dual personalities

The morning dawned hot and muggy but a cool breeze was blowing in from the river for the Bicentennial festivities. Sorry I’m a big dork and think events like this are cool. I stood in the sun until I felt my right shoulder warming up and fearing an even blotchier tan/sunburn situation, I moved to the shade off to the side.

Later, inside, there was a naturalization ceremony where 33 lucky people became United States citizens. They were all really excited and I found the whole thing very moving. There was one of those All-State choirs there and they sang the National Anthem beautifully.

In other, unrelated, news, this amused me. I am always the bear.

This is pretty much me to myself every night. I didn’t even have a terrible day–but lately it seems like there is all this existential stress and dread looming over us all the time that it feels like a terrible day, even when it isn’t!

Usually when this happens, it’s a good time to turn to your Bible and flip it open and start reading. Unless you land on one of those pages that’s just so-and-so beget so-and-so, you’re sure to find something useful.

I will say of the Lord, “He is my refuge and my fortress,

    my God, in whom I trust.”

Psalm 91

Read the whole thing.

Hello, readers. Daughter #1 here. Back from a conference in Utah. Thank you Daughter #2 for covering for me. Yes, I travelled to Utah for 3 1/2 days of talking to people I don’t know and wearing a very large nametag, even in public. I had not flown in over a year and a half and it’s just as hellish but now with a mask! At least if I sat at a bar nursing a diet coke, I could remove it. A warning–the Salt Lake City airport, though brand new and featuring a security set up that looks as if it were designed and implemented by Chick Fil A employees, has a walk that must be at least two miles long from the pick up/drop off to the Southwest gates. At one point, half-way through, there is a sign that literally says “7 Minute Walk to B Gates” OKAY.

Anyway, the first night, I braved an enclosed tram full of 50 people to ride up a mountain for this view. I can’t imagine skiing down! The conference itself was interesting and I am I glad I went. But I was also glad to get home.

We also got to see the Utah State Capitol–and while it was pretty, I like Missouri’s more.

Our tour guide told us that the seagulls you can just glimpse at the top of the rotunda have a wingspan of six feet when you are up close. From the floor, obviously, they look quite small. My mother, of course, knew the the significance of seagulls to the Mormons–read more here.

Beehives are also of importance to Utahans and their State Capitol is full of them. Beehives are a favorite of mine–and I enjoyed spotting them throughout (much like visitors to the Missouri State Capitol can go on a scavenger hunt for bears).

And lest you think I would travel to Salt Lake City and not go see the LDS temple, never fear, I went. But! It is closed for four years as they totally retrofit it and raise it to put it on shock absorbers to protect it in the event of an earthquake. They did the same thing to the State Capitol in 2004. Wild stuff.

Anyway, it all makes me glad to be back in Missouri–even if I did overschedule myself this week and try to cram two weeks of work and travel into three days! This made me laugh:

And I thought it was interesting that my mother included a link to an article about the power of singing on Monday’s post because I had planned to include the song below after hearing it for the first time on my drive back to Mid-MO on Saturday.

Life, as we continually discuss on this blog, is more than we know.

Normally, that haiku would describe me perfectly, but in preparation for next Saturday’s wedding I’ve been stepping up my game – or at least planning to. So far, I’ve concentrated on purchasing specialist cleaning supplies on Amazon and rearranging the china while I wait for my packages to arrive.  You see, I bought these two little demitasse cups from the same place I bought the Russian cup and saucer and I had to find a good place for them. Here’s a close up.

And here’s what they look like on the shelf in my kitchen.

It took us a while to identify the maker because the stamp on the bottom is in Japanese, but eventually the DH discovered that they were made in the early 1970s by a company called Dai Ichi Taki. You can see more of the pattern here. They are nothing special but I really like them, so they’ll take a place on the shelf until the next time I change the display.

Pretty china aside, have you noticed how crisp and perfect those photos are? No, I have not suddenly steadied the tremor in my hands. I did something even wilder – the DH and I took the plunge and bought a smartphone! It’s your basic black Samsung Galaxy A32. It’s not the newest model but it seems to do everything except fill out your taxes and write your will for you.

We didn’t really have a choice after ATT warned us that they would not continue to support our 3G flip phone. Once the new phone arrived, I spent a good hour Zooming with my youngest son who taught me how to use it. Then I spent another hour with an ATT rep to register it. The latter was quite the ordeal, although the customer service man was patient and nice. All is up and running now and I should be ready to take good photos of the wedding festivities. My goodness, between the car and the phone I’ve had my fill of 21st century technology. I think I’ll go read a book.

Have a grand weekend!

*A haiku by Kobayashi Issa