The Ikea Curse

So we went to Ikea the other day because I needed ONE THING:  a hanging rack for the closet.

But then it happened, like it always does.

Ikea always sounds like a pretty good idea.  Sounds kinda fun. 

You walk through the little pretend rooms upstairs and marvel at their use of space.  You look at how everything is put together so nicely and coordinates.  By the end you start thinking that lime green and Dr. Seuss are legitimate themes for décor.

You find yourself at the end of the adorable houses walk through and there you are in the nursery area.  Everything is so miniature!  It’s all so matchy-matchy!  Maybe it would look cute in my . . .

NO.  IT WILL NOT.

It will look terrible.  Nothing in my house looks good with Ikea, it just doesn’t match what I already own.  I’ll get one piece home and it will ruin everything in the room.  Or it’ll look like Pee Wee’s Playhouse.

It’s really rather frustrating because the furniture there is so functional and pretty reasonably priced.  (Except for the mattresses.  Why are the mattresses so overpriced?  I would buy one because nobody could tell it was Ikea but really they’re overpriced.)  I want to use Ikea well.  It just looks so stupid in my house.  Who is really going to outfit their entire place, including the whole kitchen, in uber modern Swedish furniture attempting to appear traditional?  And how about how weak the materials are?  Ikea furniture should be used in Karate classes for board breaking.  I could kick through all their cheap crap.

Nonetheless I can’t leave that stupid store without spending at least $100.  They just get you.  That extravaganza of stuff to easily grab on the bottom floor is a disaster.  You’ve walked nearly a mile by that time, right?  Might as well start chucking things in the cart that does not roll straight and must roll in a diagonal line.

Ask me what I bought.  I have no idea. 

I’m pretty sure I just paid an exit fee to get the hell out of there.

I curse that place and it’s siren song.  I curse you, you Scandinavian Scoundrels.

But I’ll be back next week, probably.  I only need one thing.

A Little Less Conversation a Little More Action

“The first follower transforms a lone nut into a leader.” – Derek Sivers

There are a handful of revolutions with which I would like to ally myself.  I am a frustrated reformist in that the system I would like to buck makes said bucking nearly impossible.  The causes closest to my heart are the vast educational reform that should be occurring right now in America but ISN’T and Sex Trafficking in American cities. 

This is a TED talk about sex slavery that provoked a serious religious tailspin for me – leaving me wondering if we live in a world of chaos, which eventually resulted in a tattoo on my forearm quoting Shakespeare’s most nihilistic soliloquy by MacBeth.

DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO.  But if you think you’re tougher than me, go ahead.  And if you do, please give me some free therapy.

The video below is one of the most inspiring TED talks discussing how education should be shaped from henceforth.  Robinson (yes, same guy who said that schools kill creativity) explains how we should sort children’s cohorts not by age but by a variety of other qualifiers.  Just listening to this guy effectively communicate some of the ideas to which I have long ascribed made me want to jump for joy and inspired this post.

ABSOLUTELY DO WATCH THIS.

 

These two problems distract the hell out of me.

But I am paralyzed!  All I do to contribute to system bucking is listen to TED talks.  Talky talky.  I am guiltily living out day after day without throwing in whatever contribution I could be offering.  But plainly and simply, I don’t know how!

In high school I used to help organize Take Back the Night Rallies and led some discussions on Women’s Safety issues.  As a college professor I would educate toward resensitizing my jaded students to the offensiveness of pornography (because of the connection between pornography and sexual violence).  But both of these activities are only talk.  Talking to spread awareness.  Uniting in opposing something.  So what?

As an educator I was able to sleep a little better knowing that the students who came through my class were being exposed to if not learning about these issues.  But while I was teaching English in Crenshaw my own little light was nearly snuffed out by the thought that for the rest of my student’s twelve hours of awake time they were likely being underserved.  What difference does it make to turn the light on in one kid who will have to slog through the rest of the day in a system that is meant to stifle and sort rather than inspire and set free?

