Wisdom from the Erynn

Mom and Dad, admiring their youngest who, as a 13 year old girl, is undergoing growth spurts:

"How did she get to be this young lady standing before us?!"

Erynn: "It kind of sucks, you have to go to a LOT of school."

The Epic Battle of The Fat One and the Almonds

It happened on a quiet November morning in a quiet neighborhood. The neighbors driving past on their way to work or school were probably not aware of what was brewing. But any who walked past and listen closely might have heard the rustling in the almond trees: "The Fat One has no Ninja skills."

The foe, talking trash

Of course, the Fat One is known throughout his immediate family as having some of the best Ninja sounds in all of Provo, including a throaty "Hoaaah-Rah" and the ever-popular "Toah-Cha!" The Fat One also has a pretty scary Mad Dog face:


Knowing that, it will come as no surprise that the Fat One also handles the 3/4-inch PVC Bo staff with some degree of skill. And so it was that the challenge to his Ninja-manhood was taken up.

Pre-battle meditation.

At the ready

The Fat One, executing one fancy move, I tell you what.


The difficult ninja"pool cue" maneuver



The foe, now trembling and begging for mercy


A couple of moments of unbridled passion

The foe, vanquished utterly
And some leaves that were going to fall anyway
I mean, it's November for heaven's sake

A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do

Suffrage. Or Sufferage. Or Something.

In the hotly contested Provo mayoral race, it comes down to a choice between two very conservative Republican white Mormon males (VCRWMM's). OK, so that is not really surprising. But it presents me with something of a dilemma.

Oh, it's not that I think either one of them would do a bad job. On the contrary, I think either of them would probably do an adequate job. One of Dave Barry's list of 25 things he's learned in 50 years runs something like,

The value of advertising is that it tells you the exact opposite of what the advertiser actually thinks. For example: If Coke and Pepsi spend billions of dollars to convince you that there are significant differences between these two products, both companies realize that Pepsi and Coke are virtually identical.

Similarly, the fact that each candidate wants us to believe they will do a much better job than their opponent points to the likelihood that really, they will do about the same things for the same reasons. Especially in this case. Both are businessmen turned politicians, family men, church men, good citizens. Both would do a much better job of being mayor than I would.

So, you ask, with so little at stake, why the dilemma?

It's a matter of principle. Three principles, actually:

1. I think some Utah Republican State Representatives and senators are inflexible and arrogant and have control issues, and they bother me quite a lot. (I say "some" here because I don't really know about all of them, and this way any of them reading it will actually think "he doesn't mean me" so s/he won't call for a general audit of my state taxes for the last 16 years. ) I think they are an example of "too much power corrupts too much."

2. A few other people bother me on general principles. Not to name names, but some of them write management/self-help books in which the number 7 figures prominently.

3. Principles. People who hide behind principles, as though that was always the moral high ground, really bug me.

So this means I obviously would rather not vote for a person who is in, or is endorsed by someone in, one or more of these three categories. It is true that being endorsed by someone doesn't mean you act like them or believe what they believe. But you can't be too careful.

And there's the rub. One of the candidates is a Utah Republican State Representative. But the other has the endorsement of several members of the Utah House and Senate that I would classify as having such unbelievably large control issues that they have a hard time walking. On the other hand, the first one has the endorsement of some Highly Effective people that bug me on general principles.

One accuses the other of once having been a (gasp) Democrat. As an aside, sometimes that's the only way to run for public office in Utah, if you aren't quite far enough right for the party elite. Of course, you won't win, but you can run. But anyway, it seems the accuser is playing "more Republican than thou," which also bugs me. But to balance things out, our allegedly-once-Democratic friend believes that "It is wrong for government to do for people what they, their families or private charities can and should do on their own." And that "Free markets produce better outcomes than government programs." Both of which sound to me a lot like Principles That Aren't Always True But I'll Stand By Them With A Foolish Consistency. I think public schools are one example of something the free market shouldn't get their hands on, for example.

Are you beginning to catch my dilemma? If I vote for either of these candidates, it would seem to validate one thing or another that (as I believe I've mentioned) bugs me. So it's a matter of the lesser of two irritants. But it's a tough call.

Right now Candidate A has a slim edge over Candidate 2. We'll see what will happens tomorrow when I'm alone with my conscience. And my quarter.

