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[We have not had an amusing conversation for 10 months. No – I just haven’t written any down.]

Me: (at the tail of a self-exploring monologue) .. I’m sane, except for [x, y, and z].
Tia: And the obsession with Nintendo music.

[Oh yeah, and there’s v and w. And here’s a demonstration of some Nintendo music.]

He has really been enjoying playing in water – at various swimming pools we’ve taken him to recently.

At the Veteran’s Memorial pool in Provo he kicked and moved his arms around wildly while we held him in the pool. He got very cold and shivered, and we took him out of the pool and wrapped him in a towel. He was all in one elated for the experience, crying for cold, and crying for wanting to go back into the water, indicating the pool and reaching for it again and again and struggling to squirm free so he could go back.

The Scera pool in Orem is warmer (and more expensive to get into) – and he kicks and wiggles his arms if you put him under a water spray.

You can’t set him down outside the pool because he’ll just run back for the pool.

I lost my anniversary/birthday bracelet at that pool 🙁 I thought I took it off – maybe I did and it was snatched out of a locker.

We got him a little inflatable pool for the front yard which he loves splashing and playing in.

He’s gotten pretty good at imitating words he hears and tries any word, and is still amused with silly sounds when he hears them for the first time. He knows more words now than we can list.

Also, he loves playing a chase and peek-a-boo game with me running circles around the recliner at bed time. He laughs at every peek-a-boo.

This morning mom took him outside. He frequently signs and says “water” in reference to the sprinklers outside, which he enjoys simply watching at work – or playing in. That’s not why they were outside this morning though – in fact I don’t really know what they were doing. But he called for me (“da-da!”) and mom took him back inside the house to me, and I smiled at him. In succession he signed “cold”, pointed at me, and then signed “hat”. It flashed through my mind that this could be a funny way of saying I am cold-hearted, which is often true, but that wasn’t it. This sequence of signs meant “Go out into the cold, you, with me, and put a hat on me before we go.” He wanted me to go outside with him, for a walk, and I was charmed and happy to oblige.

[He’s 14 months old. Also, his signing vocabulary is getting ahead of me because I haven’t yet seen the new signing videos he sometimes watches (Signing Time).]

We had fun seeing everyone who came to the reception for Tia’s BFA final. And.. it seems like I should have something more to say, but I don’t. Well, the gallery is still up.

We also discovered that most people feel they have a divine right to food set out in public places. I lost heart telling all the students from the state high school orchestral competition that they could have the cookies if they strolled through the gallery. Amazing some people won’t take twenty paces for a cookie.

One kid told us we picked a bad time for our reception. Did we? Yeah, I guess we should work our schedule around you and your want for free cookies – either that or you picked a lame-brain comment.

An older lady (a high school teacher I assume) came to the punch bowl and asked, though it wasn’t a question, as she was hastily getting herself punch at the same time, “Is this for me?” I answered “No.” – she hurried to fill up her cup and said “We’ll I’ll just steal some anyway!” – and hurried off with it, spilling punch all over the table in the process. This is one of those situations where you repeatedly retroactively fantasize about what you might have done otherwise. If I’d had my wits about me, I’d have said firmly: “Ma’m, that was rude.” I don’t think that would have had an effect – she was shameless. What I really wish is that I’d bumped her stolen red punch to spill all over her blouse and declared “It looks like you’ve been caught red-handed.” But maybe that’s too far.

I think this is why the Lord gave the Israelites in the wilderness quail until it came out their nostrils.

And you know me. I am so like Moses. No. I give up. She can have the punch. Well, she already did.

SO.. anyway.. it was really fun to see everyone who came to the show..

Two weekends ago (13th-14th – it’s taken me a while to get to this blog) was our anniversary, my birthday, and mother’s day.

We went to Timpanogas cave to hike through it and then realized from what the lodge guide told us that we didn’t want to take Mago through those near-freezing temperatures, so we took a different hike for maybe a third of a mile before we were exhausted and hot.

Last weekend with my birthday money, I scavenged in a bead store (Born Again Beads in the University Mall, Orem) for the beads I love most, and a charm (they corrected me when I called it a pendant), and made two necklaces for me and Tia, and a bracelet for me – these are pictured here

The main beads in my necklace are yellow turquoise, copper, and metal-plated (don’t know what) plastic, framed with lapis lazuli and olive jade, on a metal wire, with a sailboat charm.

