Grrrrrr

We're heading to my hometown next month for a quick visit, and on the agenda is a family portrait. I feel very self-conscious of my post-4-babies body and don't really want to be immortalized with my belly still looking pregnant, a year after the last delivery (which it currently does). I tried googling fashion tips this afternoon, and came across an article that promised Five Outfits to Disguise A Food Baby!

Except that it came illustrated with images like this:



Seriously? Seriously. I don't think that woman even has a stomach, let alone an ounce of fat. Grrrrrr.

And waaaaah.

Anybody have any real advice? I don't know what to call my body type; I don't think I'm pear shaped because it's not my entire bottom half that's big (I don't think), just my stomach. That would make me an apple, I guess, but then most apples are presumed to have a big chest and I, sadly, do not. It really is just this enormous 6mo-pregnant-looking belly I want to hide.

Ugh, it's all so depressing. And depressing that I care. But I do. :-P


~RCH~

Revisiting Randomland

1. I took the girls today to our hospital's Teddy Bear Care Fair -- it's designed to familiarize children with the hospital and what goes on there so they'll be less afraid if they ever need treatment. They each brought a stuffed animal (a dog, elephant and bunny, respectively) and went through the various stations: Intake / triage; to the lab to have their animals' "blood" drawn; respiratory and physical therapy; surgery -- where Uno's dog had the hole in his tail stitched up! -- and x-ray, where all the animals had their pictures made. Here, for instance, is [a very bad scan of] Dos's elephant, Elli:



Everything looks great except for the lack of bones and the calcified heart. Otherwise, though, a-okay!

They all enjoyed themselves. I think Uno felt a little too old for the pretense (checking the animals with a stethoscope, etc), but she was tired of waiting for me to fix her dog (which she asked me to do months ago; I'm not sure where my sewing kit is) and the nurse just stitched it up lickity split. Dos seemed to think it was all just fun. Tres took it very seriously, which was super cute.


2. I've given up soda. Sort of. I've stopped buying it for the house, anyway -- I'll still order it at a restaurant, or if, say, I came over to your house and you offered me a [case of] Diet Dr. Pepper I would graciously accept, because that's only basic good manners, right? Yes. But I don't have any more cans here, and haven't for most of the week. It's been a rough week. The funny thing is, I seem not to miss the caffeine so much as I miss the coldness or the crack and fizz of opening a new can first thing in the morning or the having something in my hand to sip on all day long. Drinking soda apparently kept my bored eating in check; now I may have to take up gum chewing. Hmmm.

I would really, really love a Dr. Pepper right now. Waaaah.


3. Did I mention that the older girls are playing soccer this fall? Dos is on a grey team; Uno is on an orange team. I never wanted to be a soccer mom, but I think the experience is good for them. I will post action shots if I can ever get any. So far I've been too distracted on the sidelines keeping Tres out of trouble / Cuatro safe in her stroller (usually the same thing -- poor Cuatro) to take any decent pictures.


4. All of us are sick with a cold. It's very annoying.


5. I am in love with the song "Mr. Blue" by Catherine Feeney. Too often I feel like I could be its subject. I try to be vigilant, to make sure I'm not inching toward melancholy that might affect (infect?) my girls -- but then I wonder if the vigilance is just as bad because it keeps me self-absorbed and focused on the thing I want to avoid. It's a conundrum.

*Sigh.* I'll figure it out. And in the meantime, you should love Catherine Feeney too.



~RCH~

Dispatches from the past

Ten years ago, I was a newlywed living in Kansas City and working a desk job for TWA (the even then soon-to-be-defunct Trans World Airlines); one of my best friends was also a newlywed, but living in the hometown of her Scottish husband, near Glasgow. I realized yesterday that since I'm a pack rat even digitally, I probably still had our correspondence from 9/11. I don't think this is all -- I probably wrote her other emails from my work account -- but this is some of what I still have, with names and personal bits redacted, of course.


