In other news...

While I have had so much Margaret on my mind, she has not been the only person who I have had to worry about. A few weeks ago, a friend in my ward, Emily, had the flu, which turned into pneumonia, which turned into sepsis. Her life has been touch and go.

These were Emily's hands after she came out of the medically-induced coma they put her in while trying to save her life:

You can see that her hands were dying.  This picture was posted on April 18 by her friend, who also wrote:

"Please pray for Emily! She is struggling today. She has a long road to recovery and it feels too daunting!!
My dear friend Emily (and my daughter's piano teacher) has been in the ICU and now she is still in the hospital. She says
“Nothing says Spring Break like kidneys failing and almost dying” and
“Get your flu shot because it really can kill you!”

She really is still fighting to live. Her kidneys are still not working. She is on dialysis and her fingers and toes are black. Prayers are much appreciated. She cannot use her fingers so she cannot use her phone, so she cannot respond. But her family and friends will read them to her.
Pray for Emily!!"

Emily was a concert pianist and piano teacher, though she has been, until landing in the hospital, a kindergarten teacher. She has her BA and MA in music from BYU. Recently she was accepted at my alma mater, The University of South Africa, for a PhD in Education.

Her fingers about broke my heart. Especially when she posted on April 22 (typed by someone in her behalf):

"Thank you all for your prayers and concern and positive energy. I am stabilized and am going to the hospital's rehab floor today. I have a couple of blood clots, I am going to have fingertips and some toes amputated, there is a lot of work ahead for me to get better. But I appreciate all the prayers and fasting that have helped me get to this point where i can now start the long road up the mountain. I'm now out of the valley of the shadow of death.

My children and husband will continue to need your support and I appreciate any support you can offer them.

Thank you all. I love you."

Emily's children are still quite young. Evelyn is about 15 now. Maybe 16 already? I was Esther's primary teacher when she was 9, and she is about 13 or 14 now.  I am the Primary music leader, and so I still work with Eli, who is about 10 going on 11, and Eden, who is about 7. They are all amazing kids--so good. Great kids.

My friend Kelli P., who I met in French Choir 6 years ago, and then we both moved into the same ward that year, 2013, started a Go Fund Me for Emily's family.

It has earned just shy of $3000 in the past week. Kelli started by trying to earn $1000. It is hard to even imagine how large the hospital bills will be. Emily has been in the hospital for over two weeks at this point, and much of that in the ICU.

Today, Emily was well enough to post by herself on Facebook, and this is what she wrote:

"Today my ward is doing a special fast for me. I thought the least I could was make a list of things I am grateful for. This will take a while because I can only type with my thumbs. I apologize for typos.
1. Grateful my thumbs will not be amputated.
2. Grateful my fingers will only be partly amputated.
3. Grateful I can eat normal foods now. The Burning Mouth Syndrome is nearly cleared up.
4. I can seat myself up in bed, yay!
5. My kidneys are improving. Dialysis is only every other day now.
6. i mostly know how to use a wheelchair. Admit it--some part of you has always wanted to try one. ;)
7.I can roll over in bed on my own now.
8. My appetite is up.
9. I got to go outside once this week. The weather was lovely.
10. I will get to see my kids grow up, even if it is without any toes or fingers."

So beautifully positive! What a privilege to know Emily, and to be able to fast for her. And also for Margaret. Such strength these women have. Margaret, in meeting death with a positive attitude. Emily, in meeting life under new and difficult circumstances, also with a positive attitude.

Another day at McKay-Dee

Since Margaret was given only a couple of days to live, I did not waste time, and went up there on Thursday morning. When I left, she said, "Thank you for coming to say hi...and bye."  I said, "Well,  I am hoping that you might last long enough that I can see you at least once more..."

I did not try to go and see her on Friday, because I knew that Marie and Perry were there with her, as well as her children. But, I also wanted to go and see Marie and Perry. So this morning I texted both Becky and Marie to see how things were. Things had not been good.

Honestly, the US health system really burns me up. Arrgh. It is so stupid. Well, even though she is dying, she was too "healthy" to stay in the hospital by the vitals they measure, and the insurance would not cover her. So they had to find a hospice to move her to.

They moved her, but then she had no nurse and no meds and honestly, they took the care out of "hospice care." So she ended up having to be transported back to the hospital via ambulance.  She had a horrible night, and today she was doped up and sleeping, sleeping, sleeping. Still, I went to see her if I could, and if not her, then Marie and the kids. I figure they all need hugs. And I did hug them all!

