Home again, home again, jiggedy jig

Warning: this one is LONG. Making up for lost time I guess.

Well, we made it. We've returned from Utah pretty much in one piece. It's totally amazing to me how quickly and completely one can be pulled back into family dramas. I love and adore my family, especially my 2 sweet sisters, but man alive, it can be tiring to be around the whole whirling dervish that is family. In response to a request from an admired reader, I've decided to give a little rundown on the extended family. Extended family, if you're reading this, don't take anything personally, you all know how much I love you.

There are six of us in the Smith family. Mom and dad, the three sisters, and one brother. I'm the oldest, then comes lovely MissuzJ, then the little bro, Jon (yes, Jon Smith, no, I am not making this up), and brining up the rear, Katester the Greatster, aka Katydidz. We were raised a very tight military mormon family. An interesting combination of influences, the military, and the church. My dad served in the Navy for 20 years, and of course, with this came the requisite moving around. We were lucky that he had some long tours along the way so we weren't moving as often as some of my military friends, but we were still on the road a lot. The church was always a safety net for us. Even when you didn't know anyone in a new town, you had friends at church. We spent a lot of time in and around church in such varied places as San Diego, Minnesota, and Monterey. The people were lovely, and the fellowship appreciated. I grew up believing that my family would be together forever as long as we all stayed active in the church, and followed all the rules. There are lots of rules in the mormon church. Anyone who reads Dooce may be familiar with some of the mormon culture, and I can confirm that in my experience, she is RIGHT ON. OK, started out talking about the family, ended up talking about the church. sorry. That seems to happen a lot with me.

Anyhooo, my early memories of my childhood are fairly idyllic. Stable, secure, loving, comfortable, are all words I could use to describe life in our home. My parents had a very traditional relationship. Dad worked, mom stayed home, mostly. I think she had a few part-time jobs here and there when we were older, but mostly she was there. We sat down to dinner together pretty much every night, and aside from the typical sibling rivalries, we all got along. Now, of course, everything changes when puberty comes along. I had started questioning the church at about 11 or 12. I was kindof an intellectual kid, and started wondering who's kidding who when my elementary education in evolution started clashing with the traditional teachings of creationism. My dad patiently discussed the many philosophical possibilities pertaining to said discrepancy, but the seed of doubt had been planted. Add to this my burgeoning interest in boys, and my little mormon mind started spinning out the guilt and worry about how to be happy and still be "good".

I started noticing my mom's depression in high school. I don't know if that's when it started getting bad for her, or if that was just when I was mature enough to notice it for what it was. My dad started sitting me down for conversations about how my mom was hurting or upset, and how I needed to stop distressing her with my boy-crazies, and general disregard for her opinion. Sometimes it feels like my mom and I aren't related at all. Much of the time I just don't get her, and I know that the feeling is mutual. We have tons of love for each other, but the understanding can sometimes be in short supply. My dad played go-between a lot. Which, looking back, I think contributed to the lack of understanding between my mom and I. I often felt like she wasn't interested enough, or, honestly, didn't have the balls to deal with me directly. My dad and I could always talk. He was the one who helped me with my homework, as good grades were incredibly important to him. He encouraged me to think, even when everyone around me was telling me I thought too much. I think, on some level my mom might blame him with encouraging me to be too much of a free thinker. She tended to want me to conform, and I didn't want any part of that. We struggled through early adolescence, and then, when I was 16, my dad retired from the Navy, and decided to move the family to southern Utah where he had found a job. He had promised my mom we'd come back to Utah when he was done with the military, as she grew up in northern Utah, and always missed it. I think she suspected that if we were surrounded by other mormons, then everything would just be so much better, and her children would be somehow be guaranteed protection and continued faith in the church. She was to be sorely disappointed.

