A Brief Encounter with Hinduism

Our new neighbors finally moved in this past weekend. They've been remodeling the house for several months, making changes in the upstairs and remodeling the basement. They announced last week that they would be holding a special house blessing ceremony on Saturday, and they invited everyone in our cul-de-sac to attend. Wanting to be a good neighbor and being somewhat curious about Hinduism, I accepted their invitation.

When Mark and I got there, the Hindu priest was still getting set up for the ceremony. We were invited to take a tour of the house, and I was shocked to see that it was completely furnished. I had talked to the father a couple of times during renovation about helping him move everything in. I hadn't seen any signs of moving, no moving truck or furniture vans. I was expecting the house to be completely empty. But it wasn't. Somehow they had moved in. Perhaps it was in the dead of night to avoid making their neighbors feel the need to help? I'm not sure. Let's just say that it was the first clandestine move I've ever (can't say seen) known about.

When we were invited to the ceremony, we were told that it would last two hours. I didn't understand at the time how it could possibly last that long. I thought that they were perhaps overestimating. They weren't. I didn't realize just how many gods they had to address in the ceremony, and each god had to be given its due attention. We watched forever as the priest chanted in a sing-song voice and family members tossed different objects onto the altar. Not understanding very much about what was going on, I was surprised that I still felt somewhat connected to the ceremony, absorbing the cadence of the prayers and the spiritual energy of the believers. While I clearly felt like an outsider, I connected with the way the religious ceremony bound the neighbors and their friends together. It was energizing and relaxing at the same time. Eastern religions seem to give me that feeling.

Competing Pessimism

It's been drab and gloomy all over Utah Valley for a couple of months, and then, *pop*! In the space of five minutes, there were suddenly flowers. The daffodils were opening in the flower beds on the southside of buildings. The apricot trees were blooming. Students were sitting on the lawn with jeans rolled up to their knees.

True to our pessimistic personalities, Steve (my good friend who shall remain nameless except for the Steve part) and I saw this as a sign of impending doom. "We're not going to get any apricots this year," Steve said to me. "Unless I put a giant parachute over the tree. And since that would totally depend on me to make it happen, it won't."

"It's already warming up and we're not even to April yet," I said. "We'll probably run completely out of water by July. Everything's going to dry up this summer, including me. Me and the fish will be flopping helplessly in small puddles of mud, eyes being burned out by the sun, gasping for air and hoping against hope for rain."

Other people were just enjoying the flowers. Silly, stupid people.

Look out, Ginny!

I think that the spring weather is starting to get to me, because just yesterday I took a look at my bookshelf and decided that there were some books that I no longer needed. I cleared off a stack of books about 2 feet tall, and then called my local book dealer to stop by and check out my stack.

I get several offers each year from used books dealers who are willing to grease my palm with cash in order to pick up the textbooks that I get gifted. In the past, this money has financed my malt ball addiction. But when the bookstore stopped stocking malt balls, I began to question the practice of selling the textbooks. It always feels a little slimy when I sell the books to the dealers. They aren't really welcome on campus, and when they do business, they always come into your office and make sure the door is shut behind them. After they scan your books with their handheld scanner/computer, they pull out a huge wad of cash and peel off the right amount of bills. I guess it's what you should expect when you deal with an illegitimate market.

Anyway, of my 2-foot stack, the dealer only wanted two books. Figures. But I didn't complain when he handed me $32 and left me with nearly the same sized stack. That's when I decided that I would put the books outside my office with a sign that said, "Free books!" Just because I couldn't get cash for them didn't mean that I wanted them back on my shelves.

When Mark stopped by later and saw the stack of books, he was highly alarmed. Looking through the titles, he accused me of trying to pull a Lucius Malfoy, sticking some poor soul with the equivalent of a Tom Riddle Diary. He said that any day now we would find dead chickens and messages written in blood on campus. I've never been accused of dealing in the dark arts before, and I'm pretty sure that it will enhance my image as a mathematics teacher. I may even start calling my classes "succumb to the dark arts."

Puzzle Frenzy

I probably haven't mentioned that our family has been fairly active in doing puzzles lately. We got into the habit of doing puzzles during the Christmas break, and we've often had a puzzle going under the see-through plastic covering of our kitchen table. Little J and I are the most devoted puzzlers, working a little bit each day. Josh only gets involved when a particular puzzle catches his eye. Everyone else pretends for the most part that the puzzles don't exist.

Strangely, when the end of a puzzle is in sight, everyone starts getting involved. I will work virtually alone for hundreds of pieces at a time. About the time that there are 300 pieces left, Little J starts getting more interested. Then when there are about 50 pieces left, everyone comes over and the frenzy begins. When we finished one off this weekend, it got so crowded that I was completely squeezed out. Everyone was fighting over putting in the last piece. J-girl always tries to put in the last piece, and if she isn't successful, she will take out a piece and put it back in, claiming that she "finished" the puzzle. Then Little J usually starts shouting that it's not fair, and Josh grabs for his own piece to put in last. I just quietly leave the room shaking my head. I don't want to be around when there's blood in the water.

