You know you’re doing something right as a father when your daughter gives you a note that says “I no dot lik you Dad…”
…and draws a picture of “Jesus in heaven and Satan in Satanland” (her words) in the same week.
I really like the angels. And the fact that she circled the tongue sticking out at me.
Over the last couple of nights, Inez and I have been reading Matilda before her bedtime. Tonight, when we read the part about Matilda’s poem for Miss Honey, Inez got curious. She asked me what a limerick is and after hearing my explanation, she decided that we needed to write a limerick of our own.
A limerick about Ninja Cat.
Before you read what we came up with, let me first say this: you’re welcome.
Ahem.
There once was a nice ninja cat
with whom we wanted to chat.
He said “Go away!”
so we didn’t stay,
but went home and sat on a mat.
I’m warning you. Right now, I’m warning you and I’m doing it with my serious, somewhat frightening, “I’m warning you” voice. This is post is preachy. And heavy-handed. And a lot bit clumsy.
But. It’s got a strong heart. And it tries. And that’s enough reason to go ahead and give it a read anyway, isn’t it?
I vote yes.
Okay. So, back when I was a stupid teenager, I hated General Conference. No. That’s not true. I didn’t feel strongly enough about it to hate it, but it did bother me. Every April and October it annoyed me.
It was just SO long. And SO boring. And SO frustrating.
The place where weekends go to die (photographed by the talented Jeremy Hall).
Each time it rolled around, conference seemed to gobble up my entire weekend. Not just my Sunday, mind you, but my Saturday too. From 10 in the morning to 8 at night! And all those talks just ran together like a two-day chain of navy suits and tidy haircuts and droning voices. Those voices! That same soothing, rhythmic, peaceful cadence… in speaker after speaker… lulled me… to… sleep… JUST as one of my mom’s side jabs jerked me back.
Torture.
Long, boring, frustrating, teenage torture.
The fact that those weekend-consuming, tidy-haircut-sporting, sleep-inducing voices were the voices of latter-day prophets didn’t really register with me. As a stupid teenager, I just wasn’t ready to appreciate conference.
Going on a mission (and growing up a bit) has helped me to start to turn things around. I’ve slowly started hearing the value of those voices.
Now, at thirty-old years-old, I feel like I shed a layer of stupid teenager husk each year. I enjoy conference now. I engage with it.
Don’t misunderstand me. I still doze through a talk or two (or three?), but when I’m awake, I’m REALLY awake. I hear those voices now. They affect me. They change me a little bit.
I finally want them to. <brushes off husk flakes>
Wait… wow. Preachy, heavy-handed, clumsy, AND self-righteous. I warned you, right?
Anyway.
This conference—this time around—there was one voice that really boomed out, don’t you think?
If you’ve got 15 minutes and you’re not a stupid teenager, listen to Elder Holland’s talk again.
It might wake you up.
Holly and I were rummaging through our Photobooth snapshots and videos from last year when we re-discovered this gem. Two things I didn’t realize I miss until watching this video:
I’ve decided to write a book. It’s going to be about a red-haired, kindred-spirit-seeking teenage orphan girl who meets a diamond-skinned, volvo-driving vampire emo teen who just says no to human blood. At first she’ll be put off by his arrogance—his pride—but later she’ll fall in love with him when she realizes that her prejudice has blinded her to his true, fabulously wealthy self.
Do you think there’s an audience for a book like that?
Lately, I’ve been feeling stressed. I’ve been stressing out.
About my job. About money. About the lack of money. About unfinished freelance projects. About soon-to-be-started freelance projects. About registering my unregistered car. About installing a sprinkler system in the dirt patch that is our front yard. About finally finishing the fence I started to put up at the beginning of the summer. About putting up rain gutters. About painting the house. About painting the kitchen. About reflooring the kitchen. About fixing the creak in the kitchen floor. About fixing the creak in every floor. About all the rest of the endless amounts of remodeling work that still needs to be done before our home could be considered anything other than condemned. About the baby on the way. About the bills on the way. About the end of summer. About the beginning of being old.
About everything.
You never do this, do you?
But then, tonight, just before her bed time, I happened to notice little Gwen. Our just-turned-three-year-old Gwen. She was sitting on her bedroom floor, playing with her miniature family of plastic toy people. She sat there, peering into their tiny house, quietly humming and chirping and speaking out little people parts to herself (in her perfect sing-songy voice) while she moved their pudgy forms in and out of their tiny rooms.
She was there, on the shabby carpet of her tiny creaky-floored room, completely content, completely free, and beaming.
Which made me remember something.
Why is that so easy to forget?
First off, let it be known that I have a terrible memory. Anything that happened more than an hour ago might as well have occurred in the 70s as far as my brain is concerned. Accurately recalling an incident from more than a few years ago is close to impossible for me.
