A Story By Lorie

My talents have been stymied in church for the last 4 years. I think bishops are leery of opinionated single women, and so give them callings like "Sunday School 5-minutes-left warning bell ringer," where they can't do much harm.

But for Christmas I talked the Primary into letting me come dressed as Elizabeth (John the Baptist's mother) and tell the Christmas story from her point of view.

I don't just talk when I tell stories. I leap around, wave my arms, use a multitude of voices, and contort my face into evil or angelic expressions. Children are mesmerized, because today's children have never heard a story TOLD! They get read to. They see TV. But they never see a live storyteller. I am more than flamboyant - which exactly suits my personality.

The cautious teacher or primary president invariably begins her introduction by urging the children to listen and be courteous, a totally unnecessary exercise for her. Once I get started, the kids are all eyes and gaping mouths. Who is this insane woman? they wonder. And what is she doing leaping around, making faces, and yelling in those crazy voices? I better keep an eye on her in case she explodes!

The teachers and presidency were astonished! The kids never moved a muscle while I mimicked "Harrod the Horrid" wringing his hands and planning his villiany on the wise men and Bethlehem babies. (Kids adore gore!)

So today I got my second shot. Our Stake President's wife has a bunch of six year old Cain-raisers in her Primary class. The lesson was supposed to tell what kind of little boy Joseph Smith was so the children could identify with him. An hour before the meeting she phoned me and asked if I would pretend to be Lucy Mack Smith and come to tell the story of how fun-loving little Joseph got his bone sawed into without anesthetic to save it from amputation.

Hot Dog!

Quick as a whip I cut a piece of muslin into a circa 1815 mob-cap with back ruffle, sewed it up, donned a black dress with pilgrim collar, grabbed a shawl, and brought along my long windshield ice-scraper as my old-age cane (none of the old people at church would loan me their canes, making lame excuses that they could not walk to class without theirs. Wimps!)(pun intended) . I was only 5 minutes late for church, in spite of it all!

As I stood outside the classroom door for my big entrance, I heard chaos within. A brief qualm assailed me. But the minute I entered and introduced myself as Lucy Mack Smith, on loan from the Spirit World to tell them a bloody story, there was quiet. In a crone's voice, leaning on my ice-scraper, I told them of Joseph almost getting his leg sawed off. I drew a picture on the board, illustrating how the tibia had to be carved out with a drill and a chisel, while blood and puss flowed all over. (Good medical background lends verisimilitude.) They LOVED it! Not a peep more until the end, when one of them asked me why I had a broom on the end of my cane. I explained it was handy to sweep the snow off my covered wagon during the winter. Vraiment!

I just had time to whip off my cap and shawl afterward, and race back to the RS room to lead the closing song. A fun Sunday!

FAST Weight Loss!

I don't write much, because nothing much in my life is funny, and my daughters inform me that philosophical discussions will not cut it in the world of blog. Besides, I think I only have one reader, and SHE is the one that told me not to philosophical.

But.... a preface for today. I'm trying to lose weight, as I have been since age 17. Right now I have a competition going with my sister Kathy. We make our own rules on Weight Watcher points, exercise, and sugar consumption. Then when we break any of our own conditions we have to put a dollar in a bottle for each transgression per day. At the end of the month, we exchange bottles. It works for me. No cherry chocolate is worth a buck! (I think it's 22 to 5 today, my favor.)

Yesterday morning I weighed in at a colossal 149, after being 146.5 the previous day. And I did not cheat! So what the fat happened?

Then, about noon I got food poisoning from something I ate (can you get food poisoning from a year-old jar of jam in the fridge? That’s all I can imagine it was. Everything else was fresh.) But I had Montezuma’s revenge in spades for the rest of the day, finally glugging half a bottle of Pepto Bismol to stop it. In the evening, out of curiosity, I decided to weigh myself again, because I knew I had lost a lot of something. When the scale said 144.5, I laughed myself silly. I lost 5 pounds in ONE DAY!? Hey, maybe I better have a little more of that jam! I could be 140 by Sunday!

Unfortunately, the experience didn’t FEEL very good, and the next day I really wasn’t up to eating anything until about 3 in the afternoon. So I tossed out what was left of the jam. Now my plumbing has learned its lesson but good! It hasn’t let ANYTHING THROUGH since the Pepto.

Aren’t you glad I told you about that?

Lorie, Six Months Later

Man! It's been six months since I wrote my last post! That's because I've been seriously brain dead most of that time. (Skip the next few paragraphs if you're not in the mood for Sturm und Drang (i.e. self pity and woe) Just scroll on down to “Fun Stuff!” After all, I have half a year of zombie-ism to make up for.

