What's that again?

My grandfather has been in town for the last two days visiting my sister and me. He has Alzheimer and is losing it a little. This means that he is able to talk for hours about his career as a doctor or tell funny antidotes about going on blind dates in college. The giveaway is that in-between his talking, he will ask me where I teach, how many students I have, and what subject do I teach, several times over and over again. I’ve gotten used to this, and really do love spending time with him. I’m not sure if it is the disease or old age, but my once regal grandfather known to everyone as either Bishop Graves or Doctor Graves has lost his filter for what is socially acceptable and what isn’t.

Example #1- We are sitting at dinner in a fancy restaurant in Park City and there are lots of people within earshot. My grandfather launches into one of his random rants about society and says, “When I grew up we didn’t have any queers; we had boys called sissies. A sissy was just a boy that had a really overbearing mother and didn’t play ball with the rest of us. The sissies back then just wound up getting married to someone like their moms. I don’t understand all these queers nowadays. It seems like they just want the attention.” While this is taking place, Laura and I are trying to make him change the subject and looking around to see if anyone overheard him. We have the same reaction when he starts talking about “colored” people.

Example #2- We are playing miniature golf up at the Park City resort. My grandfather says he going to find a bathroom and starts walking off behind the family maze, another attraction. My sister Laura tries to tell him where the bathrooms are on the other side of the resort. My grandfather calmly replies, “I’m pretty sure I can find one back here.” It is hard to describe the horror and shock that overcame us when we both realized that my grandfather was going to pee right behind the family maze. The only thing worse was when we realized that the mountain biking trail came out right behind him, so lots of other people got to share in our shock and disbelief.

First Day at School

Teaching 7th and 9th graders in Utah is probably the equivalent of teaching 5th and 7th graders in Texas. They are so emotionally stunted that they don’t even get half of my jokes.
Today we played the name game. This is a game where you learn all the names of the students by having them find something that rhymes with their names or is alliterative. I may be able to learn their names in a few months, but I will never be able to spell them all. People in Utah feel the need to either make up names or misspell common names to confuse future generations of people.

Examples:
I have many girls by the names of Kaylee, Kaylie, Kaleigh, Kaileigh, and Kayle.

I’ve got Braiden, Brayeden, Braydeen, and Braden.

My favorite names are Precious, Charlin, Mysti, Shanica, Aubrie, Sault, Darger, Meriken, Mcky, Mattiliynn, and Oakley. I have literally dozens of random misspellings of normal names, but I won’t bore you with them. I know what you’re thinking…these are all WHITE, suburban kids with screwed up names. I only have two Hispanic kids out of 170 students and their names are Maria and Michael.

My favorite quote of the day: It’s always best if you can do it without using a lot of strokes.
Some 7th grade kid was trying to explain his summer playing mini-golf to the class. BTW- NO ONE BUT ME LAUGHED AT THAT.

SIDENOTE: “Roy” sent me flowers to school today. How cute is that?!

Having a Folky Good Time

Last weekend my cousin was playing in a folk festival in Colorado. She entered the Folks Festival (I didn’t spell it wrong, that is the name of the festival…creative, I know) contest last year with hundreds of other singers and won. You may be picturing middle to late-aged woman with long unkempt hair sitting on a stool and denouncing the government, but Sarah is actually a young girl with styled blonde hair who struts her stuff while she sings. Her prize for winning was her very own stage at this year’s Folks Festival in lovely Lyons, Colorado ( I say lovely because it is a beautiful place by the mountains with water flowing through it…I also say it ironically here as a bit of foreshadowing of events to come). My mom, cousins, and sisters have long planned on attending her debut on a main stage. Sadly, my sister Fran couldn’t make it because she was preggo. I say “was” because she had the baby the same morning that my cousin Sarah performed on Saturday. My sister Laura was supposed to accompany me on the 7 hour drive from Salt Lake City, but she backed out days before. I was left contemplating the cross-country trek by my lonesome. You all know how love to be alone, so since I didn’t want to make the drive on my own, I roped a date into coming with me. My date is someone that I’ve known for a long time and recently started dating. He is cute, normal, witty, but sadly isn’t Mormon. Anyway, for the sake of brevity and secrecy we’ll call him “Roy”.

