I have such a clear image in my head

I was born when my mom was 36 and my dad was 37. (Huh. Until I did the math this very second, I thought my mom was 37, like I was 37 when I had Mack. Huh.) I spent every summer while growing up driving (and later flying) back and forth between SLC and Lake Powell in southern Utah. We probably got in 12-15 trips between April and October. I don't feel like I saw much of my dad during the school year. He didn't come to my school programs or events, I don't remember eating dinner as a family except on Sundays, and when he got home from work in the evenings he just sat in his recliner and read his newspapers and magazines. But during the summer he was mine all mine, as we boated up and down the arms of the lake and took long hikes hither and yon. He knew as much about that lake and the land surrounding it as anyone. He ran the Colorado River often before it was dammed, and he boated it faithfully when it became Lake Powell.

So, I have really really clear memories of him from the ages of, let's say, 42-55. These were the years he belonged to me, or at least Lake Powell belonged to him and I belonged to Lake Powell. I realize now he didn't do those trips for my enjoyment, but for his; but that doesn't minimize even one little bit how much I adored those trips and that lake. It feels like home to me. I yearn for it. I miss it. It almost isn't even fair that I don't have a boat and money and resources so I can still be on that lake half the summer.

I remember sometimes a wind would come up and he'd have to jog after a blowing towel, or he'd have to run after a rope that was going out too fast, or have to dash to catch the boat before it rammed the dock. And his run looked like this funny, choppy thing, sort of a half-gait, all knees up forward and no legs stretching behind. Like his hips and knees didn't quite work on demand.

Which is me now.

I didn't understand it then; I was single or barely double digits in age, and my body did anything I wanted it to do the second I asked for it. I was lithe and limber and never stiff.

But today, when Jackson and Christian and I were setting up sprinklers and I would stand there adjusting the spray pattern, and then try to run out of the way before I got wet, I could feel that I was all knees up forward and no legs stretching behind. Damn! Do I really have to get old? I'm even a jogger. But without my warm up, my hips and knees don't just get up and go anymore.

So now I know where I am in my kids' lives, and the strange and funny images they'll carry away of me, trying to dodge the sprinkler spray. Until they hit their 40s, and then they'll understand.

Memories of 23 years ago

Just after graduating from high school I left with a "delegation" of about 40 high school student "ambassadors" from Utah to visit the Soviet Union. It is one of my most precious memories, an experience I'll never be able to duplicate. I was there within just a couple of years of communism falling.

We flew from the U.S. to Finland and spent about 48 hours in Helsinki. It was mid-June and gorgeous—working up to summer solstice and therefore never getting dark at night...one of the best parts. The food was an experience, but Helsinki itself was everything I expected a European city to be. It was large, fast, clean, beautiful. It was like a dream.

Culture shock began the moment we boarded the rickety museum piece of a train that would take us from Finland into the USSR. We went first to Leningrad. It was lovely in an exotic, ancient sort of way, but it was so different from Finland. For all its being a world superpower, the USSR was not a first-world country. That gobsmacked me. Propaganda was still everywhere—six stories high, painted on buildings in primary colors—statues of Lenin everywhere, but the people lived in run-down little apartments with no appliances or just a tiny (dormitory-sized) fridge and a single hotplate. No washers and dryers, no dishwashers. Phones in the hallways outside the apartments, the whole floor shared. Laundry always hanging out on balconies. Everything—streets, building facades—was filthy. There was not hot water all day even in the hotels; at check in we were handed a schedule of when there would be hot water. In one hotel, they turned off the electricity at 9:00 pm. Water was not safe to drink—it was cloudy yellow. I brushed my teeth with Pepsi for three weeks.

For the first few days I was in sort of a daze: we fear these poor creatures? These are the archenemies of the United States of America? These people who have only one brand of car to buy, whose trains are falling apart, who still fly from city to city in WWII propeller planes? The second night in Leningrad we decided sleep was for sissies and we were only going to be in the USSR once. We hailed a cab and see the city. Our cab driver was an M.D., a surgeon, who had to moonlight driving a cab because being a doctor didn't pay the bills. That was the biggest eye opener of all about what it was like to live under communism.

We visited Yalta, Simferopl, Moscow. I swam in the Black Sea and laid on the black beaches. I ate lots of amazing ice cream, because I was such a picky eater I struggled with the borscht and other strange foods. I did eventually acclimate to dark rye bread, and I gave up the Pepsi at mealtime for tea because I got so sick of the sweet. The weather was so hot during the day; but when the sun began to go down it was like a dream, to prowl the streets of the USSR with 39 other kids my age, like we owned the joint. We saw Red Square, St. Basil's Cathedral, Lenin's tomb and waxy Lenin himself. He just looked like a Madame Tussaud wax figure, but everyone swore it was the real corpse. Of course. Perfectly preserved after 53 years. (It was like a refrigerator in there, that's for sure; it was the only time during the whole trip that I was even remotely cool, and I was freezing.)

