mostly probably

I’m bored. My hair looks like I haven’t washed it in a couple days because I haven’t washed it in a couple days. I’m doing some work on my laptop and just remembered that I have a webcam. Guess what I’ve been doing for the past ten minutes?

From my brother’s blog (I shamefully admit I didn’t know a lot of this stuff about my grandpa):

Like most holidays, Memorial Day seems to have lost its meaning. For most of us, including myself, we spend the days running up to and the day itself trying to figure out the best ways to entertain ourselves. While it’s certainly not bad to relax and take a break, we pay scant attention to the day’s purpose. Here’s my attempt to do so just a little.

Memorial Day was first instituted as a tribute to soldiers who had fallen during the US Civil War, and after World War I it became a day to honor all those who have fallen in any armed conflict. Today its purpose seems to have broadened to encompass all those who have participated in any armed conflict and who are now dead (but who didn’t necessarily die as a result of the armed conflict).

My Grandpa Asay was career military (US Air Force), and fits into the last category (my Grandpa Lane was also career military, but I don’t know much about him as he died early in my life). Our generation seems to be addicted to pointing out the errors of previous generations, but we’d be well served to take into account the toughness and grit of previous generations. For me, my Grandpa Asay was (and still is) the epitome of that toughness.

Grandpa Asay grew up on a ranch in Wyoming. At 6′6″, his father was a mammoth of a man, and his brothers were similarly big hombres (although apparently Great Grandma Asay at 5′2″ ran the place with an iron fist). Grandpa was the runt of the bunch at 5′11″, but I don’t think anyone would ever identify him as runt in any way, shape, or form. After serving a LDS church mission, he came home and went into the military and spent some time in Japan as a tank commandeer at the tail end of WWII. Before leaving for Japan, though, he had had a shotgun wedding in Tennessee (where he was training) to marry his longtime sweetheart, my Grandma Asay (a tough mujer herself. She spent part of the time during Grandpa’s mission working on warplanes at a military base in Utah).

When Grandpa returned from Japan, he quit the military and enrolled at the University of Utah, where he played offensive line. Upon completing his bachelor’s, he planned on attending law school. Duty called again, however, and he served in the US Air Force during the Korean War. For Grandpa, law school was permanently postponed. Two of his grandkids (myself included) got the chance Grandpa never had to attend law school. We probably did it half as well as he would have.

Grandpa later served during Vietnam as well, spending a year in Thailand, and was stationed throughout his life (with his family) in places like Spain, England, Germany, and Iran. When I think of Grandpa, he had such a quiet dignity about him, such a toughness that was unspoken but quite apparent. He wasn’t loud or demonstrative about his life. He just did good silently and consistently. Often when I am doing something that I consider difficult, I draw inspiration by thinking of my Grandpa and his toughness and grit. They are often silly things, I realize, that I consider difficult, things Grandpa probably took in stride. But maybe, just maybe, with some of Grandpa’s toughness and grit, I can learn to handle bigger hurdles in the future.

Before you think I’m unduly glorifying my Grandpa, let me assure you I’m aware that he had some slight imperfections. Perhaps telling one of my favorite anecdotes about him will confirm this. Apparently Grandpa was a good boxer, and was the boxing champion of his Air Force division. As the story goes, one day someone underneath Grandpa’s rank who was tired of taking orders said to him, “Asay, if you weren’t wearing those pins, you wouldn’t be talking to me like that.” Grandpa proceeded to remove his officer’s pins and pummel the upstart. So, yes, sometimes toughness can get carried away (I must admit, though, that the guy sounds like he deserved it).

This Memorial Day, we’d all do well to remember what those in previous generations have done, and what those who are currently serving are doing. Rather than constantly criticizing the follies of previous eras, we can learn a lot from reflecting upon the devoted lives of those who have served honorably. I honor my Grandpa this day for the life he lived and the toughness, grit, and dignity he always had. I hope I can one day rise to his stature. As I go about it, I’ll try to keep my fists to myself.

