Compliments and Complaints

Kulani bought me a new pan. It's the Turbo X3000 Calphalon Super G 12-inch non-stick pan, melded from hot coles burnt from rocks brought back by the astronauts who landed on the moon.


Check out the side-by-side comparison between the new and the old pan (which we bought at Shopko for what we thought was really expensive ($20) when we were still students):

See how the egg in the old pan on the left is sliding and not staying uniform? When I flip that baby over, half of the egg stays stuck to the pan. On the right is the super deluxe new model. No egg slipping. It all stays nice and uniform. The new pan also has no Crisco or buttery coating to aid in unsticking, and when you flip the egg over, no sticky-sticky. I'm no scientist, but I think it has to do with moon-rock vaporage condensation and the planetary pull of waves that gives the pan it's awesomeness.

I'm Not 80 Yet, But I'm Doing My Darndest To Complain Like It

My bellah is getting huge. I'm not kidding. It's like Sputnik; a virtual planetoid. It's got it's own weather system. I'd cry myself to sleep every night on my huge pillah...except...

Every pregnant woman knows you want to get the best sleep you can get before the baby comes, because once it gets here, your sleeping nights are over. The only problem is, sleeping with a huge belly isn't all that easy. You shift in the middle of the night and you roll around and your hips hurt and you have to use the potty every two hours. And then you have the following crowding you out of the bed:

More Misadventures of Nono

When it's only me and Nohea at home, she likes to play house while I work on the computer. I'm always the dad at work and she's the mom, but she brings me the baby to show and hug. She's started to entertain herself better, too, which doesn't always have the best results. I won't hear her for a half hour, so I'll go looking for her to make sure she is okay. I found an exploded pen on my comforter once, and her body was covered with ink.

And why do I even bother putting pillows back on the couch? She's just going to take them off again and build herself a house.

Lost Teeth and The Toad

Lilia lost another tooth. That makes two teeth in the last few weeks. This last tooth was pulled out by a girl at school. This girl is known for her teeth-pulling abilities, and she had Lilia hold two other girls' hands while the Tooth-Puller yanked out her tooth. Lilia then lost the tooth later while at school.

Being the tooth fairy is more difficult than I thought. I kept forgetting to write her note and stick it under her pillow with some money. So one morning while she was getting ready for school, I snuck the note into her room with the money. I put it behind her bed, as if it had slipped between the cracks.

I asked Lilia if the tooth fairy brought anything. We went to her room to look under her pillow. I told her to look all around her bed, because sometimes those things slip off the bed. Then she found the jackpot. Tooth-fairy gold.

And here's a picture of my Toad in all her rainbow-drawing glory:


Fishers out.

For the Po' Folks

"Now, for some of you it doesn't matter. You were born rich and you’re going to stay rich. But here's my advice to the rest of you: Take dead aim on the rich boys. Get them in the crosshairs and take them down. Just remember, they can buy anything, but they can't buy backbone. Don't let them forget it." -- Herman Blume from Rushmore.

I'm coming clean with a terrible habit I have of disliking and distrusting wealthy people. If you've never been the po' kid, I'm not sure you'd understand. Just as I probably don't understand how hard it would be to be the rich kid (poor little rich kids!).

In all honesty, where I grew up, most kids were the poor kids. We probably only had a handful of rich kids, and even they weren't really all that rich. Remember Napolean Dynamite and that "popular" girl's house? That's about as rich as they got in my town--maybe a touch richer.

Growing up in rural Idaho, we didn't have the disparity of classes as viewed in popular 80s brack-pack movies like Pretty in Pink, or the differences seen in an uber-wealthy private school setting like in Rushmore. But even still, in high school I found myself limiting some of my friendships because they would go out to fast food for lunch, and all I could afford was the 90 cent school lunch.

Nor was I able to afford to go snow skiing more than once or twice a year, and when I did go skiing, I brought my D.I.-discount boots and skis that didn't really fit me all that well. And I wasn't as poor as others, who I'm sure probably do view a bigger dividing class in south-central Idaho. And they never EVER got to go snow skiing, not even with used skis that cut off the circulation to the toes.

And while watching the Winter Olympics last night, Kulani summarized why it is I don't really care a whole bunch about the Winter Olympics.

"It's like watching all the rich kids compete."

He got an "amen" and a head nod from me with that comment.

When I'm watching the downhill skiiers, I think, "Dang! How much money did their parents spend to get them to this level?"

