The Nearest Book

(edited 4-11-0

This is a Book Tag from Loni’s Argyle Socks:

1. Pick up the nearest book (at least 123 pages).
2. Turn to page 123.
3. Find the 5th sentence
4. Post the 5th sentence on your blog.
5. Tag 5 people. (Like Loni, consider yourself tagged, if you feel like it.)

Nearest Book: The Varieties of Religious Experience (Which I am currently reading, and loving, BTW)

5th sentence of the 123rd page:
“The adequacy of their message to the mental needs of a large fraction of mankind is what gave force to those earlier gospels.”

Alone and out of context, that sentence isn’t anything of particular interest. In fact, I haven’t even gotten to the 123rd page of that book yet. However, after I went to find the particular sentence this meme required, I started to read some text from the previous page just to see what the context of that sentence was. On the top of page 122, I read this passage:

“This system is wholly and exclusively compacted of optimism: “Pessimism leads to weakness. Optimism leads to power.” “Thoughts are things,” as one of the most vigorous mind-cure writers prints in bold type at the bottom of each of his pages; and if your thoughts are of health, youth, vigor, and success, before you know it these things will also be your outward portion. No one can fail of the regenerative influence of optimistic thinking, pertinaciously pursued. Every man owns indefeasibly this inlet to the divine. Fear, on the contrary, and all the contracted and egoistic modes of thought, are inlets to destruction. Most mind-curers here bring in a doctrine that thoughts are “forces,” and that, by virtue of a law that like attracts like, one man’s thoughts draw to themselves as allies all the thoughts of the same character that exist the world over. Thus one gets, by one’s thinking, reinforcements from elsewhere for the realization of one’s desires…”

I was shocked when I read this almost perfect description of people who follow the ideals from the dangerous and ridiculous self-help book, “The Secret”. Now while I think that positive thinking is a generally a great idea, and that pessimism can lead to misery, “The Secret” takes the power of our thoughts to extreme levels. It teaches that if we think about something, it will happen. Literally. For instance, let’s say you wanted a million dollars. Supposedly, if you believe it enough, you’ll magically be given a million dollars by “the universe.” Conversely, if you think negative thoughts, you are asking for negative things to happen to you. So, according to “The Secret”, child abuse victims attracted their abuse.

But the passage from the book I’m reading wasn’t about “Secret followers”. It was about a spiritual movement called the Mind-Cure or New Thought Movement. What was even more interesting was that the lectures that the book was compiled from, were given in 1901-1902, over 100 years before The so-called “Secret” was published.

I’m sure this isn’t nearly as interesting to most of you as it is to me. But I’ve been a little obsessed with the pervasiveness of this, and other dangerous and extreme philosophies, lately. Well, at least ever since last summer, when I briefly and unknowingly attended a cult that thrived on and taught those philosophies. Yes, a cult. The kind with brainwashing, lovebombing and where everyone follows an “all-knowing” leader. But that’s a story for another time.

A Grand Day Out

The other morning, I had a severe case of cabin fever, and decided I had to get Curious George and I out of the house. Not just anywhere out of the house, but I had a particular itch to go swimming. You see, last summer all of Utah’s public swimming pools banned all “diaper-dependant folk” because of a “Crypto” outbreak. If you don’t know what “Crypto” is, you probably don’t want to know (but I’m telling you anyway because it’s hilarious for me to imagine the grossed out look on your face you’ll inevitably have after reading about it.) Cryptosporidium parvum is a parasite found in water and food sources contaminated with the feces of infected humans. If someone ingests contaminated pool water they may experience painful abdominal cramping, bounteous diarrhea, fatigue, fever, nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite.

*ahem* Well, the ban was recently lifted, Utah’s pool water is “crypto” free, and when I have an opportunity to take advantage of a cheap, toddler-friendly activity, that does not involve being at home, I am all over it.

Curious George loves playing in water, so I was surprised when he said he didn’t want to go swimming. He’d rather watch TV, he said. So, I spent the next ten minutes trying to convince him to come swimming, during which he repeatedly claimed that he’d rather watch TV. This was frustrating because I KNOW that he’d have much more fun at the pool than watching the current show on TV (which happened to be the most boring preschool show ever, “Max and Ruby”.) Eventually, I give up on trying to convince him, simply scooped him and our swimming gear up, buckled him into the car, and start driving to the pool.

