Double Wammy

While chatting online with the folks tonite I was digging around in the pictures saved on this computer my dad so kindly left behind for me to take over. So in no real order I'm sharing them with you. Nothing like a little photogumbo to get the memories flowing

Good ol' KC!! He moved into this garbage can shortly after he was banned from the house. It fits him and his grumpy attitude. But he has everyone fooled. He's a softy at heart, I also ran across a pic of him cuddling me the day after I sprained my wrist bad snowboarding a couple of winters ago (I'm not sharing that photo, bad up the nose angel!) Good kitty.

This one is of all of us at the park near our apartment, the building in back of us with the crissy cross beams. There were 3 or 4 cool parks in our neighborhood that we frequented at all hours - parks were the busiest after dark in Korea to beat the heat. This park was my favorite cuz it was right on the river and had lots of open space and popsicle stands and the coolest toys (for the kids, of course)

This funky restaurant is in Fukuoka, Japan. While in Korea, I had to leave the country every 3 months on a 'visa run' to stay current on my traveling status. I didn't qualify for a work visa so this was the only way to stay for an extended time. I didn't mind. This trip was way better than the first one I did though. That one involved much bus time, a flight to Tokyo, and a looong night hanging out in the airport only to catch a flight back to Korea in the morning. All for a stamp in my passport. Hey, it was fun. But not as fun as wandering around Fukuoka for a few days totally enjoying balmy warm weather in the middle of the coldest winter I've ever experienced back in Seoul.

Our mode of transportation! We all loved this van. My first thought when I saw it was of Miles yelling, 'The Libyans are coming!!' He was yelling this over and over one funny trip to the airport when I was young and impressionable, I always crack up when Miles is along, he makes everything hilarious. I think it's from Back to the Future?

This van rocked! Cari and I had the sweetest seats. They were the second row and swiveled to face forwards OR backwards! If you held the latch up while turning a corner you could do a 360 with the momentum of the turn. Only tried this move a couple times, I didn't want to break my awesome seat, or get kicked out for monkeying around! Another cool feature: the steering wheel was on the right side. Ben loved getting looks for this feature. Once, we got pulled over and the cop was practically yelling with frustration (I think so at least, really, I always thought they were yelling) at Kwona to show him her ID (they were looking for a escaped convict, seriously) and she kept telling him 'But I'm not driving!'

RIP bad boy, Ben left it with Jon when they moved back to Seattle, and he killed it.

Last but not least, are they not the cutest? I know, your kids are cute too, but I'm their aunt so... ;) It looks to me like Dillon is protecting Devin, see the sword? I like the spidey theme too, they are both pretty much obsessed with Spiderman, I guess all little guys are? Keeping with the theme of Korea stories, Devin had this awesome Spiderman costume he wore A LOT there. Once he wore it to the park and the kids there SWARMED him saying "SPIDERMAN!!" "SPIDERMAN!!" and chatting to him in Korean. I wasn't there but mom said he was pretty freaked out by all the attention. What does he expect being a super hero and all?

SANCTUARY!

No, I'm not having a hunch back moment. I spent Saturday at the sanctuary in Kanab again with a bunch of dogs. I really can't think of a better way to spend an afternoon. When I checked in the guy said I could pick where I worked. I knew where I wanted to go but I didn't want to ask in case he needed help somewhere else. But he made my day when he told me to go to The Garden. (That is where Gibson lives.) Gib wasn't in his run so I was a mix of really excited and a little sad that he might have found a home.
I swept out the indoor part of the dog runs, cleaned off the dogie beds and made friends with about 14 dogs. I think it is so fun to see the different personalities (or should I say dogalities?) of all of my furry little friends. I walked about 12 dogs after I helped clean up. Clemence would be the first dog I'd take home with me. He was a mini Gib with his in your face personality and a strong desire to be scratched and loved. The guy who stole my heart though was Eddie. A golden boy with sad eyes and extremely shy. Brian, the caregiver was surprised I even got Eddie to come to me. On our walk Eddie didn't want to get too close, he'd give me a weary look if I moved towards him. I gave him lots of time to linger and sniff, I feel silly to admit, I talked to him a lot. Once while he spent some time sniffing I sat down in the sand to wait. He kept his distance, but kept an eye on me. He edged closer until I could scratch him. He seemed to warm to this and before I knew it he had his head resting on my shoulder totally loving the attention. He didn't like it if I looked at him, so I just scratched and talked. At the end of the day all the dogs were laying around relaxing, Tux was stretched out humming to himself, he's a cute dog featured on the website a lot, looks like he's wearing... a tux, u are so right!
Are you wondering where Gib was? I asked Brian if he knew Gib, and he said, "The tall guy with skinny legs?" Yup that's him, with a howl like no other? "OH YEAH! That's him, it's higher than all the other dogs and so different!" He told me Gib had left that morning on a mobile adoption to Vegas. So I won't know the outcome until next time but you'll be the first to know. Next trip up I'll go ask to go to The Clubhouse, maybe I'll get to see that other crazy mutt I love.
If I won a million dollars I would either A - move to Kanab, build an awesome house in the canyon and volunteer at BestFriends all the time and take home enough dogs to have a my own sanctuary at home. Or B - Start my own type of best friends somewhere and find people to help rehabilitate aggressive dogs because that's what the caregivers say is the hardest part there, they haven't found a way to help their aggressive dogs much so they never find homes.

