Not that he has to get me anything.) And what will it mean? I finally decided to get David a nice, brand-name sweatshirt. I put everything I felt about our relationship into the packaging. I picked out a nice, masculine, striped wrapping paper. I gently wrapped tissue around the article inside the crisp, square box. I lined up the stripes so that they matched perfectly, wrapped ribbon around, and attached a large bow. It was perfect.

One day, I came home from work at the local radio shack to find my beautiful present destroyed. The story was that my little brother had unwrapped the present because it was so pretty. (He was about 8. Something was fishy and I didn’t really buy it, but the parallels with my relationship were pretty eerie. I just hoped that this was not foreshadowing. 

Oh we just love the drama!

So, life went on with David and me going to movies, dancing, hanging out with friends, etc. And by etc, I mean there was some kissing going on. We were a little old fashioned. Exclusive dating meant that a kiss goodnight was once again a part of the plan. We were actually pretty good at this part and thought that practice would make us even better. We were right. We would practice at his house, my house, in his driveway, my driveway, but perhaps my favorite was the stop light kiss. The implication, of course, was that we couldn’t stand to not kiss, even long enough to drive down the street. David was actually quite good at knowing how long a stop light would last. We only got honked at once or twice.

As the holidays approached, David told me that a friend of his from his mission in Alaska was coming to visit. He would need to spend a little time with her, yes, her.

Long Pause.

I could be an understanding girlfriend. After all, we were in a loving, somewhat committed relationship, right? I was the one invited to spend Thanksgiving with him and his family at his sister’s house. I really, really tried to think positive thoughts, and not so much about the rocky past of our relationship. Unfortunately, the brain will have thoughts that the mind does not want to have.

On the Friday night that David was supposed to spend with “Alaska girl”, (shouldn’t there be a rule against the Friday night friend visit?) I ended up staying home. (Somehow, asking why we couldn’t all just hang out together never crossed my mind.) Later, that evening, a little before 10 o’clock, David called to tell me that he’d taken her home, and asked if he could come over. Silly, naïve me, took this for a good sign, my sweet boyfriend wanted to hang out with me and had taken this intruder home early.

Of course, I agreed that David should come over and when he arrived, we went for a walk outside. I lived in a little agricultural enclave where tamarisk and eucalyptus trees grew at least 80 feet tall and the old redneck joke about turning off the paved road definitely applied. It was a perfect place for a moonlit walk.

We held hands and walked and talked. David seemed a little nervous, but I didn’t really think too much about it. After some small talk, he turned to me very seriously and told me that he needed to tell me something.

I can’t really remember the conversation, I’m pretty sure I’ve blocked it from my memory. The gist was that “Alaska girl” had kissed him and he hadn’t really tried to stop her very quickly. I couldn’t decide if this was dubious or devastating. Did I believe that this stranger had gone in for the kiss? Was the fact that he had fallen for it a deal-breaker? Should it matter that he had felt the need to come right over to confess? Somewhere in the back of my head I remembered that I had kissed someone that David didn’t know about either. Would that make it easier to forgive him? Did that even count, seeing as how we were “on a break”? Was forgiving him what he was looking for? Would the heart-pounding, heart-stopping contradiction of emotions ever calm?

Evidently, forgiveness was what he was looking for because he was apologizing profusely. I’m pretty sure that I cried, although like I said, it’s all pretty hazy. I’m pretty sure he cried too, because he’s good like that. 

I heart the Ice Cream Nazi

So on the way back from camp, with Megan, Lauren, Emma, and Matti in the car, we decided to stop for a little bit in Pine. The Strawberry festival was going on and we couldn't resist. We were all in pajama pants, hadn't showered, probably didn't smell very good, and didn't really care.

The girls headed off to see what they could see while Meg and I spent a few minutes drooling over the cutco knives. They returned after a few minutes searching for kettle corn money.

We headed off to see what else was around, specifically a bathroom, as we'd been using port-a-johns for the last 4 days.

We happened upon a place called "Tornado Fries".

This is pretty much what it looked like. It reminded me of one of my favorite fair foods ever (which Elise knows the true name of) that are best doused with malt vinegar and salt. Well, they didn't have vinegar, but they had a wide variety of flavored salts, including vinegar flavored. While I rushed off to find a restroom, the girls decided to make it a sampler with a variety of the different salts. Later, I tried it and was underwhelmed. The potatoes were thicker and softer than I was expecting, which was more the original curly chips, like this:

butterfly fries, picture by ljc@flickr

So the girls are eating the lame-o tornado potato and we head down to the infamous delicious homemade ice cream shop. We pause to read the myriad of signs on the door, including one that says something to the effect of, No sodas, not even cans, we sell soda here. Ok, none of us has a drink, so I figure, we're good, and we head inside. The girl behind the counter immediately starts asking Lauren about the potato on a stick. "Where did you get it?" "That's so cool." "Is it good?"