The closest indoor, toddler-friendly pool I know of is 20 miles away, so for the half hour drive there, I hear Curious George wailing:
“No swimming! No swimming! No swimming!”Over and over and over again.

When we arrived at the pool, Curious George finally stopped crying. He recognized the building from last year, and like a mini Mr. Hyde to Dr. Jekyll, he suddenly became very happy and excited.

“Swimming! Swimming! Swimming!” He squealed.

I got him out of the car, and went to grab our swimming gear (swim suits, towels & and George’s swim diaper.)

I couldn’t find any of it.

That was very odd, because I distinctly remembered taking the swimming gear out to the car. I checked every nook and cranny of my car several times and it was still nowhere to be found. Then I remembered the last place I saw it: in order to free up my hands so I could buckle Curious George in before we left, I had placed the pile of swimming stuff on top of the car.

Oh crap.

I hurriedly put Curious George back in the car and started driving back towards my house. This of course greatly upset Curious George, as he had just barely decided that he did indeed want to go swimming.

“Swimming! Swimming! Swimming!” He cried the entire way back.

As I drove, I surveyed the road, looking for our stuff. Of course, I had no idea where it would actually be, or if I would be able to find it, but I figured it would have fallen off the car very close to where I had began the drive.

I am happy to announce that I did find all of our belongings, but not in the nice little pile in our apartment’s parking lot that I imagined. No, it was scattered about the middle of a busy five lane highway. When I spotted it, I pulled over and had to dodge fifty mile an hour traffic while I gathered up two towels, two swimming suits and a swim diaper. I ran back to our car, quickly brushed everything off, and started the 30 minute drive back to the swimming pool. I was going swimming today, dangit.

When we arrived at the swimming pool for the second time, I realized we only had one hour left to swim before I needed to be back to pick up Salvador (oh, the joys of sharing a car). I rushed in, we changed into our swimming suits and we climbed into the pool. As Curious George giggled and splashed around in the water, I sat back and enjoyed the warm, relaxing water. That’s about when I looked down at my swimsuit and noticed the large, black tire track going across my left boob.

Oh well. What mattered was that we were finally swimming, and neither of us could be happier about it.

Unperfectness

 I have a recurring temporary job. The company that I am employed with has occasional work available that I can do out of my home, and this week I’ve been asked to be a part of another three week project. While I attended training and a meeting, I wished I had a translator. Someone who could translate from business-ese to Meisha-ese. It’s not that I didn’t understand the words coming out of these brilliant entrepreneur’s mouths, it’s just that I don’t have one business-y bone in my body. If my very life depended on it, I don’t know that I’d be able to sell someone a $1o bill for a quarter.

But, that’s OK. The perfectionistic part of me wants to be good at everything, but lately I’ve been trying to fight that part of me. Perfectionism is a belief that anything less than perfect is unacceptable, and ironically, perfectionism is a major personality flaw. Perfectionism has never helped me achieve perfection, just neuroticism.

So, one of my tactics against perfectionism is to celebrate “unperfectness”. Weaknesses and quirks are some of the things that make life interesting. For example, since I was talking about business, I thought I’d share pictures I took of two businesses in my community that crack me up whenever I see them:

I have yet to have the courage to actually go into “Bell Electronics and Krazy Daves Knives”. I imagine a guy like Herman from “The Simpsons” would be standing behind the counter (if there is a counter in there.)

If I ever do work up the courage to go in there, though, I’ll be sure to bring my camera (and maybe some mace) and you guys will be the first to hear about what’s inside.

The other one is located in downtown Provo. There used to be a furniture store there called “Provo Furniture”. It was in business there for many years, and not too long ago, there was a big sign on it announcing a sale in lieu of the owner’s retirement. The sale passed, the owner retired, and “Provo Furniture” was passed on to a new owner.

The next time I saw “Provo Furniture”, it was having it’s grand re-opening under it’s new clever name:

Yes, frugality can go too far. Yet, whenever I pass “Pro Furniture”, it warms my soul.