So, the summer between my sophomore and junior year in high school, we move from affluent, interesting, beautiful Carmel, CA, to...... Utah. Shit, meet fan. I had to leave my friends, my school, and my boyfriend (a very sweet mormon boy, who could actually keep up with my crazy ass. I still wonder if we would have stayed there, if he and I would have ended up raising little mormons together). Needless to say I was PISSED. Mostly pissed at my parents. It seriously took me years to forgive them for that one. Maybe you can imagine what that kind of move would do to a kid like me. Or maybe you can't, so let's compare for a moment, the differences. Made particularly acute by the fact that I was 16, and seriously hormonally compromised.

Let's start with the school: I was used to Monterey High, and Carmel High, since my sister and I went to different high schools (long story), where the parking lots were peppered with Mercedes and BMW (with an occasional Porche thrown in for fun) low riders and loud stereos. Cut to Cedar High: old, OLD pickup trucks, mostly with gun racks in the back, and many of those gun racks holding actual guns. Hunting rifles, of course. Not considered dangerous for teenage boys to carry around at all, considered, in actuality, a necessary tool for taking down that stray buck who might wander onto school grounds. OK, that's slightly exaggerated, but not much!

The student body was another major difference. Monterey High was, I'd suspect, one of the most diverse student bodies in the country. There was a lot of military there for one, and the type of military was unique. In the area were the Defense Language Institute on one side, with students and instructors of about every language one could think of, and on the other side, the Naval Post Graduate School, where all the super-smart navy guys hung out. Carmel High was wealthy beyond belief. Scary wealthy sometimes. Lots of kids with too much money and not enough supervision, and very sophisticated in that weird way teenagers can be sometimes. Again, cut to Cedar High. It took me a few days to realize that the main thing that was odd about it was the complete lack of color. I actually laughed out loud at my first basketball game, watching all those skinny white boys try to play. It was the most completely blond haired blue eyed bunch of mormon DNA I had ever witnessed. Not to mention the overabundance of COWBOYS. I think, at the time, I didn't quite believe they existed any more, but here they were, honest to goodness cowboys. At the time, I was wearing my hair short, and many of them honestly thought I was a lesbian. Big hair abounded. It's making me cringe, just thinking about it.

Other differences. Too much nothing in Utah. Having come from central California, where it feels like every square inch is packed full of something, all the open space out there gave me some serious agoraphobia for awhile. Also, the food. I had acquired a taste for good food pretty early in life, thanks to dating a couple boys whose families owned (or could just afford to take me to) some of the nicer restaurants in Monterey, and if you've ever been to Monterey, you know that is saying something. Helped along by a best friend (with a car, bonus!) who waited tables weekends at a fantastic breakfast spot on Cannery Row by the ocean. Our location of choice for skipping school. In Cedar, the choices were pretty much deep fried something at the local greasy spoon, or fend for yourself at the gas station, which was the main school skipping snack spot. Sad.

OK, I have gone on much longer than anticipated about the charms of Cedar City. It has changed a lot in 15 years (wow, 15 YEARS, that's for-freaking-ever!). Back to the family for a sec, then I better wrap up, the kids are calling.

Moving didn't alleviate my mother's depression, it did, however introduce me to mine. I hated being there, and hated my parents for taking me there. My mom and I basically stopped talking to each other for long periods of time. My dad continued being the go-between, with less and less success. My sister Becky and I got a lot closer during that time. Being co-victims to the whole moving to Utah disaster. I consulted my bishop about my unrelenting sadness, and he suggested I see a shrink, cause I was WAY too crazy for him to deal with. The shrink might have helped at the time, if it had been some kind of family counseling, instead of just my mom dropping her crazy daughter off in a back parking lot, so that, please god!, she could start acting like a normal kid again. (Smell the bitterness? I do.) Between the church guilt, and the depression, I was not in a good place. Therapy didn't help much, and immersing myself in a new boyfriend didn't help much either.

