Speaking of Sad and Disgusting

This is not the next addition I want for my t-shirt collection, but it did make me giggle a little:

Kwame Kilpatrick's mugshot along with that of Christine Beatty and two of their now-infamous text messages. It's childish and mean but pretty funny. Apparently, along with the t-shirts, you can also buy mugshot mugs - coffee mugs with Kwame's dour looking face pasted on them. Hee hee.

Sad and Disgusting

It's been a sad, disgusting morning here at YDB.

It's been sad because it was discovered that one of our students was shot to death earlier this week. Apparently, our student, Harold, regularly stayed the night at drug houses (which are appropriately called "traps" by the students) doing deals, buying and selling. Sometime in the last five or six days, he was shot fifteen times while at one of these traps and his cousin, who is also in the program, just came in to tell us about it today. So it's been a somber morning. I feel a little conflicted. Harold was a terrible student. His defiant laziness knew no bounds and I really didn't like having him in class. He came late, left early, and slept almost all the time. Of course, now that I know what he was doing with his nights, it makes sense why he couldn't keep his eyes open during a discussion of Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." Still, bad student or not, no one deserves to die in a drug house with fifteen holes in them. I wish he had decided that he would rather be fully in school and fully out of the drug world rather than trying to straddle both. I'm sorry he's gone.

It's also been a disgusting morning because I supervised the students' clean-up of the 2nd floor kitchen. We have a kitchen and lunchroom area for the students and they, as a rule, never clean up after themselves. Pots of half-eaten Ramen noodles sit in the sink with a film growing over the yellow broth, crumbs and crusts litter the counters, giant battleship flies buzz up out of the sink and garbage can. It's bad. So finally we as a staff snap and tell them to clean it up so we can lock it tight until they feel like taking better care of it.

As they are cleaning, I stop in to check their progress and they all tell me that none of them are touching the oven because there's "some kind of nest" in it. I open the door and discover a student has left a pot of two hot dogs he'd boiled in the oven - for about a week, I'd say. The hot dogs and the pot were crawling with squirming, white maggots.

Yep, that's right, folks. Come teach in Detroit where the glamour never ends!

I dumped the pot out, rinsed it, and gave it to a student to wash properly. (Suzanne tells me I should have just thrown it out entirely.) Once the students were done with the initial cleaning, I sent them to class and then left to go buy over cleaner, two-inch thick rubber gloves, and a mondo jug of Clorox Clean-Up so potent it comes in a sealed titanium hazmat spray bottle.

I will burn the bacteria from the kitchen area with my righteous anger and with severe chemicals. If only Clorox Clean-Up could erase the nasty, filmy feeling I have just being here today.

Anniversary Countdown

The students have exited the computer lab and found their way to class which, as it turns out, is where they were supposed to be all along. Mr. Booker didn't just set them free as I was led to believe. The students just chose not to go to class. I gently and lovingly encouraged them to go to class and they did. (My gentle, loving encouragement was very carefully worded, I assure you. They got the point.)



Anyway, I just wanted to note the beginning of the Norse Penny Press One Year Anniversary Countdown! The big day is coming in one week. There will be prizes! Confetti! Dancing girls!

Be on the lookout!

Summer in the City

Ugh. It's a hot, no-nothing day here at Young Detroit Builders. It's in the high 80s again and it's plenty humid.

I have a group of students that has already taken and passed the GED but, for bureaucratic reasons, they're still at the school. I don't have much left to teach them that they actually want to learn. They know they need to be here to get their hours but they also know they've accomplished the whole purpose of being here. So it's kind of a messed-up limbo situation.

They're good kids for the most part and are staying out of trouble. As long as they're able to text and listen to their headphones, they're content. I've made them do a little work but have mostly just spent my time helping those who need guidance in navigating college websites, financial aid terms, and composing proper e-mails to send to potential professors.