We had really good visits, sometimes all of us together, sometimes in smaller sets. I got there at 1; Nancy joined us at 3.  I missed seeing Perry, because he had gone back to Calgary already. But Marie plans to be here for two weeks. It was very nice to catch up with her.

Marie and I together--picture I sent to my sister Arlene, who wishes she were here too

Finally, at 4, when Mary and the boys (men?) had left, we snuck down to the room (we had been visiting in the waiting area) just to see Margaret, but not intending to wake her up. But she woke up and said, "Oh, my family is here!" So we had a nice short visit with her. She dozes off easily.

This was us. Oh, how we love our Margaret. She said, "That girl brought me some brownies...no it was cinnamon rolls...it was..." Becky said, "Did she had light hair or dark hair?" Margaret said, "Dark hair." "That was Mary," we all chorused (unplanned.) Mary had brought her mom cinnamon rolls. (Mary is such a great cook--and she does stress cooking sometimes!)

We had been eating them while we visited! Fortunately, we didn't eat them all--though Michael had an eye on that last one, I saw him looking at it like he didn't want it to be lonely in the pan!--so there was one left. I think her desire to eat it and her ability to stay awake to eat it do not exactly match, however.

She got tired and wanted to sleep again, so Nancy and I and Marie snuck out after telling her we love her. I am so glad that Marie is here with her sister. I sure do love my cousins!

More about Margaret

(written late Thursday but posted on Friday)

When you are young, or at least, when WE were young, who you played with was very much determined by how old you were. Like "How old are you?" was practically the first question out of any child's mouth when meeting someone new. It mattered.

So, as a very young child, though I aspired to play with Arlene and Margaret, I was supposed to play with Marie, because she was closer to my age. So I played with Marie the most, if we split up into pairs to play. Honestly, Arlene and Margaret were more tomboys, and Marie and I were a bit prissier, so it made sense.

But often, we all four played together. We played on the farm machinery. We played on the haystacks. We played in the "rooms" in the corn. We hoed beets and vegetables together, which isn't exactly playing, but we had some great conversations while working. We moved the cows together. We held baby chicks and kittens and puppies together.

Once, a man was hauling a purple trailer on Highway 36, and the trailer got a flat tire. Uncle Clyde, seeing that the man needed help, went out and offered to help him. The trailer was hauled into Uncle Clyde's yard, and the man was supposed to come back and get it. But he never did. So we had sleepovers in it, and we called it "The Purple People Eater." We played crazy bridge and spoons in the trailer. Some of us told ghost stories. Some of us covered their head with the pillow and plugged her ears and begged them to please stop--maybe you can guess who.

We slept outside on our lawn together, in a row, under the full moon. Some of us got freaked out scared--maybe you can guess who.

There came a year when I was quite young that Margaret got rheumatic fever. Let me tell you about rheumatic fever:

"Group A Strep is a common cause of illness in children. Usually the disease is as mild as strep throat, but strep can also cause serious illnesses, including toxic shock, “flesh-eating disease,” and rheumatic fever, a serious form of heart disease. Preventing rheumatic fever and other complications is one of the major reasons we treat all cases of strep with antibiotics.
During the 1960s and 1970s, rheumatic fever was a major worldwide problem. When it seemed to disappear, people thought it had become a disease of the past. After its resurgence, we learned that rheumatic fever comes and goes in waves. It can cause serious illness wherever strep throat occurs."
Or read more about it here.

What this meant for Margaret was that she missed a year of school, and so she ended up in the grade between Arlene and I, although she was three months older than Arlene.

What this meant for me was more time with Margaret! It was lovely for me, having Margaret the year above me, and Marie the year below. I was not exactly the best at having, making, or keeping friends in junior and senior high school, but I always had my cousins. And they always shared their friends with me. I am so grateful for them, and for Arlene. They were the best. 

Here are some pictures of young Margaret:

All of "the Conrads", as we called them: Ruth, Harold, Margaret, John, Marie and Perry in about 1966, is my guess.

Margaret in about 1969 or 1970 ish

The end of high school sent us all off on different roads. Margaret went to nursing school in Alberta. I went to BYU, as did Arlene and Marie. We would get together in the summers. Margaret decided to serve a mission. She was called to the England Bristol Mission. That was where she first met Clarence. They were on a train, and the elders spied the sisters. So they took their name tags off and went to have a good flirt with the sisters, to see how they would react. They did not flirt back. They were annoyed by these young boys. (When girls were 21 or older, and boys were 19--at least, back in OUR day, the sisters saw themselves as much older and wiser than the elders.)

