The Man of My Dreams

While I was managing apartments, I would often wake up to random noises outside: car alarms, acts of domestic violence, possums attacking escaped house cats, gunshots...
You know. The usual.

One night, I woke with a start to the sound of a fight right outside of our window. Wayne would often help me with security on the grounds at night, so I shook him awake.

"Wayne! There's a fight outside!"

To which he responds though groggy, half-closed eyes sounding something like THIS:



And then he promptly rolled over and attempted to return to sleep, undaunted by my frantic plea for help.

Now, baffled and frustrated, I try to rouse him again, this time with more urgency. "WAYNE! There's a FIGHT! Please HELP!"

Again, my response from Wayne is this garbled, cryptic language I cannot decipher.

At this point, I am downright MAD! My blood is pumping, adrenalin coursing through my veins, huffing and puffing. "What good are you, anyway?!?" I say in one final, desperate attempt at ticking him off enough that he might finally emerge from his beauty sleep and kick some a** (or, preferably, call the cops and let them kick all the booty.)

It didn't work. Wayne snoozed on.

Maybe there is something to be said about being deaf. At least you can be assured of getting a good night's sleep...

Even when your wife is dreaming that there is a brutal fight ensuing beneath your bedroom window...

And especially when you are happily slumbering in the magical dream scape known as "Backwards Land," where you have apparently been learning the local dialect.

Grab the Tissues...

I heart Caleb Gold.

In my ignorance, I grew up thinking I was oh so clever with my insults. Back in the day, "Jerry's Kid" was a derogatory term we used to describe someone with subintelligence, or someone who was acting dumb. It was synonymous with calling someone a "tard."

Boy was I ever wrong!!!

For those of you who don't know, Caleb is my nephew, my sister's only son, and he just turned three.

He is one of Jerry's Kids. In fact, this year he became a poster child for Jerry's Kids. Born with a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy (and not even CLOSE to subintelligent... Genius Boy is more like it!)

Click on the picture to be connected with my sister Amy's blog about their debut on the MDA telethon this weekend. The post has a beautiful vignette that aired during the telethon in the San Diego area on KUSI.

I am constantly amazed at the tremendous strength and wisdom that Caleb's parents have in raising this gorgeous little spirit. His weak, floppy body is such a poor indicator of what's inside. So thank you to Amy and Jeff for nurturing that remarkably strong soul that dwells within. He has touched so many lives, and I'm so happy to see that the media was able to capture that so well for a good cause.

"Mommy! It's Jesus!"

When Wayne and I were living in San Diego county, working as slum lords in support of our chronic addiction to higher education, we lived in the seedy underbelly of Escondido. I'm not kidding when I say seedy... This place was a hole! (See THIS post if you don't believe me.)

Our church congregation in lovely Escondido consisted of some pretty colorful characters. For example, we had one lady who got up during Fast and Testimony meeting declaring that she was Mary Magdalene reincarnated. She was also forbidden to feed the missionaries because she would just give them condiments to eat at their dinner appointments. We had another lady who singlehandedly decimated the ward choir because she sounded SO BAD and was SO LOUD, nobody was willing to sing with her. Nay, nobody COULD sing with her. We would all just sound like a herd of dying moose under her influence. And then there was our Relief Society president who, without warning, walked out on her family and left the church altogether. When we were about to move out of our ward, our bishop said (...and I quote his words exactly...), "Good! You guys need to get out of this Hell Hole!"

But one of the most colorful characters we encountered will never leave my mind: Bo Greene.

We were sitting in a pew behind a young family with a sunbeam-aged child. Excitedly, he starts tugging at his mom's sleeve and pointing behind us. His announcement, he can barely contain in a whisper. "Mommy! It's Jesus!" So mom discretely turns around to see what is inspiring her son's heavenly visions (and being the looky-loos that we are, we do too), and there is Bo: a fully-bearded biker dude with tattoos up and down his arms, neck, ears, and chest. He is sporting a leather vest, stained jeans and a t-shirt, and he is sitting on the back bench between two elders, holding a blue Book of Mormon.

"Mark, I don't think that's Jesus."

"Sure it is! Look at his beard!"