Still, I watch the Winter Olympics, but I don't have a love for them. These are people I just don't relate to. I'm glad for their accomplishments, really. Like I'm glad when I see someone winning an Oscar, or when someone tells me about a new boat they bought. It's nice for them.

And if they're happy, I'm happy.

Like Max Fischer said, I guess the secret is, you've gotta find something you love to do, and then do it for the rest of your life. For some, that's snow skiing. For others, it's a stable job that pays the mortgage and puts food on the table.

Thursday Nights

This is Kulani posting.
This year one of my Christmas presents to Cindy was Thursday nights off. She can do what she wants with it. So far that has included some time working out, shopping, going out to dinner with friends, stuff like that. On previous nights, I would have done my best to buckle down and endure it. A few weeks ago I decided to take a different approach. Now, Thursday nights are Culinary Nights at the Fisher household.

We're now on the third week. The first week I taught the girls about how to read a recipe, measuring, and mise-en-place. We started off nice and easy with the girls giving me a hand while I steamed some shrimp and cooked rice. The following week we went to Rooster. On the way, we talked about the five flavors and various textures. As we ate, I talked with them about which flavors and textures they noticed and what they liked about it.

This week, we moved on to cooking methods and a brief discussion of temperature/time. Then, we got to cooking. The result was this:

They were both pretty excited about cooking their first meal from start to finish. So was I. Culinary Thursdays are here to stay.

Our real-life brush with Goodfellas

There was a time in my life when I loved American gangster movies. Couldn't get enough of them. Once I started having children, the appeal of the American mafioso no longer gripped my heart. Though the movies were stylistically wonderful, the lack of morality of the characters started to grind on my mommy-sensitive nerves.

But I didn't leave the genre without finding out something I already knew: the Providence, Rhode Island division of the mafia are some of the scariest, meanest Goodfellas you'd never hope to meet. Without a baby in my arms when we visited the Federal Hill district in Providence, there's a good chance Kulani and I would now have cement on our feet as we sit waiting to be discovered along the bottom of the Pawcatuck River.

It was 2003, and post-911 America was experiencing an economic recession. Nothing like what is going on today, but it was still a tough job market. Kulani would be graduating from law school in April, and by February, he still hadn't found a job.

So being Kulani, he decided to increase his schooling in a much-wanted field in order to secure a job. His undergrad background was in mechanical engineering, but where the patent jobs were especially plentiful was for people with a background in electrical engineering. He decided that if he couldn't find a job, he would pursure a master's degree in electrical engineering.

When Kulani was in high school, his dream was to go to Brown University. Though he was accepted, his parents didn't feel they wanted to spend the money to send him there. After time and having kids, Kulani does not begrudge his parents that decision. However, now that it was him calling the shots for himself, he decided to give it another try.

Excitedly, Brown accepted him for his master's degree in electrical engineering. However, we knew that we had other, cheaper options if we stayed in Utah and he attended UofU. We decided to fly out to Providence and meet with the professors to see if he could get a scholarship and stipend.

Brown University, and Providence at large, has a very old-world feel. It had the feeling of an Edgar Allen Poe poem. It was cloudy and overcast when we visited, so maybe that had some bearing on my impressions. Nevertheless, it was an amazing place that I would definitely like to visit again.

While on our trip, we knew we had to experience some local cuisine. We hit up a nice restaurant and had Rhode Island clam chowder. Kulani also tried the Rhode Island-type of oysters. I had the lobster bisque.

We'd read in a brochure about Providence's "little Italy" called the Federal Hill district. We looked on the map to see where it was in the city and drove there. We didn't research exactly where to go, but we figured we'd find a good dive easy enough.

We found a little dive of a place that looked like it would have some good food, and we parked the car. When we got out of the car, I turned to Kulani and said, "This feels like a Scorcese movie." Though there was no one on the street, and the town almost felt empty, Kulani shooshed me. He could feel the change in this place as well.

Lilia was only six months old at the time, so she hung out of my front Baby Bjorn as we walked around Federal Hill. While walking to the restaurant we wanted to try, we passed a store that looked like either a butcher shop or an old grocery store. The walls were all bordered up, but I looked inside the front door to see two old men sitting on chairs. We made eye contact with each other for a brief second before Kulani snapped, "Don't look in there." I quickly looked away as if I hadn't seen them.

I'm pretty sure they were "made" men waiting for inconspicuous packages or something. They did not smile. Had I not had Lilia hanging off my personage, I would not be writing this post right now. (Maybe an exaggeration, but for a few moments there, trust me--it was real and it was scary.)

