Tater Tot Casserole

I used to be an insomniac. From about age 12 until I became a regular exerciser at about age 25, sleeplessness was my unwelcome nighttime companion. I still suffered with bouts of it until last year, when I learned self-hypnosis (I know, I know . . . .but it totally worked!). Now, sleep is no problem.

Until last night. I wish I could say that contemplating the larger mysteries of the universe is what chases away dreamland, but my most recent episode shows that it is the larger mysteries of the English language that does it. And so, my six dear readers, if you are having trouble sleeping, this is a post that will, paradoxically, put you right in snoozeville.

So I’m lying there, thinking about a cute thing Madame Chaos said. As we were driving past the water tower, she gave me a glimpse into the desires of her heart as she said, “If we climb up the water tower, the firecracker chiefs will be mad at us.” Then the thought occurred to me: why is the plural of “chief”, “chiefs”, while the plural of “thief” is “thieves”? Then I thought of the other phonetic rhymes like leaf/leaves, sheaf/sheaves, and even the antiquated beef/beeves. But then I realized I should stick with the “ief” spelling, and thought of brief/briefs, belief/beliefs and grief/griefs (with the added interest of the related verb “to grieve”, which sidetracks me for a few minutes). And then I’m pretty sure “kerchief” can be pluralized both as “kerchiefs” and “kerchieves”. So, despite (or because of?) my years of teaching spelling rules and their inevitable exceptions, I find myself trying to come up with the rule for when a word ending with the phoneme /Ef/ changes to either /Efs/ or /Evz/. Then I start longing for my very own, unabriged copy of the Oxford English Dictionary to show me the evolution of each of those words so I can figure it out myself instead of looking it up online. Then I figure I should just get myself out of bed and look it up already so I can go back to sleep.

An hour or more later, I can’t find any rules specific to the /Ef/ phoneme, just the usual “a noun ending in an -f is usually pluralized with -ves.”

So this is my hard-won, sleep-depriving, self-made rule (are you asleep yet?): all the nouns ending in -ief are exceptions to the rule of plurals except for “thief,” which is an exception to this exception (and therefore keeps the rule), and “kerchief,” which can take either plural. Big sigh.

You’re welcome.

I’m just avoiding you.

Madame Chaos has some new material, maybe later this week.  Maybe not.  Heh.

Or Thoreau..

Or Van Gogh.

Or So-and-So.

 Whoever.

 Last year when I finally got around to reading Beckett’s absurdist play Waiting for Godot, I was struck by the similarity between the two main characters’ waiting in vain through five acts for this fellow Godot to show up, and my own growing ambivalence over the current political scene.  The past six years, which I might have titled Waiting for Bush to Figure Stuff Out has simply rendered me unable to muster my usual election-year semihope that any one candidate can really make a change for good (reading War and Peace last year and being strongly persuaded by Tolstoy’s fatalist argument also contributed to that).   In every election but one, I have voted third-party as a meager protest against the two-party system that, in my opinion, only encourages candidates to be wind-sniffing opportunists who cannot be taken at their word.  There are aspects of both parties’ platforms that turn my stomach, so I can’t align myself with either of them. 

So I greet the hype over the current caucus season with a yawn.  You’d think, as a Mormon, that I’d be enthused about Romney’s run, but I’d be happier if he had kept his “unchangeable” stance during the Massachussetts gubenatorial election regarding choice and on gay rights; however, he’s shown himself to be a panderer like the rest of ‘em.  I simply don’t believe his story about his “change of heart”– while I do think that it is a mark of intelligence and tolerance to be able to change one’s mind, to be willing to examine one’s beliefs and attitudes and make adjustments as needed, in Romney’s case, the timing was tooooooo convenient.    And, despite our common religion, I don’t agree with his (current, public) stances on immigration, abortion, or gay rights.   Life is just not as clear-cut as that. 

But there really isn’t anyone I can get behind–which seems to be the case every election season.  I hate how polarizing the electoral process is, and its negativity spills over into my views of the candidates.  I wish I could be an optimist about it–I am very grateful to live in this country with its freedoms, democratic processes, and emphasis on compromise, and I know that careful consideration in choosing a leader is the least I can do to show that appreciation.  On the other hand, anyone who WANTS to be president must be at least a little bit of a lunatic.

 It is going to be a long year.