But I think what Mark saw, in all his innocence, was something deeper. As it turns out, Bo ended up being one of the most stalwart members of our crazy congregation. He was our home teacher for years, and never failed to meet up with us in one way or another. A year after he was baptized, he went to the temple and later married a sweet woman with a teenage son. Soon thereafter, he became a member of the bishopric. Bo lived and breathed his new found faith. He was forever bedecked by the tattoos of his wilder youth, but it was easy to look past them with the great example he was to everyone who knew him.

I've never forgotten Mark's first impression, as it's a lesson I've carried around with me: Rough and tough on the outside doesn't necessarily exclude soft and mushy on the inside.

So Bo Greene, if you ever Google yourself, I hope you stumble upon this post. Your example was of profound influence in our lives. Thank you!

My Greatest Fear Realized

Most of you know my feelings of absolute horror when it comes to feet. I hate 'em! I realize I need them to walk. I realize everyone else does too, but I hate them, nonetheless. Particularly if I have to touch them or if they ever wind up near my face. I HATE commercials where they show cartoon fungi nestling under people's toenails. There's even one that depicts a foot with a face on it, bursting into flames from the agony of athlete's foot. *shudder* Who thought up that piece of advertising genius?

I can certainly keep it together if I see someone in flip flops. I wear flip flops, myself. I touch my own feet. But if anyone's feet touch me, or if I have to touch someone elses' feet, I get pretty grossed out. The nastiest scenario is someone else's feet touching my own. If Wayne tries to play footsie with me, he is summarily rejected. Sorry, Babe. Ain't gonna happen... Not today. Not ever.

So I've been pretty pleased with my decision to go into dentistry. That's about as far away from feet as you can get. No problem, right?

Wrong!

A ten year old little girl came into the clinic the other day with a bone disease of unknown origin. Her x-rays showed she had absolutely no enamel formation on both her baby teeth and her permanent teeth. The teeth she had in her mouth were orange and lumpy. They looked like chewed up, half-eaten cheese. She was disproportionately built and very short for her age. She had problems with her joints, such that she was about to have knee replacements , was hard of hearing, and the whites of her eyes were blue. All of her joints were really loose. She could bend her wrists back like one of those Cirque du Soleil performers that can squeeze their entire body into a shampoo bottle.

So the Craniofacial specialist, Dr. S, and I were working her up to see if we could crack this case. The lack of enamel pointed toward one diagnosis. The blue eyeball thing pointed to another. All told, this case was weird. So Dr. S turns to me and says. "Look between her fingers." ...and I know what he's getting at, because one of the diagnoses we were grappling with is sometimes associated with webbed digits. It's called syndactyly.

So I look between her fingers, and sure enough: Webbed fingers. Not like the creature from the Black Lagoon, mind you, but up to about the 1st knuckle. So we tick that little factoid off on the list and start digging a little further. Then Dr. S turns to me and says, "Check her toes."

*Deafening silence*

"What?"

"Check her toes to see if they are also affected."

"Uuuummmmm. She has the finger thing. Why does it matter if the toes are webbed, too?"

"We need to assess everything."

"Seriously?"

Then he starts taking off her shoes. ...and I am trying not to puke, because this poor little girl is sitting there, mortified, that there are all these people staring at her and musing, "Look she has this wrong with her" and "Oh! She has that wrong with her." So I didn't think puking because I had to look at her potentially webbed feet would work any wonders for her self-esteem.

"Go ahead and look," he says nonchalantly.

So there I am (in my latex gloves, thank goodness) prying the kid's dirty little downtown digits apart and checking for w.e.b.b.e.d f.e.e.t.!!!!!! And NO she didn't have them! And NO, I never puked. And NO, we STILL don't know what she has. But maybe she has a friend in Ashton Kutcher.

A Little Homesick For...

1. The Scenery: Miss the amazing variety... Pastoral fields, ocean shores, towering redwoods, rolling vinyards, rugged lighthouses, breathtaking architecture, cozy cottages... Diversity at its finest. Miss being able to drive within a half an hour to see any of the above.