Roy arrived promptly to drive to Colorado with me and attend the folk festival. I had built the trip up as a couple of days in the sun listening to good music enjoying the festival atmosphere and camping under the stars. I don’t think either of us knew what we were getting into. Let me start by alerting all of you who don’t know me that I’m the worst passenger on long car trips. The minute the car is in motion, I get sleepy and pass out; I’m like a 2 year old in a car seat. If I’m driving, I’m a road warrior and could stay awake all night. If I’m sitting next to the driver, I start nodding off before I’m out of the driveway. Anyway, Roy insisted on driving my Civic, something about men and the need to show their ability to drive long distances in short amounts of time that I will never understand. Unintentionally, I put him to an early test of his mettle… I think I woke up about the time we reached Colorado. I took the wheel for the last couple of hours and noticed the weather getting increasingly bad. My hope was that this light sprinkling was just a passing squall. Well, by the time we reached Lyons, the temperature had dropped from 90 to 50 degrees and it was pouring rain. As we neared our destination, I caught myself sneaking more and more glances across at Roy; one because he is cute and I felt a growing attraction, and two because I was curious to see if the weather was dampening his usual smiling disposition. I was surprised to find he was taking this all in stride. We arrived at the campsite (more on this “campsite” in a moment) around 7pm on Friday night, just in time to see Patty Griffin play. Her lyrics and amazing voice energized an obviously tired audience. Of course her magnificent full-length bedazzled jacket probably helped.

Alright, let’s talk about he audience for a second. I want you all to picture what it would look like if you crossed Lillith Fair and Woodstock. It was a mud soaked campground and outdoor theatre completely overrun with lesbians and bearded folk festival men. And when I say ‘soaked’, I mean you had to choose your footsteps carefully or find your shoes completely underwater! I saw a few average ‘folksy-people’ as I glanced around, but I think the rain had scared most of the “fair-weather” fans back to their tents or hotel rooms by the time we arrived. Luckily, I had a poncho in my car, but I had nothing for Roy. We had planned for 90 degree weather sitting comfortably in small lawn chairs, so we each only packed a light sweatshirt. As we neared the actual seating area of the outdoor concert I noticed the rain was soaking through Roy’s gray sweatshirt. I had brought my wide-rimmed hiking hat that repels water fairly well and had this pulled down over the top of his hoodie. What a sight he was! I was amazed that he still smiled while swinging his arms and saying jovially ‘this is awesome!’ He was redefining what it means to be a good sport and endearing himself to me at the same time. We eventually ran into my cousin equipped with an extra clear disposable poncho and I quickly pulled it over his head as commented on the 90 degree weather, smirked, and shook his head. I can’t do the scene justice, but I will forever have the priceless image of Roy standing in front of a stage with a funny hat, watching Patty, drenched, in an ill-fitting poncho completely surrounded by lesbians singing and dancing.

We were originally supposed to camp walking distance from the stage in a grass parking lot, but my saint-of-a-mother got us a room at some place with cabins. I think setting up a tent in the rain in a small inundated spot tucked next to every other festival goer may have caused my date to drive off in the middle of the night without me. So, after leaving the festival grounds (there was actually not too much ground left that was above water) we sloshed our way to the car, picked up some treats from an always entertaining Wal-Mart and found our way to the B&B.

I called the woman who owns the cabin on the way and she gave me directions. She told me to keep driving along the property until we saw a sign that said “The Fishing Lodge.” I can’t express the warm thoughts that accompanied the idea of a big bed and room to stretch out. We drove past many nice looking expansive cabins on the property, and finally caught sight of the sign that read “The Fishing Lodge”. We thought there must be some mistake as it was hung on the back porch of the main house. We parked the car and walked into the “Lodge.” I’m not sure that you can wall in a 5’x12’ porch off the back of your house and call it a “lodge”, but they seemed to have done a masterful job of it. I wanted to check in with the owner, so I pulled back the blinds of our “Lodge” avoided the doorbell that was strangely mounted on the inside of our room, opened the sliding-glass door, and walked into the main house. To my surprise, the whole family was sitting right on the other side of the glass door watching the Olympics in their living room. It was like a seen out of National Lampoon’s Vacation. I kept waiting for the husband to pull out a slice of watermelon and spit seeds while we were conversing. It was another one of those moments that seemingly only happens to me on my dates.