Pig Latin and Preaching the Gospel

Before Matt got his mission call, we were constantly plagued with questions about whether or not Matt had received his call. I kept having to tell them it hadn’t come yet, and then they would ask when we thought it would come, and I would say something about maybe this Wednesday or Thursday, and they’d make a polite comment like, “It’s hard to wait,” and I’d have to make a polite comment back, and it just kept on going. It was all too pleasant, and I just wanted to smack people. So finally, I took the initiative and started to tell people that he had received his mission call even though he hadn't, just to head off all of the unpleasant pleasantries. For example, this is what I said to Brother Dubbie, the second counselor in the bishopric, at church one Sunday:

Me: Hey, did you hear that Matt got his mission call?
Br. Dubbie: That’s wonderful. Where’s he going.
Me: Los Angeles Pig Latin speaking?
Br. Dubbie: That’s gr—wait!

Now that he has received his real call, we no longer have to worry about him learning Pig Latin. But the fake mission call got me thinking--what if one of the other kids got called to a Pig Latin speaking mission? Wouldn't it help if he or she was already fluent with the language?

Which is why I have begun to promote the speaking of Pig Latin around the house. Little J and I started the movement to SYL (MTC acronym for "speak your language") during a game of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Go Fish (Oompa-way Oompa-lay (Oompa Loompa) and illie-way onka-way (Willie Wonka) sounded the funniest). At first, it took us forever to put together a small sentence, and then we would have to repeat it several times before the other person finally understood. It seemed like we might never be ready to teach the gospel to the Pig Latin people. But lately, Little J and I have been able to speak more fluently. We seem to be blessed with the gift of tongues as a family in general, because even J-girl and Josh have begun to understand common Pig Latin phrases, such as "Ont-day easel-way eeze-squay e-thay andma-gray" (Don't weasel-squeeze the grandma). While I don’t think we’re quite ready to teach a complete gospel lesson in Pig Latin, I can see the day quickly approaching. We are so filled with the spirit of missionary work.

Apricot surprises

A couple of weeks ago, I risked life and limb to pick some apricots in a friend's tree. While pitting some of those apricots, I cut into one that had an earwig in the middle. It scrambled to get away, crawling towards my hands. It happened so fast that I gave a loud yelp and dropped the apricot into the sink. My skin was crawling as I watched the earwig drop from the apricot into the mouth of the garbage disposal. My yelp was so loud that Josh heard me all the way back in his room, despite the fact that his music was playing. I’m embarrassed to say that I was so completely grossed out that I couldn’t reach into the sink with my bare hands to remove the pit so that I could turn on the garbage disposal and filet the little sucker. Instead, I grabbed the tongs, gingerly removed the pit, prodded the apricot down the drain, and turned on the garbage disposal. It was not very manly, and somewhat out of character for me. After all, this was not the first time in my life that I’ve cut open an apricot and found an earwig.

Chopping the earwig into little pieces did not do much for my psyche, though. I just couldn’t bring myself to cut open any more apricots. I realized that I would need rubber gloves that come up to my elbows before I would be psychologically prepared to face another apricot surprise. So between my psychosis and J-girl’s busy schedule, the apricots never got processed, and instead rotted away in the side room. Josh and I finally threw them away. And that was even traumatic, because I kept waiting for some of them to explode and hundreds of earwigs to pour out of them. Ew!

New extreme sport: bare-handed apricot pitting.

Gloves only make it slightly better.

"Nah, I wasn't scared a bit."

Matt's going to Taipei

Two weeks ago, I went on record and predicted that Matt would get his mission call to the Taiwan, Taipei Mission. I was even willing to bet a week's worth of laundry on my prediction being correct. Of course, no one blinked an eye at that, because one of my regular household chores is doing the laundry. Furthermore, I'm one of those strange creatures that actually likes doing the laundry. All those neatly folded piles of clothes bring me great comfort in my daily battles with a world in chaos.

But I digress. Yesterday Matt got his mission call.

Matt opening his mission call.

Matt reading his mission call.

Sure enough, the old man was right--Matt's going to Taipei, and he enters the MTC on November 17.

Matt and J-girl celebrating the news.

Seconds after this picture was taken, J-girl was sitting at the table and trying to discreetly wipe away her tears. Being a typical mom, the arrival of this letter felt like her son was being taken away from her at that very moment. Me, on the hand, I'm much better at denial. The boy has over three months before he leaves, and I can spend at least two of those months pretending he will be around forever. It's not until I make that trip to Mr. Macs that my chest will start tightening and I'll start wondering how life can go on with one more empty chair at the dinner table.

Oh, and now that I've been proven right, I also want it to go on the record that no one, and I mean NO ONE, has come out and said how incredibly smart or spiritually in tune I am for having correctly predicted Matt's mission call. I know that if I had been wrong, I would have received a lot of (negative) feedback. I think I have earned the right to be called "O great and wise one." You can call me OGAWO for short.