What's That Smell?

Is the name of our podcast; is it not GENIUS? It is from Mme Larousse, or Merriam, my partner in podcrime. We're completely unable to go live or even warmblooded yet. Meanwhile, check out Mme Larousse on her little bits on BYURadio (the national BYU station, not the local KBYU or Classical 89, which are the ones most well known in BYU parts.

Listen to Mme Larousse talk about words with the ubernerd Marcus, and when we're good and ready (and not a moment before, so hold yer babies) I'll let you know all about our podblast, and you can listen to "What's That Smell?"

It may or may not be my gymsock.

They never tell you how hard it is. Maybe some of them try, but there is no way, no way at all to let someone really really know. It is just a day, just a day.

I can do one more day. I can't afford to think past that, one day is all I can think of.

Someday I might try to tell someone how hard it is, you think. But what would be the point of that? Of either trying something almost impossible, or of making an attempt at something that will not matter, even if it were possible?

So. Tomorrow, we will do one more day. A "series of emergencies that need attending to," is how my dad put it once.

But still. Shouldn't there be, I don't know--joy--? Somewhere, somewhen?

We are Easter Creatures living in a Good Friday World.

Mixed Marriage

After last week's column many of you may have the mistaken impression that I am not aware of cultural diversity in this valley. This is not true. Though we share a common home now, there are people living here from heritages other than Norther European. I have seen both of them. Ha ha ha that was funny. Of course there are more than two, and I apologize publicly to those I may have offended, including Mr. Thorkelson, Mr. Jenses, Dr. Erickson, Mr. and Mrs. Olafson, Mr. Nielsen, Ms Swensen, and the Anderson family.

To heighten the scandal, I admitted that my husband and I have a mixed marriage. It's true, and not just that his great-greats were Danish and Scottish and English and mine were Swedish and Scottish and Irish. It's way more than that. I don't have a beard.

We are a mixed marriage in a lot of ways. In our approach to morning, for instance. I do not approach it at all unless I can be pretty sure of a chance to barrel right through it fast asleep. We are a mixed marriage in that some traditional gender roles are reversed. "Mom," says a tyke, "can I have a grilled cheese sandwich, and--" (an expression of reluctance to hurt me passes over the cherubic face, along with a hint that the request might not be granted withe important rider engaged) "and PLEASE can Daddy make it?"

For years we had a mixed marriage when it came to the Carpenter's Christmas Album. I hated it. With all my heart. Especially Karen. Then my husband pointed out that Karen had not just been the vocalist but also the drummer. This helped. Then I heard the right version she does of Ave Maria, and I was sold (don't, please, remind me that it is actually a combination of Catholic liturgy and Bach that I love about this, unless you want to pay the counselor).

We are a mixed marriage in the way we deal with household chores. My husband does them. I do half of them. This does not mean that I do half the chores, it means that every chore I begin gets halfway done.

We differ in how we deal with the fact that the children like my version of morning better than his. He tries to get them up by telling them that it is time to get up. Silly man. I "get them up" by not getting them up at all. I treat them as I wish someone could treat me everyday as the earth insists on its garish display of turning to face my particular hemisphere toward the sun:I go to their bedroom and quietly get them dressed without disturbing their sleep. Then I carry them to the kitchen, where they slurp up cereal with one eye closed. I bundle their coats on, kiss the tops of their sweet heads, and shuffle them towards the door. With any luck, they won't wake up till halfway to lunchtime.

And finally though we both grew up in this valley, he has a strong Utah accent, an I fer sher don't tal? like tha?.

Utah Valley Culture Shock

My family lives fro about ten years in a suburb of Washington, DC. When we first moved back here, my five-year-old daughter wanted to know a couple of things: First, she wanted to know why the mountains were following us. In Maryland, landmarks were landmarks, and they stayed put; here, wherever you went, there was that big old Y, staring at you again. Then, when we went to the University Mall, she clung to me rather tightly and asked--demanded--to know where all the people were. "All over?" I said. "No," she said anxiously, "where are all the people?" I didn't get it. The place was as crowded as usual. "What are you talking about, Honey?" I asked. "Everybody in here is white," she said. This from a kid who is not only white but dang near albino. Her point was well taken, though; she'd never seen this many exclusively pale palefaces in one place at one time--it was the first time that if she'd gotten lost, I might not have been able to spot her in less than one second.

My kids have that white-blond hair that is so common tothe big happy gene pool that is Utah Mormondom. Scandinavian-descended, boasting ancestors that crossed the North Sea in open longships in winter, you'd think they'd be tough as Vikings, or at least could handle the cold, but it turns out that the blondness (camouflage for snowy landscapes?) is the only trait that survived of the Norse heritage. Well, that and a fondness for sacking, pillaging, and eating band food.

You have to understand, though, that we are not a culturally homogenized family. In factm we have a mixed marriage: Danish and Swedish. My Swedish grandmother, whose maiden name was Peterson, was thrilled when she heard I was engaged to a fellow patronymic, and said, when she met him for the first time, not "How are you?" or "Hello," but, "You DO spell it with an 'o,' don't you?" He reluctantly confessed that no, his ancestry was Danish, and he spelled it with an 'e.' After that, Grandma could never remember who this strange person was.

The first time we attended church after living in the east,  my husband sat n a priesthood meeting where the lesson was on diversity. No really. Having come from a congregation where prayers were regularly said in languages spoken only by the person praying, he looked around for evidence of diversity. At first all he saw were standard-issue balding white guys with suits and ties. As the lesson continued, though, talking about looking for commonalities with those who are different, talking about finding the good in the unique, and celebrating differences, he began to get into the spirit of the thing, and sure enough: diversity, right there! Some of their ties were blue, and some of them were yellow.

What's driving me crazy lately is going at other people's pace. They won't learn from education, so you have to wait till they have the crisis. Argh. Most annoying is the time where this happens and the timing is in danger of getting screwed up because of it.

I don't have time for your crisis, your rock-bottom, your epiphanette, your deep philosophizing--when that comes my way (and it might; might not) I will want to say, "Bout freaking time, yes I know, I've known for weeks, yes, I knew this would happen, yes, I know, yes I know canwegetONwithitnow?" But instead, because of human (?) decency(?) and mostly because I am too chicken to be impatient, I will say "Wow that's so deep why didn't I think of that?"

I am sure, I am SURE, that I do this to other people as well. But I am the center of my universe, dammit, and I want my timing to work out too sometimes.

Not a good time to be off carbs.