Tia’s necklace is of many ocean jasper beads (which is ocean creatures and/or coral fossilized in quartz), and the same copper beads as mine, between smaller Botswana agate (eye agate) beads, on a metal wire. The first time I made it she loved it and wanted changes (out with the yellow beads it had), and we collaborated on a redesign that I love more. Also I added a silver fish-hook clasp to it.

If you can’t see the picture, the metal beads in mine have watery-misty streak engravings, and the copper beads have a.. cool.. how to describe.. kinda brutal, geometric (circles and triangles) intricate pattern cut out of the columnar bead so you can see through the openings to the other side.

My bracelet is of moss agate, obsidian, and ocean jasper, with a sterling silver clasp – and I made it this weekend, not last.

The blue and gold beads in my necklace are our high school colors (Orem High). The sailboat has many meanings for me (the following three paragraphs).

My mother’s father was a boatman and fisherman (not by profession), lived on the U.S. western seaboard (Pacific Northwest), and he recently died, which in pagan Irish mythology is identified with sailing or going into the unknown west, and there’s a tradition of Irish blood in his ancestors (yada yada YADA, I keep remembering a feeling I should do genealogical research there). I remember enjoying boat trips with him.

Thinking in scriptural types, Nephi, in the Book of Mormon, built a boat to sail across the ocean to his Promised Land, and I need an education (which I have avoided most of my life) to get my family to our own promised land; to me education is a boat. To get that education, I need the disciplined hard work ethic which my grandfather had. And my fooling myself that idleness is a better life needs to sail into the west and die.

On top of all that, the bead store clerk, looking at the boat charm on my finished necklace, mentioned a book she recommended to her children at their graduations (hello, the education theme! – and I hadn’t told her my meanings for picking a boat), in which a captain of large steam and power boats who lives in the Pacific Northwest (where my grandfather lived!) related: when he was a boy he was at the docks and told a dock worker, pointing to a very large boat, that he wanted to operate it. The worker told him to start with a small row-boat. Start small. That applies to me – I’m grandiose and want everything now or I won’t have any of it. Well, I’ve gotta say, where I’m at, I’m starting small.

I just backposted an introduction about us with random photos from the past six years. There’s a new header link to it above that says “Introduction/What’s Up”.

Two full moons ago, on Jan 17th:

We took him out accross the lake to listen to the wind and waves and see the city by night this last full moon (after a cousin’s wedding) – just as the moon came up over the mountain. He stared at the moon. He loved all of it and cried when we put him back in the car.

[That’s from one of my emails]

Recently we took him to a man-made pond in a business park in Spanish Fork to see (and feed) ducks. He loved it. He was more excited by a dog who happened to be there, and made his little “Wwwfh! Wwwfh!” barking sounds and the dog sign in American Sign Language (which I hope to note next entry).

More recently I took him on a walk when it was very wintry, and hummed holiday tunes (not carols). He imitated me somewhat melodically with “ba-ba-ba-da..” etc. He loves just riding in the stroller looking at the scene. The stroller and I were caked with snow – he not so much. Little bright red nose though in his bundle of clothes.

I just backposted an exploring mythology I wrote when he was six months old. .. He deserves more wilderness exploration than we give him by far.

Tia indicated to me recently (shortly before I should leave for work) that “Time’s a wasting..”, which she indicated by drawing and redrawing a circle like the turning of hands on a clock with her finger. Moments later she was still lying in bed, examining her finger as she slowly drew it counter-clockwise and alternately clockwise in the air. She asked me on one clock-draw “Is it clockwise from this side and that? Is this clockwise or counter-clockwise to you?” I answered “That’s counter-clockwise to me.” She said “..oh.” I added: “However, crazy is crazy from this side and that.”

Yar!

Year!

We watched Episode II with neighbors (prepping for Episode III) – sometimes charming people just come out of the woodwork all of a sudden, or maybe they were always there and I just noticed.

Boring movie. I was surprised at how bored I was – until Count Duku arrived – and the lightsaber duels are awesome.