Celebrating the 28th of June in West Bountiful

Yesterday West Bountiful celebrated the 4th of July a week early, probably to avoid competing with bigger cities' festivities on the actual day--a pretty good idea. So I went along with my family to the parade and the carnival afterwards and showed up with Ty later on for the fireworks show. Let me just say that it was fabulous! It was one of my favorite days so far this summer. If this was a poem, I'd say I drank the day up like cherry kool-aid.

I started the day off sitting on the cement at the parade next to five little girls, squinting in the hot sun and waving like crazy with them at the floats that were throwing candy. We were all thirsty and very hot, but we wouldn't have left for anything. Things got more exciting when a big Noah's Ark float broke down right in front of us and all the other floats had to maneuver around it. Noah was stuck on top awkwardly waving to the same crowd for the rest of the parade. Finally, I think he just sat down. Every time a new float approached the narrow situation, the crowd drew in its collective breath and didn't let it out again until the float had passed without running over any people or broadsiding the broken-down Noah's Ark. It was priceless. Just the kind of thing you write about. The parade went on like this, and of course by the end, each of the kids had collected their own kingdom-sized piles of colored taffy. Every year, about the middle of the parade, as the mother of the year car and the Miss West Bountiful buggy go slowly by, I wonder why I like parades. They are, after all, pretty boring. But I love them in the same way I love those orange peanut-shaped marshmallows--They don't taste all that good, but they come pure and direct from my barefoot childhood.

After the parade, we went over to the carnival. It was all excitement for the first twenty minutes or so, but then the heat and the empty stomachs mixed together to make everyone a little grumpy. In the late afternoon, I ended up in the shade under a tree with my family, eating a banana snow cone that was more snow than anything banana. I had just paid ten dollars to buy Ashley an all-day ride pass, and she had ridden two rides and then announced she was ready to go home. My dad was asleep on his back, my mom was off waiting in an endless food line, and Danny was eating a root beer snow cone and expressing his wish to be home getting things done in his yard. The kids were everywhere, sunburned, tired, and still wanting to play forever. For all of this, the scene was absolutely perfect.

Later on, I went back to the park with Ty to watch fireworks. We got there in the middle of the show, and making our way through the awed and quiet crowd in the dark, only lit up by the frequent flashes of orange and green light, somehow reminded me of walking through an electric cemetery or something. We ended up sitting next to Ty's friends, a couple whose little boy clung to his dad in a mix of absolute terror and wonder at the big things happening in the sky. When it was over, Ty and I left the park laughing, I don't remember at what, and feeling good.

The day was basically a perfect piece of imperfect life, another reason I love summer.

Camp Out on the Trampoline

The other night, Gabe (7) and Payton(10) and I had a sleepover on the trampoline. This is one of my favorite things to do, so I convinced them to join me in much the same manner that over-eager dads convince their sons to go on fifty-mile hikes. Well, okay, so maybe they didn't take that much convincing. Gabe said "Yes!" and jumped in the air, and Payton said, "Okay, but if my stomach starts to hurt, can I go inside?" So we took our sleeping bags and pillows out and started to get them set up. Soon, we realized we needed some kind of mosquito repellent, so I went inside to get some. If anyone knows my mom, you won't be surprised when I say that I walked back outside carrying a perfume bottle filled with listerine. She is very, um, creative (and usually very herbal) in her solutions to problems--a good thing, but it makes life a little sticky sometimes. (Literally. When you burn yourself, she chases you with a bottle of honey.) So I carried this perfume/listerine stuff back out to the trampoline, and, not wanting to sleep with sticky skin, tried to spray it around the perimeter of our sleeping bags. The thing wouldn't spray, so Gabe, who had been sitting patiently on his sleeping bag watching me, finally took it out of my hands and said, "Manda, let me show you what to do." He then proceeded to take the lid off of the perfume bottle and pour the listerine onto our pillows and into our sleeping bags. And when I say pour, I mean pour. I touched my finger to my pillow and there was a puddle. I started to say something, but he looked so earnest. He was saying, "There you go Manda. Now we won't get eaten." He finished and then crawled into his sleeping bag, happy as a clam. I didn't have to the heart to say anything, so I also climbed into my (very wet and minty) bag and tried to forget that I was sleeping in mouthwash. Where was Payton all this time? Asking "What's that noise?" and telling me what he'd learned in school about Hitler. (Yes, I thought it was a little strange too.) Despite the mintiness and the fact that we couldn't avoid squishing up against each other in the center of the trampoline and getting our slippery sleeping bags twisted around us, the night was a success. We all fell asleep peacefully after sharing our "deepest, darkest secrets" (Gabe's words) and trying to pick out satellites in the night sky. If I never buy my own house someday, I think I'll live on my trampoline. I'll just make sure I have bug spray.

I've been trying to make decisions lately--big decisions--and I have found that I am not made for decision-making. It is really exhausting. The biggest decision I am currently attempting to make is whether or not I am going to move to Portland in September for graduate school. I don't know yet what I am going to decide. In fact, I kind of wish someone would just tell me what I am going to do, and then I can make myself be content with my fate. I am good at this. I am just not very good at the whole making-the-decision part. So I will make a big pronouncement when I do finally decide.

I did decide one very big thing today, though, and that is that I want to be a teacher when I grow up. A high school English teacher. I've thought about it a lot--over-thought it, I'm sure, as is my tendency--and I really think this is the career that will most afford me the lifestyle that I want to have. I can teach the things I love and work with people all day long, and then in the summer I can go on big adventures, like teach English in France or join a hippie camp in Hawaii or be a part of a sailing crew or write a book, etc. This is my plan, and I think it will be wonderful. Plus, I can live in Utah close to my family, but still live outside of Utah in the summer. It sounds to me like the best possible solution for my ever-changing, schizophrenic desires. So that is the big news of the day. Hopefully more will follow if I ever make up my mind about Portland. :)

Home Alone

I have had the house to myself for the last few days, and all I can think of to describe the experience is "delicious." TV commercials call a day at the spa or a honeymoon to Jamaica delicious, but I really think the word applies better to my weekend of solitary living. I can't say why it has been so great, either. It's not like I don't enjoy the company of my parents or my aunt who is living with us right now. In fact, I like them all quite a bit. It's just been different to be here alone. Maybe it's a hint from the universe or my biological clock or something that it's time to have more of my own space. Whatever the case, it was really nice. I slept on the couch every night, walked around in my underwear, cleaned the bathroom (who knows why that was fun, but it was), and took naps without having to justify myself to anyone. Perhaps weeks of this living all alone would become not so fun, but 5 days has been wonderful. I guess I should say that I wasn't totally alone the whole time--I've been watching Kim and Shawn's new dog while they are camping, and that's been wonderful too. He's a perfect dog, just like the kind you see at parks in the movies. He sleeps on the living room floor all day (he is sleeping at my feet as I write), and he goes running with me in 90-degree weather for 6 miles without complaining. He goes outside to do his business, and he likes to snuggle. So my weekend has been enhanced by having him here. If I ever find myself living alone someday, I think I will definitely look into getting a dog. Oh yes, one other thing that made the weekend great...I bought a trampoline! I love trampolines a lot.

I have a blog!

Okay, so I didn't know blogs were free! Good news: they are. So now I have one. We'll see how this goes.