You see, last summer I was part of an Adult ADHD study at the U of U. Yep! ADHD-R-Me! Which explains a lot of things about my weirdness: Tons of energy, lots of forgetfulness and insensitivity to what others are feeling because I'm concentrating on something else. The doc gave me Ritalin, which made me cry a lot and want to die. It only got worse till they finally they took me off everything, and I went through some pretty bazaar withdrawal. But at long last I felt and acted fairly acceptable and good natured, except that I had no memory, no organization, few useful skills, and could stand for half an hour looking at a funnel, wondering what I should do with it (Answer: put it away). I verged on institutionalization due to utter senility.

There are other meds for ADHD, but they are stimulants. Because I have Tourettes syndrome (light but persistent) I can't have stimulants, or my Tourette's symptoms twitch away like a dozen roaches on electro-shock.

But then, Ahhhhh! A little Strattera, (Only $297 per month!) and a quarter of a no-doze 3 times a day, and I’m finally happy and reasonably calm, plus able to keep away the boogey-man of wishing to dive off a cliff. I can even sleep at night!

OK, end of tale of woe. That's what I did from July to December.

FUN STUFF!!

I've been called on a mission! I am now Sister Davis, an employment missionary for the church, which I enjoy a great deal. I don’t have to be reverent. I spend two afternoons a week "intaking" people with no jobs and dwindling hope, and showing them a dozen places to look for income and fulfillment. On alternate weeks I spent two full days teaching a professional career workshop to unemployed, underemployed, or career-changing professionals who range from city managers to chefs to would-be professors to office managers, and everything in-between. These are usually salaried-type people, rather than less-educated hourly workers.

It's lots of fun to let my personality fly and alternately charm and browbeat them into trying new and uncomfortable things to get better jobs. It's deeply satisfying that the people I teach give me ratings of "fun, delightful, motivating, intelligent, well-informed, humorous, fabulous teacher etc." These are not the reviews I get from my children, though we love each other anyway. Too bad our kids will never get to meet the scintillating, ebullient, (verbose) personalities we had in our hay-days. Yes, my YOUNG friends, as I am, you WILL become.

OTHERWISE I am fine and dandy. I have very low rent here in Salt Lake, even though Jennie's family and 6 kids (whom I moved here to help) abandoned me for Austin. I am out of debt, have a year's supply of food, several very close friends in the ward, and a few minor callings. I also work in the temple Saturday evenings. I spend one day a week with daughter Arianne in American Fork so we can hang out some, and she can have a much-needed break and run away from home. (Aren't you other moms JEALOUS?) She would like me to move there, but I can’t' afford it and still enjoy the luxury of frequent visits to Ben's family in Portland or Jennie and her hoard in Austen. I visit each for 2 to 3 week vacations a few times a year, during which time I do a lot of recovering furniture, baby sitting, making curtains, building shelves, baby sitting, cleaning, cooking, baby-sitting, and creating princess dresses. My grandkids think I'm the greatest.

CHRISTMAS!!

I spent Christmas Eve in American Fork with Arianne's family. We gorged on Schnitzel with Noodles (Spaezle noodles, our family's favorite "special-occasion" meal) lemon meringue pie and treats, made the yummiest sugar cookies with the children for Santa, and ate too many of them. Although we had planned to watch a fun movie, we all stayed up past midnight wrapping presents, then fell into bed.

Up again at 8 a.m. for the traditional breakfast of scrambled eggs with chunks of kielbasa. After baths and dressing up for photo ops, the kids opened presents for an hour, getting stuck on whichever thing they opened last, and having to be moved along to the next gift by coercion.

Daphne, blond and 4, got a dollhouse with furniture, a little family, and a lot of tiny critters. Beck, age 2 a week ago, (another throwback to Jim Davis), got an electric train with all kinds of loading and unloading devices on a table with a winding track. Other friends and families gave him more toy trains of varying sizes and styles until his train board became Grand Central Station as seen by Picasso.

I received big, beautiful photos of my children’s' families -- my favorite gift, plus my very own Costco card, cause Arianne is tired of picking up my every-other-week box of baby spinach. I will never save enough on spinach to pay for a $50 card, but whatever turns her on is great with me! Tonight I went to Costco for supper, the menu of which included samples of everything they were handing out free in the store. I went home full.

(I tried to load in my new family pictures here, but somehow it didn't work. Besides, by now you are sick and tired of this blog entry -- half my life history. So I'll try again another time. Or else Jennie, Arianne and Ben will post their family shots on THEIR blogs. (COOL blogs, I might add.)

Lots of love And Happy New Year to all!

Oh YES! And a long time ago (almost 50 years) and far away (570 E. 2950 N. Provo, UT) I wanted to have some Glamour Shots taken of myself. This is one. 18 years old and 117 lbs. Is this a babe?! (We actually had waistlines in those days. Such concavities are unknown in today’s young women.) I think I had the pictures taken to bolster my abysmal self-esteem. My brother told me I was ugly as a frequent throw-away comment to keep me in my place (from about age 5 on). Nobody but dweebs asked me on dates (and pretty few of them, too. My only steady boyfriend in High School turned out not to like girls, except as friends. I appreciated that he never made moves on me, but I never thought to wonder why. It was just another proof I wasn’t pretty enough.) What could I do but believe these evidences, statistics notwithstanding?