It seems the only people who are making any real difference are in bureaucratic positions, and even they are so limited by having to pander to the society that promotes them.

So I’m sitting here wondering, where are all the champions?  Who is actually making a noticeable difference?  And how can I join them?

 

But let’s be honest.  Revolutionary or Miscreant that I am, I will likely just be participating in this type of movement:

Hey, I know my strengths.  Somebody else change the world, apparently I am helpless.

What you got for me, SLC?

New city means new adventures!  I was really worried that Salt Lake City would be a barren wasteland of strip malls.  The image I’ve always had in my head about Utah is what I’ve seen from the freeway between SLC and Provo.  Dire.

It’s taken some doing and some tips from local friends, but I have found some killer spots.  Here’s my must-do list.

1. Dancing Crane.  673 Simpson Ave, Salt Lake City, UT 84106

This is like all of Berkeley in one shop.  There’s everything from Peruvian bags to Buddhas to Tibetan prayer flags.  It also has a musical instrument corner where the kids are allowed to test drive every weird instrument known to man.  Run by nice hippies and it felt like home a little bit.

We LOVED this place.  Definitely will be revisiting.  Also has a little vegan sandwich shop.  Yuck, but maybe good lemonade or something.

2.  Oh Mai 3425 S. State St.

Thanks, Circe and Anna for introducing me to this one.  Oh Mai is Vietnamese sandwiches.  They are delicious and so exotic tasting.  Make sure to tell them to hold the jalapenos bc they are too hot.  It’s next door to a Persian market so if you are shopping for a hijab, this is the place to grab one. 

My kids and Circe’s kids: Xanthe, Ptolemy and Tizzy.  Circe is now my sister in pink. 

3.  The SLC Library.

Gorgeous building, great glass elevators.  Sweet kid’s department including a variety of little themed reading rooms.  Our favorite was the Superman’s lair.  They’re always doing some sort of kid’s reading contest.  Only drawback was that I couldn’t ditch my kids in the kid area, I had to supervise them so I couldn’t get my own books.  Another drawback: INSUFFICIENTLY MARKED MEN’S ROOM.  For the first time in my life I made that fatal error and barged into the men’s room.  I’m scarred for life.  Hush said it’s a known hobo bathing spot so I guess I count myself lucky that it wasn’t that bad. 

But anyway.  It’s a cool place and their Shakespeare section isn’t embarrassing.  We will likely log many hours at this library.

4.  The Rodeo! 

Hush scored us free tickets to see the rodeo at that huge stadium where the Jazz play and it was so exciting!  I think I may have been to a low rent rodeo at some point in my life, but this was the real deal Holyfield.  Huge Brahma Bulls and people getting nearly trampled.  Bulls charging and nearly horn-spearing the stupid rodeo clowns.  The only drawback was the calf roping and getting dragged off to McDonalds.  It was too scary for Mimi.  She has sworn of beef for the time being.

Didn’t get any good animal pictures, but look at Mimi’s expression.  Of course we wore our cowboy boots.

5. Nature and stuff!

Yeah yeah yeah, mountains.  Don’t try to sell Utah to me using mountains.  We all have mountains.  Not impressed. 

But the mountains are a good activity on a Saturday.  Lil’ or Big Cottonwood Canyon is I think where MY BOYFRIEND WHO I LOVE Hush took us to climb this weekend.  Even though it was blazing hot we found a nice shady area that reminded me a little of Rock City on Mt. Diablo (except pleasant and not scorching hot and windy).

Kids acting out the first vision in a grove.  Silas, playing Jesus, had some very bossy instructions for Joseph Smith.

Mimi’s developing her climbing skills.  They both have their own little shoes and a harness.  Not Silas because he’s too little.

6.  Churchy type activities!

Also not a huge selling point for Utah for me, but I’ve amended my attitude.  Temple Square is old news to me, but I keep finding new buildings to wander through and stuff to learn about and teach the kids.  We wandered into a movie about Joseph Smith and it was air conditioned and pleasant (though there were dead babies in the movie, so I give it a D.)  This is triple whammy parenting:  teaching history while getting everybody outside with a religion cherry on top.

