An Insomnia Post

I have a serious case of insomnia. I woke up at what the clock in my bedroom said 2:30 a.m., but we usually don't get around to setting our bedroom clocks to the correct hour until a few months AFTER daylight savings ends and begins. So, I tried going back to sleep until the bedroom clock read 3:25, but I still wasn't asleep.

Jesse (our dog) needed to go outside, so I got out of bed to take him outside, and now I'm officially awake. I have eight 7-year-old children arriving here in about ... let me think about it for a moment. My math skills are sorely lacking even when my brain is fully functional ... 10 hours for Lilia's birthday party. She wanted a Wii-themed party, but I thought I'd throw in some REAL games like egg races and wheelbarrow races. And then they can go bowling on the Wii. Old school meets new school.

I'm feeling bad about something I wrote in yesterday's post. I have many faults, but the habit I have that drives me the craziest is when I generalize about people, places, or things--nouns. Generalizing is okay in very small doses, perhaps, like my belief that everyone from Wales is kind based on my meeting of three real Welsh people who I count as some of the kindest people I've ever met. See, that's not taking it too far, right?

But it's bad when we generalize about the sexes. "Men are all pigs." "Women are bad drivers." You get the gist. So in my post yesterday, I wrote this when referring to the guys at BYU when I was attending school there over a decade ago:

"But truthfully, the guys sometimes acted a tad immature, and there was game playing to be played fah shah. For example, a guy could never act too interested in you in case there was a bigger fish to fry, if you catch my meaning."

What the heck? The girls could be just as bad as the guys when it came to holding out for a better catch. What a lame statement! It sounds like it was written by a fed-up college co-ed who sits on the couch sulking while her roommates are out dating.

And it brought me back to my idiotic junior high days when I borrowed a shirt from my sister that had the statement "Men are scum!" in black letters on the front. I wore it because it was a neon green color, and it was 1991, the height of neon and Information Society and all that. And I didn't own very much neon, if any. So I was drawn to that shirt! And I wore it ... to school.

And it was also the last time any guy from my school and my age was ever interested in me ever. I wasn't using my brain 3/4ths the time back then. It's at half capacity now.

Still not sleepy.

How Kulani Won My Heart

I always get sentimental and love-dippy this time of year. It was around late October/November that Kulani and I started dating 13 years ago.

I met my Polynesian hunk-of-burning-Johnny-Lingo love while living in the old and cheap Miller Apartments in downtown Provo, Utah; a hop, skip, and jump away from BYU campus. It was the institution Kulani and I were attending for purposes of higher education with the side hope of finding a spouse.

Of course, that's not what I was thinking back then, no sir. I was a liberated woman who had her eyes on a mission and career. Getting married? Psha! That's for suckers, saps, smarmies. (I love the word smarmy: def., smug, falsley earnest, ingratiaing. Maybe it doesn't work here, but I have found few places the word doesn't work. Dang, I've got smarmy laundry to do!)

And I was having one of my best dating eras of my life. For a girl who dated maybe four previous times her whole college career, in my third year of school I found the guys coming out from the cracks in the sidewalks. I was living the life, baby, and you can tell that to Telly Savalas. All was going according to my plans, which would culminate in me breaking everyone's heart to leave for a mission at age 21.

And then put the brakes on, folks. I caught a wave of southern Utah heat that beated in the chest of a raven-haired brilliant man. That would be Kulani.

Here's a picture of him back in the day when he still had a full head of hair and right after he came back from a mountain bike ride that ended in one of his famous crashes:


As if the picture isn't convincing enough as to why I chose my man. But he had other redeeming qualities besides just Polynesian good looks. For purposes of this post, let's say he had me at lobster and honey-curry chicken.

Kulani was not the typical BYU suitor. I love my BYU and don't you go around bad-mouthing it, now, you hear? But truthfully, the guys sometimes acted a tad immature, and there was game playing to be played fah shah. For example, a guy could never act too interested in you in case there was a bigger fish to fry, if you catch my meaning.

But I never got that sense with Kulani. He was genuine and earnest from the get go. I could tell fairly quickly that he was really into me, and I liked that. He wasn't shy about it, and he didn't play any games. He was who he was. Not a playa.

And to impress me one night, he made me dinner. The first dinner he ever made for me. And for those of you who know Kulani, the man can cook. He'd cooked me a burrito before that when I stopped by his apartment at lunchtime once. Most college students just put bean and cheese in a burrito, right? Well, Kulani had Mexican rice, peppers, some tasty meat, etc. in his burritos. Seven-layer burrito of heaven.