TO: BeckleTheFreckle
FROM: RCH
SUBJECT: Terrorist Attacks
DATE: September 11, 2001, 12:38 PM

Beckle,

I suppose you've heard by now about the terrorist attacks in the U.S.? I got most of my news this morning from the BBC web site because all the American news sources (Yahoo! News, MSNBC, CNN, etc.) were overloaded with web traffic and I couldn't get through.

I actually watched the second World Trade Center tower get smacked by the plane.... I turned on the Today Show as I got ready for work this morning; the first plane hit while I was in the shower. Matt Lauer and Katie Couric were talking about that breaking news story as I got dressed -- acting on the assumption that it was an accident, which is rare but has happened before to tall buildings. (The Empire State Building got hit in the '30s, apparently, and the Pan Am Building accidentally got clipped by a helicopter in the '60s.) And as they were talking about that and showing live film of the hole in the building, and the smoke billowing out, a larger plane came into the camera's view and deliberately plowed straight into the other tower and exploded.

I had to go to work then, but I listened to the news on the radio all the way there and all morning at my desk. The two towers have since collapsed, as I'm sure you've heard; the Pentagon got hit by another plane; a plane crashed near (but not at) Camp David in Pennsylvania. All flights throughout the entire country are canceled for the forseeable future -- at least for the rest of the day and likely for some of tomorrow. International flights are being diverted to Canada. Flights in the air were told to land at the nearest available airport. The airport here is going crazy with stranded passengers, apparently. I don't work at the airport proper; my office is at the airplane overhaul maintenance base about half a mile south. We're still open, but security is tightened; I guess they're not letting anybody in.

I'm not supposed to play on the internet except at lunch time, but I've been checking the news sites all morning anyway. I hope they don't mind. I think they'll understand, under the circumstances. Two of the four planes that were hijacked were from American Airlines, the company that now owns TWA (the other two were from United). A couple hundred people are dead just from those plan crashes; no word yet on how many were killed at the World Trade Center, though 50,000 people work there so the numbers could be pretty high.

Damn. All of this is pretty hard to fathom.

[Personal stuff follows]


~RCH~




TO: RCH
FROM: BeckleTheFreckle
SUBJECT: RE: Terrorist Attacks
DATE: September 11, 2001, 1:50 PM

RCH,

I just happened to be sitting around and decided to turn on the tv at about 2 o' clock and I was watching Scooby Doo and for some reason I decided to flip channels and they showed the world trade center on fire...it was horrifying. I saw the second plane crash into it and watched the whole hour while people ran away from the debris and eventual collapse of both buildings live. It is scary to say the least.

I don't even like thinking about the possible outcome...all these insane thoughts racing around my head (and being depressed already doesn't help a damn bit) about never seeing you and K2 or my family again. I was online a bit earlier talking to RW when I got your letter and she started freaking out saying things about her brother and her boyfriend getting drafted....

[Personal stuff follows]


~BeckleTheFreckle~




TO: RCH & Others
FROM: BeckleTheFreckle
SUBJECT: Hope
DATE: September 13, 2001, 6:45 AM

RCH & Others,

I just finished watching a special changing of the guard this morning on the BBC and it was good to hear the National Anthem again. :)

I can't tell you how the events of the last few days have affected me so far away from home and most of the people I love in America. I'm sure you're tired of the saturation of reports, so feel free to trash this if you want. Still, it's good to see hope shining through all this darkness. There is some good to be made out of every tragedy.

To those back home, I love you so much and I miss you. It never seems to hit as hard as times like these then you realize life is so short and fragile, but there is nothing to be afraid of as long as we trust in each other and do the best we can. Take care of yourselves and know that I'm thinking of you all the time.

To my family and friends here in Scotland, thank you for taking such good care of me. It means a lot.

I'll leave you with this scripture that my Mom has hanging in our house: "Fear not what man can do, for I shall be with you forever and ever."