Waiting for the Third Strike

The count is 0 and 2.

I was informed about the first strike a couple of days ago, when I informed Mr. S. Moosebutt that money had flowed from my daughter, through my bank account, and into the coffers of an organization selling Yankees memorabilia (specifically, a brick from the now no-longer-among-us Yankee Stadium, or whatever they call it back there). This tangential and probably fairly hygienic association with the Yankees was enough to cast a cloud of doubt over my general character. Thank heavens I didn't tell him the offending brick actually passed through my mailbox, and probably even spent some time on my kitchen table (I pretty much let my wife handle that part of the transaction). Honest, I cleaned the table off with bleach. What more does he expect from me?

The second strike will probably come later today, when I will likely be accused of "having lunch" with a certain Senior Senator from Utah, whose name I will not mention except to say that it rhymes with "foreign match." In reality, he was in the same big room with me, but at a different table. And we did eat the same roast beef and potatoes. I'm not sure if he had the kiwi dessert or the chocolate (mine was chocolate). But that's all. The trouble is that this nameless senior senator is not on Mr. Moosebutt's "A" list. He's more like on the "S" list, if you take my meaning. Thus anything that involves breathing the same air as this senior senator will once again be viewed as reason to question my character.

I'm assuming I get three strikes. I'm waiting to see what the third one might be. It will probably involve the Republican Party in some way. Or noodles. Moosebutt really likes noodles. But I'm scared that I might get left out of the malt-ball runs if I cross the line again. I guess I'll lay low for a while, until the Yankee Brick scandal blows over.

P.S. I got no problem with noodles. Noodles are great. Really.

Fall Classic

Well, it's that time again. Pennant races, playoffs, the roar of the bats, the crack of the crowd.

What's different this year is that the good ol' Dodgers are actually in the race. This, together with the Yankees (Booo!) and the Angels (Yay!) being there too, pulls me into the baseball world after a comfortable multi-year hiatus of not really caring much. Because my friend is an Angels fan (and much to his credit, introduced me to the Power of the Rally Monkey), and because my son-in-law and nephew are both Yankees fans (it can happen in good families, folks), I feel like I have to stand up and be counted as a true-blue Dodger fan.

Now the trouble is that although I'm a Dodger fan, I'm a Dodger fan more in principle than in practice. I'm a lapsed Dodger fan, an inactive Dodger fan. A Jack-Dodgerfan. I grew up as a believer, but drifted away. Haven't been to church for years. Actually, I've been to a Cubs game and an Angels game since I've been to a Dodgers game. If I went to Dodger Stadium, it would fall in on me. That sort of thing.


So the unhappy reality of the matter is that I really don't lose much sleep over baseball, even Dodger baseball, these days. I can name exactly one player on the current roster, and that's because Manny Ramirez was suspended. So I can't really say I follow the Dodgers anymore. (Of course, I can name off the top of my head a number of players from the 1975 roster: Steve Yeager, Steve Garvey, Ron Cey, Bill Russell, Davey Lopes, Don Sutton, Andy Messersmith. I'm not a complete infidel.)

Nevertheless, something in me has to stand up and state boldly and unequivocally that, despite wins and losses, despite payrolls and steroids, despite that fact that pretty much all of them are paid way more than they should be in any rational world, the Dodgers are basically Good. . . .

(Steve Finley pausing in a game to pray)

and the Yankees are basically Evil:

'Nuff said.

It is true that I've learned to sleep at night by accepting the presence of evil --like you accept the presence of cockroaches without necessarily liking it -- but I still feel obliged to stand up and weigh in on the issue.

So: Go Dodger Blue! Go Angels! Defeat the forces of evil! I probably won't be watching, but I'm sure Jacob will keep me posted, and that's about as much baseball excitement as I really need these days.

Letting Off Some Steam

I was listening to a local radio talk show a few nights ago. The topic was drug addiction and treatment, and they had as guests both some recovering addicts and some people who ran treatment programs. One of the program's hosts mentioned that the stories of addiction they were listening to that night could be used as "cautionary tales," so that, presumably, people could see where things went wrong for these recovering addicts and escape their fate.