Then the little old lady comes out from the back room. She pats Lauren on the shoulder and says, "Honey, I'm gonna give you a tip. You don't take food from one establishment into another. Just a little tip for you."
I'm thinking, "There is a festival going on outside your door. You do not sell fries, potatoes, or anything other than ice cream and desserts. I'm buying ice cream for everyone in my group. How does this potato affect you?" I didn't think it was quite like having my kid bring her happy meal into dinner at McCormick & Schmick. But, I bit my tongue.

Then the people next to us were discussing buying ice cream for their grandson, who couldn't eat the cone. They said, "We'd like one scoop of strawberry in a bowl, please." She replied, "Do you want to get the child's cone? It's smaller and cheaper." They responded, "Well, he can't eat the cone, but..." Ice Cream Nazi interjects, "That wasn't the question."

I'm thinking, Well, it kind of was the question. If you're gonna get all up in their face, be more specific with your line of questioning.

photo-Terry Richardson's Diary

So, I still got strawberry ice cream and it was good. Everyone else seemed to enjoy theirs as well, but I'm wondering if it was worth the degradation.

I need to look and see if that shop from (wait for it, Megan) Mystic, Connecticut takes online orders.

Aaahh, camp!

I chose this picture specifically because you can't really see any faces and I don't need anyone's permission. I just wanted to write a little blurb about what I did last week. 

In April I was thoroughly enjoying myself teaching a little class at church and avoiding anything really hard. Right before my birthday, the Bishop called me in and asked if I'd be the new young women's president, since ours was moving away.

I had carefully avoided being asked to go to girls camp, knowing that camping in tents was a little more "back to nature" than I really wanted to get. Apparently, avoidance was no longer an option and I was going to Long Valley, AZ with 9 first years, 3 second years, one 3rd year,  2 4th yrs who would join us later, and 6 ycls (youth camp leaders) who would wave to us as they walked by with their charges. One of the newbies and one of the ycls were my very own girls.

Everyone told me that it would be cold and possibly wet. I continually checked the weather channel app on my phone. I bought a new sleeping bag, I took a blanket and extra socks. 

There was a very dedicated lady called as Camp Director and a super organizer called as Food Specialist. I even managed to finagle it so that my little sister went with me. (ok, Meg, it wasn't really me who sent you there, but I was sure glad you were there.) These people ran things, and I was just there as a warm body to help corral girls and put away dishes.

Driving to camp, listening to loud music, I started to think this might actually be fun. We were pumped and the girls were all so sweet. I felt sure I could handle this. I didn't even notice that backs of my hands burning under the windshield as I drove.

When we got to camp, everyone pitched in to help get set up. All of the girls were so cooperative and helpful. I was in heaven! We sat down in the cool mountain air to eat the lunches we had packed. It didn't phase me in the least that we were the last ward to arrive, the last camp set up, and had the most girls. We finished our lunches in plenty of time to show up for orientation, and I was happy!

After dinner, we went out to a little stage in the woods and enjoyed a presentation, silly camp songs and all. I noticed that it was starting to get a little chilly, but not really a big deal with my nice warm hoodie on. I did talk to a dear friend of mine who had gone up the day before to help get camp ready. She had frozen the night before and hadn't slept at all. I thought, "This poor dear must not have a super, low-rated, xl sleeping bag like mine. I'll let her use my blanket tonight so that she can get some sleep. Ah, warm feeling inside.

By the time we got back to camp and cheerily prepared for bed, the warm feeling had dissipated and I was feeling cold. The thought of changing into pajamas was a bit daunting. I put on my warmest jammie pants, a long sleeve shirt, put my hoodie back on and thought about how wonderful it was that someone had sent up some hand warmers for us to use. 

I climbed into my xl sleeping bag and quickly realized that a mummy bag is not designed for an xl woman. I could barely zip the zippers up all the way around my shoulders and it was difficult to move. Not only that, but  my face was freezing when it was exposed to the air and I couldn't breathe when my face was inside the bag! The hand warmer did keep what ever part of me it was touching warm, but that was about it. Someone had suggested putting our clothes for the next day in the bottom of our sleeping bag to keep them warm. They were cold.