But still, do you know how slowly the day goes when there isn't a specific goal to accomplish outside of just getting through to quitting time? I feel like I've been here long enough for it to be tomorrow already and it's not even two o'clock yet. If I could leave the students in the computer lab by themselves, I totally would. I'd walk down to the corner store, buy myself an icy diet Pepsi, come back, sit down by a fan in my classroom, and read.

Alas, such is not for me. I have to be here to make sure no one is logging on to "black-booty.com" or whatever. I get all the good jobs. The thing that frustrates me is that the Social Studies teacher is supposed to have them right now but he just said, "Go on and get out of here." Fine for him but, since I'm the steward the computer lab, it leaves me stuck here playing baby sitter while he just sits up there not doing anything and I've already taught the students for my block today. Sigh. Grr. Hmm. Maybe Mr. Booker and I will have to chat.

Levity

toothpastefordinner.com


toothpastefordinner.com


toothpastefordinner.com

Having Trouble Sleeping?

May I recommend Wong Kar Wai's snoozefestarama, My Blueberry Nights. It's peopled with very attractive folk - Norah Jones, Natalie Portman, Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, etc. It's shot with lots of shiny, glowing, neon-lit surfaces and has some interesting mirror/glass motifs that can keep the grad students busy. But all in all, it's powerfully boring. Norah Jones, while pretty and certainly a good singer, doesn't have what it takes to provide an emotional buy in for the viewer. You just don't care about her. Jude Law phones this baby in on the strength of his floppy hair and accent. David Strathairn is always reliable and he provides the closest thing to emotional engagement in the film - but he's also only in it for about nine minutes.

I had heard that it was slow moving and that Norah fell short but that was months ago and, when I got to the video store, I wanted something light and romantic to watch with Suzanne. Then, I made the deadly mistake - I bought into the blurbs on the back of th DVD cover. "Hopeful!" it said. "Romantic!" it said. "So boring it will make you long for that time you rearranged your sock drawer by color" it did not say. So I was a sucker, believed what the advertisers told me, and I rented it. Don't make the same mistake, I did, friends. Avoid this film unless your Ambien prescription has run out.

P.S. At what point are we going to stop calling it "the video store?" Except for the old stuff, they don't even carry videos any more. But does "the DVD store" even sound right? Or will it just have to become "the movie store?" I think we should start calling them Cinema Repositories.

We Give What We've Got

In the ten days I was in Idaho, my sister-in-law Melanie made chocolate chocolate-chip cookies, fudge, cake, and freezer jam, and she sent us down the road with a box of Chocodiles, my favorite Hostess confection. My mom and I both commented on how Mel is sort of a sorceress of chocolate and other sweet things. She disappears into the kitchen for about three minutes and then comes out with a pan full of brownies or something. She's either a magician or a ninja of sugar. Not sure which.

Melanie herself jokes about being a chocolate/sweets addict. I remember when she was pregnant with her first kid, she wasn't gaining enough weight and the doctor essentially prescribed chocolate milkshakes. Needless to say, Melanie was thrilled. That was a pregnancy diet she could get behind.

Anyway, I was thinking of how generous Melanie is with her literally sweet skills and I thought about the kinds of gifts people give. I'm not talking about birthday or Christmas gifts necessarily - more like the things we impart to one another, the little generosities we extend to people we like and care about. It seems to me that we give what we've got.

What I mean is, Melanie loves chocolate and is good at whipping it up in various ways. So when she cares about someone, she gives them chocolate.

The thing that I've got is words and language so, almost invariably, when I like someone, I write something for them or about them or I give them something I've written in the past. It's no coincidence that I created a chapbook of poetry for Suzanne during our courtship (Blood and Bone) and also for our first anniversary (Morning, Noon, and Night.) It's what I've got to give, you know?

Among many other skills, one thing Suzanne has in spades is the ability to organize and decorate a living space. I get frustrated sometimes when she wants a picture hung on the wall just so or when I get in trouble for not straightening the curtains on the doorwall in the right way, but I also realize that those small details are part of the gift she regularly gives to her family.

My brother, Jason, wrote songs for his girlfriends and invited them to hear him play music.