Gloomy Tuesday

As you probably already noticed, I’ve neglected the bloggety blog as of late. You could say that I have been on a blog writing strike, you know, to be in solidarity with the WGA. (All I wanted was 2 cents to every dollar that WordPress makes off my “lucrative” blog, is that so unreasonable?)

However, though I support the WGA’s cause, if you were to say that that was the purpose behind my recent sabbatical, it wouldn’t be true. As much as I’d like to say that I haven’t been posting because I’ve been busy with some worthwhile cause, the truth is that I just haven’t been in the mood to write.

Depression has been known to creep up on me from time to time, and when the darkness follows the bright lights of Christmas, the contrast magnifies the melancholy.

I bet you didn’t know, though, that depression can be a funny thing.

On one January morning the world feels like this-

And then the very next day, you could wake up and the world feels like this-

See! Hilarious! Depression pulled the ole switcheroo! Ha!

In an effort to take back some control from this madness that follows me, I have been trying to figure out what factors trigger depression for me. You could call it a morbid past time of mine. Come try it with me!

I dealt with low self-esteem, distorted body image, feelings of worthlessness, the suicide of someone I cared for, and other teenage melodrama-ness in high school. These negative thought patterns were directly connected to my teenage episodes of depression. I was making myself sick by believing the damaging propaganda fed to me by my own guilt, magazines, peers, my parents expectations, movies, and my own hormone-drunken mind. When I finally discovered the correlation, it was as if I saw a light at the end of a dreary tunnel. I knew how to beat my depression. I worked hard to accept the parts of me that I couldn’t change. I worked on the parts of me I could change, instead of wallowing in despair. I stopped having pity parties. I acted confident, in hopes that it would stick. I stopped placing my worth in my boyfriends’ hands. I took back control of my self worth.

And it worked. I buoyed myself up from the ocean of despondency, and the new view was breathtaking. During that time in my life I ended an unhealthy relationship, re-enrolled in college and mantained a 3.7 gpa, and eventually married Salvador. We had our share of bumps along the road of marriage, but our first two years as husband and wife were so happy. It was wonderful. I had it all figured out.

Then, I got pregnant.

(to be continued)

Martha?

I gave in to social pressure a week ago, and signed up for a facebook account. Friends and family members were quickly added to my list of “facebook friends”, and I had fun comparing movie tastes, political preferences, etc.

Then, a few days ago, I decided to check my email while I was working on a little project. I had gotten a notification from facebook that I had been nominated by a friend for a superlative. It said I had been nominated as “Most Likely to be the Next Martha Stewart.”

I thought to myself: “Martha Stewart?! I’m not crafty!” But then I looked down at the unfinished project I had in my lap at the moment. It was a wreath. I was making a homemade wreath, people! I really don’t know how much more “Martha-esque” you can get than wreath-making.

Wreath making aside, I’m really not a lot like Martha Stewart. For example, I have no idea what framboise ganache is. In fact, I am a nuisance and a danger to human, pet, & plant life in the kitchen. I set off the smoke alarm when I’m cooking on a regular basis. Once, I even burned ramen. (In my defense, I was in high school, and I was talking to a cute boy on the phone and kinda forgot I had put anything on the stove in the first place. That is, until I saw the plume of smoke.)

For another example, this is what I imagine Martha’s herb garden to look like:

This is what my herb garden looks like:

You get the idea.

Anyway, a day later, I talked to the friend who had nominated me for the superlative in the first place. He said that he had accidentally selected the wrong superlative. *phew* What he meant to nominate me for was: “Most likely to Get Tasered and End Up on CNN”. Ohhhh. Now that makes more sense.

Bad News, Good News

 

The Bad news is the Writers Guild of America and the AMPTP haven’t come to an agreement yet, so my favorite TV shows continue to air reruns. 

The good news is that if I really want to relax and be entertained, I can always turn to Japanese television:

If you want to watch more clips from the Japanese show, “Brain Wall”, click here, here, here, & here.