When Margaret returned from her mission, she came to BYU. By then, Arlene and Michael were married and living in Taber, freezing poor Michael more than he knew a person could be frozen. Margaret, Marie and I drove to Provo with three of us in two cars. Margaret had no place to stay and her big old boat of a car. I had no place to stay and my new red Datsun pickup that my Dad bought and so I really shouldn't call it "mine." Marie had a contract at Park Plaza (which is still Park Plaza today.) Margaret and I had to scramble to find housing. She found housing really close to campus in what was then called Moon Apartments. I was not so lucky--I found housing in South Orem, pretty close to where I live now.

Margaret was chagrined to find in her ward that same obnoxious elder from her mission, that Elder Kemp. And then I believe they were assigned to the same FHE group, so she saw a lot of him. She gradually decided he was maybe not so bad--he was at least okay to set up with me, since he was my age, but clearly too young for her. "Myrna," she said, "Let me set you up with this elder from my mission." "What's his name?" said Myrna, the name snob. "Clarence Kemp," she said. That sounded like an old man's name! (And--he was named after his father, who was an old(er) man, so I was not wrong.)  I declined Margaret's set-up offer. I met him for the first time at the Weekend Movie, which was held in the JSB. Margaret and her roommates, and Clarence and his, were playing cards together while waiting for the doors to open. He was kind of cute--too bad I said no to her, I thought for a fleeting second--but then, pretty soon, Margaret decided she liked him herself.

They didn't really date at that point--they just did things to each other. Like, he would play a trick or a joke on her, and she would play one on him. Like, once she made some beautiful chocolate chip cookies for him, only laced liberally with cayenne pepper. Things like that.

Here is a picture of Margaret and Marie in my apartment with Arlene and Michael and baby Jenna in February 1979. Arlene and Michael were escaping the cold and moving to San Diego. (Do you love the wood paneling and the rust colored shag carpet? So nice.)

Marie, Margaret, Michael, Arlene and Jenna

That summer, Marie stayed for summer school at BYU. Margaret and I went home with just two of us in our same two vehicles. We started to look for summer jobs. I got hired at the Canning Factory, as a payroll clerk. Margaret got hired to be a cook for a highway crew. We had about a month before our jobs started, so we decided to go to San Diego and visit Arlene.

We had never imagined doing such a thing--driving all the way from Alberta to San Diego, just the two of us! Our fathers took some convincing, but then they allowed us to go. We would take my little red truck. We stopped in Provo and visited Marie, and then we drove as far as Saint George. We stayed in the Motel 6 for a night, and did some exploring in that area.

Then on to San Diego, where Grandpa and Grandma Lund took us on a sight-seeing drive, and Eugene was drifting all over the road pointing out this and pointing out that, and soon a police car stopped him to see if he was drunk, and Kathleen leaned in and said, "Oh, no! He would never drink! We're Mormons!"

Grandpa Lund took Arlene and the baby and Margaret and I to the zoo. A, M, J and I went to Knotts Berry Farm. Margaret and I met my friend Renee and her friend Machaelle at Disneyland one day, and on a Sunday, we went to the Los Angeles Temple grounds and visitor's center.

Me, Jenna and Margaret in June 1979 at the San Diego Zoo

Arlene, Jenna and Margaret at Knott's Berry Farm in June 1979

My former roommate and friend, Renee Partida and her friends Lori and Machaelle and Margaret at the Los Angeles Temple

I think I already told, in 2016 when Clarence died, about how when Margaret and I were driving home, she felt like it would be really important to stop in Rexburg, Idaho, and see Clarence, who was living with his brother and working as an engineering intern in the same company his brother worked at. She had been talking about Clarence A LOT on our drive, and realized that she was in love with him, and wanted to determine if he could possibly feel the same way. So long story short, they discovered that they really did like each other, that the feeling was mutual--that from her first impression of him on that train on the way to Merthyr Tydfil a few years ago to the summer of 1979, her feelings had changed, and she no longer found him annoying, but instead she totally liked him a lot. So that happened. And honestly, my most memorable part of our trip to California was being there in Rexburg, the third wheel to this young couple who were clearly in love. It was lovely to see how they loved each other. 