Jude at the pulpit of some church building.

Side view of Jude at the pulpit of some church building.

I’m thinking this was the Joseph Smith building maybe?  I dunno.  They all run together.

7.  Pools and Water Parks!

Nobody has pools in this stupid state!  What’s the deal?  We spend at least a few days a week searching out water activities around the area.  The waterslides are too overwhelming and expensive, but I’ve found some lovely splash pads and community pools that stay open until 8 (because it’s still so damn hot even all through the night).

Hush and Mimi developed an extreme dolphin ride.

8.  Now for my NUMBER ONE found place of awesomeness:  DECADES.  627 S State St 

So Decades is a vintage shop.  You walk in and it doesn’t look like much because they have the men’s stuff in the front.  Then you wander to the back room and HOLY MOLY SPARKLES AND FUR.  It’s like the place was made just for me!  Fabulous clothing from every decade is just packed into this place, and it’s well organized!  The racks look like a rack of clothes from when my mother was in high school.  I can’t encourage a visit here enough, it’s a great place for a girl date.  Think the prom scene from Grease meets Hello Dolly!  ‘Mille I am dying to take you and mom here.

They don’t let you take pictures so I don’t have proof, but you really need to see this place for yourself.  Also the people who work there are total snobs and barely tolerate children.  I let mine hide in a corner with their ipads. 

 

Ok, that’s my list thus far.  What am I missing that I need to experience?

The Mi (as she calls herself.)

Mimi is getting to be a real live kid.  She’s 6 1/2 now and no one to be trifled with.

(I am 100% irritated with the preposition at the end of that sentence, but I cannot rephrase in anything but a pretentious way and so it stands, please forgive on the basis of my own awareness of grammatical error.)

Holy moly, did I DO this?  Alone?!  Three under three in 2009.

As the eldest she has many responsibilities and is a very capable individual.  As my daughter she would rather lay down and die than be bossed.  It’s a delicate balance. 

I’m a firm believer in the whole Love Languages theory, specifically as it applies to children.  Basically the theory is that children need all five types of love every day: words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, receiving gifts, and acts of service.  Mimi’s particular favorites are quality time and physical touch.  She’s become wise enough to learn that when we don’t get along the easiest way back into my good graces is acts of service.

 

When she’s acting like this, I know Mimi’s needs aren’t being adequately met.

When the Mi and I clash it’s usually because I haven’t fed the Mimi meter: spent alone time with her.  Spending alone time with someone who was at the time driving me batty is a real challenge to me, but Hush supported us having “Girl Time” by taking the boys to have “Guy Time.”  That means fried food and bowling.  (Heart melting, btw.  What single dude offers to take two little boys bowling? Maybe he believes he’s involved in a Sainting contest.  Or maybe he’s just a fine male specimen.)

So Monday Mimi and I went on a girl date.  This, of course, meant sushi and shopping. She picked out both of our outfits and we had a grand time.

It’s been fascinating to me to watch Mimi become more self aware.  Fascinating and terrifying.  I find 50 selfies with duckface on my phone all the time.

She has also developed a signature sassy pose. 

At the fabulous SLC library, rockin’ her sassy pose and some ducklips.

As sassy and delightful and at times difficult and very independent as Mimi is, she is just every inch a little girl and I am so grateful for her.  She’s a pink, sparkles, clapping games, emotions, kitty loving all American girl.

Learning to wakeboard.

Every six year old girl should know Miss Suzy, Miss Mary Mack, and Say Say oh Playmate.

Hey Nor How’s Things?

They’re pretty much like this:

So You Wanna Join the Greenbombs?

“Here I am, where I’ve been

Walked a hundred miles in tobacco skin

My clothes are worn and gritty

And I‘ve known ugliness,

Now show me something pretty.”