WordPress informs me of the Google search terms people used to find my blog. So far, people have found my blog by googling things like: fat camp counselor job opportunity (sorry, no applications avaiable here right now), curious George Christmas ornaments (awww, that would be cute! Sorry I don’t have any, though), brushscript overused font (you’re preaching to the choir) , ricki lake boots, Papyrus font Firefox (I hope they knew better than to look for papyrus after reading my post on it), candy that looks like eyeballs , the cotton candy nightmare comic (perhaps a good idea for a post? )  

The bad news is that ever since I briefly related my mother’s childhood experience at a nudist camp, I’ve been getting traffic from a bunch of pervs. Yesterday, someone found my blog by googling: tween nudist camp photos.

Eeeeek.

Note to person googling “tween nudist camp photos”: Go get professional help. Now.

 

Well, here’s some more good news to help you shake the icky feeling you all got from thinking about pedofiles:

I won an award! Yay! The very lovely Summer, from Summer’s Nook, gave me the Egel nest Blog Award!

This is an award meant for either new blogs or blogs that don’t get the traffic they deserve. I am honored to pass this award along to Elizabeth at Successfully Underachieving . While she isn’t new to blogging, I’ve only just recently found her, so her blog is new to me (that counts, right?). As I read through her posts I became an instant fan (Like this post, this one, this one and this one.) So, do yourselves a favor and go visit Successfully Underachieving , don’t forget to leave comments!

Oh! Christmas tree!

Growing up, decorating for Christmas is something my parents take very seriously. In the front yard, they cover the whole roof, all of the windows and every last tree, bush or shrub, with lights. There is at least one tree, that has blinking lights synchronized to a selection of loud electronic Christmas carols (to our neighbor’s chagrin). The lawn has a herd of lit mechanical reindeer (that the aforementioned neighbors will rearrange in various naughty positions when no one’s looking.) Inside the house, there are wreaths, lights, mistletoe, snowmen, santas, nativities, and stockings. They even have 3 Christmas trees, yes THREE. My Mom couldn’t decide between two styles of ornaments AND she couldn’t bear to get rid of her grandmother’s vintage tree. So she has three different trees, now. The “main” Christmas tree is over 9 feet tall and underneath it is where my mom sets up her ceramic Christmas village that is encircled by a festive train. Every year my Mom collects new buildings, trees, figurines and other things to add to her village. It has gotten so big, that that this year it has officially been declared a Christmas metropolitan area.

With so many decorations, putting them up each year became an increasingly tedious process, and I became increasingly grinch-like with each successive holiday season. But now that I have my own family, I’m starting to warm up to the idea of Christmas decorations again. I mean, how can you resist the excited squeals of a two year old when you do something as simple as plugging in a string of lights?

I was especially excited for this year, because, at 2 1/2, Curious George is even more aware and excited about the world around him. As I set up our fake treea few days ago, he giggled with delight. His eyes were filled with wonder as I opened up our box filled with glistening round glass ornaments. When I was done unwrapping most of them, I got up to quickly use the bathroom. Curious George had been in a very calm mood, and had listened to me when I asked him not to touch the ornaments. But when I came out of the bathroom, I saw Curious George standing in the box of ornaments, furiously stomping on them like a grape-stomper in a barrel of grapes.

After I threw away the broken remains of the ornaments, I went to the store in search of cheap, non-glass ornaments. I came home with a stack of pretty paper. I had decided to make little paper, origami ornaments, instead. Though it would be a little tedious, there wouldn’t be glass shards everywhere, should Curious George have a surge of destructiveness come upon him again.

About an hour of cutting and folding, I had a small collection of paper ornaments done. I placed them on the tree, and stood back to see to see how they looked so far.

I think Christmas ornaments may be for Curious George, what a red cape is for an angry bull, because as soon as he saw the origami on the tree, he ran up and grabbed the ornaments he could reach, and began crumpling them and ripping them to pieces. *sigh*
While Curious George served his longer than usual time-out sentence, I wondered whether our tree may only have lights on it this year unless I could think of a cheap, unbreakable alternative for ornaments. I rummaged through our closet for ideas and came across a big bag of colorful plastic balls. You know, the ones you might find in a ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese? They went with an inflatable ball pit that Curious George got for his birthday one year, but it had been punctured by a rowdy cousin, so I had all of these unbreakable plastic balls without a home…

Liar Contest Answers and the Winner!