My dad hauled a whole car engine halfway across the country along with his own engine hoist so he could replace (yeah, you read that right) the motor in my 96 Ford Escort when it broke down. He's helped me build a fence, cover floors, replace fixtures, change brake pads, change oil, lay sod, and even got our refrigerator door to close all the way. My dad can fix things and the gift he gives to everyone he knows (primarily his dumb, mechanically dis-inclined kids) is making their stuff work properly.

My mom loves to serve other people. It gives her genuine satisfaction to help someone with something, anything. She's driven three hours just to watch our kids so we could go to a concert. She helped me assemble over a three hundred poetry chapbooks and a hundred slipcovers. She takes food to people who need it. She gives gifts of scrapbooking supplies to people who like to do it. She enjoys helping other people do the things they like or need to do.

My mother-in-law, Linda, will cook the pants off almost anyone you know and part of the joy of Day family get-togethers is whatever dish Linda has whipped up. It's always good and usually the best thing on the table. She did it professionally for a while, running a catering business with a friend but now she's strictly freelance. After raising six kids and a husband who is famous for mixing pork and beans and Spaghettios when left to his own cooking devices, I think she probably enjoys eating out more than cooking, but when she does unleash her skills, your tastebuds should be prepared for what's coming.

So anyway, it was just a thought: we give what we love, we give what we have. Discuss!



(Ah luves me some Choc-o-diles!)

Another Historic Day

In the spirit of recording historic occasions here on my blog, I want to tell you about what happened today. Yes, something historic. Something that happened for the very first time. Something I'll remember forever.

One of my students stole from me.

This coming September will mark my two year anniversary here at Young Detroit Builders and, in all that time, I've seen computer equipment stolen, cell phones taken, CDs and DVDs mysteriously disappear, a catalytic converter nearly stolen right out from underneath a coworker's van, countless unreturned pencils and pens, and even a case of Mountain Dew taken and hidden in nearby bushes but no one has ever taken anything from me. Until today.

My breakfast usually consists of a granola bar, a Nutrigrain bar, and an apple. It's not much but it's reasonably healthy and keeps me full until lunch time most days. Like every other day, I left them sitting in the corner of my desk, more or less hidden from the students by my computer monitor. It's rude to eat in front of people and I taught first thing this morning so I was waiting until after class to chow down.

Several times during class I had to leave - to make copies, to check on details about our afternoon trip to the public library, etc. I do it all the time. I treat my students as adults who can be left alone for five minutes and usually it inspires them to behave responsibly. I find that people generally live up to your expectations of them, whatever they may be.

Anyway, just as I was letting that group of students out, I noticed the two bars were gone. I moved every scrap of paper on my desk, checked all my drawers, looked in the office next door, asked the secretary if I'd left them on her desk, checked the spare office in the back of my classroom where I keep reading assignments, etc. I wanted to make sure I didn't just forget them somewhere before I got all hot under the collar about it and started accusing people.

They were nowhere to be found. I didn't misplace them anywhere.

I had that same group of students an hour later so I walked into the classroom, shut the door, explained what I was missing and that it happened during their class. I then told them I'd be next door in the neighboring office for five minutes and that when I came back, my bars had better be on my desk. I didn't threaten them with consequences or throw a fit. I just made it short and direct. I left and when I came back there were no bars but there was a dollar bill and a quarter sitting on my desk.

Sigh.

Again, quickly and directly, I told them I thought it was pathetic to steal from someone who worked every day to help them. I left it at that and we moved on with the lesson.

This may be the first time a student has stolen from me but YDB has been pilfering from my soul almost since day one.

Cancer Update

For those of you not hooked up to my mom's CarePages update, here's the latest:

"Returned a short time ago from the evaluation visit to the oncology clinic. The original growth has diminished in size by 2 centimeters and he could not feel the swollen ones in the neck at all. We know this is a huge blessing that the chemo has been so effective in three treatments and we are grateful. This routine will continue until Christmas with the possibility of going two weeks on with one week off but that will be evaluated later. Even though it is thought to be incurable, they feel it can be managed to provide a good quality of life. My blood levels are holding pretty well with only one area taking an expected spike. Levels on my kidneys and liver won't be taken until next Monday morning before they begin the second round.