- Patrick Park

My family is very close.  I frequently hear from or interact with three to five of them every day via text or social media; when I lived in Dville I saw at least one usually more than one sibling or parent a day.  We spend most Sunday evenings together swimming at the Mothership, we drive each other’s kids and have sleep overs, we have birthday parties, we go on activities.  My family is my friend group and I like it that way.  Of course we don’t always get along, but even when we hate each other’s insides we will still spend time together. 

How I feel hanging out with my family.  We’ve earned our stripes.

I’ve written a lot of positive things about my family because we are overall a very blessed and happy group of people. 

Family on Camille’s wedding day. bro Nate and nephew Max missing.

Our family unity results in a lot of involvement and concern for each other’s welfare.  When one of us suffers a major life blow we all do.  When one grandkid struggles we are aware and we help each other.  When one of my kid’s behavior was confounding me I shipped him off to Celia’s for a few days and he was returned with a full report of how to rewire my thinking and approach to him.  It was immensely helpful and yielded very positive results.  I have been a major recipient of sibling and parent service in the last year: my ex husband failed to take the children off my hands for his scheduled weekends and when he didn’t show up one of my siblings would take my children for the entire weekend.  We called these weekends SAVE THE CR@VENS!

 

How I felt when Houdini bailed on his weekends and I have to cancel all of my plans.

  Having one weekend off a month for the last eight months made what would have otherwise been a completely overwhelming single-parenting experience both bearable and enjoyable.  I loved my kids so much more after we had had a little time apart.  Their service was a lifesaver during my time of need.

In the last few years this family o’ mine has been through the ringer.  I was thinking today of all of the major life events my siblings, parents and I have crawled through these last few years.

Here’s what I came up with:

A couple of divorces

Jim’s broken back and subsequent month-long hospital stay

Nate’s sudden death

Jay’s trials and eventual death

A sister losing her twin babies

Another late-term miscarriage

Family falling away from church activity

Family experiencing major religious conflict

Grandkids struggling with a variety of issues

Newlyweds living in different states

A first year of law school

Total upsets in financial situations

At least half of us moving more than once

A husband being at war nearly twice as long as expected

Dealing with close relation’s struggles with addictions

Two single parent households

 

That’s a pretty wide-ranging list.  The only MAJOR difficulty we have yet to face is children born out of wedlock.  Other than that, we’ve pretty much trudged through some of the hardest trials available to a family in our specific time and place.  Sure, some trials are self inflicted, but most are circumstance and out of our hands.  Of course, considering the assets and quality of life we enjoy, these are first-world problems.  We have food and clean water.  Nonetheless, I think telling your father his first born son is dead (for example) should perhaps put the family on a trial-pass for a few years.  Not our family.  We did the condensed challenges program.

What an interesting journey we’ve been on together.

As a family we have become both closer and more calloused.  I don’t think that any middle of the night phone call would be met with shock at this point, rather a calm resignation to just another trial.  When people begin talking about something that is plaguing them most often my overriding thought is “I understand, I’ve been through that.”  I have learned a great deal of empathy.  I have a point of reference to nearly all areas of trial, save perhaps children born with life-altering defects or unwanted pregnancy or debilitating illness.  Thank the Lord for postponing those trials for the time being. 

Where is religion amidst this seeming hailstorm of hard?  Who wouldn’t ask where God is when lives are in complete upheaval and tidal waves of sadness kept coming? 

As I was processing these things I found breadcrumbs of comfort along the way.  Little things happened that let me know that there was a plan and that there would be a path out of what could otherwise have led into doubt or prolonged depression. 