It’s time to announce the winner of the Liar Meme/Contest. If you missed it, here is a breif explanation: I wrote 7 statements about myself, 6 were true, and one was a lie. In order to have a chance to win, you had to correctly pick out the lie. Nine people millions of people entered, but there can only be one winner. I purposefully made it hard, so that hopefully everyone had a more or less of an equal chance, whether we’ve been friends for years, not seen each other for years, or have never met. However, before I announce the winner I am giving you the truth (or fib) behind each of the statements.

Option D:

I know of a family whose last name is Christmas. They named one of their daughters Mary.

Unfortunately, I don’t have much more to tell you about the Christmas family, or Mary because I’ve never actually met them. All I know other than their names, is that they lived in the 1800’s in Wales. I found them while looking through genealogy archives. No one guessed that this was the lie. Which is good, because it’s true.

Option C:

I’ve slept overnight at IKEA.

Despite IKEA’s popularity,there actually aren’t that many of them around. You can only find them in 18 of the 50 states, and usually only near large metropolitan areas. So when one goes in in your area, it’s a BIG deal. They hold a huge celebration, people camp out for several days, they give away lots of free stuff, government officials give speeches, etc. So, when it was announced that an IKEA was going in near Salt Lake City, it was an opportunity a friend and I couldn’t pass up. We had both been SAHMs for about 2 years and it was about time to have an adventure without the kiddos. So the night before the big grand opening, we left our little ones with our loving husbands, packed up some camping gear and headed off to the IKEA parking lot! Yahoo!

It was actually a lot of fun. We made friends with our “tent neighbors” and stayed up sharing goodies, playing games and talking. In the morning, there were olympic gymnasts performing on giant trampolines, music, the governor and various others spoke, there were tv and radio stations everywhere, and the line to get in looked miles long. While waiting in line, we were treated to free Swedish candies and pastries, lots of free promotional stuff (ie. frisbee, compass, mini tool set, etc), and a gift card with a random amount on it. Also, while we were waiting in line, a local radio station journalist snapped our picture and interviewed me. It was an awful interview as the radio journalist thought we were all a bit “off our rockers” for spending the night in a parking lot, and she made that quite clear with her questions. Thankfully, my interview didn’t make the final cut for broadcast, but they posted the photo on their website. I posted it below, too. (I’m in the brown hoodie.)

After all of that, we were finally let in the store. All that I bought was a bathroom mat. It’s not because I didn’t want to buy more, it’s that we were there for the whole adventure, and I could come back and shop anytime. It’s something I’d do again in a heartbeat.

Option B:

I spent a summer working as a counselor at a youth fat camp.

It was 2001, and it was time to look for a job for the summer. A friend suggested we do something different. Very different. When we found job openings to be counselors at a fat camp in the Catskills in New York, we decided to apply. Someone called within a few days and interviewed me over the phone.

“Do you have any experience with kids?” The woman asked in her heavy New York accent.

“Well, I’m the oldest of six kids, I volunteer at an elementary…”

“SIX KIDS!! Ok, that’s plenty of experience!” She interrupted. “Do you have any experience working at a summer camp?”

“Umm, well I was a camp leader at Camp Shalom last year…” I replied. Camp Shalom is a camp for Mormon teen girls, it’s not really a “summer camp” per se, as each group only stays there one week. However, the interviewer interrupted me again.

“Camp Shalom? Very good!” She sounded impressed. I was very confused by this, and it wasn’t until much later that I had any idea why. I found out that the camp I was applying to was overwhelmingly Jewish, (including the woman who was interviewing me). Later that summer, the woman who interviewed me once remarked that she was wary of hiring Utahns, because she was afraid of Mormons trying to convert the campers. Hahaha, I’m thinking that the name “Camp Shalom” might have given her the idea that I worked at a Jewish camp. Besides, I had no plans to hold nightly missionary discussions in our bunk or anything of the sort.

Anyway, we both got the job. I was now officially the counselor in charge of the 11 year old girls AND the tie-dye instructor. Wohoo! Tie-Dye! I promptly went to the library to learn the art of tie-dying, because I really had no idea how to do it.