One day, however, I had a moment of clarity. I can still remember how that moment felt. I decided not to believe what "they" wanted me to believe. I had an image of "them" being all the old men supposedly in charge of the mormon church. I decided that from that moment on, I was going to decide what I believed. It felt like the weight of the world lifted from my shoulders, and the light started coming in through the darkness that had surrounded me. My salvation and my mother's condemnation all in one fell swoop. I didn't make any kind of announcement to my parents that I was done with the church, but I was DONE. I stopped going, and broke my mother's heart. Not too long after that I was handed the ultimatum, by my dad of course, that I needed to stop hurting my mother, or I needed to move out. That he loved me, but he loved her more. Ouch.

I'm not blaming him, I'm not blaming either one of them. They did the best they could, and I'm completely sure I did nothing to help them at the time. I also understand that they believe what they believe, and just as there's nothing they could do to make me believe in the church again, there's nothing I could do to make them stop. We're at an uncomfortable impasse as far as that goes. And, unfortunately, their beliefs make it impossible for them to completely accept me and my choices. My mom sees it as losing her child for eternity, which now that I have kids, I can understand would be about the deepest pain there is. I, on the other hand, feel like there's no way she's getting rid of me that easily. As I see it now, we've been doing this for lifetimes, and will likely continue doing this for lifetimes more. Maybe next time, she'll get to be the daughter, and my karmic reckoning will commence.

Our visit together was nice. It had it's difficult moments, but less than I expected. It's an uneasy truce, and I can still see the pain in her eyes sometimes. I wish there were something I could do about it, but I've learned that I need to let her have her pain, and that trying to make it my own doesn't do anything to help her anyways. I'll try to recap some more of our trip another day, with pictures, if I can figure out how to get them from the handy dandy kodak disk to the super cool blog.

It's On!

OK, y'all, we're totally on for Karaoke Friday night. Clark flies in around 6:30, then we're off to Bruno's for pizza, then Grandee's for ice cream. Tradition, you know. We'd love for anyone and everyone who'd like to join to show up. After everyone is sufficiently fed and sugared up, I will be free for whatever debauchery we can contrive. Yippee!!

Slip, Slipping Away

Oh my gosh, a whole week and not one post. I'd like to say I'm going to make up for lost time and post a nice long recap of my vacation, but somehow I don't see it happening right now. We're officially more than half way through our stay. I'm starting to feel my time here slipping away. Clark flies back in on Friday, then we have to decide when we'll be hitting the road back to Albuquerque. We're planning to stop in Flagstaff, or possibly Sedona for a day or two for some pool time (I mean, what's a vacation without pool time). I still have to find some time for my sweet friend Suz, and my other sweet friend Kelli, not to mention a movie date with my sisters, lunch with my dad, and I think I will definitely need to work in a chicken fried steak at the Market Grill at some point. Oh! And ice cream at Grandee's! Can't forget that! I think I need to schedule. Make a list, something.

Beck and I had a nice morning in St. George Friday. Awesome breakfast at Bear Paw, and then some poking around the two little antique/consignment stores on Main Street, followed by the bookstore, and TJ Maxx. A well-rounded trip. Saturday we went up to 'the cabin'. I keep feeling like the cabin needs a better, more descriptive name, but haven't come up with one yet. The cabin belongs to Beck's inlaws, Eric's parents. It's located up on the mountain in a little cabin community called Panguitch Lake, about an hour's drive from Cedar. It is one of the cooler places I know of. It's large enough to accomodate a pretty good crowd of folks, but small enough to feel, well, cabiny (is that a word? well, it's my word now). It always feels just rustic enough, and at the same time very comfortable for those of us who don't exactly relish roughing it. For example, the walls are log, and most of the floors are wood, but there is a lovely plush green carpet covering the huge family room on the main floor. Perfect for sitting in front of the fire and playing old maid with the kids. It has plumbing (very important), 2 bathrooms, one with a shower and a tub. The kitchen is well-stocked with pots and pans, dishes, and such, so eating is always one of the big activities of the day. I love that the extra special cast iron dutch oven actually lives at the cabin, so if you want the fantastic dutch oven potatoes my sister makes, you have to go to the cabin to get them. We were anticipating a pretty decent crowd, usually everyone shows up at one point or another when the cabin is open, but it ended up just being Beck's fam (her, Eric, Janzen, and Super-Sophie), my fam (me, Madeline, and Zach), and our friends Paul and Jen. I've been there when the whole wonderful mob of friends shows up,and it's always a blast, but I must say it was really relaxing to have a small crowd this time. I actually got to sleep in a bed, which was very nice. We had a lovely time up there. I took many pics which I'll try to get into a digital form at some point. (NEED to get that digital camera!!)