We saw the Moscow folk ballet perform. I cried through the entire thing—the folk music, the dance—it was just so gorgeous. We saw the Bolshoi Ballet perform Giselle. (Wish I'd understood the story ahead of time, I was so not following along.) And one night we went to the Moscow circus. This is probably my favorite story of my entire life to tell. I was exhausted—we all were, burning the candle at both ends by being tourists all day long with our officially assigned tour guides and Utah chaperones, and then catching cabs and buses all night long on our own. I did doze off during the circus, at least I assume I did. When I woke up I was in the middle of the ring, holding up a constrictor snake that was way too heavy for me. As soon as I came to, my arms fell to my sides with the heavy. (Circus people were on either side of me to catch the snake.) I had been hypnotized in Russian! I have no memory of the hypnosis, only of waking up; but I have 70 American witnesses that told me what happened. I still geek out about it.

Adventures in camping...

...preparation! Have a big extended family camp planned for this weekend, have been looking forward to it since last September or so. We haven't even gone camping yet, and we've had a day.

1. Emma's ankle (lightly sprained yesterday) is quite swollen today and she can't walk well. Hard, because this is a *hiking* camping trip. So one of us will need to stay back at camp with her during all activities, she obviously can't hike.
2. Washing machine was making a bad noise this morning. Called repairman. He fit us in today.
3. Went grocery shopping.
4. Took Suburban in for oil change. Cars were parked trickily in driveway. Though I was backing out carefully and slowly, I nudged B's little Mazda w/ Suburban. Suburban is strong. B's Mazda rear passenger door is dented all to hell.
5. Steady streams of water down into our basement, and we knew not why. Repairman warned us we'd leak a little when he took apart the washer. Cleaning up basement with every towel we have.
6. Leaks didn't stop though washer was put back together. Blaine (thankfully working at home today!) sees that as quick as we're wiping the floor, something is puddling up.
7. Repairman returns. Diagnoses a broken drain hose. (No prior leak or evidence of leak, the very act of fixing the washer broke the washer.) Repairman doesn't have a hose. He orders one.
   
8. Every towel in my house is soaking/dirty, and I cannot wash them or even spin them out.
9. One of B's two jobs wants to talk today about how things are going, and whether he'd consider dumping the other job and working full time there. Good day for "quick" negotiations before we leave. The other job has just these "few quick things" that must be done before we can go.
   

T minus two hours to departure, and I've gotten no camping prep done today because I've had a few other things going on. Neither Blaine nor I have even showered yet.

by Ethan

The Story of When I Fell Out of the Tree

Well, when I fell at first I was spinning head over feet. Then I closed my eyes; and when I opened my eyes, all I could see was a cloud of dust. It hurt as soon as I feel out of the tree. It hurt way before I opened my eyes. I landed on my butt, sitting down. I got a bloody nose.

Ethan fell out of the highest part of the tree today. Scared me so bad I got nauseated. He wanted to tell me the whole story of it. His butt is sore, but all else is well. Emma also got a minor ankle sprain at school. Two kids today who didn't quite have to go to the hospital, still a pretty good day.

Baked tofu!

A few weeks ago someone (I seriously cannot remember who, because I am senile) linked me to a recipe for baked tofu. I got right out of my chair, baked up some tofu, and it was gone in about 3 minutes because all the kids snarfed it. We've baked tofu pretty much every day since, and everyone loves it.

It's so easy!

• Press water out of a block of tofu, the firmer the better. After I do the first pressing between two plates with extra weight on top, I add a couple of paper towels to the bottom plate beneath the tofu and press again.
  
• Slice the block into slices about 1/4 inch thick, or into quarter inchish cubes.
  
• Marinate. We do just plain soy sauce most often, and we marinate right on the baking tray. Soy sauce plus sesame sauce is outragously delicious, but here are lots and lots of other ideas.
  
• Spray baking pan with whatever you use for oil/nonstick. Lay out slices/cubes with space between them.
  
• Bake in 400º oven for about 20 minutes. (Can be done in toaster oven! For a shorter amount of time.) If you have slices rather than cubes, you may want to flip them over and crispy up the other side for an additional 5 minutes.
  
• You can serve it warm, or you can put them in the fridge and eat them chilled.
  
• YUMMY.

If you kids already like tofu, this will become a staple. I'm using it as a snack, but also I'm finding that I'm baking up my tofu before putting it in recipes, like sesame tofu or mabodofu. That little bit of crispy makes all my tofu recipes exquisite.