I could write 50 different blog entries just entailing the experiences I had at the camp, but this post is already getting too long. So in short: I spent most of the summer with rainbow dyed hands from working with tie-dye all day. I ate horrid food almost everyday for three months, it wasn’t bad because it was diet food, it was just gross. I comforted Michael Tyson’s daughter, Mikel, after another girl in our bunk taunted her with:”what are you going to do, bite off my ear?” I let many tween girls cry on my shoulder that summer, because: they missed their parents, they didn’t like it there (I didn’t blame them, it was a poorly maintained and run camp), they were hungry, they wished that boys liked them, etc. It was definitely an interesting summer.

Above: Some of the kids at the camp. They’re dressed in blue for a camp competition called Color Wars. Don’t they look thrilled?

Sorry, Kathleen & Paige, it’s true, I worked for a summer at a youth fat camp.

Option G:

I had tenative plans to be at the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001, but luckily, my accomodations fell through.

After the camp ended, the camp director said he would pay an extra sum to anyone who would stay an extra two weeks to clean and repair the camp for next year. My friend and I volunteered because we were really hoping for some extra cash so we could explore and enjoy Manhattan for a few weeks before we left. If we stayed to help clean the camp, this would have put our flight home on September 12, 2001. We planned all of the things we wanted to see and do, which included our plan of going to the World Trade Center the day before we left to watch the sunrise. However, the camp director decided against having extra help so we left the camp right after it ended. We planned to stay with two other friends for the extra amount of time, but both of those plans fell through eventually as well. Without the extra cash, or a free place to stay, we were only able to stay in Mahattan for a week after the camp ended and we flew back to Salt Lake City at the end of August.

Luckily no one guessed this one, because it’s true.

Option E:

My television debut was on the Ricki Lake Show.

This happened during the week we spent in Manhattan. We were crossing the street on Broadway when we heard someone yelling our names. We looked around wondering how in the world anyone in New York City would know us. It turned out it was a group of some of the other counselors from the camp and they were in an SUV stopped at the red light right right behind us. We jumped into their car before the light turned green.

They explained to us that one of them happened to be a friend of one of the producers of the Ricki Lake Show. They had tickets to that day’s show and invited us to come along. Hahaha, so of course we went with them.

When we got to the studio, we were ushered past everyone else who had to wait in line, because the producer was expecting us. We got a backstage tour, t-shirts and front row seats. The topic for that day’s show was: “The International Manhunt for the World’s Sexiest Man”. Hahaha, awesome! For the next hour, we watched men from all over the world rip off their shirts, flex and say sensuous things in their native tongues to woo the all female audience. In the end, the guy from Mexico took home the “title”.

Because we were in the front row, dead center, I was on the camera a lot. So, sorry Summer, it’s true, my TV debut was on the Ricki Lake Show.

Option F:

My mother won a beauty pageant. It was at a nudist camp.

In Tom’s guess, he said he picked this one as the lie because my Mom struck him as a “Molly type”. (Molly is Utah slang for a Mormon goody-goody). While Tom is right that my Mom can be that way, what he may not know is that my Mom wasn’t always Mormon.

One summer during her childhood, her parents wanted to take the family camping. It was the 1960’s, though, so they didn’t want just any campground, no, they were going to a nudist camp!! Horray for peace, family love and nudity!

My mother recalls them pulling up to the camp and being very, very confused after being greeted by a completely naked man. She says that they spent the next couple weeks in nothing but hiking boots, doing various activities with the rest of the nude group. One of those activities was a beauty pageant, and my Mom won the title in her age category. My grandma recalls her reaction as: “I won? But what will I wear? I didn’t even bring a dress!”

My Mom was only 6 at the time, so she doesn’t remember much else about the camp. However, she does remember that if anyone sat on the “loo” for too long, it was obvious to everyone else because of the toilet seat ring imprinted on their bare butts. Hahaha, it’s probably good that she doesn’t remember much else, eh?

Sorry, Cristy, Tom & Marie. It may be ludicrous, but it’s true. My Mom won a beauty pageant at a nudist camp.

