In which I drop names like something my toddler handed me when I wasn't paying attention

Last night some of my family and I got to go see Will Swenson and Audra McDonald star in the Orem Hale Center Theater's production of "110 in the shade."

It was amazing.

One of my sisters overheard a man say he had flown out from New York to see this because in New York you'd pay a couple of thousand to see Audra McDonald through binoculars. Here, no one was farther than 7 rows away.

And that woman can ACT. And SING. WOW.

And then there's my cousin Will. Yes, my cousin. Will. All the Hale cousins used to play together at the Ranch every summer. And even then I knew Will was going to make it big in Show Business. He was unstoppable.

The whole cast was excellent. So, if you are in the neighborhood and you have a chance, I can recommend this one.

You can get there from here

On our way to Utah's amusement park--Lagoon--on Monday, Casey did a search on his phone for the nearest Little Caesar's Pizza. Here's what the search told him:

Little Caesar's Pizzaria
Mundaring, WA
Australia

Distance: 14,229 miles
Time: 55 days 0 hours
Traffic delay: 22 minutes

(Dad, are you sure you didn't search for the farthest Little Caesar's?)

The driving directions began simply--from Farmington, Utah drive northwest to Washington, etc., etc.
Then there was step 35: "kayak across the Pacific Ocean--3,879 miles."

With a left turn at Hawaii (nice of them to plan for pit stops, doncha think?) you again "kayak across the Pacific Ocean" to Taiwan. Then after winding your way through most of Indonesia, "kayak across the Pacific Ocean"--to Australia. After that you're almost there!

All I can say is good thing it's so easy to get a second opinion from the internet. We found a much more efficient route that cut a good 12 days off the total travel time.

A Good Day

On Monday we took our kids to Lagoon for 11 hours. Here are some of the things they said during our stay:

"That was the ride of my life!"--Rosalie, age 3

"Curse you, Gravity!"--Anderson, age 8

"I want to go home!"--Meredith, age 5

"This is the perfect day!"--Lissa, age 11

"I want to go home!" --Anderson

"Why can't we go on another ride?" --Meredith

"Can we do three more rides before we have to leave?" --Anderson


And during the car ride home:

"That was too much fun. Maybe next time we could go halfway through some lines, and then pretend they're closed. And we'd be really disappointed."--Anderson
(Some of us prefer our roller coasters to be emotional.)

Scuba Diva

Ignore the hand signals. This person is not okay.

Getting certified for scuba diving was one of the best things I've ever done because it resulted in me getting up close to the reefs in Grand Cayman and Cozumel--experiences that were amazing and unforgettable. But the actual certifying process was fraught (fraught I tell you!) with difficulty. It was also very revealing.

"My name is Edith, and I have an "attention seeking personality disorder."

Right from the start I singled myself out from the rest of the class. It was easy. I just popped back up as soon as I could so the instructor would have to come help me personally. For the rest of that class I was the proud recipient of several comments like these: "What claustrophobia?! You're doing fine!" "Are you a plant from the Salt Lake Class?"

You'd never know that I tried to keep a low profile during the next class. Not with my dramatic clawing for the surface from 15 feet down after I forgot how to clear the regulator before re-inserting it and breathed in pool water. My sister and I came back for extra practice after that--simply another way to get more attention, I assure you.

I could have complained about the question they marked wrong on our first written test that I actually got CORRECT, but you know, I was really trying to get this thing under control.

But with the end of the course in sight, I managed to create a truly attention-getting scenario. For our Thursday night class I began developing a cold sore. Friday I was sick and exhausted--and that's when my tooth began to hurt. On Sunday my face began to swell. After lots of internet research and several long-distance phone consultations with my favorite dentist (Thanks, Joey!) I was pretty sure I needed a root canal. On Monday my local dentist confirmed it and said she could do the first part then, and the second part on Thursday. But our last dive was scheduled for Tuesday night, and you can't dive with a partial root canal. Your tooth is liable to implode.
That's when I called our divemaster, Greg, to see if, by any chance, there was a group going to dive on Friday? Or even Thursday night? He informed me that I should have gone with his group that went on the previous Saturday. Yes, that WOULD have been better. Let's do that.
Then I remembered that you are not allowed to dive within 18 hours of flying. Since we were flying out Saturday, a Friday dive wouldn't work anyway.
After a flurry of phone calls and consultations with every medical person I know, my brother-in-law Mike set me up for an appointment with his brother, the endodontist, for Tuesday afternoon. Endodontists are not as conservative as dentists; they do the whole root canal in one go. I was only hoping I'd still be up for a dive after that.
It was a little awkward unscheduling with my dentist in favor of a "professional." But it was worth it. The appointment was fast and, after the numbing shots, painless. Lucky for me, I guess, my tooth was already dead.
When I left an hour later I wasn't able to smile like I wanted to, but I was humming inside with relief that I'd get to do my last certification dive. And you might think that that would be the end of my pathetic plea for attention. Not at all.

Diving in the Homestead Crater is wonderful because the body temperature water is fully enclosed by rock walls--no currents and no creatures to add complications. And it would have been wonderfully uneventful but for two things--somehow my hubbuddy and I managed to get ourselves down to forty-six feet before Greg hauled us back up to our 40 foot limit. (We got a scolding for that.) And partway through the dive my knee joints and forearms began to feel a little odd. Like they were cold, or cramping or something. By the end of our dive they felt positively buzzy.* And even though I just really wanted to forget about it and go blithely on to our family vacation, I felt like I had to mention it, just in case it was the bends.

Greg swore. And began to tell me just how much I DID NOT WANT to have the bends. And that's when I knew I'd gotten his attention! And that I needed help to overcome my disorder. And that's my story. Thank you for your kind attention."

*Pretty sure it was a combination of dental medication, exhaustion, and malnutrition from five days of being sick and mouth-sore. It went away slowly over the next few hours. And the lightheadedness, which I didn't mention, went away right after we ate our late dinner.

Rampant Cannibalism

My two older girls came upstairs with the shrieking heebeegeebies--a mouse was devouring the carcass of another mouse in our window well! "Eww, eww! "
From their description I gathered they thought a new breed of vicious flesh-eating rodent had moved into the neighborhood. I pointed out that the poor trapped thing was simply out of other options. So they decided to rescue it.

With a long-handled butterfly net and a piece of bread on a string, they freed the beastie to roam the fields round our house.


Ani came to tell us about the rescue, and stayed to obsess some more about the revolting behavior of eating your own kind. It reminded me of the story I had read just that morning in the Old Testament--a woman goes to the king to complain about her neighbor. You see, there was a famine in the land and the neighbor lady had proposed a plan: Let's eat your son today and my son tomorrow. So they ate the first son, but the next day the lady who came up with the plan refused to follow through. The king found this pretty upsetting. (But not for the same reasons the woman did.)

My toddler, Rosalie, also seemed bothered by this tale of maternal munching.
I reassured her, "I would never eat you, Rosalie. I would rather starve to death."
Her response was a flat, "I taste yucky."