Category Archives: commentary

the dilemma of the Cadbury Mini Eggs…

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Cadbury Mini Eggs have to be one of my most favorite candies. I love them. I think part of my obsession is the limited availability of said eggs. They only come out at Easter. My sister, Alicia, is the one who got me totally hooked. She’s worse than I am. She buys bags and bags, hoping to make them last throughout the year…but they never do. We have a similar problem with Mint M&M’s (thank you, Allison), but it’s not quite so bad.

So, this morning I decided to Google them (the mini eggs). I learned a few things. I didn’t know that Hershey made them, but they do. Hershey acquired the rights to manufacture and sell Cadbury chocolates in the U.S. in 1988. Did you know that Cadbury Creme Eggs were created in the 1920’s? I’m not sure when the littlest chocolate eggs of love came into existence, but it was a good year, whenever it was.

So, where is the dilemma in all of this? I’ve got a candy jar at my desk…and there’s one at the reception desk. I recently filled mine with mini eggs because if I put them in the other jar, they are gone in about 5 minutes. My reasoning worked. The little nuggets of goodness haven’t disappeared as quickly as they did last week. People don’t naturally look on my desk for candy (I added the jar when I took the position, whereas the other jar has always been there), and so it does last longer…the problem is I eat the majority of them. I don’t know what the solution is. I’ve considered just buying the mini packs and keeping them at home. That way there is a limited quantity and I seem to be better with those, except then I wouldn’t have them at work and that would be sad. I could have individual packages at work, but then I would feel greedy.

Really, I think I have found the only possible solution. I will have to sacrifice my waistline for the good of all. I am so kind. People are lucky to work with me.

And these are the people who will be leading us into the future…

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Every year, English teachers from across the country can submit their collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.These excerpts are published each year for the amusement of teachers across the country. Here are last year’s winners…..

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse, without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. Coli, and he was room-temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife’s infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie, surreal quality, like when you’re on vacation in another city and Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that resembled Nancy Kerrigan’s teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap, only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

life lessons from my dad…

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I am currently living at home. Well, I need to qualify that a little. My dad has a studio apartment over his garage and that is where I currently reside. I have my own little kitchenette (little being the operative word) and bathroom and entrance (although I do have to go through the garage). When I left Arizona in May of last year, quitting my job and renting out my house, it was under the assumption that I was getting married and would be living with my new husband. So, when I called off the wedding, I found myself homeless, jobless and in quite a bit of debt (moving across the country twice and not working for four months will do that to a person). That is how I ended up here, in my dad’s house, living over his garage.

What I’ve discovered is that, as long as I am living in Provo (which I may be for a while if I decide to go to BYU for graduate school), living at home is fantastic. It makes the most sense financially. I’m not in the house, and so I have all of the privacy I want and I don’t have to play roommate roulette, but I have all of the benefits of living in a nice, big house, because I can go in it anytime I want. Not only that, but I have really enjoyed being able to get to know my dad better. He’s really funny…which brings me to what prompted this posting.

Yesterday, I got home from running in the Rex Lee Run to find that my dad wasn’t home. I called his cell phone to see where he was and he told me he was getting his car washed (a regular Saturday activity). Well, I’m broke (more broke than I have ever been…and the question you are all asking is “How is that possible when you are living at home?”…a post for another day) and I’m out of gas, so I asked him if I could meet him down there so that he could put gas in my car. I knew what the response would be, but I thought I’d ask, just the same.

As expected, he said no, but then he told me that if I was ever in real trouble, he’d help me out. I am in real trouble, but only because of my own stupidity and explaining that to my dad would be more painful than a root canal with no anesthetic. So I was especially grateful when he followed that comment with, “If you’d like to earn some money, there’s some yard work that you can help me with.” Sweet deal. My dad’s going rate for yard work is $10 and hour. Three hours of work and I’d have enough money to fill my tank. I get to live at home, virtually rent free (I do pay a little, so he can tell his wife I’m paying rent) and my dad provides me with jobs so I can make extra money. I’m a lucky, lucky girl.

My dad could have just purchased a tank of gas for me yesterday, but what would that have taught me? He is very wise…despite his age. He does not believe in free handouts (or free loans…the going interest rate on a loan from the Bank of Nev is 7%, but I don’t qualify due to a poor credit history), not because he couldn’t give me the money or because he’s stingy, but because he knows that working for what you have makes you a much happier, more confident person, even if it is doing yard work for $10 an hour.

