Looking back with Lot's Wife

Home equals sweat…pants I didn’t write an article last week. I was too darned tired. I substituted at work last week as a kindergarten teacher and grade school French teacher for about half the time I used to work and I was in a coma by the time I got home. It wasn’t just the hours, although I haven’t had to stand on my feet all day without a rest for months. It was matching my clothes. It was no snacks, no nap. It was the incredible pressure of Being on Time. My whole life has been a series of resolutions and angry people waiting for me. I KNOW I’m passive-aggressive, controlling, selfish—the label list is endless for the chronically time challenged—but I never can talk myself into doing what I’m supposed to do doing until it’s too late to finish on time and then, once I’ve started, I hate to stop. Plus, I hate to wait. I HAVE SUCH A HARD TIME BEING ON TIME. So last week, it was back to being a grown-up for a few hours a day. I loved being with my old friends, I LOVE substitute teachi...

April 12, 2000 Clay and I recently went grocery shopping together for almost the first time in our 21-year march towards eternity together. You know, I took those promises that we made to love and cherish one another forever as seriously as anyone, but we were young and in love and I never imagined any test would be as hard as this! For one thing, I see grocery shopping together as the next step before we officially become Ma and Pa Kettle putzing around the yard in our matching pastel stretch knits, but SHOPPING? Shopping is the last bastion of my independence. I know if we start shopping together, Clay will take it over and it will become another “guy” project. In other words, it will become more complicated, it will never get done, and I somehow will wind up being the bad guy. All this, and I’m not too wild about going to the grocery store in the first place. My friend Ursula says that taking her husband shopping is like taking a small child somewhere. The last time they went to K-...

Real Women In the seventies it was cool to sew. If you’ve lived here awhile you remember the great fabric store Virginia Gore had downtown. Everybody used to go there. People used to make clothes to send their kids to school in. I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but currently, if you send your kids to school in something homemade, they turn you into family services. A social worker comes to inspect your house to see if you’re high on cocaine, and then they give you a gift certificate for the factory outlets and tell you if you ever try to make your own jeans again, they’re going to take your kids away and send them to Martha Stewart’s house. Martha says, “why would anyone make children’s clothes when they could be making poached salmon with dill in a filo dough crust instead?” So anyway, Virginia Gore now has a great quilting store on 4th South up from the Art Museum on the north side, next to that neat little bakery/restaurant, which, by the way, has a drive through that you can...

Confession time February 9, 2000 Ok—this is a confession about the low, sneaky side of my life—about the most heinous thing I have ever done, something I can’t even believe I did but, in keeping with my desire to be completely honest with everyone I ever knew, I feel like I need to confess. So, here it is, its unbelievable, you won’t believe I did this—I, myself, can’t believe I actually did this BUT, here it is…I cheated at cards while playing with my kids. I mean, I was playing card game with my son and his wife, the parents of my new granddaughter, the first of my lineage, my key to the future, and I needed a set of three and a run of five. I had a ten and a five, six, eight and nine. There was a ten on top of the pile, and I decided not to pick it up, but then I changed my mind. But, meanwhile, I’d just peeked at the top card and IT WAS THE SEVEN! So, I changed my mind back and took it! I cheated! I peeked and changed my mind. I was so completely humiliated I couldn’t say anything...

So you want to be a parent? January 26, 2000 “So, really, we just need to remember that this is the worst part, right?” said my son Kenneth as he tried to play cards, cradle the bottle against his chin and feed his three-week-old daughter at the same time. “Yeah, sure, honey. Of course, there’s that whole ‘Dady, I need a drink’ thing coming up.” He laughed. What I thought was Gees, Louise, should I tell him about teething? And those weird fever things they get when they have 102 and it’s always, always, the middle of the night. Should I tell him about becoming a junkie, hooked on good report cards and finding new friends and the feeling you have when they stand up and get an ward. And the amount of work you put into getting them there? And the big lonely hole in the family when someone has their first sleep-over or goes to summer camp. AND how he’s going to feel when she brings home her first prom dress and you realize, my gosh, that strapless gown isn’t going to fall down! I remember ...

January 26, 2000 “So, really, we just need to remember that this is the worst part, right?” said my son Kenneth as he tried to play cards, cradle the bottle against his chin and feed his three-week-old daughter at the same time. “Yeah, sure, honey. Of course, there’s that whole ‘Daddy, I need a drink’ thing coming up.” He laughed. What I thought was, Gees, Louise, should I tell him about teething? And those weird fever things they get where they have 102 and it’s always, always, the middle of the night. Should I tell him about becoming a junkie, hooked on good report cards and finding new friends and the feeling you have when they stand up and get an award. And the amount of work you put into getting them there? And the big lonely hole in the family when someone has their first sleep-over or goes to summer camp. AND how he’s going to feel when she brings home her first prom dress and you realize, my gosh, that strapless gown isn’t going to fall down! I remember how desperate I felt on ...

January 12, 2000 Once upon a time in a kingdom far away, there lived a man named Bill Brown who owned a company called Bill Brown Realty. He had a salesman named Neal Henry whose mom was the Relief Society president when I lived in Denver. When I needed to buy a house in Utah, I called Neal because I knew his mom. Bill Brown is married to Marilyn—who was introduced to her by Neal Henry! TALK ABOUT COINCIDENCES!!! (I thought it was kind of amazing.) So, anyway, Bill Brown moved to Springville and bought the Villa Theater from Don and Jean Harvey, who is my visiting teacher, and spent a ton of money remodeling it and bringing theater to Springville. My son, Clay, was at the bottom of a long list of kids at our house who all had their thing. Some where good students, some were good athletes, and all were older, some much older, than him—and you know how older always looks better when you’re younger. So, one day Claybie read an article in the paper about auditions for “On Golden Pond” and ...