Last November was mid-trial time.  Two of my close associates were struggling with addictions.  My sister had just found out the sex of her babies and named them, only to lose them inexplicably days later.  It was a hard time.  Around this time a friend of mine left a couple of Al Anon books at my house and another friend called to tell me that she had started going to meetings.  Yet another friend randomly mailed me a stack of CD’s by James Cox called ‘Becoming Spiritually Centered.’  I was assigned a visiting teacher who was not only available, she came over with a massage table and soothed both my body and my mind; then another Visiting Teacher came and told me stories from her life that mirrored mine.  I started going to Al Anon and learned so much about the patterns of addictive behavior and how the people around them can get sucked in and reactive to their instability.  I started listening to the James Cox CD’s and they completely changed recharged my enthusiasm and appreciation for the gospel.  James Cox is a one time bishop and stake president who gives lectures on how to live a Christ-centered life.  Sounds generic, isn’t.  I really cannot promote this lecture series enough, it has changed my attitude toward religion in general and is perhaps the most helpful and practical LDS teaching (aside from the words of the Prophets) I’ve ever encountered.  It’s totally different from anything I’ve heard before and it was exactly where I turn every time a trial arises. 

I’m so grateful for God’s hand during these challenges; that through other people He has given me what I needed to get through the hard times.  Life isn’t significantly easier now and I am still dealing with a lot of the same vexing situations, but now I actually have tools that work: the gospel, the pattern identification and steps to avoid repeating the same conflicts from Al Anon, and these James Cox CDs that help me both put these trials in perspective and even smirk a little when they come. 

My family probably has a lot more challenges ahead, but I am enjoying peace every day.  And the GOOD things that come into my life are so much more valuable to me because of all the hard we’ve waded through.  As good things come into my life God has made my personal path clear and smooth . . . every day is easier and happier than the last as I feel certain we are finally on the right path. 

I don’t expect things to be as peaceful and happy as they are right now for me and my little people, and that makes it all the sweeter.

Are you in town?

Short answer: no.  I was briefly.

No ocean in Utah, also very few Sharknados.

We came back to Dville for a couple of weeks so that I could work at the best job ever.  I teach arts and crafts classes at a summer camp called Devil Mountain. 

 

Driving out in 1,000,000 degree weather.  Must wrap up like ghosts in our blankies.  Made me think of this video: Paddling Ghost – Dan Deacon

 

Hush drove us out and then flew back to Utah because he wanted to get Sainted, I think.  He was rewarded by being taken to Rock City on Mt Diablo ON HIS BIRTHDAY with his best climbing friend.  At Rock City he was shown a bunch of rocks he couldn’t climb because we didn’t bring gear.  Sorry! Nature fail!

So we were there, but I was busy most of the day and it was too damn hot to do anything afterward.  AND I just left so I feel like a visit is too soon and I’m half on work, half on vacation.  I was hiding out and doing family stuff and recuperating from a very big life transition.  I feel super guilty and stealth laying low for these two weeks, but work and family was sucking up my time.  I didn’t want to march back into my ward and hit the barrage of questions: I thought you moved?!  Did something go wrong?  Are you going to law school?  What happened? 

 

Auntie Camille, Auntie Camille’s new surfboard, and Jude

Pacifica Beach (Taco Bell Beach).  Waves were too hard to paddle out so not much surfing.  Just sand.

 

I guess Jude Jude does deserve to relax a little bit.  He’s been my go-to man for exciting new challenges.

Everything is great in SLC, but I agreed to teach for a few weeks long before I decided to move.  I LOVE Devil Mountain Summer Camp.  It’s the second happiest place on earth (we all know Disneyland is first, duh.)

Jelly Fish craft and teaching the kids to play Chinese Jumprope. 

 

Teaching Air Guitar (Sweet Child o’ Mine) and a successful squirt bottle painting craft.  Also taught kids to play clapping games which has been a delight around my home.

 

Just looking fabulous at church with Grandma.

We enjoyed our few weeks in Danville.  I got to do a little surfing, play a little baseball, do a little rock climbing,  teach a little air guitar.   We did camp in the mornings and then swam in the afternoon because it was too hot to even approach my car.  We were paralyzed by the heat.  Many thanks to Pam and Jim for welcoming both my family AND our new kitten Juliet (Shakespeare names or nothing.)

Now we’re back in SLC indefinitely and real life can start.  I’m anxious to get back and set up our schedule for the fall, whatever it proves to be.  And NO I have not firmly made a decision about law school.  But it sounds like it would make life SO HARD.