We will travel to Moscow, Idaho on Thursday to visit Jason, Mindy, Dylan,Megan,Kate and Jonah and will come back on Sunday.We're looking forward to that and I'm so thankful I feel well enough to travel. They are in regular contact with us by phone and email.
Dave and Mel, Dan and Shalee check in often to bring food or see what they can do to help and we so appreciate it. We also thank all of you for checking on us, sending cards, bringing food, emailing, praying, putting our name in the temples and all of the other wonderful things you do for us.
As I washed my hair yesterday before church, it was evident that my scalp was tender and more and more hair comes out in my brush. The hair in my nostrils has disappeared but I still have eyebrows and eyelashes as of today. We'll see what's left by the time chemo resumes next week.
Once again, thanks to all of you. We love you."

Two Poems

My friend Darlene is concerned about my recent disaffection with poetry. I've fallen out of love with it, having found most of it lately to be either really boring or really obnoxious. However, that's not to say that there isn't good poetry in the world or that there aren't poems that I love. There are. Here's one by Stephen Dunn that I love that sums up how it felt to come home yesterday:

I Come Home Wanting To Touch Everyone

The dogs greet me, I descend
into their world of fur and tongues
and then my wife and I embrace
as if we'd just closed the door
in a motel, our two girls slip in
between us and we're all saying
each other's names and the dogs
Buster and Sundown are on their hind legs,
people-style, seeking more love.
I've come home wanting to touch
everyone, everything; usually I turn
the key and they're all lost
in food or homework, even the dogs
are preoccupied with themselves,
I desire only to ease
back in, the mail, a drink,
but tonight the body-hungers have sent out
their long-range signals
or love itself has risen
from its squalor of neglect.
Everytime the kids turn their backs
I touch my wife's breasts
and when she checks the dinner
the unfriendly cat on the dishwasher
wants to rub heads, starts to speak
with his little motor and violin--
everything, everyone is intelligible
in the language of touch,
and we sit down to dinner inarticulate
as blood, all difficulties postponed
because the weather is so good.

Here's another. I'm not as in love with it but it's mine so I don't have to love it if I don't want. It's the first poem I wrote when I was diagnosed with cancer nine years ago and it was published in anthology called The National Cancer Poetry Project.

When I Had Cancer I Thought

the tomatoes I cut at work
were red, frosty hearts --
fleshy and giving
when the knife came,

the white, plastic arch
of the CT machine
was a smooth, bone mouth
devouring me,

the pixel image
of my pelvis
from the underside
was an ancient, Egyptian priest
holding open his arms,
his hanging robes.

I guess that just shows
how fragile we are,
how scared,
how sacred.

In the contributor's notes, I wrote: "My wife and I went to the urologist in the afternoon, where I was told I had a tumor. From there, I went almost directly to work, where everything had a disjointed, surreal feeling to it. Slicing tomatoes as part of my prep work, I watched the knife pass through their skins, saw the thin, red juice leak out . . . it was kind of disturbing and fascinating at the same time. Later, I had the experience of getting a CT scan. These images stuck with me and eventually came out in the poem."

So anyway. The cancer poem has been on my mind since my mom's diagnosis and I thought I'd post it as my once-a-year, here's-a-poem-I-wrote-back-when-I-was-a-poet blog entry.

A Red Letter Day for Bicycling

Well, I must say Idaho really put on a show for us over the last ten days. I don't think I've seen a clearer, milder stretch of weather in my life. The skies were ridiculously blue, the breezes were soft and cool, the mountains in the distance -- they've been sorely missed. (The tallest hill within 50 miles of where I live is actually a landfill that's been covered with sod. It ain't the Tetons, you know?) The food has been good and the company excellent -- and really, what else can you ask for?