And then they got married in early 1980, and Bruce and I, who were dating or engaged without a ring, or whatever, went to their wedding breakfast, and then we got married ourselves a few months later. 

I already posted, in 2016, pictures of the visit Margaret and Clarence made to California when we lived there. And the story about going to Tijuana? I think I did. That was when they only had one child, Jeffrey.

It was hard in those pre-internet days to stay as connected as we can now. We saw each other when we could! We didn't often live in the same places, and that is a hindrance, too. When we lived in California, they lived in Utah. Here is a snap of Margaret and the kids at their house in Utah, before they moved to Evanston, probably 1986.

And I already posted, too, about that time in 2008, when "the Conrads" decided to have a family reunion because they had a lot more notice about Harold's impending death by cancer, so they all wanted to get together while they could. And my brother got wind of it and decided to crash the reunion, and so we all decided that if he was going to crash it, so were we! (We only crashed for one day of it. We just felt like they were an extension of us, almost, so if they were ALL going to be together, then we for sure needed to see them. So glad we did that! Love those cousins so much!)

I am sure I have a picture like this, only where Margaret is smiling instead of saying "OH!" Ahaha. I love my goofy Margaret!

At Clarence's burial in September 2016: Josie, Mary, Me, Becky, Margaret and Ruth. Not to make light of serious things, but  today Margaret said to me "I'm sorry, I am not very good at having family reunions." And Becky said, "In the Kemp family, we have a saying: Whoever is in charge of the family reunion is whoever is having the next funeral."

Spotlight on Margaret

Well. Last night I was driving home from a wedding reception in Spanish Fork. It was just down the street from Nancy's house, and her daughter Rachel came with me as my "plus one" since her school teacher's son was the groom, Michael. He and his new wife Jessica, and his dad Dirk, have been my friends for a long time, due to our shared participation in gamelan.  We had a lovely time, but I was about out of gas, so I stopped to gas up. I pulled out my phone while the tank was filling, and saw that I had missed a call from my cousin Marie, who lives in Ohio. I was so happy to see her name on my phone! So I called her back right then.

But it was not a happy call. It was a sad call. She had received a call from her sister Margaret's daughter Becky, informing her that Margaret only has a few days to live.  Margaret had colon cancer in about 1999-2000ish. She was very near death at that point, but received a miracle, and was made well. She got to finish raising her family and enjoying her very happy relationship with her husband, Clarence. My brother Bruce and I had driven to Evanston, Wyoming, where their family lived in 2000, to see Margaret in the hospital. We thought it might be our last opportunity to see her. Ruth, Margaret's older sister, was also there at that time, to be with Margaret in her hour(s) (days? weeks? months?) of need. Fortunately, and blessedly, she lived! Our family went to visit with the Kemps, they came to visit us, we saw each other. Not enough. But at least more.

But Margaret's cancer is back with a vengeance. She has only days to live.

Margaret's daughter Becky had moved to Oklahoma in time to teach school there instead of here in Utah, motivated by her four-year dating relationship with Roger Bullock, who is an electrical engineer working in Oklahoma City. Just recently, Margaret and her son Michael took a trip to Oklahoma to visit, and Roger took advantage of that opportunity to formally ask for Becky's hand in marriage, and to slip the ring on her finger. Margaret had a lot of fun in OK, but just didn't feel up to par. She realized that she has not felt very well for a long time--really, since Clarence died in September 2016. She had put it down to depression and a bout of mono and other things that had been coming and going. But she was so tired, so very tired, that she promised her children that as soon as she got home, she would "get to the bottom" of this.

And this turned out to be cancer, back again, and aggressively so. She needed surgery, so Becky came out from OK, and Margaret had her surgery. Unfortunately, there was so much cancer in various places in her body, that they could not get it all. There was some in her right lung that they could not work on, and the doctor told her very honestly that while he could do more things if she wanted him to, it would maybe buy her a couple of months, but those months would be hell. Margaret is not a fan of hell, so she decided to go home and heal and take whatever time would be given to her.

Unfortunately, her sutures broke open, and she had to be rushed back to the hospital, and honestly, she has missing organs and shut down organs, and organs that should be connected but can't be...and her body is pretty much spent. So the doctor told her she would have a couple of days.  The up side to this is that she can have "anything she wants as long as it isn't illegal." So, she doesn't have to suffer in pain waiting for four hours to be up for more pain medication because she can have whatever she wants--she will not have to recover from this illness.