Although I was told later that I may have snored, just a little bit, it felt like I didn't sleep at all. I got up some time in the middle of the night to go to the lovely porta-john. It was a wee bit cold. Teeth chattering, I headed back to the tent, rummaged through my suitcase and put on another pair of pajama pants and another hoodie, then crawled back into my tight sleeping bag. It didn't help AT ALL. I did figure out around this time that if I slid way down into my bag, I could curl up in a ball and turn. Somehow, the middle of the bag was wider, like it was built for a very slender, yet pregnant person. However, I still had that claustrophobic, lack of breathing problem. So it was defrost face inside sleeping bag, lower bag, gasping for air and freeze, hide back inside bag.

In the morning I wondered how I would ever survive the day after having gotten no sleep at all. Line dancing for morning exercises did not improve my mood. I don't know what it is, I just cannot bring myself to line dance. I think being one child of 10 makes my desire for individuality overly strong. 

Back in camp, clean clothes and pancakes for breakfast cheered me up somewhat. I decided to go on the 1st year hike. Seeing as how we had 9 1st years and it would be the easiest hike, it seemed like the thing to do. We set off with our packed lunches, water bottles, and scriptures (mine on my ipod, because David never did find mine).

It was a lovely hike, more of a nature walk, really. We walked down the road for about half an hour, stopped to eat lunch, play games, and read scriptures then followed the ravine back to camp. The best reason to go on this hike is, that now I qualified for a shower. I waited for most of the girls to finish, which meant that my shower was rather cold, but a little longer than most and quite refreshing. 

As the afternoon wore on, I started to worry about how I would cope with another freezing cold night of no sleep. I think I forgot to mention that in the morning several of the girls thought that the hand-washing water spigot was broken. When they asked one of the men in camp to fix it, he quickly realized that the actual problem was the water was frozen. It was COLD!!!

I managed to get a hold of 3 hand warmers and a tip to slide them between 2 pairs of socks, plus an extra sleeping bag that I unzipped and tried to share with Megan. In my sleep addled brain I managed to steal the whole thing apparently. I put on an extra long sleeve shirt and wore my fleece headband to bed. I slept like a BABY, the ones that sleep all night long and are really warm. It was beautiful and I felt eternally grateful to all who had participated in assisting me toward that goal.

The day before we had found out that some of our newbies were also cold during the night. One of the actual camp leaders went to find out what the problem was. One of the girls hadn't actually gotten into her sleeping bag and one had forgotten the ever-so-important sleeping mat that had been strongly suggested to bring. She tried to rearrange the girls so that they could sleep better and perhaps later than the 5am they had woken up the first morning.

She must have succeeded somewhat, because when I got up about 6:15, they were still asleep. I crawled back into my bag and slept for another hour. 

This day I had volunteered to drive some of the older girls out to their hike site. I figured this way I could get to a store to purchase more hand warmers and whatever else might keep me warm. When I got back after dropping them off, I found one of our girls had gotten sick. We stewed about what to do and decided to have the young lady call and talk to her parents to make a decision. I left the other leaders to deal with this issue as I headed off to town and to pick up my 3rd years.

At the gas station I ended up at, I got more cups for the camp, hand and foot warmers for myself, Emma, and Lauren (I completely forgot about Megan. What a jerk!) They also had a hat with ear flaps, which I snatched up, and some sprite for my little sicky.

By the time I got back to camp, I found that she had already gone home. I gave Lauren and Emma their warmers. Emma was wrapped up in Megan's blanket, she had apparently lost hers (it turned up later in the bottom of her sleeping bag.) She asked Megan if she could borrow her blanket and Megan replied, "Sure, if your mom will give me the extra sleeping bag. AAagghhh! Now I'm either a terrible mom and a mean sister or a popsicle! I took the nice, warm sleeping bag and put it over Emma and her newbie neighbor, returned Megan's blanket and borrowed another extra sleeping bag. Unfortunately, this one was a mummy bag and unzipping it would have done nothing. I laid it sideways across Meg and I and told her to skooch in. She replied, "Hey did you remember to pick up hand warmers in town?" I swallowed  and said, "Yep." I handed her my extra pair of hand warmers (Sorry Megan, but it is true. I had bought myself two sets. I am awful!) 

I settled in, prepared to freeze. Luckily this was the warmest night so far. Thank Heaven! It was very cold, and I woke up a lot, but I did get some sleep and was comforted that the morning would involve taking down camp and heading home for a warm shower and a warm bed.

Aaahhww, girls camp!