But at the same time, we're all anxious to get home. We'll head out tomorrow morning around nine and make for Cheyenne, Wyoming. The next night's goal is Des Moines, Iowa. After that, home. We miss Suzane and she misses us. It will be good to be back with her.

The best and most important aspect of this entire two week trip is summed up right here:




I'm really glad the girls got to come and make important, lasting memories with my folks. The sand dunes, riding the lawn mower, Grandma curling their hair, dinner with family, playing with Buck the Doofus, snow cones on Main Street, Big Juds, etc. They'll remember parts of this trip for the rest of their lives.

One other thing made this trip and this day (Wednesday, July 16) pretty important:





Our very own Maryn Elizabeth Brown finally learned to ride a bike without training wheels. You may think, "Big deal. Everybody learns eventually." But the thing is, you only learn once. It's one of the few things that you can only do one time in your life (because, like they say, once you learn, you never forget.) So I thought it was kind of a historic moment for Maryn. She'll be able to ride a bike for the next fifty years and it will be because of what happened tonight in the church parking lot two blocks from my parents' house. Kinda cool, I think. I'm very proud of her. (Even though the whole reason we went to the church in the first place was because she was grasping at straws, trying to avoid taking a bath and going to bed. I'm glad I didn't go all hard-core on her and make her go inside.)

Anyway, good night. I'll post again next week once we've crossed the wilderness (Wyoming) and the rest of the country. See you then.

The Sand Dunes Redux

On Monday morning, we took Mom to chemo and then the girls and I headed out for another try at the sand dunes. We figured we'd get out there early in the morning, before the sand heated up to roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun. It was a lot of fun. We found a little shade, slathered up in sunblock, and just played for a couple of hours.

As if I needed one more example of how small the world is and what a weird nexus of past and present Rexburg is, as we were getting ready to leave, a couple of families were walking by us headed for the tall dune nearby and when they passed, one of the women stopped and said, "Mark?" Turns out, it was Andrea Kunz, Suzanne's former Ricks College roommate. She and her family were traveling through on their way to a camping trip in Yellowstone and they wanted to take a quick break at the dunes. Small world, eh?

Two Things To Brag About

First and foremost, yeah, it's hard to be humble when you've got a family as good looking as mine. Suzanne is beautiful and, together, she and I have produced two really good looking, photogenic, almost-too-Arayan-looking-for-their-own-good daughters. It's pretty great. (Probably won't be so great when Maryn in 15 and Avery is 13 and I'm at the door turning away shaggy-haired boys who are just wondering "Can your daughter come outside for a little while?" and I have to say things like, "Sure, in just a minute. While we wait, tell me, have you ever seen .38 caliber handgun up close? Come here and let me show you my collection.)

The other thing I have to brag about is my lovely and charming sister-in-law Shalee who took this photo (as well as several others that look just as good.) In the space of 5 minutes or less, she punched out these photos like it was nothing and burned them onto a CD for us to print at our leisure. She takes wedding and engagement photos in the area and always does a great job. She was nice enough to take these pictures for us for free. What a sweetheart.

(A sidenote about Shalee: I have known from almost the very beginning that she was a cool sister-in-law. Years ago, not long after she and Dan were married, we were sitting around and I was holding forth on Idaho politics, using the outdated information and rumors I had from back when I worked for BSU radio. At one point, I said, "Well, I've heard the rumor that Larry Craig is gay." Shalee stopped, looked right at me and said, "That's my uncle." I froze for a moment and then started stammering out excuses, backpedaling like Lance Armstrong. After a good thirty seconds of really excruciating embarrassment on my part, Shalee cracked up and started laughing. He isn't her uncle at all. She just wanted to mess with me. I don't think I've ever been more pleased to have been suckered than I was at that moment. I was tickled that I had a sister-in-law that was clever and funny and not afraid. Needless to say, over the last year or so, she's hoped that I forgot that she once claimed Larry Craig as even an imaginary family member.)

