Remember, remember the last of November

Today is the last day of November, and I have done it! I have written every day this month, and most of the time I actually had something to say. A couple of times, I wrote with little purpose, but overall, I feel pretty good about setting a goal to write daily and doing it.

Things I am thankful for today:
1. The sun came out today! It was so lovely. It was snowy and ugly out when Josie and I went into the baptism today, but when we came out, the sun was shining out of a clear blue sky! Lovely!
2. My check engine light (that came on last Saturday) randomly went off and has stayed off! Phew!
3. The little boys who were baptized had the names Jacob Haggard and Atticus Trueblood. I felt like maybe I had slipped into the world of Harry Potter! Great names!
4. It has been really nice to have Patrick home. Last night we had Rosie and Austin over as well. It felt good to see them, and to see the four of the kids (P, J, R and A) enjoy each other so much.
5. David's university's strike is over! Have been praying for a speedy resolution to that! It might not have been super speedy, but I am so glad it is over.
6. David's difficult tenant moved out! So happy for him and Ruth that they have one less worry!
7. Josie helped me put up the Christmas lights earlier in the week, and I turned them on for the first time on Thanksgiving night. We plugged them into the light on the balcony, so I only have to flip a switch, which is so handy. Should have done that sooner! (By which I mean, in previous years. Easy enough to buy the little adapter to plug into the light socket. That is the part I should have done several years sooner.)
8. Josie's kitty really loves her. She sees Josie and starts to purr really loudly, and caresses Josie's face with her dirty little kitty feet. (I am very thankful that it is not me with dirty little kitty feet on my face, too.)
9. I finished reading "Without you, there is no us" by Suki Kim. Wow. What a window into North Korea. Hauntingly lovely book.
10. I have been doing a lot of Family Bibles on Family Search--connecting old family bibles to the people who kept them. It is so interesting! I hope some people searching for information about their families will use those old records.

There are many more things I am thankful for. The more I list, the more I can think of them!

Also some sad stuff today: Andrew fought with the leaves and the leaves won. A little boy fell off a snow removal implement and died. My friend Emily (who almost died) has had some hard things: her 14 year old daughter had a grand mal seizure last week, and her 7 year old daughter's best friend's mom died of complications from a medication. So, the reminder that life is hard is ever present.

BUT!! There are still things to be thankful for. I am thankful for taking some time this month to think about that. Hopefully I will continue to think about being thankful every day, even if I don't write about it every day.

3 Bears of Baptism

A few years ago, my friend Laurel gave a talk at a baptism called "The 3 Bears of Baptism," and I thought it made for an interesting talk that explained the promises we make when we are baptized.  There is a baptism on Saturday, and few people are available, so Josie said she would give the talk if I wrote it. (I am already doing the music, so we didn't want it to be the Myrna show.)  I was stumped for an idea until I remembered the 3 Bears.

Here is the talk:

I’m sure all of you know the story of the Three Bears. Today I want to talk about three different bears: the baptism bears. The word “bear” can be used to mean the furry animal, but it can also mean “to carry.” The baptism bears remind us of the covenants we make with our Heavenly Father when we are baptized—we promise to carry or “bear” three things.

We can read about these things we promise to bear in the Book of Mormon, in Mosiah chapter 18. First, we promise that we are willing to bear His name—the name of Jesus. You will be baptized a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and will belong to him and carry or bear his name. In ancient times the followers of Jesus were called Christians. Now we can be called Latter-day Saints or Christians. Either one means we bear His name.

Our second BEAR of baptism is to bear testimony, or to bear witness that we know Jesus is the Son of God; that we know He is our Savior and we know His gospel is true. We can bear this testimony all the rest of our lives. This is one way we show our love for Jesus and our Heavenly Father.

Our third BEAR of baptism is that we will bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light. This means we help each other with work that needs to be done and also we help others when they have trouble and sorrow so they won’t suffer alone. In this way, we can follow the Savior’s commandment to love one another, the same way He loves us.

Alma taught these same baptism covenants to the people that he taught and baptized that we can read about in Mosiah chapter 18 vs. 8-10. Alma tells the people being baptized about the three bears: he tells them that:

they need to be called the people of God (which means to bear his name)

they need to be willing to bear one another’s burdens,

and they need to stand as witnesses of God (which means to bear testimony)

After they are baptized, Heavenly Father’s promised to pour out His spirit upon them. He makes that same promise to you as you are baptized today—that he will pour out His spirit upon you. I can think of nothing better than to always have his spirit with us.

If you forget these covenants listen carefully to the priests as they bless the sacrament each Sunday, because the words they say remind us of the promises we make when we are baptized, which are also your three baptism bears …

You bear His name.
You bear your testimony.
You bear one another’s burdens

I gave Miriam 3 little baptism bears when she was baptized because of Laurel's talk, and bought a dozen little bears at that time. So, I chose 6 little bears (because two young boys are being baptized) and dressed them up with belts that spell out "Bear His Name," "Bear Testimony," and "Bear Burdens." For Miriam, I had made necklaces, but actually, belts kind of fit better on these bears.

I had to go and buy string because what I had was too slippery to hold knots, and the beads kept falling off, and while at the craft store, I saw these cute bear bags, so I got them, too.

Thanksgiving Day 2019 in the US of A

I am trying to think of things I am thankful for today that rhyme with tree, gold or carrot to fit into my tale of the day. (Because that was one of young Wally's thankful prompts.)

I am thankful we could SEE while driving to the airport this morning to pick up Patrick. The weather was just starting to turn a bit stormy at home when we left, but it got worse as we drove along. Bruce had volunteered to drive, and I was playing Sherlock on my phone, and when I looked up, holy cow! It had gotten nasty outside! He had to drive through slushy, slippery awfulness. But at least visibility was good!

Because it was COLD we decided to HOLD our Thanksgiving dinner as a brunch at Chuck-a-rama. I had heard that they put on a good Thanksgiving spread for a decent price. Bruce told me there would be a line. I didn't think there would be a line at 10 AM, when they open, which is when we would get there after picking Patrick up. We pulled into the parking lot at about 9:50, and there was already a line at the door! Huh. Mind you, it was a short line of only about 8 people. We sat and waited for Kelli and Allen to arrive, and a bunch more people came, but it was fine. Our wait was short, the restaurant was not crowded, the buffet lines were never awful, and there was plenty of choices to eat. It was nice because Kelli and Allen did not have to drive so far, and we were in SLC already because of the airport. So that was a nice way to get together, and well worth the cost, in my opinion. So I was thankful to HOLD our T-day dinner in a restaurant.

I do not really know how to use words that rhyme with carrot in a sentence about being thankful...well, I was thankful for the yummy carrot in the serving of pot roast I took from the buffet. We do not really have a garrett (attic) in our house, so I can't be thankful for that. And we have a cat, not a parrot, and I am thankful for that because I think I prefer cats to parrots.

Okay, this is getting silly. Happy Thanksgiving to all, and to all a good night!

What is something you wish you were thankful for?

This is a difficult question, because it implies that you need to think of something you are currently NOT thankful for, and somehow raise the wherewithal to wish you could be thankful for it!

This brings to mind several scriptures: “Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things”(D&C 59:7) and "In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

The scripture in 1 Thessalonians is the one that inspired the story of Betsie Ten Boom and her gratitude for the fleas in the barracks in the concentration camp she and her sister Corrie were in. I love that story! Here it is, excerpted from Corrie's book, The Hiding Place, for anyone who would like to read it again (or for the first time.)