Visiting with Margaret today--honestly, when have I laughed so much and cried so much, on a roller coaster of conflicting emotions? (Not since watching a Bollywood movie, probably.) Margaret and Clarence were a funny couple--literally--and Margaret, even on her deathbed, does not disappoint in the humor department. She was full of banter amidst talk of death and funeral plans. She was following the Kemp family motto--the graver the situation, the greater the jokes. Something like that.

Margaret has missed Clarence terribly, and she is delighted that she will get to see him again so soon. That hope is lifting her spirits tremendously. She loves her children and grandson Andrew, but she is so done with what is going on with her body, and is ready to move on.

While I was there, the RS presidency came, and Margaret was explaining what she wants at her funeral--speakers, the RS to furnish a chorus--and that the meal must immediately follow the funeral. (She did not like the way they did it at Clarence's funeral, so she wants hers to be different.) She discussed the beautiful new white dress that she wants Becky to buy for her to wear ("It doesn't matter if it is too long--I won't be standing up in it!") and whether or not Becky needs to clean the pink nail polish off her toes. And how when Clarence sees her again, he is going to tip her back and give her a great big kiss!

Yes, my visit with Margaret this morning was delightful! Also painful. Both. I may have been sobbing and crying out loud in my car while driving home.  I may have a boatload of more tears to shed.  Discussing dying of cancer, Margaret said, "Well at least I didn't have a heart attack! A lot of Conrads have heart attacks." And she looked at me meaningfully--we were both thinking of Burt. "My kids wouldn't like that," she continued, "They need to have some notice that I am going." Becky said, "A few days? Thanks for the notice, Mom!"

Margaret and Becky today at McKay Dee Hospital in Ogden

When Arlene saw this picture, she said that Margaret looks too good to be dying. That is because she made Becky put on her glasses and bring her some lipsticks to choose from. And she took off her oxygen tube, in order to be as "dolled up" as possible. This is the before picture:

She still looks pretty great, honestly! (Well, the oxygen tube was moved, so that helps.) She looks like she should be able to get well and walk out of there, but the state of her internal organs would argue against that happening. You can't tell by looking at the outside of her that the inside of her is still a hot mess.

You know, I do not personally have enough pictures of my cousins when we were young. We just didn't take that many pictures of all of us together, because we only took pictures on OCCASIONS. And we were together all the time, so it never seemed like an OCCASION.

One actual occasion was my Grandma Conrad's 80th birthday. I have written about that before and posted the picture of that event. That was in March 1966. I had just turned 9, so that means Margaret and Arlene were 11 and Marie was 8. We were the Four Musketeers, or as we called ourselves, the Four Seasons. That was our club. Because one of us was born in each season. [oops. Did the math wrong: I turned 8 in Dec. 1965. So in this picture, we are 10, 10, 8 and Marie is two months away from 8.]

Autumn, Summer, Winter and Spring

What didn't we do together? We rode the bus together, went to church together, played together, rode bikes together, swam together (okay--got in the water together. One of us couldn't swim...) sang together. Our mothers decided who to have for a piano teacher and what day to have lessons, so that we could do that together. We carpooled everywhere together. When we all landed in the same school eventually, we were in musicals together, went to volleyball and basketball games together. These three--they WERE my childhood best friends. Not just my sister and my cousins. They WERE the people I played with every day. Every. Day. I mean, we might have missed a day--but if we didn't see each other, we talked on the radio. Or the phone. Usually the radio. (Phones were for emergencies. Radio for idle chit chat.)

To think of the world without one of us in it. That is a hard thought. More about Margaret later. I need to cry for awhile.

A nice post that would be better with the videos that aren't there...

I have things to post about, but have been putting them off for no good reason!

We had our end of semester party for our students, and wanted to do something to honor Gail, who is retiring after about 35 years as the Asian Studies Librarian. Elizabeth, the department chair, asked me to find some entertainment. So I emailed my friend Wenhao Mu, who was happy to inform me that his wife, Wensing She, is a talented erhu player. And I emailed my friend Amy Jex, who is the folk dance professor who took Ed Austin's spot, and she sent me Cassidy Brown, who is a Korean dancer. And it was delightful!

Richard gave one of his trademark humorous poems, which I should have asked for a copy of--

And I took pictures of Gail with the performers:

I do not know how to connect to the videos, but I have them!