Trying to sleep in a twin bed that night with Roy, a 250lb guy that likes to sleep on his stomach was almost as uncomfortable. Arghh. Normally, I would have complained, but after what I put him through, I had to shut my mouth, flatten myself against the wall, and try to picture myself riding shotgun in a Honda Civic in order to get to sleep. I did this with the knowledge that I was going to ask him to trudge back through the mud and slop in his tennis shoes again in the morning to see my cousin. Poor guy.

Stairway to Hell

Sorry it’s been so long. I’ve been on a few more trips collecting stories. Two weekends ago I went to Yosemite to hike Half Dome. Actually, I originally just went to hang out with friends, but my pride got the better of me and I wound up hiking 18 miles up to an elevation of 8,646 feet. I made the mistake of bragging that I’d hiked the Peruvian Andes around the campfire the night before. I said that since I’ve climbed the Andes and the tallest mountains in both Utah and Colorado, how hard could some little hill in California be? I couldn’t figure out why the boy I was relating my previous hikes to was just nodding with a smirk on his face. Later that night, as I was once again spouting off about how easy this alleged hike would be, when my friend came up to me, clasped me on the shoulder and whispered that I should ease back as it really is a difficult hike and that I might not even be able to finish it. He added that the boy I was talking to didn’t finish the hike the previous year and actually bled from every single one of his ten toes, his heels, and the tops of his feet. Since the my friend runs about 5-10 miles a day without sweating, I realized I might want to tone down my usual competitive banter.

The maps say that the hike usually takes about 10-12 hours. We woke up at 4:30am so we’d be there before the sun heated up the rocks and the cables become crowded. We also were trying to beat the group of marathon runners from our campsite that were waking up at 5am. I won’t detail the lack of sleep from the night before as I slept upon rock hard dirt with no pad and was entertained by screaming kids for most of the night. The grueling start of the trail was three and a half miles of stone stairs. I started mouthing “I HATE YOU” to my two guy friends every time they turned around to see if I was keeping up. I think it was the combo of the strenuous hike and the fact they were crop dusting the trail with noxious fumes that were probably the result of cheap beer and too many smores the night before. The first nine miles are really just straight up. There are a variety of terrain changes throughout the climb like stone steps, a million switchbacks, and then just basically just scaling a rock using a cable. I honestly thought I was going to die. The only thing that kept me going was my bad 80’s mix on my ipod and the fact that I’d bragged so much the night before that I couldn’t possibly swallow my pride and quit.

The only part of the whole thing that I enjoyed was the last quarter mile when you have to scale the dome using gloves and holding onto a cable while tackling the 70 degree incline on one large rock. The only reason this was fun for me is because I’m not really afraid of death. Those of you who know me have seen me drive and can vouch for this fact. I don’t care about dying, and if I were to have let go of a cable or slipped, that is exactly what would have happened. Plus, I rock climbed in college and got over my fear of heights. The boys, however, were both terrified of heights and that mere fact almost made it worth the trip. That last quarter mile I got to mock them on the cables while they shook and looked petrified. I basked in their fear and shaking limbs while they clung to cables with poorly fitting gloves…it was almost worth the 8.75 miles of the grueling climb in their jet contrails.

In order to keep our lead on the marathoners that were close behind us, we ran back down the trail after we finished the assent portion of the hike. My legs were numb at this point, so it wasn’t as bad as I thought. All in all, we did the whole hike in 5 hours and 30 minutes. I’m not one for marathons or triathlons because that kind of punishing race doesn’t appeal to my lazy nature. After this hike, I feel like I can understand the kind of satisfaction that comes from completing one of them. Of course, I couldn’t walk for three days and still have blisters that are healing on my feet. Sometimes I think of myself as tough, and then I remember who I really am. I am the girl that only does about 45 min on the elliptical and watches the calorie counter the whole time trying to figure out how many cals I have to burn to cover the roll of Thin Mints I ate for lunch. I’m not the sleep- on-the-ground-and-run/powerhike-18-miles kind of girl.