Well, I was a dweeb, too; the ADHD social equivalent of a 12 year old. It’s a good thing Bill and Jim were hormone-soaked, or I might never have gotten married and had these fabulous kids! OR been forced to grow up!

Actually, EVERY marriage has deep problems ahead from however an auspicious beginning. It's SUPPOSED to be that way in the eternal scheme of things. Only we don’t see them with the young naïvety of love. We can’t possibly fathom the growth and development the Lord has planned for each of us through the ever-challenging problems in the marriage ahead.

It has been said by experts that the gush of hormone-juiced romance wears off after about 2 years. If, by that time, you have not built some real love based on mutual respect, enjoyable personalities, compassion, humor, commonality, sympathy, and appreciation into your marriage, it is unlikely to survive. I think that’s about right. Sex, money, and kids won’t hold a couple together. Physical beauty always degenerates. Illness and disease are inevitable. Mental problems and eventual senility come to one or the other or both of every couple. If the true-glue ain’t there, life will be misery. ESPECIALLY for the kids.

Hectic life this week! I am SOOOOOOOO wiped out from teaching workshops all day Tues and Wed. Add to that my decision to rework my lesson plans. Four hours Tuesday nite and 6 hours Wed night. I didn’t get to bed until 2 a.m., and was up again at 7:15. Bring on the no-doz! But the new plans went very well, and the students raved about my class. My students ALWAYS think I’m an incredible teacher and presenter: enthusiastic, fun, intelligent, imaginative, interesting, well-informed, inspiring, etc. etc. It’s almost worth the work to get the rush of favorable evaluations after the last class. But I’m worth exactly NOTHING the next day. So, of course, I took on the hours of another missionary sister for half the day today. (Nnnngggg. Hot shower. Good book. Chocolate [sugar-free] pudding.)

And, naturally, half an hour of exercises in my perpetual bid to actually lose ten pounds. HA. I bounce between 147 ( after a full month of starvation and exercise) to 153 (Thanksgiving & Christmas). Depressing – especially in light of the photo below. But better to work hard and stay in that 5 lb corridor throughout my 60s, than balloon up to 180, which I could do with no problem at all, plus a great deal of pleasure!

And who is this Lovely Lithe Lassie you leer upon? Why, tis MOI, of course, at age 18. I just wanted to let you know I was not always old and plump. This is what I will look like again after the resurrection (but next time with straight teeth).

Look, Kids! I'm blogging!

Thanks to my beautiful, intelligent and talented daughter Arianne, I am now blogful! She actually drove all the way to my house and trotted me through the process (which I will immediately forget, of course. But fortunately, I know her phone number and she can't escape!)

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This is Me!

I’m weird. I could confess I’m really a Barsoomian visiting Earth. (See Edgar Rice Burroughs) but you wouldn’t quite believe me. “Kaor” is our general term for “hi” / “goodbye.” Okay, forget all that. (you are getting sle-e-e-e-py……)
On Earth I’m a free-spirited Mom of two gorgeous daughters and one hunky son. Proof below:

Jennie's Family


Arianne's Family


Ben's Family


It looks like a man with 3 kids, but Nicki is just a tiny little wife.)
Wouldn’t any mom be thrilled? They are excellent kids, great parents and spouses, hard workers, smart, funny, talented, and good to the bone. How I love ‘em! And my grandkids? Don’t get me started!
But Me? I’m a cheerful, perky old lady, the second of 13 kids, who belly-dances, climbs trees, skips down sidewalks when nobody’s looking, writes novels (4 published historicals), invents weird gadgets, reads 6 hours a day, loves music: classical for soul-stirring, and fast rock with a good beat to inspire dancing while house-cleaning. I also love art, singing, carpentry, sculpture, silver-smithing, philosophical discussions, being out in nature, and want to know everything about everything (except math).
I adore God and Christ, am deep-living, deep-loving LDS, study the scriptures daily, work in the temple weekly, and am dad-gum HAPPY -- considering I’ve been a sort-of widder-lady for 15 years, and currently verge on moderate insanity (mild Tourettes syndrome, adult ADHD, and bouts of unfounded anxiety). I used to teach school, be a librarian, raise kids and a husband, write video scripts for BYU and the LDS Church, teach college at SVU, and be a Sr. missionary in Fiji. I truly-duely love everybody I know, whether they like it or not. My kids find me embarrassing and often obnoxious, but love me because I baby-sit free, upholster their furniture, and give great massages!