In other news, my tulips are growing in my little bitty garden:

And last of all, Josie and I had a nice visit with Lloyd Miller and Katherine St. John, and Lloyd gave Josie some pointers on her santur, which is like a hammered dulcimer, but from Iran. I would put a video here as well, but alas, I cannot.

Busy Days

Wow--the last two days have been busy, busy. And I am very tired and should go to sleep, but am too wound up to sleep.

On Thursday, I was working in my office and heard a student giving a tour to a group of people. I realized it was a girl named Lauren, who I thought was one of David Day's students, but actually she is a folk dance student who was working with/under David Day to create some displays to go along with the conference of the National Folk Organization, which was being held at BYU from Thursday through Sunday. And as I was listening to them talk, I realized that I wanted to attend that conference, and why wasn't I doing that, since it was local? How dumb is that? Should take advantage of local opportunities, shouldn't I?

So I looked it up, emailed our controller to ask if BYU would pay my one-day registration so I could attend on Friday, and I could, and did.

Thursday was also super busy in and of itself, because we had dress rehearsal for our French choir concert, then I had to run to our anthropology last day of class and hand in all of our assignments that hadn't already been handed in (5 for Josie, 3 for me) and then run to gamelan rehearsal, and then run to the French choir concert. And that was all after working the whole day first.

So on Friday, it was really nice to only have to attend the NFO conference. And I learned that Dance Conferences might be my new favorite conferences, because they are fun, and what they do is dance. They don't just talk about dancing; they dance. At music conferences, they talk about music, and a select few people perform, but just hey let's everybody do this--not so much. So it was refreshing.

Here is a link to the program.  It started out with a guest speaker, Carrie Eakins, who is a BYU graduate (BA and MA) and incidentally also Dallin Oaks' niece. She is a year older than me, so she would have been dancing at BYU back in those days when I tried out for the folk dance team once and didn't get in, and tried out for Young Ambassadors once and didn't get in, and then didn't really try again. (I was in Women's Chorus, but you did not have to audition back then. You do now.)

Well we did active things! We stood and did clapping and music (which I am totally going to do with my kids in primary tomorrow) and then we did drumming and movement, and it was a blast.

The room before I went in

Ed Austin directing traffic; Carrie Eakins is in the black. It looks like she knew I was taking her picture, but I honestly did not realize she was even in that picture until this moment.

The girl in the black and white skirt is the dance teacher Jessica Jones I will refer to later in this commentary.

This was the green ball I was using.

Carrie Eakins got into drumming when she was havin gsome serious health problems nearly 20 years ago, and was in a wheelchair because she could not dance because she could not even walk. But she is a dancer, so sitting in a wheelchair every day got very old and boring. So she took up drumming, and she also did lots of therapy and had some surgeries, and she is definitely dancing again. Also finishing up a PhD, and traveling the world doing drumming activities all over the place.

Next was kecak with Jeremy Grimshaw, which of course I have been doing for many years. Fun to watch the reaction of the dancers to the strangeness of kecak.

After lunch, we learned a hula dance--one about Pele. I was not very good at it, and I no longer remember the names of all the steps we learned, even though she had us repeat them several times, and I am sure I can't do the dance anymore already, but I really, really hope that I was pretty darn good at being bad at doing that dance!

Our teacher was Kaui Tu'ia

The people in front of me. There is Jessica again!

Showing us how it is done

After hula, I had to run pick up Josie and take her to a spontaneous reyong sectional since Dallin was STILL WRITING THE PARTS for the performance that we would be doing on Saturday. And Josie was one of the four people doing that part. So I missed a bit of Mary Beth Johnson's report on her NFO grant funded trip to Ukraine to learn from dance teachers there.

Then Laraine Miner reported on her NFO grant funded work on the folk dances of the Mormon Pioneers. (They were the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints pioneers actually factually. We apparently need to go back in time and tell them to please call themselves that.) That was super interesting. Her new book about it has a DVD as well, and she talks about what they wore as well. Then a girl I know named Jessica Jones (who coincidentally is NOT the other Jessica Jones I know who used to play in the gamelan with me) had her dance students there to dance the dances. They were wearing clothing made from actual patterns of pioneer clothing. So interesting. Some of the dances were really fun. Some were rather dull. Everyone wore gloves--no touching the opposite sex or even anyone at a dance with your fingers!