Betsie is a great example, but I am not sure that I am ready to be thankful for terrible things like cancer, or people dying young and leaving young children behind, which are things that I am currently not thankful for. But I wish I had the necessary understanding to be able to be thankful for everything! Maybe one day I will get to that point!

Things people answered on Angela's original post with this question--not a lot of people replied to this question, and no wonder--it is a hard one!
Messes everywhere
Stretch marks and mommy pooch
To be healthy--like wow! (This answer is like, we take it for granted!! So indeed, we should notice and be thankful for being healthy. It is the best.)
Answers that aren't what you hope for (example given: an autism diagnosis)
My trials in life
Love handles
Mornings (the person who wrote this must be an owl!)
Tantrums
Headaches

Lots of things to think about here.

When I was young, I had terrible periods. Terrible. Awful. They were irregular, unpredictable, I bled like a fountain, and the pain was beyond horrible. I was exactly the opposite of thankful for them. They made me so angry!! I used to rage "When I design a world, women will NOT have periods!"

But. I learned some things. I learned how to bear pain. I learned how to work through pain, because it is stay home and miss out, or make yourself do something in spite of it. Since they were so unpredictable, I could plan to participate in something, and then it would come at a totally unexpected time, like a week after the last one or whatever. Early on, I missed out on many things, but then I learned to fight back. And when I had babies, I learned that I could bear labor and childbirth pains in ways that people who had not dealt with pain before could not. I appreciated pregnancy and nursing because no periods!! I could get 2-3 years of no periods for every baby!! Sweet! Now that I don't have them anymore, I am even more grateful because they were no fun. But--they did do me some good, after all.

Now to learn to be thankful for other hard things...

What are you thankful for that you never expected to be?

On Angela's post of this question, the number one answer was children! Some people never wanted to, or never thought they would be parents, and then when they were--surprise, surprise! They were thankful.

This made me think of my friend L, who was dating B, but he didn't want children. L really did, so this was becoming an issue in their relationship. B wanted to marry L, but L said, "Well, there is no way that I am getting married and NOT having children so if you want to marry me, you have to want children." So, reluctantly, B became a father to M, and he LOVED it. He loved it so much that he said to L, "Being parents is so much fun! Let's have 12!" And L said, "Slow down, cowboy, I said I wanted children, but I didn't say anything about 12!" (They had three.)

Other people mentioned leadership roles in various organizations--they didn't see themselves as leaders, and yet, when they stepped up, they learned and grew and were grateful.

This is what I wrote in answer to that question: Having to be the breadwinner. I always wanted to be a stay-at-home mom with a bajillion children. Instead, I have always had to work, but because I had to, I pursued lots of education, and have had lots of experiences that I could not have had otherwise. And my children survived having a working mom! They turned out pretty great, honestly. So, I am thankful for that different life path that was not what I expected.

One answer that someone gave was moving--sometimes moving is really hard, but it can turn out to be a blessing. We have moved a lot--probably too much--but each move has been a blessing to someone. Moving to Utah was super hard, and it took years of adjustment for most of us, but if we hadn't moved when we did and where we did, would Nancy have met Andrew? I am grateful those two met; I think they are perfect for each other.

More Questions to Consider

My friend Angela's son Wally continues to think up great thankful prompt questions:

What are you thankful for that you never expected to be?
What is something that you wish you were thankful for?
What is something you are thankful for that rhymes with tree, gold, or carrot?
What is a skill that you have that you are thankful for?
What is a scripture verse that you are thankful for?
What is a law that you are thankful for?

That Wally is a deep thinker sometimes.

My friend Susanne has also been asking thankful questions, sometimes re-using Wally's questions, and, more recently, presenting questions of her own:

Name a talent or quality you have that you are grateful for. Go ahead and brag on yourself since I asked for it!
What is something about the town, area or neighborhood you live in or are from, that you are thankful for?

These are some great prompts, I think! And it has also been interesting to read the answers people give, some short and sweet, and some long and detailed.

As for me, this is all I will write tonight. I left my computer glasses at work! So, what I am thankful for is that I do have computer glasses, which help me so much, since my eyes are pretty terrible. How wonderful to have glasses that help me to see better. But, right now, I have the wrong glasses for the job, so I am just going to stop right here.

Gamelan Fall Semester 2019

This was our huge group of musicians and dancers:

This was such a fun concert! I hope maybe someone filmed part of it! There is a link to the program, which has a few strange spellings for the Balinese words!

Before I went to Europe, I was playing penyacah for Puspanjali, but Jeremy had me play suling because the volunteers from Music 307 needed a strong suling player, since they have never played that instrument before. We will be playing this at Christmas Around the World, and I am not sure what instrument I will play. Our visiting professors are the composer and original choreographer of this piece. Here is a video example. (Not us.)

For Marga Pati, I played penyacah with Rachael, who was very easy to watch. I have played this years ago, but there were parts I was unsure of, so my eyes were on Rachael's hands! Here is a video example, again, not us!

Our Tari Marga Pati (Tari = Dance)

For Wira Yuda (which basically means war fighting) I was on jublag. This one was super easy, at least for the jublag. I picked it up very quickly. That always feels good! This is a men's dance, as you can see in this example which is not our group.

Our Tari Wira Yuda

It was so cool to go back and forth between the steel band and the instruments of bronze! And both ensembles, the steel band and the gamelan, did kecak together at the end.

It was a fun night!

Too much

Some days, I don't know what to write because I have nothing to say. Some days I don't know what to write because I have too much to say. Or too many choices.

Today--continue with thankful posts? Write about death? Or the gamelan concert tonight?

I think I will wait to see if pictures from the gamelan get posted--I didn't take any because my camera/phone was in my pocket, which was pretty inaccessible under my costume.

So...death it is! I finished reading "Smoke gets in your eyes and other lessons from the crematory" by Caitlin Doughty, and it was such an interesting read. I was reading it quickly because it has a shortened due date since others are waiting to read it. And with death on my mind while reading this book, wouldn't you know it but that my friend Janice (Kapp Perry) would end up in the hospital having had a stroke on Friday, and then this morning our university librarian, Jennifer Paustenbaugh, died after a valiant, over-the-top, concerted effort to beat cancer. She just sent us all her letter of resignation on Friday, and though I didn't think she would see the New Year in, I was quite shocked that she died today!

I didn't think she would last the year in 2018, but she did, and she made it almost through 11 months of 2019. Her cancer has been terrible, and aggressive and unremitting, and yet she would come to work looking like a million bucks. I have not seen very many people as resilient as Jennifer. She was the energizer bunny of not giving in to cancer. 

Until--she finally was just worn out by it.  She has not been at work for about six weeks or so now, and the rumor mill said that she would be stepping down at the end of December.

It was very odd to have someone die while I was reading this book, and thinking about how ridiculous it is to be embalmed and put in a ridiculously expensive coffin. And thinking about whether it is better to be cremated or just dig a hole and put your body in it to decompose properly, or whether it is better to donate your body to science.

One of my neighbors did that--donated her body to science. She was a very dedicated teacher, and I think she wanted to keep on teaching after she died, so if her spirit can't be around to do that, she wanted her body to teach somebody something. So there is zero expense at death when you donate your whole body--unless, of course, doing so becomes too trendy--then they will think of some way to monetize it, am I right? They come and take your body away within 24 hours and then you might allow doctors to do trial procedures or implant trial devices, so they learn on a dead guinea pig instead of a live one. You can be an organ donor AND a body donor--you die, and they will first harvest your organs, and then find an organization that wants the rest of you. Or they might just want your head, or your leg, or whatever. Or you could be a crash-test dummy--sometimes they like to try things out with a real dead body to see what happens upon impact.