So today, I’m very sunburned, very sore (yard work and running), have a couple of blisters, $40 less poor and in possession of my dignity. Not to mention the QT with my dad, which I always enjoy, including (and especially) the stupid jokes he tells.

Grey’s dilemma…(really George’s, but I wanted a name you’d recognize).

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I watched Grey’s Anatomy tonight for maybe the third time in my life. It’s a great show, I just have not, in the recent past, been one to get into shows (other than VM, and that is entirely my sister’s doing). I think there’s part of me that feels like I’m a better person when my world doesn’t revolve around t.v. shows. Stupid, I know, but true. I realize most of you have TiVo or DVR, so your worlds don’t revolve around t.v., but you get my point. I digress.

Tonight’s episode was a little emotional for me. Not emotional, like I cried…although it wouldn’t be the first time I cried when it was inappropriate, but I didn’t…more it brought up some serious feelings. First of all, my mom died, and so any dead mom moments in any show/movie get to me. Second was the scene where George and his wife are talking about Izzie (I had to look up the names) and George laughs because, well, why would Izzie ever want him? The writers of this show did a phenomenal job with that scene. And after my weekend from Hell (I’m using that in the biblical sence) and finding out that “what’s his name?” got married (a.k.a. the ex-fiance…yes, it still hurts even when you are the one who ended things)…it just hit too close to home.

I don’t know if any of you have ever been with someone who makes you feel like you aren’t good enough…or feels the need to rate you on a scale of one to ten as compared to his ex-wife…let me just say, it is not an enjoyable experience. That’s what I felt tonight. All of the pain of that moment relived. George totally felt like he was settling and made it known.

The truth is you do need to be with someone who is compatible (i.e. you feel like equals) if you want the relationship to work. At least that’s what I’ve read. So, here’s my question: What if you view yourself differently than others see you? You like creme brule, but you’re jello? What then? How do you know that you are finding someone compatible and not settling? How do you know that the other person doesn’t feel like they’re settling? How awful would that be? We can’t all play doctors on t.v. and look like Katherine Heigl?

Just some thoughts. Great show, great writing, fabulous music.

P.S. I just downloaded the new Aqualung album. Love it!

journal dilemma…

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I am not the most consistent journal writer, although there have been periods when I’ve been really good. I call myself an all or nothing girl. I’m either 100% or 0. The same has applied to my journal keeping habits. When I was an exchange student in Belgium, I wrote everyday, same with my mission. But otherwise, my journal writing has been limited to those times when I needed to write and get all of my feelings out so that I wouldn’t explode. Translation: they are very fragmented and negative and depressing. Now that I have my little blog, I’m pretty good about recording things. I still write in a journal. Not consistently, but when there are things that are too personal for cyberspace I go to my journal.

So, here’s the dilemma. Having written in a journal pretty consistently last year (at least during a good portion of it), I have a record of my life in glorious detail. I haven’t been sure what to do. I’ve read some passages now and then, trying to make sense of my life and what happened over the last year. In reading it, I came to the conclusion that I don’t want those memories. Not in writing anyway. I made a lot of mistakes that I don’t care to remember in excruciating detail. Isn’t the whole point of learning a lesson so that you don’t have to relive it? It’s not like I want to forget the lessons I learned. I have no desire to repeat them. But I just don’t think I need the play by play.

I know there are people out there who would shudder at the thought of destroying a personal record, no matter how painful it is. I thought I was one of those people. Yesterday, I proved myself wrong. I’ve been thinking about doing it for months, but yesterday I finally thought about it when I was able to do something about it. I destroyed my journal from last year. A relatively easy task when it’s all soft copy. Just a few clicks of the mouse, and voila. Free at last!

I wonder at people who hold on to things that are negative. Is it possible to ever get out of the swamp if you are always swimming around in the mud? Don’t mistake me for someone who wants to pretend that her life has been perfect and she has never made a mistake. I’m not trying to hide anything, but there are ways to record things that I think serve a better purpose. So, my goal now is to write the type of journal that I feel would be useful and reflects who I am.

Am I lying to myself? Does this make me dishonest? I don’t know. I don’t think so. The truth is I don’t care. What I do know is that I feel much better knowing that those words are gone, that I can never read them again. No regrets…at least not about erasing the journal.