Then they were coming to our gamelan rehearsal. So it is kind of comical that BYU, who pays me to work, then paid for me to go to the class I normally go to as a part of the registration for this event.  I got to gamelan ahead of the crowd. Most of the instruments were already in the room because Josie and Amelia had moved all of them before they began their reyong intensive clinical. But they (the instruments--not Josie and Amelia) were pretty far forward in the room, so I suggested to Jeremy that we should move the instruments back, and put some rows of chairs at the front for the visitors--oh yes! I neglected to say that when I read the program on Thursday when I registered, I was all "What the heck?" because he had not mentioned that a whole boat load of people were coming to learn about the gamelan on our LAST PRACTICE (save the two hours of dress rehearsal) before a performance!!! When Dallin had barely the day before finished writing the ending of a piece!!! And we had suling players coming from Music 307 who did not even know what a suling was!!!! ARRGH!! Such excellent timing without any warning to anyone in the group!

So he did not take my suggestion and we got all set up, and then people from NFO were coming and coming, so THEN we had to all move the instruments back to make more room. When--hello--we could have done it that way from the beginning--just saying...

And then, at the end of gamelan rehearsal EVERYONE DISAPPEARED. Dirk and I and this Music 307 student named Raimundo and Josie and Amelia were the ONLY ONES LEFT. Jeremy had run out to his car to get two new flat carts for moving things, and he came back and was all "Where is everyone?"

Anyways, attending NFO was very fun, and I know that the folk dance professors were all super happy that I was there because now they realize that I actually, truthfully, demonstrably AM interested in what they do. Which is fun--they do fun things.

Today I wondered about trying to squeeze in going to Miriam's organ recital, or going to the morning of NFO classes (Ed Austin said, "You need to come to MY session on Saturday morning!) but decided I should stay home and do things like the banking before rushing off for set up.

And--they were still putting up the risers for the gamelan when I got there. So that took easily twice as long as I expected. Then a quick stop at the store and then home to pick up Josie and go back for two hours of rehearsal. (Josie did not come and help set up, because she and Amelia had single-handedly (but there were two of them, so double handedly?) done the Friday set up, and then after THREE HOURS of rehearsal, playing reyong, so some upper body work out for sure, had been part of the small group of us who put everything away, and she was not feeling well, so she decided to save herself for the rehearsal and performance.)

Then practice, then home for a brief respite, and then back to perform, and then home to drop Josie off (still not feeling well, but she played well on the reyong part, so all the hard work paid out) then back to help put things away.

SO IRRITATING--we started with Belaganjur, and I put my suling and Josie's suling together at the back so I could pick them up on my way for the third piece. The second piece, I played jublag, and the suling were where I had left them. After that piece, JOSIE'S SULING WAS GONE. She had been playing cheng-cheng in front for the two pieces, and when she came, I just told her there was no suling for her to play, so she just had to go to the back and sit that piece out. What else could she do? She was playing a high suling, and I was playing a medium suling, so they are different. Well, she spent the time going over the reyong part and praying. So it worked out in the end.

So yah. Those were a busy few days.

Steps and miles:
Thursday -- 4.2 miles / 10,104 steps
Friday -- 4.9 miles / 11,758 steps (dancing will do that!)
Saturday -- 3.6 miles / 10,839 steps

Please explain Thursday and Saturday to me?! (These numbers seem--confusing...)

And what the heck, blogspot.com? WHY is there no edit from the page itself? That is annoying.

I am a little bit annoyed tonight. Probably need some sleep.

Powerful Poem

Two Mothers Remembered

by Joann Snow Duncanson


I had two Mothers – two Mothers I claim

Two different people, yet with the same name.

Two separate women, diverse by design,

But I loved them both because they were mine.

The first was the Mother who carried me here,

Gave birth and nurtured and launched my career.

She was the one whose features I bear,

Complete with the facial expressions I wear.

She gave me her love, which follows me yet,

Along with the examples in life that she set.

As I got older, she somehow younger grew,

And we’d laugh as just Mothers and daughters should do.

But then came the time that her mind clouded so,

And I sensed that the Mother I knew would soon go.

So quickly she changed and turned into the other,

A stranger who dressed in the clothes of my Mother.

Oh, she looked the same, at least at arm’s length,

But now she was the child and I was her strength.

We’d come full circle, we women three,

My Mother the first, the second and me.

And if my own children should come to a day,

When a new Mother comes and the old goes away,

I’d ask of them nothing that I didn’t do.

Love both of your Mothers as both have loved you.