Well--read the book! It will make you think! 

What is something you are thankful for that you have seen, but not had?

Wow! That is not a question I would expect an 8 or 9 year old kid to come up with.

Angela posted this: "Wally's response to his own question was "puppies" and mine is "the horse farms around us here in Kentucky." I'm grateful his question reminds me we can be thankful for things without having them."

I feel like I am the host of "Family Feud"--and the survey said...

waterfalls

sunsets

calving glaciers

flower gardens

beautiful paintings

temples

kittens

antidotes (the woman who wrote this--her husband works in a factory that manufactures antidotes and also vaccinations)

foster families

my own room

dogs

sons

the deepest part of the ocean

all the beautiful places in the world I have seen pictures of but not visited

One person wrote: "I’m thankful for pets because they are a source of joy, companionship, wonder and happiness. Especially when someone is alone or sick. 💞
I’m thankful for farmers and farms because without them we couldn’t feed the world. Plus I’m a huge fan of delicious vegetables."

Susanne also posted this question, and that list included:

vaccinations

medicines

the promise of Heaven

an Italian passport

children

I thought this was such a profound question to be posed by a child. It really makes you think of all the wonderful things that you don't own, and in many cases can't own ("have") but for which you can still be thankful. And people's lists make me think of some things that I am thankful for that I have had--like back in the day when I had my own personal farmer (my dad) and his farm!

I think that other people have thought of such wonderful things to answer this question with! I am thankful for their answers. And right now, this may be silly, but I am thankful for hippos, which I have seen but not had. I am thankful for going with my sister to the San Diego Zoo and watching the hippos swim and cavort and play in the water. What a sight! When you see them on land, or standing in puddles of water, they look just large and maybe a little clumsy. But seeing them underwater! What a privilege. They are so graceful and agile and adorable. Who knew? I am thankful to have seen that sight, of these beautiful creations of God enjoying their lives in ways that I did not know they could. Delightful. (If you have not seen them for yourself, here is a video someone else took.)

What is something you are thankful for that you think is fun and interesting, but other people think is boring?

I did not answer this question when Angela posted it. But many people did, and they posted these things to be thankful for:
spelling
doing the laundry
budgeting
window shopping for houses (I call that being a looky-loo)
audio books
bed sheets
weaving
trying to hypnotize people
reading Wikipedia
reading almanacs
books
birds
plants
board games
dogs
organizing closets, drawers and files
weeds and weeding
behavior analysis
math
school
looking up words in the dictionary
vacuuming
taking classes
bugs
colorful hairbows
cats
LED bulbs
watching car repair videos
knitting
learning botanical Latin names
opera music
words
maps
watching people paint or garden
spreadsheets
sewing doll clothes
PBS
historical fiction
Star Trek Enterprise
going to yard and garage sales
watching TV

That is a pretty great list. I am not sure if I have anything to add--and I find very few of the items on this list boring. As a child who read all of the World Book Encyclopedias and was reduced to reading the big fat Webster's Dictionary my parents had, and did a fair bit of pouring over the maps in the old encyclopedias--I can't remember what kind they were, but yes, I grew up in a home with two sets of encyclopedias. (I thought that was normal. I was shocked in school to discover that there were children who had no encyclopedias or dictionaries in their homes!!! What?!!!)

I am very, very sorry for getting rid of our World Book Encyclopedias when we moved. I did give them to a school, so at least they didn't end up in a landfill. But still. I robbed my younger children of the pleasure of reading the encyclopedia. Which is totally NOT boring! Fascinating.

What I am thankful for that makes me different from other people...

Isn't it wonderful that all of us are different from other people? Every single person is unique--even identical twins! You get to know them, and you can tell them apart, because they aren't completely identical. They will have something that is uniquely their own!

What is sad, in our increasingly polarized society, is that people cling to other people who are like them, and miss the beauty of the diversity around them in others.

What makes me different? It could be physical things, like my toe thumb on my left hand. Or the way my right big toe sticks up in its own special way. My gold streak, back in the day before I started to dye my hair--that was definitely different from other people.

It could be things that I do, like being unable to sit still in intense or scary scenes in movies. Or crying over some silly cartoon or advertisement--not everybody you meet is like that.

What makes me different from other people is that only I am the youngest daughter of Arnold and Pearl Conrad, and only I have three wonderful siblings, Bruce, Colleen and Arlene. Only I am Bruce Layton's wife and have these particular six children: Kelli, Abbi, David, Nancy, Patrick and Josie, each of whom in turn is spectacularly unique and precious, and each different from the other.

I love diversity! I am thankful even for my bad eyes (because they are only bad; I can still see!) and thankful for the people around me who can see better than I can. And I am thankful for the things that I can do maybe a little bit different that might lift someone else. When you put us all together, with all our differences, the whole lot of us are greater than the sum of our individual parts. I am thankful for that.

What I am thankful for that I used to not like:

Sooooo many things! I was a cantankerous, not-liking-much kind of girl. So I have had the opportunity to learn to be thankful for many things that I formerly was not thankful for.

This was my answer on Angela's Facebook page: Sweet potatoes! Oh, how I hated them when I was a kid, but now I love them! They are so yummy! So, keep trying foods you never thought you liked, because tastes change over time!

I wrote that, I am sure, because I have been buying and eating sweet potatoes lately, and I think they are so good. They have a more-ish flavour, in my opinion. And since I started with foods, I will just stay there for this post.

Rice--I also used to hate rice. And cream of wheat cereal and oatmeal. But now I like all those things. They are actually things that are easy on the tummy, and inexpensive, so they are good things to eat. 

I think that for me, as a child, it would have been easier to list the things I did like to eat, because I pretty much didn't like anything else! I loved bread, though, and I still love bread.

I didn't like candy (I would only east Smarties) 

and candy canes at Christmas. I HATED Christmas oranges, and I hated chocolates, both important Christmas treats. My family was okay with that--more for them!

I think I am still inclined to be picky. But I am thankful for many more foods than I used to be thankful for! We have such a wonderful variety of good choices, don't we?

What I am thankful for that is my favorite color...

When Angela posted this, the first of Wally's questions, I did not answer the question because how could I even? Like, what is even my favorite color?

Most of the time my favorite colors are pale pink and baby blue. So I spent some time trying to think of things that I am thankful for that are pink, and I decided that most things that are pink are man-made, and they are things that could be many colors, not just pink. So I just didn't answer that question.

But then when Susanne also posted that question...and the first answer someone put was the sun, and a discussion about is it yellow or orange or what...and that made me immediately have the sky around the sun pop into my mind, and I realized that I really love sky blue. Which is almost like baby blue, only with a bit more brightness to it. And it is a color made by nature!

How I love the sky! Living here in Utah, there is not the wonderful sky like there is in Alberta. The sky really does get bigger near the poles, so there really is more sky to see, and it is just the best. I remember lying on the green lawn and looking up at the sky--it is better than a movie! Actually--it is a movie, especially in Alberta, where the wind is pretty constant, and the clouds are moving along and changing their story as they go, blobs of white paint on a sky blue canvas.