Some words are brilliant in their paradoxical in-your-face subtlety.  Take the word “disease.”  We don’t really think of it as being “dis” + “ease,” but the state of not being at ease is precisely the result of being diseased.  And then there is the noun “INvalid,” which, when read as related to the adjective “inVALID” (i.e. “not valid”), presents a striking perspective on a perhaps latent view of people who are unable to get around on their own.  So today being New Year’s Eve, I got to thinking about what it means to resolve or “re-solve.”  English speakers use resolve to mean “to make a firm decision.”  But to “re-solve” something suggests a do-over, an un-making in order to reexamine the components of a problem and perhaps assemble those components differently.  Certainly the two ideas are related, as a person should be reflective and analytical in creating those infamous resolutions.  But the kinds of resolutions made most often at this time of year seem to be of a template:  lose weight, stop procrastinating, give up smoking, exercise regularly.  “Re-solving” weight loss or lack of ambition or other perpetual difficulties seems more nuanced than simply deciding to add or subtract some activity from one’s life.  To “re-solve” is to treat that difficulty not as a personal deficiency but as a puzzle, one that has a number of solutions and may even be meant to be intriguing and illuminating in its complexity.

The Latin root solvere from which resolve is derived has as its primary meaning “to loosen, untie, free up, melt” (from Wiktionary).  We use that meaning in chemistry when we create a homogenous mixture by diluting one or more ingredients into a solution, like creating salt water or bleach.  And yet, at the New Year, our resolutions are designed to do precisely the opposite–that is, they attempt to attack a complex problem by tightening and hardening it into a simplistic and rigid “goal.”   Perhaps the saying “Resolutions are made to be broken” derives from the premise that “re-solving” something must necessarily involve freeing up and loosening the assumptions that have lead to the problem. 

I’m perfectly comfortable with the idea that I’m off-base here, but as I near 40, I’m more interested in sifting through the litter of 30+ years of broken resolutions to learn more about myself rather than to beat myself up.  I’ve reached a point where I would rather look at myself as an intriguing puzzle than as perpetually flawed and in need of immediate improvement.

  I remember panicking when I turned 29, because in my mind, age 30 was when a person was truly “grown-up:” mature spiritually and emotionally as well as physically.  I knew that the 12 months I had until I reached 30 would never be enough time to become the person I thought I would be at the end of three decades of life.   I resolved that age 40 would NOT take me by surprise, and I set some goals to reach by that time, among them learning Sign Language, becoming a Master Gardener, and being physically fit.  I now have less than 18 months in which to make those goals–set nearly ten years ago and four children ago–a reality.  And I’m finding that, while I believe those objectives to be worthy and Good, my almost-40 self is more interested in “re-solutions” than in resolutions.  That is, I want to re-solve, to re-examine, to look anew, test and try and enjoy the journey rather than to work on wedging myself into a mold in the name of achievement. 

Happy New Year! 

Our Little Missy is a Big Missy now, with driver’s ed behind her and a learner’s permit in her pocket.  Who’s going to teach her the stick shift????

I did a double take near Riggins, Idaho, as I was travelling north a month ago.  I had to come back and record this sign:

Yes, a “sign” it is indeed. But not nearly as signerific as the one on their website.

Do you suppose their Sunday Services are uplifting?

I don’t even exist.

 Apparently, it has been a well-known fact since 1992 that the “state” of “Idaho” is a long-perpetrated hoax:

Idaho is a myth!

Seriously. I understand the xeriscaping impetus; the amount of water used to keep landscaping green is pretty scandalous. But sagebrush is not landscaping. It’s ugly.

You think it might make for a kewl hedge sometime in the future, so you scavenge the scrub in no-man’s-land for little sagees to line up:

Fast forward to a full-grown, um, hedge:

Nope. Ugly.

So maybe you should just line them up in formation like a platoon on your front lawn, surrounded by an acre of grass and kept at bay by chain link. That might be groovy:

Nope. Ugly.

Well, you could always go for the natural look, you know, sage brush thrown in on a berm with a dry “creek” bed around it, and roses, and trees, and hollyhocks, and perennials, and a birdhouse?

Nope. Ugly.

You just can’t force sagebrush to look good. It doesn’t even look interesting in its natural habitat, let alone regimented into shrubbery or tucked into a cottage-style bed. It doesn’t look clever, it doesn’t complement or contrast well with other plants, and it makes your yard look trashy. Don’t. Do. It.