I'm enjoying my time staying in my mom's house. I was a little worried at first, but no one seems too stressed out. Katy and I seem to be moving into a more mature and closer relationship, I think. She's writing a fantastic fairy story which I'm trying to get her to post online. She really has some talent, and I'm proud of her for having the discipline to harness her creativity and do something with it. Mom and dad continue to be a mystery to me, but that's nothing new. It'll be nice to sit down with my dad one on one for lunch today. He seems depressed to me, and I hope we get a chance to talk about something beyond small talk. He may even be coming to Albuquerque for business some time this summer which would be really cool. I'd like him to see my new town.

OK, time for a shower, can't be stinky for my daddy-daughter lunch date.

Oopsie Daisy

I spoke too soon on the no major traumas thing. Oops. I feel guilty for even saying it cause we all know how as soon as you say something like that, the trauma occurs. If you keep up with Missuz J, you've read about Sophie's crash yesterday. We were mostly concerned about the head injury at the time, since of course, we all attend to the bleeding first. But, after a very restless night with a very sad Sophie, it seemed that the arm was going to be the big problem. It was swollen and had a very weird bruise, and she didn't want anyone to touch it by morning. So, off to the pediatrician, and then of course the x-rays. The whole family was anxiously awaiting the results, hoping we didn't have a broken Sophie on our hands, since that would put a serious damper on backyard cousin frolics for the next two weeks, not to mention the continuing sad Sophie. Everyone get ready to breathe a sigh of relief... not broken. She just smacked it really hard, and apparently has a displaced fat pad in her elbow. No idea what that means, other than she smacked it REALLY HARD. Poor baby. She's usually such a tough girl, and bounces back from the typical toddler bonks like nobody's business. Much better than my kids who tend to break out the tears for falling down on the plush carpet. So, when you hear her crying THAT cry, it's time to worry. We're all very relieved, and hoping she is home sleeping peacefully and giving her mommy a well earned break. Love to Sophie, the bravest of the brave!

Good Times

So, the trip is going pretty well so far. The kids are sleeping well on their respective air mattresses on grandma's floor, and there have been no major traumas (knock on wood). Clark put on his mountain bike race for Utah Summer Games yesterday. Something he had committed to last year, and he doesn't go back on his commitments, so he was out in the desert, which you would think would be sunny and comfortable in the middle of June, but was actually cold and rainy, dealing with 140 or so crazy people who decided to brave the cold and wet and ride their bikes around for a few hours for FUN. I don't get it. I felt really bad for him, and really glad that I wasn't stuck out there too. While it was raining, Madeline, Kate-ster, and I went to see "The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3D". It was pretty cute, but the 3D technology left a little to be desired. Since I wear glasses already, it was a bit of a mystery as to whether the 3D glasses should go on the outside or the inside of the regular old 'need these to see' glasses. It didn't give me a headache, but I did spend a good part of my viewing time watching without the 3D glasses and thinking the little red and blue lines around the images weren't too bad to tolerate. The funniest part might have been the little boy sitting across the aisle from us saying to his mom, while wearing the glasses, before the movie started, "Mom, I'm lookin at people, but none of them are comin at me!"