But he wasn't the cook he is now, mostly because of the busyness of school and lack of money, but he was still a great cook. And he loved to cook. I'd never met anyone who loved to cook. And the cooking the dinner for me would have been great on its own, but he also cleaned his apartment. And Kulani HATES to clean, and neither did any of his roommates, as their apartment was pretty much a giant trash can. He also borrowed some nice dinner plates and tablecloths and cloth napkins from his sister in Spanish Fork, and he set a beautiful card table for our first dinner. The man was trying to impress ME--girl raised in a family of 10 whose family regularly used paper towels as napkins. SO cleaning AND cooking? Ladies, I know you're with me when I say, "aaahhhhhh."

But that's not all, oh no it's not. The meal Kulani cooked me, up to that night in my life, was one of the best of my life. He cooked me slipper lobster tails and honey-curry chicken. I'd had lobster tails once before at a cheap restaurant in Las Vegas: not impressed with it, really. But the slipper lobster tails Kulani cooked me with melted butter, fuhget about it.

And honey-curry chicken: easily one of my favorite recipes. I'm posting it on our sister cooking Web site, so you can make some for your honey tonight, and maybe you'll get some curry later in bed (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). (I've never heard IT be called curry, but what hasn't IT been called? I mean, really, heaven knows we need more code words for IT to keep the little ones in the dark.)

So there you go. Maybe I'm easy to please, but really, my bar was set pretty high, and Kulani flew over it like he was a pole vaulter going over a high-jump bar. Honestly, if it weren't for Kulani in my life, I'd be doing the $5 Footlongs every night. And hosting a luau and quarterly food appreciation dinners? That's all Kulani's doing. He's the life of my party. I'm just holding on for the ride.

The Halloween Tradition

While talking with my dad on the phone yesterday he let slip that my mom had a rare "pity party" expressing sadness that she didn't get to see any of her grandchildren dress up for Halloween. My cousin Becky and her kids stopped by their house, and it made her yearn to see her own grandchildren.

Well, never fear, Grandma C.! Here are the pictures from our traditional Halloween.

Lilia and Lissy snarling over the candy snake given to us by the Hornes atop a piece of tasty Texas sheet cake.

Lissy: Cinderella.
Nono: Dinosaur.
Lilia: Dorothy.

Another view of the monster.

Displaying the loot. Candied popcorn balls, are you kidding me? Only from the amazing James family (they left out the razor blades .... this time).

The customary jack-o-lantern pizza.

And then we watched a scary movie: The Proposal. It didn't look like Sandra Bullock would get her man, but in the end, she did. Belated spoiler alert.

The Indomitable Nono

This is Kulani. Last night as I sat watching TV with my brother, Lissy approached me and asked me for a glass of milk. I poured one for her and as I handed it to her, she asked me if I wouldn't mind heating it up. Which I did.

Moments later, Nono (who's 2) ran into the room and asked for some milk as well. I told her to ask for some of Lissy's. Rather than wait for me to finish or ask again, Nono headed straight for the kitchen. Before I realized what was going on, she'd pushed a stool to the refrigerator and retrieved the milk, pushed another to the cabinets to retrieve a cup, returned to the island to pour the milk, and was in the process of putting it the microwave. We definitely have our hands full with this one.

Fans of Cycling and Cuisine Fall Harvest

Kulani and his friend Pat have created a club they dubbed "Fans of Cycling and Cuisine" or FCC. It's a chance to put together a multi-course meal on a quarterly basis for people who love food.

I'm queezy about announcing this on my blog, because I can already hear people saying, "How come I haven't been invited?" Maybe with time, you will be.

Your chances for being invited increase if both you and your spouse/date love to eat. And you should love to eat just about anything, including meat and seafood. Many of the dishes we attempt are experimental, so if we make something you don't like, pretend like you're eating it anyhow and somehow choke it down. We do have a dog, so maybe when no one is looking, you can feed it to him.

We are a very pro-children house, but for this particular event, no kids are invited. However, our kids roam the house, so it seems unfair, but you know, it's our house and we're cooking the food, so deal with it.

Also, being able to check your politics at the door will more likely get you an invitation. Nothing spoils a good dinner like crazy political talking.

With each meeting of the FCC, we get better and more organized. Our apologies to those first groups who had to deal with our disorganization. And hopefully in the future, it will get even better.

And with that, I give you the menu of this quarter's FCC Fall Harvest. Anything marked with an asterisks means it was a new dish we tried for the event. Lani provided a menu for the drinks. Guests brought a variety of drinks, which really made the meal more like a "food and wine" dinner, only all the drinks were non-alcoholic, but so very tasty.