Commander Maryn E. Brown, NASA

From the depths of Grandma's dress-up box comes Mark's Halloween costume circa 1981. Maryn found it yesterday and has refused to take it off for much of anything since then. I wouldn't let her wear it to dinner ('cause I'm a killjoy like that) and I wouldn't let her wear it when we went for an afternoon walk to the park. Other than that, she might as well have it tattooed to her lily white skin. Let's hear it for the space program.

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Vacation Means Getting Wet And/Or Muddy

The action-packed photos I promised are below. The first set is from Friday's trip to Rigby Lake and the second set is from today's trip to the Rexburg splash park. We originally went to the sand dunes only to discover that, even in 75 degree heat, the surface of the sand out there rises to roughly the same temperature as a black frying pan in hell.

So we headed back to the more friendly environs of Porter Park. A good time was had by all and, notably, my dad joined the official Jeff Norman Club of Fathers Who Feed Their Families With Gas Station Food. Yep, we had a fine lunch of all-beef hot dogs bought from the Co-Op gas station on the west side of town. Avery had two.

And now, onto the photos:












(And yes, in case you're wondering, both Maryn and Avery are fully dressed in the splash park photos. We weren't anticipating going there and it would have been too much of a hassle to go back to Rigby for bathing suits. This is another thing Suzanne would have known in advance. She would have intuited the sand dunes' blazing temps and would have packed swimsuits just in case. As it was, the girls had a great time getting soaked in regular clothes. I mean, hey, it's vacation, right?)

What My Wife Can Do

My little family spends all its free time together. Suzanne, Maryn, Avery, and me -- the four musketeers. Suzanne and I have such demanding schedules that, when we do get time to spare, we like to spend as much of it as possible with the girls and each other. This means when we need a jug of milk from the store, rather than it being a quick errand run by one person, it becomes a family enterprise. We all pile into the van, we all drive to Kroger, we all head for the dairy case. You get the idea.

So, because of this tendency to more or less always be together, it feels really strange to be without Suzanne. It just feels awkward and incomplete. It isn't as though the world comes to an end and we all just lay around in our beds lamenting her absence - it's just that nothing's really as fun without her. Things don't feel as permanent or lasting without her here. We have fun experiences but it's almost like they don't count because she's not here to share them. Does that make sense? I assume those of you with spouses and significant others know what I'm talking about.

Anyway, I'm more or less capable of feeding, clothing, bathing, and entertaining the girls on my own but in the three days we've been without Suzanne, I've just been struck by how much she does and how well she does it.

I've determined that her mind is just a lot more complicated and active than mine is. Maybe it's just a male/female thing but I seriously can only do one thing at a time. I can only think about one thing at a time. I can make dinner but I can't worry about getting Maryn her medicine until after dinner is done and cleaned up. (And half the time, once I get to that point, I've forgotten the medicine anyway.) I can bathe the girls but I can't remember that there's laundry going that needs to be switched to the dryer. I just sort of wander through the day noticing things that I meant to finish.

What Suzanne can do is the task at hand AND be cognizant of what needs to be done next. She remembers stuff like permission slips, dentist appointments, and the fact that the girls already had chicken nuggets for lunch yesterday and, therefore, should not have them for lunch again today. She does a lot -- more than I really appreciate or regularly give her credit for.

So, Suzanne, I know you're reading this while sitting in your cube. You probably just finished your morning granola and yogurt concoction and are going through your blog roll because there isn't much work to do. Maybe you're wondering about that gift basket fundraiser that no one wants to help with. Whatever you're doing, just know that we miss you and we're looking forward to being together again next week. I appreciate everything you do.

Movie Buddies

As I have written here before, my dad and I are movie buddies. We both like going to the theater, ordering the enormo-vat of popcorn, the extreme jug of soda, and watching a flick. I, of course, enjoy the fact that Dad always pays. It doesn't matter that I'm in my thirties and have a job that pays money - I'm still the kid in this relationship and so Dad shells out the cash (which, as I pointed out, is sweet.) Sometimes he likes the movies that I don't (The Aviator) and sometimes I like the ones he doesn't (There Will Be Blood.)