Not to mention sunrises and sunsets. Sooooo beautiful. In Utah, sometimes the sunset is stupendous, too, and I always think how very lucky I am to be outside right at this moment so that I can see this sky! Because the sky paints ephemeral pictures, and you have to be there to see them--some pictures (photos) are pretty great, but not as beautiful as the real thing.

When I was young, my favorite song was...

Whenever I hear the song of a bird
Or look at the blue, blue sky;
Whenever I feel the rain on my face,
Or the wind as it rushes by;
Whenever I touch a velvet rose
Or walk by our lilac tree--
I'm glad that I live in this beautiful world
Heavenly Father created for me.

And I was so lucky to live in a yard that was like a park, where I could see and hear all those songbirds, and lay on the lawn to look at that blue, blue sky.  Rain was often a welcome light sprinkle to gently cool off the day, and the wind in Alberta does a lot of rushing! My mother grew roses--the Peace Rose, which is sort of pink and yellow, was her favorite, but she had several colors of roses, with their velvety-soft petals; and we grew lilacs--but in Alberta they seem more like bushes than trees because lots of plants just don't grow as tall in the north. But I felt like that song was written for me, in my yard, in my world.

Here is Josie and the YAs singing that song with some children. I love this video--look for Josie in her pretty pale green dress.

And some lovely Alberta sky shots for you:

August 19, 2019 - photo by me, in Kananaskis Country

August 6, 2018 - the clear blue sky / photo by Eric

October 14, 2019, photo by Sarah (Lowry) Chute

Hail Storm sky on August 6, 2019 / photo by Eric

September 1, 2019 at Eric and Jocelyn's little house / photo by Eric

Harvest Sky on the Torrie Farm / taken by Eric October 24, 2019

Maybe near Airdrie, AB - photo by Sarah (Lowry) Chute, October 14, 2019

Primary Program 2019

Our Primary Program was held on October 27, but I didn't write about it. However, Nancy talking about her experience with the choir and Alexander today reminded me about our program. Because Nancy talked about an embarrassing experience, and people not noticing. Did they really not notice, or are they just being kind?

I am going to believe that they really didn't notice. I have done my share of embarrassing things, but in retrospect, I am guessing that fewer people noticed than I thought did, because over time, I have learned that people are pretty self-absorbed. Like, when it is your baby crying, you are sure that everyone is noticing and wishing you could get them to stop. But when you don't have babies any more, it is amazing how much of their crying you can ignore, unless they are close by screaming near your ear.

So--for our program, I felt the kids knew their songs really well, but there was one scripture that we were reciting as an entire Primary, John 5:39 --Search the scriptures, for in them ye think ye have eternal life; and they are they which testify of me. (KJV) Also, I had the older children singing "I am a child of God" in Spanish. We have Spanish-speaking children and teachers, so I knew they would know it, but our English speakers might not, so I wanted to have those words available to see while singing.

So I put both of those things on a clipboard which I hid behind the podium. I asked one of our teachers, who is over six feet tall and has a man-bun--so he is not invisible--to move the scripture quote off the clipboard after that was over, so that the Spanish words could be seen. (I asked him to do it because he was seated reasonably close to the clipboard. A Sunbeam teacher was closer, but--Sunbeams! So he seemed like the better choice.

At our dress rehearsal on Saturday morning October 26, I got all worried that he had forgotten to move the scripture because I DID NOT NOTICE HIM DOING IT. Me, the person most worried about everything, who was watching to make sure it happened, I did not notice it.  So I peeked to see if it was done, and of course, it was done.

I really doubt that anybody in the congregation noticed him moving it on Sunday. I didn't worry about it on Sunday, because I told myself just to trust him, because he did it (so sneakily) that I didn't notice it in rehearsal. I knew he would do it. I bet even some of the kids were like - huh- the scripture is gone; the Spanish words are there. Magic!

I am thankful for...

It is November after all, and I keep having writer's block, but the thing is, I could be writing about things I am thankful for.

My friend and former student Angela, who married my friend and former student Justin, has been posting little thankful prompts on Facebook that have been generated by her children. Then she reads the responses back to her kids. Most of the questions are from her oldest son, Wally, who "invented" this game for their family. Some of the questions have been:
What is something you are thankful for that is your favorite color?
What is something you are thankful for that you used to not like?
What are you thankful for that makes you different from other people?
Guest post from Adele: What is something you are thankful for that you think is fun and interesting, but other people think is boring?
What are you thankful for that you have seen, but not had?
What are you thankful for that is orange?
What is a game you are thankful for?
What is some music/song/instrument you are thankful for?
Who is a veteran you are thankful for?
Draw something you are thankful for using a circle.
Guest post from Isaac: What are you thankful for that is living?
What are you thankful for that rhymes with mountain, people, or bugle?

I think that some of these are great writing prompts about thankfulness, so I can come back to them if I need some inspiration.

Today, I am thankful for Alexander. I have had the opportunity to talk to him on video calls multiple times this week. Sometimes this is because he "needs" to talk to me! Wow! I have fifteen grandchildren and he is the first one who "needs" me. Some of my grandchildren actively didn't like me: "I don't like Josie's mom." Some of them tolerated me. Some of them liked me, but, you know, not enough to "need me." I wish that he had decided that he needed me while he still lived close by, so that means I am also thankful for the technology that allows him to both hear and see me, and that that virtual connection is enough to keep him "needing" me. It feels wonderful to be needed.

Gamelan Countdown

Thanks to my friend Dirk Elzinga for posting a picture on Facebook, I have something to write about tonight. I will write about gamelan!

I got off to a good gamelan start this semester, but then I was gone for two weeks between visiting Atlanta and Poland, and then I was so terribly sick that first week back, and then I had a bazillion library classes and work to catch up on ... and then I just hadn't gone to gamelan for the whole month of October!

When we went to the King Kong live orchestra event on November 2, someone (Alex) yelled down from above and said, "Hey, Myrna! Why haven't you been at gamelan?" Honestly, I appreciated being missed, and I was already feeling guilty about just not ever going, so I went back.

Of course, I forgot to go on Tuesday this week in the midst of of the table tempest, but I am determined to attend faithfully because the concert is a week from tomorrow! Fortunately, I have a decade of experience playing, so being absent for a month has not created a huge problem!

This year, we have visiting professors from Bali who are teaching--both gamelan and Balinese dancing. So we will have dancers, too! There is a great spear fight dance thing that men do, which should be very cool when they are in costume. And of course, Puspanjali, the ladies' dance.

So--if you are in this neck of the woods, next Saturday at 7:30 pm is when the show is! I am sure there will be 2 for 1 ticket possibility, but I don't know what that is yet!

Dirk's picture. He was on the back row playing jublag. That is Roscoe, Jeremy's youngest son on the right. The back of Nathan on the ugal, the back of Heidi beside him on the kempli, the back of Jeremy playing polos, the side view of Alex on the kendang (drum) and you can see the ladies dancing.

Truly Tables Tempest Tossed

Okay, enough with the avoidance. I think I am ready to talk about tables.

It all started when I was conversing with Dr. B. I had asked her if her group could do my last Black History Month concert in February. I had groups lined up for the other 3 weeks, but needed to fill that last spot. We also conversed about the bizarre requirement given to me at BYU (where less than 1% of our student population is black) to have black performers at every concert. Since the Black Student Association is participating with Dr. P in another concert, that pretty much uses up all the black students on our campus who like to perform. But this is a post for another occasion--just as irritating, honestly. And this post is about tables, after all!