Love Always,
~BeckleTheFreckle~




TO: BeckleTheFreckle
FROM: RCH
SUBJECT: Random Dispatch from the KC Correspondent
DATE: September 17, 2001, 4:47 PM

Beckle,

Happy Monday the week after! ...Life is beginning to return to normal here (for those of us, at least, who live hundreds of miles from the terrorist attacks and who didn't know anyone who died in them). The news has finally toned down its coverage of the disaster; it's still the only news they report, but they've given up the round-the-clock business and have returned us to our regularly scheduled programs. Which is such a freaking relief! There are only so many facts they can report, and beyond that it's all horrible "human interest" stories of people who lost loved ones. Wives whose husbands called from the hijacked planes to say goodbye, or firemen who lost their whole company in the rescue effort.

I saw one interview with the CEO of some accounting firm (I think) whose offices were near the top of the WTC -- he had been at his daughter's school that morning, so he was the only one of 700 employees accounted for. He broke down in the interview, sobbing: "Seven hundred people! I was their leader, and now I'm the only one left." He could barely speak. "I'm responsible to the families of seven hundred people. They're all dead. All of them." That was the most disturbing news interview I saw, because I'm not used to seeing men cry at all, and he was just a wreck. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed for him and all of those families. I tried to clean up my face when DH came home from that day's rotations -- he already didn't know what to do with me when I had dainty little tear-stained cheeks from other news stories, so I knew he'd be at a loss with my big puffy eyes and red, runny nose -- but I couldn't do it. I was too far gone. And the interview was over by the time he walked in the door, anyway, so he couldn't see what had upset me so much and I was in no state to explain it articulately. Poor husband-o-mine. We decided then that I should not watch the news by myself anymore, and even with DH around we'll only watch it if they're discussing details of the investigation.

Ugh. What a week it's been.

K2 and I got our hair done on Saturday! That was fun. Though I felt guilty all week leading up to it, because I didn't know how I wanted it cut (a safe, traditional chin-length bob? Which DH thinks is too short. Or maybe branch out into a new style? Scary!) but I felt so completely shallow for worrying about hair when there were so many people with real problems. But then I'd feel guilty for grieving for all those people in NY and DC because I didn't know any of them.... I felt like I was trying to usurp their grief because I was (again) too shallow to have any of my own. Does that make sense? Because really, what business do I have crying? The attacks didn't affect me directly. My life is a freaking bed of roses. I was having a very difficult time reconciling the sadness and horror I felt with all the banal little details of going on with life.

Anyway. I promise I'm going to stop interjecting all my stories with stuff about the attacks. On with the show!

[Personal stuff follows]


~RCH~




TO: RCH
FROM: BeckleTheFreckle
SUBJECT: Ramblings
DATE: September 18, 2001, 9:17 AM

RCH,

I must commiserate with you on behalf of the terrorist stuff. DH had to impose a news ban on me too because I got scared on him Wednesday night, I started crying and saying that I was never going to see my family and friends again and we'd never be able to go back to Utah...I couldn't get over seeing the people listening to answering machine messages from their family, and I saw that guy too who was saying he was responsible for everyone and started crying. It broke my heart. It made me want to be around Americans so badly, it made me want to have a flag to fly. It made me want to be able to join in with everyone in feeling sorry and I can't do that. It's been so hard for me over here without anyone to bitch to. People feel bad, but they don't quite understand how scary and close to home it all is. I was checking my e-mail the next day and RW was online and she was freaking out about everyone getting drafted...oh dear. It was a bad week.

The only thing that gave me any comfort was watching any BBC program that had memorial services and played the national anthem. It probably seemed pretty pathetic to passers by me standing with my hand over my heart singing it at the top of my lungs, but it made me feel better.

But it's like a train wreck, you know? You don't want to look, but you just can't tear yourself away. I'm glad the news is calming down a bit. The media is mostly a blessing, but not when it's mass-hysteria inducing.

[Personal stuff follows]


~BeckleTheFreckle~




Ten years later. The death toll was thankfully lower than it could have been, and our armed forces are still staffed by amazing volunteers. Beckle & her DH eventually moved back to the U.S.; my job at TWA became redundant in February 2002 when the merger with American Airlines went through, and I was laid off (though I quickly found work as an assistant at a patent law firm). The horror gradually receded, and life went on.