Dad was worried about me suffering "cabin fever" because I haven't gone out and done much since we've been here and so he offered to take me to a late movie once the girls were in bed. I figured, after making him sit through all three hours of There Will Be Blood the last time I was here, I'd pick something a little more entertaining and palateable. So Iron Man it was. It was as enjoyable as last time for me and Dad stayed awake through the whole thing which is the Dennis R. Brown seal of approval. We drove back from Idaho Falls and talked about my brothers and Mom and my wife and kids. It was good. I always enjoy talking with Dad.

Over the next couple of days, the activities on deck are a trip to the sand dunes (probably Saturday), some time at Rigby Lake (tomorrow possibly), and an "explore" in the desert with Scott Samuelson. We also need to make it back to the park with the climbing mountain and over to Main Street for another snow cone or two. Stay tuned for exciting, action packed photos.

Snapshot

I just found this candid photo one of the girls took of Suzanne and me on our trip out here. We were just leaving the hotel in Council Bluffs, Iowa. As you can see, we were in a bit of a hurry.

Things You Get To Do At Grandma's

There are certain things that for reasons of time, practicality, or just plain lack of energy/desire don't get done when it's just us and the kids. Having a lemonade stand is one of them. We don't know the people in our neighborhood well enough to want them pulling up to our yard and offering our kids money, you know? Plus, there's the "Dad, why isn't anyone stopping?" frustration plus preparation, clean-up, etc. When I write it out like that, they all sound like pretty lame reasons for not letting our kids test out their entrepreneurial skills. Nevertheless, those things that don't get done at home are often the things that get done at Grandma's house.

Witness below:




Between my dad, my brother, two of my dad's co-workers, and me (I was thirsty after all that work setting up the table), the girls made eight bucks. They were pretty pleased and it was certainly cute.

On the cancer front, today has been a pretty rough day. Chemo is accumulative and so while Mom doesn't feel too much on Mondays when she actually gets the treatment, by Wednesday, she feels as though gravity has increased by about ten times. Aunt Nan and cousin Susan came over this morning and while they talked, I watched my mom sink lower and lower into the couch until she was full on laying down with a blanket over her and her eyes shut. Once they left, she went to bed and stayed there until about 6 p.m. Even now, she's wobbly and fatigued.

On the one hand, I'm so glad I can be out here to see her and talk to her face to face. On the other hand, it's a terrible feeling to see her feeling so poorly and being able to do virtually nothing about it. Bleh.

Anyway, Suzane left this morning at 5:30 on the Salt Lake Express. It wasn't a good experience but I'll leave it to her to blog about the details.

Visual Aids

Obviously, these are photos of Mom's chemo treatment place, us at Big Jud's, celebrating Mom's birthday, and eveningtime fireworks. The only thing that really needs comment is that the head in the last photo is not mine. (As soon as I have a bald spot, I'll happily admit it. Until then, that is totally my brother Dave's head.)

Chip Kidd: 6 out of 25

Here is a link to a slideshow of "new, classic" book covers from Entertainment Weekly. As you will notice, my book design hero, Chip Kidd, is on the list 6 times. He's no slouch, that Kidd.

On the Road Again

Sorry for the radio silence over the last couple of days. When my friend Clark send me a voicemail saying, "What do you mean you'll be in Idaho?" it occurred to me that I haven't mentioned here that Suzanne, the girls, and I were planning on a trip to the West to see family and specifically to visit my mom for her birthday.

It's been a couple of weeks in the planning but there was so much else going on, I just never mentioned it. We were up until almost 2 a.m. on Thursday night doing the last of the packing and by 9 a.m. on Friday morning, we were on the road.

So we're here. We made it. It took three days and one 140 dollar speeding ticket, but we are now in Rigby, Idaho, home of big potatoes and even bigger trucks driven by guys with names like "Chad" and "Bucky."

A few of observations from the trip:

Council Bluffs, Iowa is a total hole. My brother, Dan, served six months of his mission there and tells me that the missionaries just called it "Council-tucky." It's a dirty, run-down hillbilly hole that looks like an unwashed mullet and smells like Skoal. We hated it.