One of the guests both ran a recovery program and was himself a recovering addict. During their interview with him one of the hosts the guest asked whether he could identify some moment in time he'd like to go back to and somehow change -- maybe make a different decision. When he asked this, the host even acknowledged that the guest had become addicted by taking a legally prescribed drug for a real medical condition. But somehow the host still assumed that there was some point where things went bad, some decision to regret. I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, but something about that question seemed to show both an ignorance about addiction and an underlying attitude that bothered me.

The guest's response brought it into focus for me. Basically, his answer was: "No, I can't identify any moment in time like that, because I don't believe addiction is a moral decision." He simply took the morphine he was prescribed because he didn't want to be in pain anymore. There wasn't any moral lapse involved.

Wow. To see the world in that way is kind of refreshing. Undoubtedly, there are plenty of times that people make immoral choices and royally screw up their lives, and the lives of innocent people as well. I've made bad choices before, and I've seen basically good people brought down by decisions both stupid and morally wrong. I do believe in good and bad, right and wrong. That's not the point.

The point is that sometimes, even things that look like they must be the result of character flaws or moral weakness probably just happen to people without their ever making a consious decision to do something bad. Maybe some addicts never purposely take a wrong turn. Maybe some people file for bankruptcy because they are unlucky and not because they lack integrity. Maybe, on occasion, people get in trouble because they're naive or ignorant instead of evil. And on the whole, I'd rather hang out with folks who see things that way, instead of folks who are always pointing out the moral of the story.

Why? Because it seems like a less stressful way to live when you don't have to figure out which moral principles have been violated, and instead just try to help and understand a little more. In my experience, "I told you so" doesn't help as much as you'd think. It's less burdensome when you don't have to figure out how each episode of human misery grew from some violation of moral law. Instead, you can just see people in trouble and try to help. There's plenty of time to root out the causes later.

I really think I'd be happier living and thinking that way. And it would be fun to find some like-minded people. I think I'd enjoy talking and working with them. Of course I've run across a few. A certain family of canoe lovers comes to mind, for example. But they are a long ways away, in a mystical land of cheese and waterways. If only there were some people like that in Utah. If only. . . .

Ah, but wait. I can hear the voice of my good friend S.M, telling me about just such a group of people. He claims they walk among us. I'm not sure whether to believe him or not. It seems like the stuff of legends, almost, and yet there he is, himself a living example of a person in Utah who actually thinks that way. I suppose there could be more. He claims they are organized and even have a name. At least here in Utah, he says, they are usually called Democrats.

Feelin' Wimpy

Wimpy /ˈwɪmpi/.

1. n. Nickname for a character from the Popeye cartoon strip whose full name is J. Wellington Wimpy. Of this character, Wikipedia states, "Wimpy is very intelligent, and well educated, [OK, I like where this is going. . . .] but very lazy and gluttonous." Hmmmm.

Well, I have to admit that I do enjoy a good hamburger, for which I would gladly pay you Tuesday. And the mustache fits. The hair is getting closer all the time. I guess this is your call, gentle reader.

2. adj. Not Hefty, Hefty, Hefty. Also not Hefty, Hefty. Not Hefty. Not even hefty. At all.



As in, "wimpy, wimpy, wimpy." Falling apart. No holding power. Bottom drops out. Weak. Having holes.


Yeah, that seems vaguely descriptive as well.

3. adj. Puny. Weak. Easily tired. Lacking ability to get going when the going gets tough. Without grit, fortitude, or guts. Unable to resist the Call of the Laz-E-Boy. Just about empty by 3 p.m.


Yeah! That's IT! That's me, almost three weeks after my operation. Even those last two exclamation marks have pretty much exhausted me. No more bold face or italics for the rest of the blog.

I'm still eleven days away from my official surgical follow-up and the sanction to lift things heavier than a gallon of milk (8.6 lbs for whole milk, more for skim). That should probably clue me in to the fact that maybe I'm not supposed to feel back to normal yet, but somehow I'm always surprised at how wimpy I feel each afternoon. And evening.

The good news is, I can sleep. In a bed. On either side, or my back, or my stomach. None of the pain I used to have. I guess I can live with a couple more weeks of puniness for such a gift.

PS. For those of you who were thinking that "hefty" still describes me pretty well, Thanks A Lot. Kick a man while he's down, why dontcha?