So, Dr. B asked me if there was a chance the auditorium was free for Dec. 5. She had been offered an opportunity for her group to perform at a national event early in January--so early that it is about the same time that school starts, so they won't be able to have a "dress rehearsal" before heading out. She wanted to be able to do that before her students start finals and then leave for the holidays. And good luck getting a room with stadium seating in the HFAC in early December--concerts, junior, senior and graduate recitals, juries--there are no openings.

So I checked the schedule, and Dec. 5 was available. So I booked it. I first started doing it in my own name, but then I thought I would just do it in her name, so that I was not the middleman. (That was my first mistake.) I hit the send button with some trepidation, and then waited. Then I thought--I will never know if the person who monitors these reservations (we will call her S) approves it or not, because Dr. B might not tell me if she gets a "no" response.

So, I emailed S and told her that I had booked this reservation for Dr. B and did I do it right? (That kind of thing.) She emailed me back and said that since I wasn't the sponsor of the event as library faculty, that Dr. B would have to pay for the student technician AND she needed to be informed that she must agree that she WILL NOT MOVE THE TABLES.

Tables? You see, four years ago, in 2016, when my colleague from Political Science and I started the Black History Month concert series, we got into a big kerfuffle about the tables in the auditorium. My PS colleague, who is a braver soul than I, went after that bone like a dog, and we got permission to move the tables. The wording used at that time led us both to believe that the table issue was taken care of. Finuto. Dead in the water.

So, for 28 concerts so far I have moved the tables and moved them back again. Patrick has helped me move tables. My department assistants have helped me move tables. The student technicians have helped me move tables. My own students have helped me move tables. Performers have helped me move tables. Like, pretty much everybody I know has helped me move tables, including lots of people who work in the library.

So, I responded like that--umm, we always move the tables? And wow, that made S mad!!! She copied in a BUNCH of people to find out if the policy on the tables had changed. Two of the assistant university librarians chimed in. M thought that if tables in the space were such a big deal, let's toss the tables and get new, more portable tables. J agreed. S wrote a letter copying W saying "I guess you and I are the only ones who care about the tables!" W jumped in defending the tables AND also saying that the auditorium was not the right venue for my concerts because the auditorium is for 50+ people and I ALWAYS have 30-50 people. And the acoustics are not good for concerts either. So from talking about tables, we have moved to attacking my concert series!

I was so flabbergasted that I didn't even want to respond. I did write to my immediate supervisors E and M, with my concert stats attached, saying "I can't EVEN."

Because 21 of 28 concert have attendance 50 or higher. 7 have attendance over 100. The under 50 group is also 7. And the acoustics? And suggesting that our target audience is the HFAC so why not have the concerts there--when A) getting space in the HFAC is like a miracle and B) the whole point of the concert series is to promote the library and tie the library to experiential learning which is President Worthen's whole raison d'etre, practically.

So after allowing myself some cool down time, I wrote a measured response starting with "With all due respect...." W did then back pedal some "I am sorry, I was not meaning to say that attendance is bad at your events. (Although I quoted false statistics to say exactly that.) And I didn't mean to say that we shouldn't have events like this in the library. (Although I said exactly that, and suggested some alternate locations.)"

And also--we were talking about TABLES. Tables. Now, remember that S and W are the only two people who care about the tables.

Well, although I was fuming on Tuesday, so much so that I completely forgot to go to gamelan, and then hardly slept on Tuesday night, and spent the entire day on Wednesday writing down everything I could think of about the concert series in case I needed to defend myself further (11 pages so far after working on it for an hour today as well) -- today I am pretty much recovered. I had a meeting with M and J today on another matter, and they didn't even bring up the tables. M did call me this morning to make sure Dr. B got her auditorium booking (she did) but neither of them said a thing about the tables, so I thanked them both for having my back, because I felt pretty much attacked. Oh. Because I was!

So. Here is hoping that the auditorium can be a little bit more open. It sits empty a lot because people are told no. One email on the matter related that the foreign language choirs have asked to use the space but have been told no because of the tables. That did not make M or J very happy! President Worthen, besides caring about experiential learning, also cares about all of campus sharing their spaces so that we get as much use out of campus assets as possible. So. All's well that may not have ended, but at least is in better shape than it was on Tuesday!

Sleep

Sleep--what I am hoping for tonight! Last night was not the best night of sleep. Tonight's going to be better! I hope! I am a bit less upset about the tempest in a teapot over tables than I was, so that should help! Good night!

Too Tired to Talk about Tempests in Teapots over Tables...

...so that will be a story for another day.  Instead, this will be about renovations in the WSC. You remember what it looked like before? When there was a bookstore, and beside it a cafeteria? You remember the elevators in the WSC? And what was across the hall from them?

No? Honestly, I don't remember what was across the hall from the elevators, either, but now it is this:

Another place to get food. The Cougar Express.

When you exit the bookstore, instead of it being how it was, now part of the bookstore is gone because it also became a place to eat, kind of a little extra space beside the existing cafeteria.

That sloping access used to be in the bookstore, but now it is in this food area. So, if you are hungry and you are in the WSC, there are more places for chow. Oh. And of course the "Bookstore" is long gone--I call it that only from habit--because it is now just a "store" but really it seems to be mostly a BYU clothing store. 

Hektograph Helps

My mother used to make copies for her church callings using hektograph technology. This was in the days of copies made on the gestetner, which was a huge machine with ugly black staining ink; or on a ditto machine that used a "spirit master" and printed in purple ink that had an absolutely wonderful (and probably intoxicating) smell.

I actually did not know what the copies my mother made were called--I was going to google "making copies in a cake pan with gelatin" but instead, I was perusing the 1912 issues of "The Children's Friend" on Hathi Trust, and came upon this recipe and instructions in the January 1912 issue. Reproduced here for your enjoyment, and as a possible science project for people who might be interested.

I was surprised to realize that they had this technology in 1912, since my mother was using it in the 1960s when she didn't want to have to bother about typing a master for the gestetner, which was the only choice at church. Photocopiers would soon come into being (Xerox), but not yet. So, when she wanted to make multiple copies at home, she pulled out the gelatin and the cake pan. I loved helping with this! It was so cool to rub the paper on the gelatin and come away with a copy!

I honestly don't think those instructions for this "very good" hektograph are crystal clear, though. I think this more modern explanation might work better for us.  Mainly because I am pretty sure the audience of 1912 was more familiar with the hektograph process than we are. 

Nightmares

Today Nancy posted this:

I washed Alexander off after breakfast this morning and then took him to the towel hanging on the oven door to dry off.

“Don’t put me in there,” he told me. “Don’t COOK me!”

And this reminded me of a recurring nightmare I had as a child. Now, I am nobody if not a person who has A TON of nightmares, including the recurring variety...but I do not think I have ever shared this particular nightmare.

I know that I have shared my terrible dog nightmare, in several of its iterations, multiple times with multiple people; but not the cooking nightmare. I never could tell it--especially not to my mom. Because I loved my mom dearly, and I knew that she loved me and would NEVER cook me. And yet, in my nightmares, she did. Over and over again.

Also chopped me up. And mixed me up with a mixer.