Last night we had a party at Beck's house (aka Missuz J, Rebecca, Becky, Becca, Auntie Boo, just to be clear). It was really nice. It was officially a birthday party for our sweet friend Kyle, who was in town for 9 days between training for 6 months with the National Guard somewhere in the South (Georgia? South Carolina? not sure) and heading off to Iraq for the next year and a half. I need to not even start with how I feel about that politically. Personally though I'm really sad and worried about him, and so grateful that the universe conspired for us to be able to hang out at Boo's house for a lovely evening together. His lovely wife Kelli (super friend) was there along with many other assorted friends and family including Kodikins, Jen and Paul (who we should properly thank for introducing us to this whole blog thing, Thanks Paul!), Kelli's sister, Kyle's sister, and of course Eric and Sophie. Wow, it really was a sister reunion, cool. Paul brought the karaoke machine, which is always a hit at our gatherings, and we played many rounds of Uno. I love made-up Uno rules. Some of the more entertaining ones included having to say "I'm a dirty bastard" when playing a "mean" card, being required to procure a "drunken display" when playing a 9, choosing someone to sing a song when playing a 7, and being required to say, or preferably shout, "Uno Muthafucka!" when down to your last card. Good Times.

A million thankyous to Katy for watching the kids. You ROCK!

I'm so happy to have another 2 weeks to spend here. It was a little weird being back at first, but last night I finally realized how great it is to be able to be away from the friends and family you love, and then when you come back, all the love is still right there. Don't know why I was worried about that, silly me.

On the road again

The krause house is heading back to Utah. The kids and I are going to visit my family for a couple weeks, leaving today. I was going to write a nice long post about how nervous I am to be going back, and how exicted I am to be seeing my sisters, but I am so far behind on packing, this is going to have to be quick. Not sure when we'll be back, sometime around the end of the month, but I might be clever enough to post from my sister's computer, who knows. Wish me luck with the approximately 10 hours I'll be spending in the car with my 2 kids in the next 2 days, hopefully we'll all make it there mostly sane.

So Slacking

OK, I am so so slacking on this blog thing. My bad. Things have been fairly mellow around here the last few days. Clark got an offer for another new job. He must be pretty cool for people to keep finding him and offering him more money. I'm really proud. The kids are well. I think they're getting sick of me though. Thursday, I seriously did NOTHING useful. Finished my book, and probably spent way too much time reading blogs and IMing my bestest bud in Seattle. Pretended to still be sick even though I was feeling mostly better, then Friday I woke up with the most monstrous headache I've had in ages. Karma maybe? I think I must have slept weird or something. (sorry if it seems like I'm doing a lot of complaining about my health lately, don't know what's up with that) Anyways, Friday was supposed to be my big errand day, grocery shopping, plus another trip to the home improvement store in preparation for the fan installation, and I seriously wanted to pass out every time I moved fast. Not to mention, Clark had arranged a babysitter for our first real date since Valentine's Day to celebrate the upcoming new job, and who wants to go on a date with a headache. So, scheduled an emergency trip to the chiropractor, and busted out the ice pack. Both helped some, and by the time the errands were done and date night rolled around, I was feeling human again. Thank god for small miracles.

Date night was excellent. We had a gift certificate to a semi-fancy restaurant in Old Towne that we'd been saving since we moved here, and decided it was time to use it already. The food was really nice, particularly the calmari, yum. Oh, and the fantabulous lemon drop cocktail made with strawberry vodka, double yum. Then we headed over to the movie theater for Star Wars. I was suitably entertained, even though I did spill my coke all over the floor and partly over my date in a mad dash to the potty during what I hoped was a lull in the action. (Sorry baby!) Spent all night dreaming about Darth Vadar, so I guess it made an impression. I think my kids like the babysitter better than me though. Maybe they should at $10/hr. Is that seriously the going rate for a babysitter? Clark assured me we weren't overpaying her, but it seemed pretty steep to me. Although, I can't complain about the sweetie he found to sit for us. She's going to school to be a kindergarten teacher, and is currently the director of a summer fitness camp type thing at a local gym. She's tall and beautiful and thinks my kids are very special, so really, I guess I should shut it. She was worth every penny of the $60 smacks we shelled out. It just takes you back a bit when you go to take the 3 year old out of his bed in the morning and he says, "I want my babysitter!"