One thing we're learning is like pairing good food together, it also takes effort to pair good groups together. Some of our groups have worked, and some haven't. This quarter's group was particularly great. Most everyone had a connection to law, so maybe the key is grouping people with commonalities.

Left to right, clockwise: Pat (co-founder of FCC), Matt Bates (law school buddy of Kulani's), Rachel Bates (wife of Matt and mother of three boys, soon to be four), Kulani, Dan Harper (law school buddy of Kulani's; wife was on vacation), Patrick (general counsel for Xango), and Lani (Kulani's brother).

Left to right, clockwise: Patrick, Lani, Pat (med student; met Kulani at Workman Nydegger when he was a clerk there), Chelsea (mother of Charlie), Matt, and Rachel.

"Real" History

A colleague recently challenged me to read a Utah history book not written by a Utahan. What does that even mean? The implication is that Utahans who write history books get their facts wrong or gloss over the "real" history of Utah.

It got my ire up in a big kind of way, but also in a good kind of way. If I were to attempt a research paper, I think I'd like to analyze who writes history books.

For example, are the best history books written by people inside a given state, country, region, group, etc., or are they best written by an outsider? If I want to learn more about Mississippi, for example, should I make sure to read a book written by an Alabaman about Mississippi? Or would an Alabaman also have an "axe to grind" and trump up all of Mississippi's dark history as part of a grudge the two states have endured over land parcels? (I don't know if they actually have a grudge between the two states; I'm just speculating.)

If the theory holds true that history books are best written by outsiders, it would have to be a WAY outsider, like from someone clear across the state. But then, how accurate can they get? I remember reading our family's World Book Encyclopedia's entry about the state of Utah, and it said that Joseph Smith had led the Latter-day Saint people west to Utah. In reality, it was Brigham Young. The set was published in 1980. Hopefully the editors have caught THAT error by now, but it makes me wonder how many other historical facts they got wrong.

And it surely makes me wonder what historical facts would be included in a History of America book written by that neutral country Sweden. It would probably play up the HUGE anti-war movement of World War II in this country. Haven't heard about it? Well, you're just reading history books from people BORN in America. Free your minds, people.

The Way Back Machine

Kulani is sleeping. The girls are sleeping. I can't sleep. I'm wide awake at 11 p.m. So my mind starts to drift. I haven't had any bursts of inspiration to write about my current life lately, so tonight's story is retrieved from the recesses of my mind. And as my mind can lead toward the self-deprecating and negative--especially at night, this story involves one of my not-so-finer moments.

My junior year in high school was the year I was finally old enough to date and attend school dances. A good friend of mine, the notorious Aaron Monson, asked me to the Homecoming dance. I accepted and was anticipating a great event.

The only problem was I didn't have a dress. Well, truthfully, I had a closet full of dresses, but I thought I needed a new dress. This was the time in my family's life when Dad's car business wasn't doing so great, and Mom was working herself ragged with teaching school, trying to raise children, and helping Dad in his business. They had a lot on their plate.

And then you throw in an ungrateful teenage daughter.

I laid the guilt trip on my mom pretty thick. I remember crying a lot. And then this:

Me to Mom: "I'm just embarrassed of our house. Aaron will come by to pick me up, and the house will be a mess, and I'll have on an ugly dress."

Ouch! It hurts to even think that I said that, but in all honesty, I probably did say it that harshly.

The Friday before the date, my mom took me to the nicest store in Rupert to buy me a dress. It cost $100. I think the dress is still somewhere in my parent's house. There's nothing special about the dress, really. I had a dress that looked similar to it already hanging up in my closet. It was just new (see picture below). And besides my wedding dress, it's still the most expensive dress I own.

I left for my job at Kmart the Saturday morning before the date. I came home around 4 p.m. to a completely spotless house. Mom had worked all day cleaning. While she was on her hands and knees scrubbing the shower, she slipped a disc in her back which caused her extreme pain. She couldn't stand up all the way. She lied on her back for the next few days, eventually needing surgery to fix her back.

I don't remember having a super great time on my date. Aaron was a great friend, but my mind was elsewhere. I couldn't believe I'd acted like such a "teenager." Remembering that night still causes me a ping of pain in my heart because of my bratty behavior.

But as my dad puts it, what goes around comes around. I have a feeling one of my girls will likely go "teenager" on me, too. And when they do, you'll be hearing about it on this blog.