When I was very young, my mom was in the Primary Presidency, and they were the villains in my nightmare. All these lovely women who I adored--the Primary Presidency! June Clifton was the PP. I loved to go to her house with my mom, while the other kids were in school, and she gave me a little stool to sit on with a pile of books to look at. And also, she had this marvelous huge old cat who loved to be petted. She was a calm and gentle woman and not in the least scary. On the other hand, her husband, Dale--I was actually factually scared of him, and would go to great lengths to avoid him if he was anywhere near me. (He was also not anyone to be afraid of--a really nice man, but he liked to tease, and I didn't like being teased. Hence the fear of him.)

But in my nightmares, it was never an actually scary person, it was my mom and June--and one or two other women, sometimes, but I can't remember her/them as clearly in the nightmare. Although it might have been June Gough sometimes? Because, in my nightmares, the children designated for the chopping block were always me and Melanie Gough. (Whereas, my sister Arlene and her sister Susan were never appointed to be the food.)

Sometimes we were made into cakes or cookies and sometimes into casseroles, but the chopping and mixing and cooking were always in the nightmares. And always my mom and June Clifton were doing it. 

How messed up is that? 

It always started with a presidency meeting (because I went to lots of those with my mom) and they were planning a party or some activity that required food, and inevitably, in my nightmares, I was on the menu. Me and Melanie Gough. Later, when Marie and Margaret moved into our ward, Marie joined Melanie and I on the nightmare menu. But Margaret, like Arlene and Susan, was always not destined for the oven.

And the dream would involve all the food preparation, which was pretty freaky to watch happening when you are the food! And finally, the oven. Being me, the freaky parts of the dream were extremely detailed, and I would wake up pretty much terrified, but also kind of afraid to do what was the most comforting thing, running and getting into bed with my mom, who had just been the villain in my dream. But I often did do just that, because she was my mom! And she loved me! And it was just a stupid nightmare.

This nightmare, like the dog nightmare, recurred over many years, but not as many years as the dog nightmare. I guess once I was out of primary, I was safe!! 

But, though the nightmare was scary while it was happening, and I would wake up after it panicky and deeply afraid, I never really took this nightmare seriously, because it made no sense. My mom would never cook me. June Clifton would never cook me. It was scary, but also ridiculous. Even at four years old, I knew that.

The dog dream, however, was completely plausible, because on the prairies, dog packs were an actual thing. They really did happen.  I saw them at home; I saw them at school. Not in the ways of my dream, with invisible walls and things like that. But I was in high school when Arlene and I were chased by a real dog pack, so me dreaming about dog packs was terrifying in a way that the cooking nightmare never was.

So, there you go, a little window into the world of Myrna's dreams. 

Goat Heads

We are just over-run with Goat Heads! I only mentioned them on my blog once before as something that I was NOT grateful for.

They are a deceptively pretty plant:


But when they go to seed, they make these terrible goat head seeds that stick into your shoes, and they also hurt!


When I walk around out on the lawn where the goat heads grow, it is not unusual to have 90-100 of those sharp, vicious seeds stuck to the bottom of EACH shoe. And then I have to sit down and pull them all out.

I got the idea to vacuum up the seeds. So today, I spent an hour or more VACUUMING THE LAWN. I bet a lot of people passed by and thought, what a crazy old lady vacuuming the lawn like that!

It worked-ish. I vacuumed up THOUSANDS of those sticky icky seeds! And there are still thousands more.

Last year, I had sent our HOA representative a picture of the bottom of my shoes and said, "We have to do something!" They sprayed, and it was definitely looking better--like, the plants were dying. And then, while I was in Europe, the dead plants sprang to life and reproduced like they were worried about their imminent death, and the seeds are WORSE THAN EVER.

Hence, my decision to vacuum. I did it a bit a few weeks ago with my regular vacuum, and vacuumed up two bags full, but the goat heads would puncture the bag, so I had a mess inside my vacuum. So today, I used the shop vac. I threw away a half a brown grocery bag of these evil things.  I don't know if you can do a controlled burn of a lawn in the city, but does our lawn ever need it.

I do not love goat heads.

Things to say!

I actually have things to say today! It's a Friday miracle!

I was also going to have at least one picture for this post, too, which is great because who doesn't like pictures? But--last night, I forgot to plug my phone in, so I took the plug to work with me to charge it at work, and then left the plug at work. I will have to go and pick it up tomorrow, because I don't think my phone will last the weekend. But that is also the best way to get a picture from my phone to this blog--with the phone cord that is attached to the plug which is at work. So no pictures.

Four things today:
1. Went with Janet and Janice to listen to Ethan Wickman speaking at the U. Only about ten people were there to hear him. What? I was expecting more people. We listened to parts of his "Ballads of the Borderland."  While driving to SLC, I got a text message from Bruce asking me if I wanted to go out to dinner at Salt this evening, and I totally thought Salt Lake, probably because I was on my way there! Nope. (Salt is a restaurant on Center Street in Provo.)
2. Got back from SLC in time for my appointment with Stephen Jones to talk about the new hymnal. That was a satisfying conversation. I think we will end up with a good new hymnal in the end. (He can't believe that people in Kenya and Mauritius both like "If you could hie to Kolob" so much! He said, "I am sure they like the tune--it is a good tune. But the text is kind of weird." Thoughts?)
3. Rushed from there to a Children's Dance Works performance that Kathleen Sheffield invited me to--she wanted me to go badly enough (because we have planned a collaboration) that she left a free ticket for me. Speaking of which--they have this great new lobby for the dance theatre in the RB! I had no clue it was there! And it is really nice! Then: Surprise, surprise! Who do I see but Heidi and baby William, because little Beth was one of the dancers! The children did their own choreography to music they chose. Beth looked so confident, just loving her dance--it was so cool. She is seven. The youngest dancer was five, but I had to leave a bit early to take Josie to work. I missed the last three dances, including the five year old.
4. When I picked Josie up from work (rushing because I FELL ASLEEP and then was like oh no!) at 9:10 pm or so, there was a police car in front of me and it turned into the library's book drop road, which is a one way road going the other way, and I was like "What?" Josie was sitting on the bench waiting for me, and there were police all over the place. So that was freaky. But at least she was safe, because there were lots of police. She said they asked her if she had seen a fight, but she said, "No, I just got out of work at the library."

There you have it! My day in four points and no pictures.

Me and John Cage

I do not love the music of John Cage. I know that some people do love it, and I suppose it has its place. I know that contemporary dancers especially appreciate it.

But today I seem to be channeling John Cage: I have nothing to say and I am saying it. 

Daily writing

I must, I must, I must write something down!

But what?

This morning Janet and I spent two hours going through Sara Lee Gibb stuff, and keeping stuff, and throwing stuff away. It always makes me a little bit sad to go through a person's treasures (after their children have already done that) and see the things that they valued enough to keep that honestly--if their kids don't want them, who will? And throwing out their treasures.

And keeping some treasures, too! Lucky for me, I already had an appointment set up with Kathleen Sheffield because I want to revive Mildred Tanner Pettit's dances, so I wanted to talk with Kathleen about that, and Kathleen has been in the dance department a good while, so when I pulled out a huge bag of pictures, she was delighted! We are going to meet and take a few hours to go through all the pictures, and decide who would enjoy having them! She took two pictures of herself teaching classes home with her today--pictures taken in the past when she didn't realize that someone was taking her picture. So I think that we can spread some joy to a few people. Sad to see in the pictures others from the dance department who have already died. But maybe we can find some of their children or someone who loves them to pass the pictures to. I could not throw the pictures away! I am glad I kept them, and hope we can give people a blast from the past when they see these pictures!

