Looking back with Lot's Wife

Trivial Pursuit July 28, 1999 Ok, now you are going to receive a free singing lesson. Stand in front of the mirror and pooch your lips together like they were the top of a present (like a ball) wrapped in tissue paper with a string tied around it. Then take two fingers and place them on either side of your mouth—and blow. That’s right, make that horse whinnying sound, and sing your scales. There. When you are a famous opera singer, you can do this every night to loosen up your lips. I used to always hope that someday I would be an expert at something. Experts say that if a child feels that he can do better than almost everyone, he’ll never have a problem with self-esteem. I have NEVER been that child and I have always had problems with self-esteem. So the experts were right. But I’ve given up on being an expert and I want to SING! I want to rear back and take a deep breath and let ‘er rip! I’ve never been able to sing, with capital letters, because my natural voice sounds like a three-...

July 14, 1999 Having your kids leave home is a lot like being robbed—you read about it in the paper but you don’t think it will ever happen to you. But things do happen, and if you’re lucky, they happen when you’re ready. Like an empty nest. It’s not happening to us yet—our lovely teen-age boy is just gone for a couple of weeks to a camp at BYU. He packed enough stuff to take him to Peru and back—apparently he too is fairly excited to see the last of us for awhile. He’s called home twice for stuff he forgot. Thank goodness. But I remember so well when I first became a mom—back before I was actually old enough to own a new car and barely old enough to vote. I was so much more confident, I can tell you that. I was so close to being a kid myself, that I remembered what it was like and I was NICE to those kids. Those were the first kids when my hormones were strong and the nesting urge overrode everything. And I played like crazy with them. I didn’t mind making a mess because my apartment...