2. The Neighborhood in San Rafael: Miss living two blocks away from the Farmers' Market. Miss the Friday night fabulous restaurant smells on Fourth street. Miss the Belli Deli and Sol Food. Miss walking through the cute little quaint neighborhood across the street full of Victorian houses I will never be able to afford.3. The culture: Miss ALL of it! Freaks and all! Miss the cool things to do on the weekends like sledding down hay bales covered in snow on Thanksgiving weekend, the antique car show and the chalk art festival in the summer.
4. The great friends: Miss the Salt-of-the-earth folks! Miss the camaraderie inherent in struggling through a particular stage of life together. (BTW, I stole this picture from Annie Ballard. Hope she doesn't mind!)
5. A great hairdresser: Miss hanging out with Katie every couple of months and seeing what fabulousness she could concoct. Miss not having to pull my own hair through a shower cap with a crochet hook-like device, creating a babydoll-head-like appearance in a ridiculous attempt at maintaining some semblance of upkeep as I descend deeper into my fat/haggard appearance I have affectionately named "residency chic." My loss is Georgia's gain. Katie, may you create gorgeous humidity-proof coifs in your new Southern abode! 6. Hiking in China Camp: Miss going to the top of the ridge and looking out over the bay. Miss my favorite spot on a clear day where I could see all three bridges at once. Miss the oak trees. Miss the deer families that would walk up to you without fear. Miss the wild Turkey flocks and the occasional peacock. Miss the fun talks with the boys on the trails.

7. Primary Choristering (I'm pretty sure that's the technical term): Miss my calling. Miss watching the kids sing their little hearts out. Miss getting in trouble with Tracy on the piano bench for talking too much. Miss "Primary Idol." Miss making a complete fool of myself for the benefit of those little ones whose singing was so heartfelt.
8. Pacific Heights: Miss the architecture, so vastly different from house to house... Victorian mansions next to uber-modern fortresses with anatomically correct robot statues. Miss the Palace of Fine Arts and playing hookie with a picnic lunch with Wayne and the boys. Miss walking the half-mile to school with carpoolers who were all 6+ feet tall and having to take three strides to their one. Miss stopping to smell the roses at the house with the garden always in bloom. 9. The weather: Miss the cold during the summer. Miss the fog on the bridge that looked like you were entering Narnia as you hit the frothy wall of white. Miss the anticipation of coming back into the warm sunlight of Marin at the end of the day. Miss the ocean breeze coming through my Westward facing living room window. Miss dressing in layers and keeping an umbrella handy no matter what time of year it was.
10. The Golden Gate: Miss hearing Wayne tell me about his daily runs and the cool sights of the day on the trek. Miss the vibrant red color of the bridge juxtaposed against the blue sky or green hills. Miss watching the barges and cruise ships pass under. Miss the Blue Angels flying over during Fleet Week. Miss the sailboats and windsurfers out in the bay on a nice, lazy day. Miss seeing Alcatraz stuck out there in the middle of the frigid waters. Miss the "Free Tibet" protesters. Miss the jumper traffic jams. Miss the rainbow tunnels. Miss seeing the sun rise above the city. Miss seeing the sun set over the Headlands. Miss the anticipation of the city that was embodied in such an iconic structure.

I just miss it all!!!!

For all those friends who have scattered throughout the country (or if you're still there), PLEASE sign the guestbook at the bottom of the page. We would love to map out where you've all ended up. Not to mention, a few friendly faces to admire while we struggle through this bout of homesickness might help a bit too!

T-Minus Eight Days...

Summer vacation comes to an end on September 2nd.

There's no way you can dig your way out of this one, boys. Your return to school is imminent...The fun and games will soon cease...
The art of wasting time will be abolished for another nine months...No more fresh air to breathe ad lib...
Relaxation: a thing of the past...
Goofing off will be but a distant memory...

Books will actually fill your heads with useful information, rather than inspire scenes of Storm trooper carnage... Teachers will give you assignments to use your creativity, and suddenly it will become a chore...Time to ride off into the summer sunset, for the day is near...

Nathan and Hayden, while we've enjoyed watching the plethora of ways you can keep yourselves entertained this summer...

...we will all enjoy watching as you, once again, become productive members of society.

Goodbye, and Good Luck!!!

Oh My Heck!!! ...part deux

I make my case further against jello:
a) What is yellow jello really made of? (Not sure I really want to know the answer, but I can't think of any color of jello less appealing.)

b) Is it really food if it can perform feats like this? (below) "He put my stuff in Jell-O again! [to Jim] That’s real professional, thanks. That’s the third time and it wasn’t funny the first two times either! " --Dwight K. Shrute