I had a dream...

I had a dream over and over and over last night. Like, I am glad that I was asleep enough to dream, but this dream. I woke up at 3:30 AM after having had this dream, and then I went back to sleep and dreamed it again, and I felt like I would wake up at the same point in the dream and be all like "I am STILL having this dream?" and would deliberately fill my mind with other thoughts, but I still had the same dream, and had just dreamed it again when I woke up for the day at 7 AM.

It was not even what seemed to be a dream of any significance! It was just weird.

So, in the dream, I was visiting Richard and Diana Anderson in their home. (I have never even been to visit Richard and Diana, ever! I mean, I have seen them, but usually at a Heiss home. And also, they live in Seattle! Which is not a place that is on my beaten path.) I think that they might have been the subject of my dream because right before I went to bed last night, I looked at a post on Facebook where Richard said, "People who love me" and it was a picture of Diana and Audrey. And I thought to myself "That is only a subset of people who love you," because of course he has sons and cousins aunts and uncles and you know, other people.

So, in my dream, one of the first things I did at their (very large in my dream) house was to tell Richard that very thing: "they are only a subset of people who love you." And then I was at their house for awhile, like measured in dream days, and eventually, I felt like I really needed to wash my hair. Only I didn't bring my own shampoo! So I went one by one to each of their many bathrooms (they seriously had many bathrooms) and there was never any shampoo in sight. No idea how long in dream time this went on, but eventually I got my courage up and asked Diana if she had any shampoo I could use.  And she said (of course) "Of course!" and got some shampoo and handed it to me.

And thusly armed with shampoo, I went off in search of a bathroom to shower and wash my hair. And all those many bathrooms were unavailable! Either someone was in them, or there was some big thing blocking my path, or the soap was missing, or the shower curtain was missing, or there were no towels--there was, in each case, an impediment to using that particular bathroom. Again, I had no idea how much time passed--hours, days--my hair was seriously getting dirtier, though! Dream me was a mess!

So I eventually got my courage up and told Diana that all the bathrooms were unavailable, but I really, really needed to wash my hair! And Diana said, "Oh! We have another bathroom attached to our bedroom, and you can totally use that one!

So she took me there, and I was chagrined to see that there was no door between the bathroom and the bedroom. (Totally know where this came from: my own real bedroom and bathroom are connected but there is no door. It was weird to me at first, but I am used to it now.)

Dream me was tempted to say "No thanks!" because this was NOT my bedroom/bathroom--and since it was Diana and Richard's bathroom, what if Richard came in? and surprise! There I would be in his shower! But I was overcome with thoughts of my greasy, grimy hair that just HAD to be washed, so I said "Thank you," and proceeded to get ready to shower as soon as Diana left.

The room was set up very strangely (as only dream rooms can be!) and so I had to change in one place, then step over a couch that had a curtain around it on all sides, and step into the shower that was kind of elevated--so, I would have to step over the back of the couch, but directly onto the shower floor, which was maybe 6 inches below the back of the couch.

So, I completely disrobed, stepped onto the couch by slipping through the curtain on the front side, then the back side and into the shower. I turned the water on and started to soap down--and then I realized that the bottle of shampoo that I had borrowed from Diana and had been carrying around with me for who knows how long while I was checking out all those many bathrooms--I had put the bottle down while I was undressing, and it was on the other side of the couch--and so was my towel.

And so, all dripping wet, I went through the curtain at the back of the couch, and through the curtain at the front of the couch, and got the bottle of shampoo and my towel, and then stepped back onto the couch through the curtain in the front, and just as I was stepping through the back curtain and into the shower, I realized that there was a boy laying on the couch, curled up in a blanket, and I didn't have my glasses on so I couldn't see who it was, and if he was awake or asleep, and there I was, naked and dripping wet--

And that is where the dream ended. Then either, it would start again on instant replay, or I would wake up.

In "Fiddler on the roof," Tevye's wife says "Tell me what you dreamed, and I'll tell you what it meant!" If there is a Tevye's wife out there, please do tell me--What does that mean and why did I dream that over and over again?

I have had dreams before that left an impression on me, but I could figure them out; make corollaries to my life. But this dream! So crystal clear in detail and so much repetition, but so bizarre and perplexing.

Things that I did today:

1. I left work in the middle of the day to take Josie to work. As I was about to exit the building, I noticed that I couldn't go out the west side because of this:

 Yes, we were getting new windows! Good thing it was a nice day, so all that fresh air was welcome and not causing a freezing westerly wind to roar in and cause discomfort. I had to walk out the east doors and around to the west side, and this is what the outside looked like:

It looks less scary from the outside than it did from the inside! Actually it doesn't even look scary. And now we have new windows, so that is probably good.

2. At our Leadership in Teaching and Mentoring meeting, the men were doing most of the talking, with several references made to now-defunct High Priests Quorums. So I said, "You can take the men out of High Priests, but you can't take the High Priest out of the men." And everybody laughed, so that was a win for me, because I thought it was funny.

I also didn't really know what to think about some of their words, given that of the four women in the room, only one has ever been married (me) and the others are single women of 70, 60 and 50 (ish). And there was a lot of talk about marriage.

Susan asked about Miriam and was so happy to hear about all her opportunities to play piano or organ--it was precisely these kinds of opportunities that turned Susan into an organist at a young age. This naturally morphed into a discussion about school for the children, since I mentioned that Nancy was home-schooling the younger group. My description of Rachel's school caused Denise to stop and listen in to our conversation, and she said, "Nancy's got to look into charter schools! There MUST be something better for her children!" My educator colleagues were not impressed.

And no wonder--BYU right now is all about experiential learning, and empowering students. Seems like Rachel's school isn't. Denise also worried that "you can't rely on the constitution to protect your rights"--she had just told us earlier about a case that went to the supreme court in which a person's freedom of speech was not protected at work. The court interpretation was essentially that in the case of an employee and employer--we are almost back to the serf and the Lord relationship. So. Not that school/pupil is the same, but--

In any case, we certainly all hope for a good outcome in Rachel's quest for fairness.

Max Steiner Film Music Symposium

Well, as I mentioned, this was a great symposium, although a little intimidating. The piece de resistance was last night's showing of KING KONG with LIVE ORCHESTRA. This was A-MAZING. I should always watch scary movies this way! I totally could not get scared because it was clearly going to be okay--there was the orchestra right there. We watched it as a Max Steiner concert with pictures, and I liked it!

It was a huge job to make this happen. Let me just give some background information.

First of all, we have the Max Steiner papers (and his three Oscars, and his giraffe piano, and his tuba lamp, and boxes and boxes of scores and sketches of music) at BYU. Jim D'Arc, our previous curator of film music at BYU, had approached Steiner's widow, Lee, about his papers, and they came to BYU. I think things are a bit easier with Steiner because he had no heirs but his wife, and when she died, the things are BYU's. I mean, there are still some copyright issues that pertain to the studios he mostly worked for, RKO and WB. But. If the documentary that we watched on Friday night, by filmmaker Diana Friedberg (who is South African originally BTW--so many connections with Africa in our family!) ever is made available, do watch it. It is very good. Anyways, Max and his third wife Louise had one son, Ronnie, who died. In Max's words "I loved my son Ronnie as long as I had him." AARGH. When those words came, I knew that he had died. So sad.