The fans were successfully installed this morning. YAY! My only complaint is the odd strobe light effect we're getting on the ceiling with the one in our bedroom if you run the fan with the light on. We went for a different kind of light kit than the one we had in our old house, which in my opinion, looks much better, but the actual illumination is definitely different. I keep trying to come up with some kind of brilliant solution, but nothing's coming. Madeline's fan has flower petal blades in pastel colors with butterfly decorations on the chain pulls, and looks SO cute in her newly decorated room. Still no progress on the curtains in there, but I must say, the whole thing is butterfly-rific.

Friends, Food, and Feeling Ick

Feeling a little better today. I've been not feeling great since about Friday. Sore throat and headache. I hate being sick, especially on a holiday weekend. Somehow it just doesn't seem fair. So, I spent Saturday laying around in my jammies, and totally forgot a birthday party that Madeline was invited to. Oh, the guilt. Luckily, I think she forgot too. She so wants friends to play with here, and I don't quite know how to accommodate that for her. I see kids running around our neighborhood sometimes, but they all seem a little older than her, and now that school is out, I have no way of contacting her school friends. I had been planning on harvesting a few phone numbers at said forgotten birthday party, but obviously that didn't work out. There were a few little girls in our old neighborhood in Utah that she liked to play with, but they were all a year older than her and had a tendency to ditch her. A couple of them were downright mean sometimes, and I worried a lot about her getting her feelings hurt. There was one though who was SO sweet, and they were really building a nice little friendship the last couple months we were there. I feel for her when it comes to the friend thing, after moving so much as a kid, I tended to look for one good friend, and not worry about the rest. I did, however, always have my sister around to play with (or fight with, depending on the day). Maybe kindergarten is a little young to be making those kind of friends, and I have high hopes for first grade.

Sunday, I convinced myself I was feeling well enough not to cancel a little dinner party we had planned. We invited a couple and their almost 2 year old beauty over for dinner. They are really nice, and seem to be becoming official friends of ours. He sold us this house, and hit it off with both Clark and I during the process. Then, a couple weeks after we moved in, they actually called and volunteered to babysit. Dude, you have to love anyone who volunteers to watch the kids. We reciprocated a few weeks later and had their sweet little girl over while they went to some kind of business dinner thing. This finding babysitters is hard. I was so spoiled with having my mother and sisters available. It was actually one of my biggest concerns with moving, and has proved to be a valid one. Clark and I used to get out at least twice a month, sometimes more. Often, it was just for a Sunday matinee, but still, any grownup time is good. Since we've been here, I think we've gone out a grand total of 3 times. Not good. (sidenote: while Clark was grilling the veggies for our dinner, Zach asked if he could 'chonk' the barbecue. No idea what he was referring to on that one.)

Monday we had a family day out. We had late breakfast at Weck's, then proceeded to the mall for "Madagascar." Clark was sweet enough to offer to take the kids to the movie while I did some shopping. I found some great deals on summer clothes for the kids, and bought myself a cute top and a new bra. Happy new bra day, cause shopping for a bra, for me, can be an all day, frustrating as hell process. I probably should have just gone to the movies with the kids, though, as I think I overdid it a bit, and was feeling pretty crappy by the end of the day again. So, Tuesday was another laying around the house trying to rest and feel better day. Seems to have worked, so far. I think the kids and I will head back to the mall today, have to exchange a couple shirts that didn't quite fit Miss Madeline. Sizing for kids clothing is a mystery to me, one of the 6x's was too big, the other too small. Ah well, we'll just go enjoy some free air conditioning for awhile, no biggie.