Note: If you ever find yourself traveling on the East Coast with a baby, you'll find you get treated very well. It's like people don't see enough babies there. Not like here in Utah, obviously.

We went into the restaurant and tried to enjoy our meal and calm our nerves. The restaurant was more of a pub. The food was pretty good, but the people inside the pub were even better. They had the thickest Rhode Island accents we'd heard on the trip. And they were so friendly. It was like eating lunch at "Cheers," where everybody knows your name.

The waiter was fascinated by our baby, and calls out to a guy at the end of the bar, "Hey, Paulie! How old is your baby? He sleep through the night yet?"

To which Paulie says, "No, he's keepin' us up every night. It's drivin' me crazy."

Just delightful. Except for the whole almost-getting-killed part.

Post Script: Kulani did get a scholarship to Brown, but in April he also got a job offer. He took the latter. Maybe one of these years he'll make it to Brown.

Faith-inspiring Rumors Gone Bad

Kulani and I are skeptical anytime anyone tells a story or forwards a story about a "faith-inspiring story" that just seems too convenient or crazy. When I really get my skeptical meter running is when a name is attached to the story, as in, "So-and-so's daughter is in my mother's ward, and my mom told me herself that this daughter of so-and-so really did say this."

Kulani can be especially brutal if someone forwards e-mails that are blatantly wrong. Like the e-mail that went around about not microwaving plastic because it causes cancer. Kulani does a quick search on Snopes, then forwards an e-mail right back to the person forwarding the research from Snopes. Leave it to a lawyer to just cut someone's e-mail forwarding habits down to their knees.

I'd like to do that sometimes, but I haven't the guts. But there are a few things that when someone quotes them in Sunday School, it's all I can do to not raise my hand and yell "Liar, liar, pants on fire!" But I don't, because my explanation of something not being true sounds just as crazy as the person telling the crazy story. Speaking is NOT my strength. (Kulani says my strength is losing things.)

The quote that drives me craziest involves a quote that my little brother had hanging up in his room for the longest time. The quote was fairly popular in the late 1990s, early 2000s, and it involves the youth of today (or, the youth back in the late 1990s, early 2000s--I'd hardly call them "the youth," you know what I mean. Passed 18? Passed your prime!). The quote is usually attributed to one of the 12 Apostles, and here it is:

You were in the War in Heaven and one day when you are in the spirit world you will be enthralled with those who you are associated with. You will ask someone in which time period he lived in and you might hear, "I was with Moses when he parted the Red Sea," or "I helped build the pyramids," or "I fought with Captain Moroni." And as you are standing there in amazement, someone will turn to you and ask, "Which prophet time did you live in?" And when you say "Gordon B. Hinckley," a hush will fall over every hall, every corridor in heaven and all in attendance will bow at your presence. You were held back six thousand years because you were the most talented, most obedient, most courageous, and most righteous. Are you still? Remember who you are!

You can read the response to this quote from the General Authorities here. Basically, it says "We don't know who said that, but we know that we didn't. The youth of today are great, but let's get serious here. Are they really THAT great? Psha!" Oh, and uh, that's not a direct quote from the Brethren, just one I made up.

But recently at a delicious dinner at the Johnson's house, I found myself retelling a faith-inspiring story that sounded even too crazy to my own ears. Kulani and others, of course, didn't believe my story and gave me the ol' "I'd have to see it for myself before I can believe THAT one, Liar-Liar-Pregnancy-Pants-on-Fire." I felt like a fool saying, "No, no, it's true! It's true! I read it with mine own eyes!"

So in case I repeat this crazy story to you, and inwardly you're thinking, "Oh boy. Here goes Cindy with another one of her STORIES." May I please just refer you to the link where I found it? I read about this from my favorite Mormon gossip girl, Emily W. Jensen's column on Mormontimes.com called "Today in the Bloggernacle." For my benefit (and mine alone, I'm sure), she peruses many LDS blogs and highlights articles she thinks her readers (me) would enjoy.

This story was told here. It's about a woman in Tonga who gave birth to a baby in the Tongan LDS Temple. Mysteriously, all the phones and Internet weren't working, but they needed a nurse to help deliver the baby, so the temple president prayed to get someone there. Within minutes, a nurse showed up. If pictures didn't accompany this story, I would have had a hard time believing it too.

Crazy, but true. How do you like my stories now?