Anyways. Two film composers from LA, John Morgan and William Stromberg, restored the score to the way that Max intended it, sometime in the 1990s. That means that all the scribbled out parts, they put back in. They recorded this with an orchestra in Russia, and this is available on the Marco Polo label. These guys came to BYU last year with Diana to do some recording, with Bill directing the orchestra at BYU, for the documentary. So, then Brent Yorgason asked them about doing a KONG showing with live orchestra. So, that meant that they had to go through the restored score and take out the parts that had been taken out when the movie was made. Brent and his students engraved the adjusted score on Finale, and made the individual parts. Another student made a click track, which is super complex.

Some stories: John Morgan first met Max Steiner when he was a little boy in Grade 5 or 6 -- about 1957 or 1958. He lived in Pasadena, and his school had arranged for a field trip to Warner Brother's. John's mother said, "You might get a chance to play the piano for Max Steiner! You should learn Tara's Theme (from Gone with the Wind)." And so he did. And when they were at the studio, sure enough, while the children were on the sound stage with Max and the orchestra, he said, "Do any of you play an instrument?" And John raised his hand, and when he said piano, Max asked him to play something for them. So he played Tara's Theme, and Max brought the orchestra in with him. What an amazing experience for a young boy!

About 10 years later, as John was working towards a film music career himself, he looked up Max Steiner in the phone book, called him, and Max invited him up to his house. They reminisced about meeting when John was a boy, and then they became friends and John spent as much time with Max as he could. When he was at Max's house, the music for "King Kong" was always on the piano. John asked, "Why do you always have this music out?" Max said, "Well, I know you are going to ask about it, so I have it ready."

Max loved to talk music, and John and he could do that, so Max really enjoyed their visits.  At the time, John did not know that he was going to go into reconstructing classic film scores, but that has become what he does, along with William Stromberg.

Back to the Kong score--Max had written the cues, and notes in the margins for the orchestrators. John said they would hate it when the notes would say, "Call me later. I'll explain," because he says, "I can't afford that phone call!" (to heaven...)

William said that the score is super difficult to conduct, because everything is rubato. Like, there are time signatures, but everything is rubato--hold here, hold there, hurry there, etc. Every measure is paced differently. He said it is like when you are playing the piano to accompany a really lousy singer who is always messing up the rhythm. Except in the Kong score, there is a reason: to match the action in the film. But for the conductor, whose job it is to keep the orchestra together, it can be a nightmare!

Another man, Ray Faiola, who is a sound engineer in New York City, had to make the tracks for the dialogue and sound effects, so that it was still a talking picture even though the orchestra at BYU was providing the music. Sometimes, he just chose not to replace certain of the sound effects, wishing to just let the orchestra tell the story. (Like the airplanes buzzing around Kong at the end--he said, and I quote only with some censoring, "To he-- with the airplane imitations!")

Anyways! It was wonderful! I was so glad that I went! Our cousin Jordan Hope was playing in the orchestra, and I ran into him after (as I was escaping out the back hallways that most people don't know about) and he said that even though it was hard (they had to wear headphones and listen to the click track and watch the conductor and play) it was a lot of fun! A super memorable experience for him!

So, here are a few pictures. The first one is most of us who were at the symposium. This statue of Kong was only made in the last decade of so, when Jim D'Arc decided to take Kong stuff to a Comicon or Fan-con or whatever. The new film music curator, Ben Harry (the younger guy to the left of Janet who is wearing red), scheduled himself 20 minutes to move the statue from level 0 to level 1, and it took 2.5 hours! He was a beast to move!

 This picture shows important Kong creators. I will try to get all their names in the caption.

Nathan Platte (author of Making Music in Selznick's Hollywood--and David O. Selznick was Steiner's producer at RKO for many years) -- Steven Smith (author of Music by Max Steiner) -- Peter Wegele (author of  Max Steiner: Composing, Casablanca, and the Golden Age of Film Music) -- Diana Friedberg (documentarian of the Max Steiner documentary) -- Ray Faiola (sound engineer; see rayfaiola.com) William Stromberg (composer, conductor, and score recreationist) and John Morgan (composer and score recreationist).

UDEO

Another day, another conference. The Max Steiner Symposium is actually a two-day deal, but this morning I had to get up and drive to Weber State in Ogden for the Utah Dance Education Organization conference. I was slated for a poster session.

This was my first time at UDEO--I did not even know it existed until earlier this year, when in an effort to "expand my circle of influence" I went googling to find out if there were any local-ish dance conferences, and I found it.

The theme was dance history in Utah, so there were talks about Virginia Tanner and Mary Bee Jensen and other "dance pioneers." But--when I was researching Primary music earlier this year, I discovered that a young woman named Mildred Tanner had composed a dance called "The Butterfly Dance" that was performed at Primary Conferences in  1916, 1917 (and I recently learned that it was incorporated into an operetta and performed again in 1918) and published (choreography, music, costuming) in the Dec. 1917 Children's Friend. And then I suddenly figured out one day that Mildred Tanner is Mildred Tanner Pettit, the composer of "I am a child of God." And then I figured out that Mildred and Virginia are sisters. Twenty years apart--but I can't imagine that Mildred's dancing didn't have an influence on Virginia, especially since Mildred was the playground director at Pioneer Park which was the park also by Virginia's house when she was little.

So that was what my poster presentation was about. And honestly, I am too tired to talk about it, because after getting up early to drive to Ogden (and I HATE the way I-15 is around Lehi, so that was a stressful drive to do in the dark, which it is at 6:30 AM--although tomorrow it will be light because of daylight savings change) and then dancing (Virginia Tanner contemporary style with Marilyn Berrett and then square dancing with Jeanette Geslison) and then talking non-stop during my poster session time, and then being so thirsty but there was no water, only pop, and then driving back to Provo and going back to the Max Steiner symposium, and finishing up at 9:30 and then going to the store for bread and milk, both of which we were out of, I am really tired. Good thing I am supposed to write every day, because that leaves something to say tomorrow!

But I will put the slides for the Mildred Tanner presentation here:

Remember, remember the first of November...

I know that isn't how it goes, but Nancy's post made me remember that writing every day in November is a thing. I have done it before, so I will try to do it again. I do not have a bunch of young children, so there is no excuse for me!

Today was the 2nd biennial Max Steiner Film Music Symposium, and Janet and I had submitted a proposal to present at this event, which had been accepted, so we have been busily preparing and practicing, and today we presented. The title of our paper was: Gold and Steiner: Masters of Manipulating Motifs. It was a little intimidating, because the audience was made up of mainly hardcore film music nerds. Like two biographers. And a documentary film maker. And a bunch of music theorists and film music scholars. So, you know, a little bit scary. But we did it.

At the end of the day, 7-9:30 pm we had the premiere screening of the documentary, and it was amazing, and very vindicating, because our paper said lots of things that went right along with the documentary. So, that was a relief! (Like, we didn't say anything wrong--we might not have said anything they didn't already know, but at least they didn't have to correct us! Phew.)

I learned new things from the documentary! Like the giraffe piano we have in the library that belonged to Max Steiner--yes, it belonged to Max Steiner, but he received it as a gift when he was 8 years old, from Johann Strauss, the Waltz King! Now when I give tours and tell people about the giraffe piano, I have more to tell!

Tomorrow I am supposed to be at two conferences at once--Steiner and UDEO. But I am also presenting at UDEO, so that is where I will go. It is in Ogden, and I need to leave before 7 AM, so goodnight!