Cellf Reflection (It's not a typo but a bad pun)

I know it has been a while, but I’ve been away from my lovely laptop for way too long. I’ve recently spent a week pseudo-camping out in Grass Valley, California and am now headed to Yosemite for the weekend of real camping and smores. Grass Valley was a beautiful escape for me. I was surrounded by friends, people who actually know my first and probably my last name. They only stayed for the first two days of my trip because they have something called jobs, but those days were pure bliss. They were people that I could talk or not talk to for hours. We all liked snow peas and board games. (If you haven’t seen Best In Show, you probably won’t get the above reference. In fact, even if you saw the movie, it still won’t be funny to you. I’m currently just writing to amuse myself right now.)

This was the little cabin we stayed at in Grass Valley. My dad actually built this with

his bare hands...and a few helpers that didn't speak much English.

I realized three important things about myself after spending 5 ½ days in Grass Valley.

1. I need my cell phone! It is no longer just a want; it has become a necessity to have my cell phone in range of one or more Verizon towers. I am able to go without my cell phone for a day or two but not any more than that. I knew it was time to go back to civilization, when I found myself crawling on the roof of the cabin searching for a single bar of service so that I could get at least one text message. It was an all-time low for me. Don’t worry, I have self-loathing knowing how shallow and ridiculous it is, but that didn’t change my urge to call someone. After 5 ½ days, it made me have a whole new respect for the movie The Shining. I bet that if Jack Nicholson would have had text messaging, voice mail, and the opportunity to just call someone to help him with his issues, he would have been just fine.

2. I’m probably the most competitive person I know when it comes to board games. I’m a competitive person in general, but board games bring out a particularly brutal kind of cutthroat spirit. I promised myself before the game that I wouldn’t take anything seriously and I’d try to just have a good time. Then, once the game began, I became a Mr. Hyde version of myself. I knew it was time to stop playing games during Scategories when I cursed out half the room. I’ll lay out the scenario for you. The category was “Things Found in the Sea” and the letter was “F”. I decided to forgo the obvious answers of Fish and Fire Coral and went with something original. I was so excited to announce “Flipper” and then heartbroken when it was vetoed on account that it was a fictional dolphin’s name. This is ludicrous because everyone that has a dolphin near their house in Florida or California calls it Flipper. It is the dolphin equivalent of Fido for the dog or Blackie for the stray, black cat. Anyway, it was vetoed. I was trying to get over my anger and quietly seethe in my corner, when the person to my left said that he put down Fisherman. Everyone voted and agreed that he got a point for “Fisherman.” Fishermen aren’t found IN the sea unless they are dead. Fishermen are ON the sea IN a boat. How did I lose with Flipper and he won a point with Fisherman. *Please note- I am working myself into a raging mad-on just thinking about this again. I now need to stop, breath, and crawl into child’s pose. See…I have definite competitive issues that I need to work on before I’m allowed to play with others.


3. I desperately need a hot tub for my house in Utah. I forgot how amazing a hot tub is while living in Texas. In Texas, there are only about 5-10 days a year where you could actually use a hot tub for its intended purpose. I’ve mostly seen hot tubs used as summertime kiddie pools and, in a couple of white trash instances, I seen them filled with ice to cool down large quantities of beer for a backyard party. A cool mountain evening borders on perfection when you have an accessible hot tub. I’m getting on craigslist as soon as I get home.

Well, I hope to have many more stories to share when I get back from Yosemite. Is it wrong that I’m hoping the fires up there will keep everyone from wanting to do the 7 hour dome hike? I know that I’m a wuss, but 7 hours of hiking seems awfully long. Maybe I can stick around camp a guard the tents; I hear the bears are particularly intrusive this time of year. I also could volunteer my cooking skills and maybe opt out on the hike so that I could prepare the after-hike meal. Let me know if y’all can think of any other excuses to keep me out of 7 hours of mind-draining heat.