Screening Questions:

1. Do you find yourself waking up at 9 a.m. on a and then falling back to sleep for a couple hours just because you can?
2. Do you ever delay getting dressed until 3 p.m. in the afternoon just because you can?
3. Do you find yourself with hours of free time during the day with which to participate in mindless movie marathons just because you can?
4. Do people ever ask you why you’re home in the middle of the day? (To which you usually respond “Just because I can.”)
5. Do you have any kids?

If you answered yes to these questions (and no to the last one) then congratulations! You qualify to be part of our exclusive “Stay at Home Wives” Club. Now some people frown on the very idea of this club (even in its extremely informal capacity) existing. Some people call it lazy. I think I speak for all three of the members of the “Stay at Home Wives” Club when I say we have two very different words for it: extremely and fortunate.

My day started by waking up to the chirps of Elliot and Olivia, who just have to welcome the rising sun with their incessant singing. No big deal. Shut the door and sleep a little longer. When I do get up, I do some transcription. (Just so you know, I’m not staying home and lazing about the whole day!) I get my friend Angel and we pick up lunch and meet some of the ladies in our ward at the park for our Relief Society sack lunch thing (thanks DeA, that’s a great idea, by the way!) and afterwards, head over to Michelle’s.

I think it was at some point during “The Pianist” (to which I would have given 5 stars had I been in the mood for a movie about a pianist that only plays the piano for a total of 2.5 seconds during the entire 2.5 hour movie) that one of us made the comment, “We must look incredibly awesome. We’re three stay at home wives watching movies on a Tuesday afternoon.” And thus the “Stay at Home Wives” Club was born.

Looking back over this post, I realize how lazy all of this must sound. I take comfort in the fact that I worked about half the time as I would have at my previous full-time job and still made just as much money in four hours that I might have in eight. That’s not lazy. That’s incredibly industrious. Plus, I never would have been able to watch “Footloose” in an office job. And that’s just not a job I want to have.

In recent news, they hate it when you pretend you can beat box.

These are my new budgies (another word for parakeet that I think is cuter), Elliot & Olivia. Olivia is the pale yellow one and Eliott is the green one with cute purple cheeks.

Elliot is the only one trusting enough to let me put my hand in there, which is why I have a picture of him by himself. Olivia is on the bottom of the cage trying to bite my fingers off. She hates everyone and avoids making eye contact by turning her back on the world (as shown in the first picture and the video).

I have music going in the house pretty much all day which (I have found) can get annoying when you have two incredibly vocal birds, but the first couple of times it was cute to have them singing along. If you watch the video below, kindly ignore my commentary. My favorite part is when Olivia lunges at Elliot in a fit of parakeetish rage towards the end.

Can we just pretend that my parakeets are as fascinating as kids? I’m afraid this is all I’ve got at the moment. Thanks.

I have parakeets! They’re super cute and their names are Elliott and Olivia. (Ten bonus points to the first person to guess where the names came from!) I just can’t get over the cuteness! Right now they’re freaked out and are just standing on their little perch, but every once in a while they chirp to let me know they’re still around I guess.

I’ve been wanting birds for a while but it was pretty spontaneous anyway. PetSmart is almost right next door to Old Navy. I was shopping for nothing in specific at Old Navy, and after shopping for a while without any hope for success, I said to myself, “Old Navy has no good clothes today! I guess I’ll get birds instead.” (Yes, that is literally the exact thing that went through my head prior to picking up my new babies.)

It smells like dog urine in here.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory. ~Albert Schweitzer

I just wanted to say thanks again to Tib for this idea. I have been feeling particularly ungrateful lately (what else is new?) so I wouldn’t say I’m thankful for this new therapy but it’s probably a good thing.