I watched a lot of the coverage last week leading up to the anniversary -- lots of Where Are They Now? stories about people in iconic photos that I had never seen because I couldn't bear it at the time -- and I watched the service in NYC on Sunday. It all still makes me cry, and still makes me feel ... guilty, I guess, because I haven't "earned" my grief the way the mourners at Ground Zero have. I didn't lose anyone or anything but a belief in the invincibility of my country. Still. It breaks my heart. I have a bad habit of trying to imagine myself in the lives of others. I like to vicariously try on others' experiences, see how they fit, wonder how I would react to what someone else has been through. While empathy may be a good quality in some situations, it's useless here. Completely useless. I'd like to think my "mourning with those who mourn" (to borrow a scriptural phrase) actually means something, but nothing changes the terribleness of that day.


~RCH~

Spooky!

This guy and me, we have an understanding: He can build an elaborate web outside my kitchen window and eat the bugs who congregate by the porch light and I will not try to kill him AS LONG AS he never, ever, ever tries to come inside or send any of his relatives inside. If he does, I will kill him dead.

Of course, I'd have to get over the panic attack, first. And maybe call DH to do the killing for me so I wouldn't have to get too close. (Have I ever blogged any other spider adventures? In Texas once I found a spider as big as my hand crawling on my bedroom wall. DH was out of state -- on a recruiting trip for his residency program, I think, or maybe a job interview -- but I called him anyway. Obviously I knew he couldn't kill it for me over the phone, but I needed moral support! 30 minutes of hyperventilating, tears, and false starts later, I finally squealed and smashed it with a shoe. Another time, in Idaho, Uno and I found a particularly dangerous looking spider on the couch in the basement; it wasn't sooooo big -- though it wasn't small, either! -- but it was black and kind of furry. *SHUDDER!* DH worked close enough to home that he often came home at lunch, so Uno and I sat there watching the spider -- didn't want him to get away! -- from a safe distance for 90 minutes until DH could come and kill it for us.)

Okay, yuck. I was feeling all smooth and brave about this guy, since we have this treaty and everything, but now I'm feeling creepy-crawly. My hair is constantly falling out and every time a loose hair brushes against my neck or arm, I think it's something else. Eeeeew. I shouldn't have started this. Ick. Eeeek.

So sorry. :-(

In other spooky news, I took the girls to the Halloween store this afternoon to get them out of the house so DH could nap a little before his night shift. I thought it would be a fun outing; we'd get ideas for costumes (I told them I wasn't buying today, so no begging!) and look at decorations and props. The first thing we saw as we entered the store was a lawn display, some kind of gory fountain with a guy holding his own chopped off head, blood oozing out of its mouth instead of water. It was gross. I hate that element of Halloween, honestly; it's too over-the-top for me. I don't mind all scary stuff -- witches, zombies, skeletons and skulls -- but I like them to be a little bit classier than that. It's like difference between Hitchcock and cheesy B slasher movies.

Anyway, 3yo Tres was nervous as soon as we entered the store. I tried to steer us to a more innocuous aisle -- steam punk accessories and Indiana Jones costumes -- but then the girls heard barking. I assured them it was probably from some motion-activated Halloween decoration, not real dogs. Because who lets real dogs in costume shops? Apparently this place does, because just after I had the girls all calmed down, we saw two dogs (leashed and with their owner) charging down the adjacent aisle. Pretty much all my girls are nervous about dogs, but Uno is terrified of them. She screamed and clung to me and wouldn't let go. She kept wailing, "Make them go away! Mommy, make the dogs go away!" I had to peel her off of me to remind her that she was safe, and that as long as they were leashed it was Uno's job to stay away from them -- that her phobia wasn't the dog owners' responsibility.