We first spotted cows in Indiana. I hadn't seen a cow in months. It had been even longer for Suzanne. For a guy raised in Idaho, not seeing a cow is like a Detroiter not seeing a car fire for a few months.

A portable DVD player goes a long, long, long way with kids. All the way across Nebraska to be exact.

Cops are excruciatingly polite when they are handing over a ticket that costs the equivalent of a night in a decent hotel or a week's worth of groceries for a family of four. The politeness almost makes it worse. It's like someone saying, "Pardon me, sir, may I put an ice pick in your kidney? Thanks ever so much!"

Dry air is a joy. I walked outside the hotel room in Rawlins on Sunday morning and there was this slight, dry breeze and I laughed out loud just because it had been so long since I'd felt anything like it. It was a wonderful.

Overall, Idaho is pretty seductive in the summer. It only gets in the mid-eighties, the light is clear and clean, and everything is so vibrant and colorful, the landscape looks like it's made of stained glass. I've always thought that the warm months in Idaho (all three of them) are so fabulous because they're recompense for nine months of winter.

Anyway, we drove to Rexburg and visited with my mom during her chemo today. The facility is pretty great. It looks a lot more like an upscale salon than a oncology clinic. The main room has twenty foot vaulted ceilings, polished hardwood floors, and French doors that open up onto a patio area with a fountain and pools. On the south wall there's a big stone fireplace. Pretty shmancy. The room is ringed with recliners and next to each chair is a chemo stand with a hook for a drip and a machine to regulate the chemicals. When we were there, there were about five other people getting treated. Some were sleeping, others read. Mom was writing on her laptop when we got there but she put that away while we talked. The girls explored the patio area for a while and we talked about how much Rexburg had changed. Suzanne hasn't seen the city in about three years and, needless to say, it's plenty different. The girls came back in and Maryn discovered a copy of Highlights magazine. Like the pun-finding bloodhound she is, she zeroed in on the joke page and was soon telling winners like, "What's an astronaut's favorite meal of the day?" (Launch.) and "Where are french fries born?" (Greece/Grease).

Mom had one more bag of clear, chemical, cancer-remover to go through so we went to Deseret Book and to D.I. for a couple of minutes. That was a homecoming right there: Suzanne Brown and Deseret Industries, reunited again! Salvation Army is an okay substitute but there's something about D.I. that I think Suzanne will always prefer.

Once chemo was over with, we hopped in the car and headed for that mythical land known as Archer, Idaho and partook of the nectar of the gods. Yeah, you know it, baby. Big Jud's Country Diner! Suzanne and I split a Big Jud - she ate a third of it and I took care of the rest. Huge amounts of red meat, freshly fried potatoes, and a cold diet Pepsi to wash it all down. It was as though I had died (of a heart attack, no doubt) and gone to unhealthy food heaven. It was awesome.

In the evening, we had a big dinner with all the family over and then set off fireworks on the front lawn. It was a lot of fun. My mom got to have her grandkids hand her birthday presents and I think that was probably the best part of all for her. I've said it before and I'll say it again: she likes me okay but really my primary purpose in life was to provide my mother with grandchildren.

Anyway, tomorrow Suzanne, Mom, and I will go to the Rexburg temple. It will be the first time there for all of us so we'll see what it's like.

The Bloodbath Continues

I got back from an errand to the post office to find that Bev and Rowland have fired yet another staff member. Reggie Scott, job developer, may you rest in unemployed peace.

(Can you tell I'm becoming more cynical about this whole thing?)

What I Do

Yes, most of the time, the biggest hazzard in my job is chapped hands from too much chalk dust. However, I'm occasionally given the opportunity to really hurt myself. These two photos are from a recent Saturday work project we did with some volunteers from a regional bank. It was hilarious to see all these white, upscale banker-types come down to the 'hood where our job site is and do work side by side with students they would undoubtedly cross the street to avoid on any other day. Anyway, I helped lay the plywood on the carport roof and felt appropriately manly and sweaty.