Option A:

The mayor of my town has one of my paintings in his office. It’s of a pair of cowboy boots and a cat.

The painting above doesn’t exist except as a jpg file (or maybe in my nightmares). This one was the lie. I’ve never met the local mayor. While I do like to paint (this is what was supposed to throw you off), I’ve never painted cowboy boots and a cat. So congratulations McKenna and Brenda, you guessed right.

Originally, I was going to have Curious George pick the winner’s name out of a hat, but he’s asleep, so I’m gonna try out the randomizer service that McKenna used for her contest. (I could probably just do eenie meenie miney moe, but whatever.)

And the winner is.. McKenna! (Ha ha ha, that randomizer really does pass along good karma!) Congratulations, McKenna! Send me an email with your mailing address and I’ll send you your fabulous assortment of international candy! Yay!

Thanks, everyone, for playing this game! It was fun, so I’ll definitely being doing more contests or giveaways in the future, so “stay tuned”!

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Cost of this picture I took of my friend and a dude:  $2

Memories of our time in NYC:  priceless

Tales From Da Hood

It’s almost Halloween, so I’d thought I’d tell a s-s-s- s-c-a-r-y s-s-s-s-t-o-r-y about something that actually happened to me:

It was getting late and my brothers and sisters were getting ready to go to bed. As the oldest (I was 13 at the time), it was partly my responsibility to help the 5 younger ones with getting their pajamas on, teeth brushed and so forth. As I helped my sister find some clean pj’s, I heard a loud knock at the door. My sister and I hurried towards the front door as my Mother came to answer it. She shooed us back, as she had told us many times not to come near the front door when she answered it until we knew who was knocking. As she answered the door, I peaked around the corner.

”Please let me in! There is a group of people after me! Please let me in!” The young man at our door pleaded.

”I can’t let you in here, but you can wait in our backyard and I’ll call the police for you.” My mother offered. I remember momentarily thinking it was rude that my Mom didn’t invite him in.

The young man put his hand on the front door, trying to push it open wider. “NO! Don’t call the police! Just let me in!”

At this point she became alarmed, and with all her might she slammed the door shut. She had to wedge her foot in the bottom of the door to keep it closed enough so she could hurry and lock the dead bolt.

The guy outside started to yell. “LET ME IN! LET ME IN, OR I’LL BREAK DOWN YOUR DOOR!!”

I came out from the corner. Eyes wide, she gestured towards the bedrooms where the rest of my siblings were. Without any words spoken, I knew what to do. I quickly gathered all of my siblings and we huddled behind our couch in the living room.

My Dad came in at the same time to see what all the yelling was about. My Mom quickly told him what was going on, and then she went in the kitchen and called the police.

My Dad went over to the front door, and could see through the peephole that more people had arrived. He ran to get our shotgun. The group that had gathered outside our front door were now all yelling “OPEN THE DOOR!” and were pushing and kicking the door.

As my Dad came back with the shotgun, the group had started to kick the door in unison. boom. Boom. BOOM. My Dad pushed back on the door as hard as he could.

I sat in the dark, behind the couch with my arms around my huddled siblings. Through their quiet whimperings I could hear my Mom pleading with the police to hurry. I wondered if they would get in. All sorts of horrible scenarios went through my head.

Luckily, our door withheld the pounding, and the group of thugs outside gave up after terrorizing us for 20 minutes or so. The police didn’t arrive for another 45 minutes after they were gone.

This incident, was the last straw for my parents. The bullets that flew through a friend’s mattress from a drive by, narrowly missing them as they slept, the shooting at my school during lunch, the riots and looting, the break ins on our street… they had had enough. It was time to move. Unfortunately, Southern California has the most expensive real estate in the country, and while there were plenty of nice, safe areas, they weren’t anything that they could afford.

Finally, a year later, my parents sold the house, and my Dad had found a new job. For me, however, although the crime was a problem, at 14 years old, the last thing I wanted to do was move away from all of my friends. At the very least, I hoped that my Dad would find a job somewhere I thought was interesting, like San Diego, or Lake Tahoe. However, I was devastated when my Dad came home and announced: (this is the scariest part!)

”Guess what kids? We’re moving to Orem, Utah!”

to be continued…