I started wearing glasses for nearsightedness when I was ten–thick lenses surrounded by those big, colored plastic frames so prevalent in the early 80’s.  At thirteen, I finally got contacts (and a cool haircut, and some Big Girl clothes, and shed the shyness–presto! a life!).  For the next twenty years I wore contacts until my eyesight got so bad that the lenses were too thick to be comfortable, and I wore glasses from then on. I hated wearing glasses–they always had spots, they bugged the bridge of my nose, and they hid my eyes, which I consider to be my best feature (so few to choose from!). Going without them was out of the question–I can’t remember what my numbers were, but I was so nearsighted that anything past six inches from my face began to get blurry in a hurry. You can see from this photo that even with ultrathin, ultralite lenses, the distortion due to lens curvature made me look like I had two edges to each side of my face: the real edges, then the ones inside my glasses:

I had heard about Lasik surgery but was too freaked out to try it (these are my EYES, man!).  I imagined being strapped down and watching the lasers slice through my corneas and fiddle with my lenses, while smelling the putrid smoke from my living, burning tissue.  Then I imagined my head being wrapped up in yards of gauze while my eyes healed, and the anticipation of the Day of Unwrapping when, mirror in hand, I would discover that my eyes were Irreversibly Damaged (“NOOOOOoooooooooooo  . . . . . . “).  Then I would be sorry.  Then I would wish I could just go back to the days when the worst thing about my eyesight was wearing out-of-style frames.

But then two years ago, my sister and her husband had the surgery, and they seemed to be untraumatized; in fact, they were thrilled.  So I did some research and made an appointment for a consultation.  I was told that despite my mega-myopia and astigmatism, that I was a good candidate for Lasik.  I have to admit being somewhat skeptical–being what felt like legally blind, I couldn’t imagine that they could really fix my eyesight, it was just too poor.  But, encouraged by my sister and BIL, I went ahead and plunked my money on the barrelhead.

On the morning of the surgery, I was excited but nervous.  I knew that my earlier visions of mummy wraps and spinning blades were nonsense, but I couldn’t help but worry (my EYES, man!).  Still, I was unprepared for how easy it actually was:  I followed the doctor and his assistant into the laser room, which was darkened, and I took my glasses off for the last time.  Doc measured my eyes on a machine to calibrate his laser, then had me lie down on the table to put in the numbing drops.  The room was totally dark except for a dim light directly above my face, and I listened to him tell me to open my right eye wide so he could put on some sort of contraption that kept my eye open–it didn’t hurt, just felt weird.  Then he told me to watch the light and hold still.  I had been given a teddy bear to hold, and I gripped him tight while I obeyed.  “Now the light will fade, and you’ll hear some snapping noises and maybe smell a bit of a burning smell,” he said.  I watched the light grow dimmer and smaller until it faded to black, heard five or six rapid popping sounds, and thought I could detect a smoky smell, but before I could be sure, it was over.  No pain, no flying lasers, and completed in about fifteen seconds, start to finish.  Now, mind you, I wasn’t thrilled about having to repeat the process for the left eye, but less than a minute later it was all done and he had me back at the machine to check my new, reshaped lenses.  “Perfect,” he pronounced.

I had been in that room for maybe five minutes. 

I was given some dark glasses, eye drops, and warnings that my eyes would hurt some after the numbing drops wore off, but that the best way to combat that was to go home and sleep for a couple of hours, and I’d sleep through the worst of it.  I was told that my eyes would be light-sensitive for about eight weeks, that I shouldn’t rub them until the corneal flap healed, and that I needed to use the eye drops every hour or so.  And I got to drive myself home.

It’s been eighteen months, and I’ve been delighted with the results of my surgery from the day I walked out of the clinic.  My vision is now 20/15, with just a bit of astigmatism remaining, which causes me no trouble at all.  My eyes are no more light-sensitive than they were before the procedure, and the only glasses I put on any more are my groovy shades.  I consider it to be the best $3,000 I ever spent on myself, bar none.  Now I evangelize for Lasik every chance I get, and I’ve won a few converts who are also very happy.  If you are weighing whether or not to go for it, I encourage you to at least get the free consultation to see if you are a good candidate, and decide from there. As for me, I’ve got a testimony of Lasik.

I’m linking to a post I wrote over at Feminist Mormon Housewives–it is not at all the sort of post I anticipate writing here, and is not for the faint of heart (it’s about rape).  But since I’m the author I thought I’d link to it from here–if you have comments, please make them there rather than here.  Thanks.

Rapex