Party Like It's 1999

There was a reason Prince admonished everyone to "party like it's 1999." When I was growing up, there seemed to be a general "feeling" (warning: FEELINGS!) that the end of the world would take place in the year 2000. Here we are about to jump headfirst into 2010, and the idea that the world was supposed to end 10 years ago seems crazy now, right?

Not so much in 1999. I'm not kidding. I was a reporter for a now defunct and very small daily newspaper called The Orem Daily Journal from 1998 to 1999. At one of the business press junkets I was attending, the head I.T. guy from NuSkin predicted that the Y2K scare would be "real and worse than any of us could imagine."

Those were his exact words; I am not making this up. Consequently, all the NuSkin founders and heads would be spending their Christmas and New Year's in Jamaica that year. Jaimaca? Somehow that's safer than Utah?

For our New Year's edition of the paper in 1999, I was given the assignment to interview the Parowan Prophet. He'd been predicting the end of the world since the 1980s (not unlike my mother-in-law, bless her heart. However, Alzheimer's has unfortunately taken away much of her end-of-the-world prophecies.)

Today I was curious to see if the Parowan Prophet is still predicting the end of the world. He sure is. You can read all about his prophecies on his Web site at http://www.parowanprophet.com/.

He's a bit of a nut job, but I feel sorry for the guy. He was in a terrible plane wreck in the 70s that capsized his father's head, who was sitting next to him. He miraculously lived and spoke of being with Christ while he was in a coma. He came back from the brink of death a self-proclaimed prophet.

From his Web site, his stuff seems no different from any other White Supremecist, Communist hating, super-right-wing conservative nut job.

Back then, he predicted that the end of the world would take place before Y2K because of tracing and blocking devices implanted by the Communists that would render all computers inoperable. I actually talked with the guy on the phone, and he was pretty passionate. I don't know why he'd be so specific about times and dates of the end of the world, but he would.

I think it was "fun" for newspapers to interview this guy for years, but I haven't seen his prophecies in the news for a long time. His rantings got old with each passing year his predictions never came true.

The changing of the year from 1999 to 2000 actually came without hiccups. At my then new job as a technical writer for a banking software company, we were given a bonus just for sticking around close to Provo that year for New Year's, just in case Y2K would turn out as bad as some suggested. I was never called in for "emergency documentation."

Sidebar thought: Great idea for a television series, don't you think? "Kent Chauncey: PhD."
Programmer: Mr. Chauncey, we need you to document the latest release of the software bug we just found.
Chauncey: Mister? I'll have you know I have my doctorate and post-doctorate degrees on the misspellings and errors of the Holy Bible NIV version, as well as why the complete works of Shakespeare are really not so complete. It's Doctor Chauncey.
Programmer: Dr. Chauncey, can you do it?
Chauncey: Did Dante rise from the inferno only to reach mediocrity? Of course I can, you knave! Send it to me in an e-mail stat!

Of late I've listened to the most recent doomsayer, Glenn Beck. His rantings I've heard before in my junior history class in high school. Our teacher, Mr. Cazier, taught from the same books Beck has been pounding. I like some of the ideas, but listening too much causes me grief and consternation. For the following hours and days I'm in a state of paranoia. I generally try to avoid being paranoid, especially when in a state of pregnancy. (Pregnant women worry enough as it is: Will my baby be deformed, fully function? I haven't felt the baby kick! I didn't take my prenatal vitamins today; this baby is doomed! With the amount of evil in this world, why in the heck are we bringing another child into it?!)

As the predictions come and go, I don't get as rialed up over the end of the world. And it's not like it's just the conservative side crying "the sky is falling." The liberal side has their bent too, or haven't you heard about a little movie made by a one Al Gore called An Inconvenient Truth?

Still, every time I hear an end-of-the-world theory, a small part of me flinches and wonders. Like Lisa Simpson in the episode where the town people think the end-of-the-world would come at a certain time and hour, and it turns out that it was all just a hoax by promoters for the opening of the new mall. She held tightly to her mother's hand when the supposed hour arrived. And so do I. Every New Year: I hold tightly to Kulani's hand. If this is the end, I'm glad I'm with him. (Plus, the dude has a huge stash of guns and ammunition, so we'll be ready for those God-hating Commies.)

Video of the Week

Back on that total time-suckage of all hobbies: video editing.

I present a new music video starring my kids and their favorite dancing partner, neighbor-boy Matthew. Nohea says dancing to New Order is dancing to "robot music."

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some more important things to do like laundry since we've been without clean underwear now for at least a day.