Small Town

Pretend with for a minute that you are in my position, newly single and a little hesitant about going out and being in the land of the dating again. I thought I'd be fine with it, I feel fine 97% of the time, maybe a little shaky truthfully, but I think I'm dealing with it as well as anyone could. I have a weird unexplained fear of running into people I know in public who know me as Mrs. and having to explain to them why I'm out with someone other than Mr. Can you make sense of this?

So this is where the story of coincidences begin... I don't know what makes me want to tell this story. I guess it's just such a 'jois de vevre' type experience. (A joy for life? my own interpretation) and the funny way things become real clear to me in the most random events. Wish I could explain this better. It's 3 in the morning, give me a break! (yeah I took excedrin late in the day again, when will I learn?) Maybe I feel like sharing because I had the disappointment of a stinkin' Grey's rerun this week and I feel the need to fill that empty drama hole in my life?

I have a friend who I met a few years ago at the golf course. He was a caddy for a golfer on the PGA tour at the time so I saw him when they were in town. I had a serious boyfriend at the time and while I would love to spin this part of the story differently and make myself look like a better person than I was then, I ended up going out with this caddy friend of mine and kissing him and deceiving my boyfriend. Well, the boyfriend found out (because I told him) and decided he could forgive me and we moved on in our relationship, a pointless one at that since I knew I wanted more from life than until death do us part but who was I to remind myself of that simple fact when I thought I knew what I wanted? Oh, hindsight...

This caddy friend of mine (Garrett) and I have stayed in contact over the years through email mostly. We turned out to be able to be friends better than anything else so when he asked if I wanted to hang out tonight I was only just a little freaked out. Not because of him, I just knew it would hurt some to be out with someone other than my husband but I knew I needed to make that first step and who better to spend time with than a guy I could trust to be a friend right? Right.

He recently bought a condo so imagine my delight when he said he'd like input on it, we all know I LOVE DECORATING! It was a good way to get together, we picked out a bunch of cool stuff for his place and I had fun putting it all together for him. (I have a ton more ideas too, wonder when he'll tell me he's had enough decorating??) Ben and Kwona called while I was there and he was cool about me hiding out for a minute to talk to them. They asked how life was as of late. What can I say? Good, fine, boring, lonely, exciting, different, scary? What adjective best fits my ever changing feel for life? I told them my weirdness about not wanting to run into anyone and my desire to move away from it all. I couldn't explain it to them any better than I just tried to for you, so I figured I was being lame and Garrett and I went out to meet up with a bunch of his friends at a popular sushi bar in town.

This is the good part, the part that had Garrett and I totally cracking up after the fact. While we were waiting for our table Garrett says ever so casually, "Dallas is in there." Yup, Dallas, as in the boyfriend from the past. Not only was Dallas in there, but every_single_friend I had from that time were all inside the door looking out at me. A birthday party was to blame. It was the most strange experience I've had in at least awhile, though it rivals with a lot of things these days. I always knew I'd run into Dallas at some point. St. George is tiny like that. But of all days to see him since I saw him last more than 2 years ago, I'm with Garrett, who I also hadn't seen in as many years! Talk about timing! I felt like I was outside my body watching this all happen and laughing at someone other than myself! Although I keep in contact with some of those friends they were all still in the dark about my divorce. I don't advertise it. I could almost smell the engines burning in the rumor mill that is the underground heartbeat of St. George. It may be the biggest small town in existence. I am sometimes baffled at how we all connect somehow, its like that seven links to Kevin Bacon thing. I can meet someone totally new and in about a minute we've discovered we're practically related and best friends with all the same people and have the same stylist and vet, then we run into each other everywhere. I'm not kidding. It's a love/hate thing.

So not only did I face down a silly fear in a pretty big way, how many more people could I tell in one night that I was divorced? I also put to rest a feeling like I'd never not feel like I was missing out on my old life. Honestly, I haven't felt that way in a long time, but I don't know if I can explain to you what seeing this group of people from the outside would have done to me back when being in the mix was so very important to me. Something I never thought would happen, happened when I wasn't paying attention.. My goal of becoming a better centered person seems to be on track. All I felt was love for my old friends and didn't feel left out at all from the exciting but misdirected life I used to lead. I am happy to report progress. Did it take any of you as long at it's taken me to know who you are and stand up for it?

ps. are you wondering what the picture has to do with any of this? Nothing really, I just thought it was awesome and it fits for me in a unexplainable way. Courtesy of the talented artist MDK. I asked permission to use it, then went ahead and took it without consent, he wasn't up this early to tell me no. Thanks! :)

Ok, I promise I won't blog anymore in the middle of the nite. I'm tempted to delete this one and call it a night, but that's a good half hour of soul pouring and I don't want to have nothing to show for my insomnia in the morning!