Holly, on the other hand, has a bionic memory. She remembers songs that were playing on the radio during specific stretches of seven year-old road trips. She remembers movies playing in the background of conversations we had back when we were dating. She remembers everything.
Which is great for me, mostly because it means that I don’t need to remember the names of any of the people at church. As long as I stay within whisper-distance of her on Sundays, I’m fine.
Then again, here I am, a few sentences into this post and I can already tell that I’m going to have to post a slew of fact-correcting updates to it once she reads my attempt to reminisce on events from way-back-when.
No matter. Let’s see what my faulty memory hole can come up with first. We’ll worry about whether or not any of it is true later.
Ahem.
Holly, me, and friends at a Fire Club outing. We look like 13-year olds.
A hundred years ago, back before Holly and I were married, we used to attend a monthly-ish outdoor get-together with a few friends. It was called Fire Club and it always involved a fire. Genius, right?
It seems like our friends, Kelly and Erin, were the originators, the organizers, the evangelists behind Fire Club, but like all other statements in this post, that may not be true.
Holly and I only attended a handful of Fire Club get-togethers and even though every time we went I didn’t know most of the people there, I loved going. Fire Club was just laid-back, chatty, and fun. Simple. Just friends and conversation around a camp fire.
It's not a club without a bright orange t-shirt, right?
I always talked about designing t-shirts for the club, but I never got around to it. Until now. Since it seems I’m all about producing these days, I’ve finally gotten around to designing them.
If you are interested, you can check them out on Peabody, my online t-shirt shop (please ignore the now-silly “Max Hall: Heisman Winner!” t-shirts and the no-longer-feasible “BYU: B.C.S. buster!” t-shirts).
Now we just need to revive the club. Anyone interested?
Assuming, of course, that the club ever existed in the first place. It did, didn’t it?
Holly?
Inez, our ever-industrious five-year-old, got very excited this morning when she heard that she would be accompanying Holly to Rock Canyon park tomorrow. Too excited. Holly mentioned that she would be selling some of her aprons there and Inez’s eyes grew wide.
Editor’s note: read yesterday’s post for details on Holly’s offering in the park.
“Can I sell something at the park too?!”
“Sure honey,” I said. “What do you want to sell?”
She thought for a moment and said, “Panda masks for teddy bears!”
Let me (try to) explain. Last night, after I had put her down for the night, and as I was closing her door, Inez called out, “Dad? Will you make a mask for Sally Bear?”
I paused. “A mask for your teddy bear? Um… ok. What kind of mask does Sally want?”
Quickly, as if I had somehow implied otherwise, she answered, “NOT a clown mask, Dad.”
“Oh.” I said, a bit confused, “Sure, hon. No clown masks, I promise.”
Thinking out loud, she considered a few possibilities, “Dolphin? Hmm. Unicorn? Maybe. Panda? Hmm… YES! A panda mask, Dad. Sally wants a panda mask.”
Why yes, this is a teddy bear panda mask.
Let’s pause for a moment to review.
My daughter has asked me to make a panda bear mask for her stuffed brown bear to wear. Apparently, a dolphin or unicorn mask would have been acceptable, but a clown mask is out of the question and I might be in trouble for bringing it up. Even though I didn’t.
“Ok, honey. Sure. We can make it in the morning.”
So, fast-forward with me back to this morning. Inez not only wants to create a panda mask intended for teddy bears, she now wants to manufacture and sell them to a broad audience. She’s starting to think big.
“Dad! We could sell them! We could take the money and go to Disneyland.”
“How much would you charge for them?” I asked.
“One hundred.” she said.
“Dollars?” Holly and I asked in unison.
“Yes.” she said, firmly.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. That’s too much, right?
Don’t worry. Since then, Holly and I have talked her down to 10 cents a mask. Inez drives a hard bargain though; before she would settle, I had to agree to create another bear mask for her to sell alongside the panda.
What will this second mask intended for teddy bears be, you ask?
A face only a five-year-old entrepreneur could love.
“Frankenstein, Dad. For Halloween.” She said while raising her eyebrows and palms, neatly communicating “Duh!” without having to come out and say it.
So, there you have it. Inez will be selling Panda and Frankenstein teddy bear masks for 10 cents each tomorrow in Rock Canyon Park. If you’re in the market for a teddy bear mask, I invite you to consider purchasing one of hers.
In fact, you might want to pick one up early in the day. There’s no telling how long it will be before she raises the price back to one hundred dollars.
Also, just so there’s no confusion on this point: there will be NO clown teddy bear masks for sale tomorrow. None.
What’s that? You want a template so that you can make these teddy bear masks from the comfort of you own home? Alright, fine then.
(ha·lee leh·sway)
(day·vid leh·sway)
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