1. I love Broadway. My mother-in-law gave me a copy of the Little Mermaid on Broadway CD and every song on it gives me goosebumps! I love it! I have been feeling really stressed the past couple of days (see #2) and nothing soothes me quite like singing at the top of my lungs to awesome songs I don’t know most of the words to. I’m not in love with Disney. Laugh if you will, but I tend to adopt the idea of my friend Becca who believes firmly in the general sexism manifested in Disney movies (seriously, whether intentional or not, it is there). However, the Broadway versions of Disney movies are so much better (with the added benefit that they don’t teach that women need a man to be happy or successful)! My favorite songs from The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, and the Little Mermaid on Broadway are not in the movies at all, and the people who sing them are so much more talented. It’s pretty great.
2. Work is going incredibly well for me lately! I have been busy, busy, BUSY with my workshop class (another one this week) and on top of that, the TV production company that I do transcriptions for just started a new TV show so I have been doing a ton of those. The Folklore Club and the Technical Writing association on campus just asked me if I would be willing to revamp their respective websites which I am excited about. On top of that, I just picked up an editing job for an actual novel! How very official am I? So I’m going to have to drop a couple of my classes, but for a good reason. With all this extra tech writing work, I’m going to be able to get a whole incredible slew of internship credits! Hurray! So even though I’m about to gnaw my arm off because of all the anxiety and stress, I’m so grateful for the experiences opening up. My PB says that I will have a lot of incredible experiences and opportunities through my education and I have definitely seen that, now more than ever.

Anyway, I need to go and take notes now but I’m feeling a lot better. I’m still nervous about not getting everything done but I’m sure everything will work out. And Meghan, I’m thankful for you too!

I just thought of doing this today when I heard a song on the radio that shot me back to eighth grade. The song? “I Think I Love You” by the Partridge Family. That’s right. That was my first song I ever had with a boy. I know. The time was eighth grade and Tyler and I had a passionate romance which, in eighth grade terms, meant that we occasionally ate lunch together and said hi to each other in the halls. The truth is I was terrified of him. His friends were my friends and my friends were his friends’ friends so it just worked out that Tyler and I should be together.

It began in my English class. It’s probably the same today but when I was in junior high people always wrote on the desks things like, “Mrs. Roberts is a hag!” and “Who sits here?” Well I sat in a desk that some very creative and original eighth grader had written, “Hi, who sits here?” I responded. “Molly. Who’s this?” The next day my desk-type pen pal had written back. “Look under the desk.” I looked under the desk to find a note strapped to it. Tyler and I wrote back and forth to each other for a good six months until the fateful day I got a note from my friend Kevin that said, “If you want to meet Tyler, come to the band room after school.”

It was time for me to meet my fate. I walked into the band room and came face to face with my first crush. Kevin grinned. “Tyler, this is Molly. Molly, Tyler.” Tyler and I, unfamiliar with how to actually speak to each other after months of memorizing handwriting and playing delayed tic tac toe, each offered up a token “hey” and that was it. Turns out, Kevin and Tyler were best friends and Kevin had an annoyingly persistent crush on me since our junior high orientation almost two years before. And so the torrid love affair began.

Even after Tyler wrote me a note asking me if I wanted to go out with him, we still preferred writing notes back and forth until we graduated to emails. Sometimes he would chalk the sidewalk in front of my house with cryptic messages and sometimes I would chalk the sidewalk in front of his, wondering all the while what his house looked like on the inside. I got back from a vacation one day to find the word “ITILY” written all over my driveway. What the…? I emailed Tyler and actually talked to him a few times about this and he would never tell me what it meant.

Well, we were all chillin’ like villains (might as well use the slang of the day) at Kevin’s house one day. Tyler offered to walk me home and the mystery of ITILY came up in conversation, as it usually did. As we stood on the porch of my house, Tyler asked for the last time, “Are you sure you don’t know what it is?” I assured him I did not. Tyler, his voice shaking, gave me a hug and told me, “I think I love you.” I was scared out of my pants (okay, I’m kind of a baby) and with my voice shaking, I made a small and simple statement that as soon as it came out of my mouth I wanted to crawl in a hole and die.

“Yeah, uh, me too.”

Tyler gave me a look that can only express, “What the crap is that supposed to mean?” I would like to say I laughed it off and told him how embarrassed I was but instead I just replied very smoothly and coolly of course, “Yeah um, I think I love you too.” And dashed back inside. I wish I could say my love life began to improve after that. I am a lot of things but suave is definitely not one of them. Anyway, every time I hear that song (which is not often, if you can believe it), I think of that first crush I had and how I apparently have not learned anything about love and relationships since then.

(By the way, it’s appropriate that to break up with Tyler, I emailed him the lyrics to the song, “What Might Have Been” by Little Texas. Best song ever. Please download it.)