SNOW DAY!

I was just about ready to leave for work when Rowdy called and told me to take a snow day! There is some snow on the ground and it just started coming down again here. He said St. George is getting a load of it so he didn't want me driving in to town with all the crazy people who forget how to drive when there is snow involved. Well...OK!!! I don't mind one bit except that my camera is at work so I can't get a picture of Zion. It was looking pretty amazing with huge black clouds all around and covered in snow this morning. Just take my word for it, BEAUTIFUL!
So now I think I'll get back in my sweats and chill. I reported a dvd lost with Netflix and weeks later it showed up in my mail box yeterday, better late than never, now I have Bewitched and maybe some hot cocoa to make my snow day complete! It is a novilty to stay home totally healthy, I'm so going to enjoy it!!!

Called to Serve

What a weekend! We left Thursday afternoon for Bountiful. It snowed bunches during the night so we woke up to a pretty white world, I forgot how much I liked snow since I've taken on the snow bashing attitude of my fellow southerners who are above dealing with snow and cold weather. I actually enjoyed it and in the spirit of it all I even bought myself some snowboots. Well, I kinda had too, I only packed sandals!

The missionaries ran lots or errands, I decorated Micheles kitchen and watched lots of movies. Sunday morning I went to a college ward at the U with Coree. I felt like I was trespassing. The lesson in sunday school kept veering towards dating, I caught myself thinking I don't need this, but really, I guess I do! How weird. I was having a hard time relating and just felt so out of place.
Sunday night we filled up the basement room with the 10 of us and chatted about everything and anything, mostly just enjoying each others company. I couldn't possibly soak in enough time with my parents.
The hardest thing about the weekend was the feeling like time was counting down. I was making the most of my parents being around and kept getting the crazy urge to hold onto their ankles and beg them not to go! I was glad saturday night when Tony asked if my parents wanted Priesthood blessings. Of course they did and when they were finished my dad said I was next. Authority. OK daddio. I would never pass up an opportunity for comfort. It was good to feel reassured and I think it made it a little easier the following morning when we had to say goodbye.
I'm not saying it was easy!! But it was quick and I tried to look at it like the bandaid method, Just rip it off! As I was leaving I took a picture for another couple going in. They were on their way to Russia and they didn't even question why my face was soaked. They were probably too excited to notice, I know my parents were crazy excited! I am too, below the missing them.

Processing...

That's what I've been doing a lot the last day or so. Processing my thoughts and shifty moods. Mom and Dad were set apart yesterday so it's now Sister Mom and Elder Dad and as I sat watching my dad fix his tie and laugh with my mom about his too gelled hair I couldn't help getting a little emotional. Of course I'm proud to death of them but the people in Africa can't possibly need them like I do!! (Selfish aren't I?)
It's been so nice being with them every day it'll be a bit of a transition coming home to an empty house AND cooking for myself once again (maybe now would be a good time to ask for the hundredth time if I can have a pet? You know, pity for the lone child and all?)
Other things I'm processing are my options for what comes next in my life. I'm thinking about going back to school at LDS Business and while I can think of at least 10 reasons why that would be great, I can come up with 10 (OK well, maybe 3 or 4) good excuses to stay here in my sunny desert and keep on keepin' on until I really know what the heck I want.
Could someone please just make up my mind for me, big decisions make my brain melt.

fun and laughing in saint george

We have some visitors this weekend, Michele and Grandma are here for some fun. {WE MISS YOU VICKY!} We've played our requisite bunches of Rummycube games. I do have to mention one game in particular where I won in a single turn late in the game {It IS my blog, so I can brag as much as I want!}

Today we cruised around Zion National enjoying the warm weather. Grandma took a bunch of photos so I scrounged some off her so I could share them.



After we took in the park we went back to Springdale to wander around the shops and galleries.









We found this ranch type petting zoo place in town with lots of stinky animals to pet.

Here dad and Elk check each other out. Wonder what they are thinking about each other? 'Strange one, that chap with the two legs!' (yeah, livestock always talk like British people in my head. It makes them sound more intelligent than, well, hamburger.)



Of course I couldn't just look at the animals. I wanted to feed them too. Especially when this dude walked up to the fence and looked at me with his big brown steer eyes and sent me FEED ME signals.




This guys tongue stunk something nasty! He wasn't too skilled at eating out of a hand, you'd think he'd have learned by now with all the free hand outs. But he was pretty good at picking his own nose with his stinkin' purple tongue.

We stopped for lunch at Oscar's, a great burger place with an outdoor seating area where dad enjoyed asking all the bikers questions about their bikes. {he really needs his own bike don't you think?} While we waited for our food we passed the camera around and took pictures of each other. Tourists!