Uno calmed down after the dogs left the store, but Tres remained on high alert. The decorations made her nervous. The masks freaked her out. We tried to stick to the non-gory parts of the store, but that didn't help either. At one point Dos picked up a broom from the Harry Potter section and Tres screamed, "Don't touch that! I'm worried you'll fly away!" We tried to explain that it was all fake, but I guess she's not old enough yet to fully understand the difference between real and pretend. (Though I had thought she was savvy: When she was potty training, I told her not to get her Dora panties wet because then Dora would be sad. "Mom," she told me, rolling her eyes a bit, "Dora won't be sad because that's just a picture on clothes -- it's not a real person!" Huh. That line had worked on her sisters when they were her age! Whatever!) We wandered around some more, looked at the friendly toddler costumes (a ballerina! Strawberry Shortcake! a princess!), but of course around every corner lurked some dark and scary thing so we called it quits before too long.

"Promise me," Tres said, "promise me you'll never take me to the Halloween store again. I don't like it." Poor kid.

On the drive home, I listened to an interview on NPR with the Baltic brass band-influenced alternative musician Beirut. He sounds like an interesting (not spooky!) guy, and I liked the snippets of music they played to punctuate the interview. His first album was Gulag Orkestar; his latest is Rip Tide. I think I'll check him out. Maybe you should, too. :-)


~RCH~

Things I've made recently

I am not a brilliant artiste, but I like to break up the drudgery of my days (and/or make my responsibilities seem more exciting) by crafting things. And of course when I say crafting, I mean using Photoshop, mostly.

Here are some things I've been working on:



I think I mentioned I was making myself a planner. I designed it for September 2011 - September 2012, with space for everybody's activities plus DH's work schedule and my Primary responsibilities on a week per two-page spread, and had it printed at Blurb.com. I like it. The only thing I would do differently is to design more space for Wednesday & Thursday, which fall on either side of the spine; the book doesn't lie perfectly flat, so a bit of each of those days gets lost in the bleed. Oh well. Anyway, this is the cover I made.




Uno saw my planer and wanted me to make her a 12 month calendar. "You can make it with monsters for every month!" she said. "For January, make Yetis throwing snowballs at each other. For February, draw vampires in love. For March...." I protested that I can't actually draw, and that it's even trickier to draw on a computer with a mouse (I don't have a tablet) but she begged me to just try. Like this: "Pleeeeeease, Mom, just tryyyyyyy!" All stretched out and desperate. So I'm giving it a go. Thank goodness for Photoshop shapes and brushes! This is one of two abominable snow people; the other is a boy, and is exactly the same, flipped horizontally, sans eye lashes and painted nails. Now I just have to put them against some kind of snowy background and give them stuff to throw at each other. (Please note that any person or anthropomorphic being I draw will always be facing forward. I can't draw profiles or any action other than arms raised, LOL.)




Tres had a preschool lesson last week about time, both in macro (days make weeks make months make years) and micro (hours of each day, parts of a clock) increments. For the daily stuff, I made this clock. I cut out each of the pieces, "laminated" them all with clear packaging tape, and then let Tres practice putting the icons on each part of the day where they belong -- sun up at 7; breakfast at 8; get the girls from school at 3(ish); etc. We didn't really mess with the hands of the clock because it was all a bigger lesson than I thought it would be, but I've saved the parts for another day.




I'm in charge of Sharing Time in Primary this month, and also designing the bulletin board with our monthly theme (which, for September, is The Gospel Will Be Preached In All The World). I made this 22"x17" poster, printed on four letter-sized card stock pages which I then taped together, representing the Tree of Life as described in Lehi's dream (1 Nephi 8; 1 Nephi 11). I printed out extra fruit, wrote gospel principles on the back of them and "laminated" them again with packing tape, then stuck them on top of the poster which I pinned to the bulletin board. For the activity, we talked about missionary work: What would you tell people about the gospel? Each kid got to come up and pick a fruit off the tree, and then we talked about that principle (prayer; faith; Christ as Savior; etc).

(Oh, and as a last minute addition to the bulletin board I cut out blank paper doll people in various colors and had them hold on to a silver sparkly pipe cleaner representing the Iron Rod mentioned in the scriptures above. I thought it turned out nicely, but I don't have a picture of the finished product so you'll have to imagine those parts.)


I guess that's all for now. I need to start thinking about how to draw spooky/cute vampires before Tres and Cuatro get up from their naps....


~RCH~