Company Retreat

Some of you may know that I work with my husband at his mortgage business, Primary Residential Mortgage, Inc.  We recently spent some time in Moab with all of Britt's employees.  The word all sounds pretty serious, but it amounts to Kayela Bradford, his processor, Beverly Digiambattista, his underwriter, who lives in California and flew out for a meeting we had with local realtors, and Merri Shumway, his new assistant.  Yes, he just hired Merri to work in the office full time.  Does that mean I am out of a job?  Not exactly.  I just get to work on stuff at home now, which is lovely.

We spent a wonderful couple of days getting to know each other better, outside of the work environment, as we toured some of the awesome sites around Moab.  Of course, Arches is one of our new favorites:

I love this guy

Inside the frame created by the arch, if you look way in the distance, you can see two other arches on the horizon.  I guess Arches National Park is supposed to contain over 2000 sandstone arches within its borders. 

 Britt looks like he can take on the world, doesn't he?

This bowl beneath the arch is pretty cool, too.  It kind of seems like it ought to be a natural pool you could jump into.  Merri said the whole place reminded her a lot of Lake Powell, except without the water.  She used to practically live at Lake Powell.  Her father was the original owner of Halls Crossing Marina.

Looking at these pictures has been reminding me of something.  Several years ago--it would have had to have been 15 or more years--I tutored a Western Literature class at the college.  One of the books we read was Desert Solitaire by Edward Abbey.  Toward the end of the quarter, we took a class field trip to Arches National Park, and hiked to Delicate Arch.  It was the first time I had been in the park, I remember, and my little brother Tim was one of the students in the class.  I loved the book!  In some ways, it is hard to think of the wonderland Edward Abbey loved so well being changed as it has since this park has become more popular.  Still, I have to say, we are grateful that we can enjoy the natural beauty that is contained within Arches National Park.

We are also grateful that our own little backyard, San Juan County, is mostly undiscovered.  When we want to go explore our world, we don't have to pay to enter a park.  We don't have to do litter patrol, or try to find animal tracks amidst all the human tracks.  We just pull out the GPS and wander to our heart's content, very rarely running into any other hikers along the way.  Call me selfish, but I like it this way.

I also remember that when we entered the park all those years ago, we were supposed to get a discount for being on an educational field trip, but the ranger there said she had to charge full price.  I remember about a week afterward, I wrote a letter of protest to the park, asking that they recognize the educational nature of the trip.  I even included specific references to the book in my arguments.  I wish I still had a copy of the letter.  Yes, I am bragging, but it was pretty well-written, if I do say so myself.  A few weeks later, the instructor of the class received a refund of the money she had been charged.

I think I am going to dig out some of those old pictures, just so I can show you my young self and my cute little brother Tim on our first hike out to Delicate Arch.  Not for a few days, though.

From now on, my Sundays will be computer and phone free.  I promised my husband, and now you are all witnesses.  I won't even be blogging.  Sorry.  See ya later.

Summer Reading

I am currently reading this:

No, it is not on my Kindle app on my Droid phone. I have the thick little paperback. It is the same book I read over eighteen years ago, while I was living in Logan, needing something to do while I waited for the birth of the baby girl I would be placing for adoption. The book and musical were all the rage back then. We couldn't get enough of it. I even attended the musical in Salt Lake (with my family, I think) around that same time. Loved the music; loved the themes; loved the romance.

It is funny, my thirty-something year old self has a hard time being patient enough not to skim over some parts of the book. Especially when the author begins talking about history or politics and I am thinking, "I just want to know what happens next. . ." to Fantine or Marius or whoever it is talking about in that part of the story. I often wonder if I really read the whole thing then, or if I just glossed over some parts. I know that is what I did when I read Gone with the Wind forever ago. You can only read so much about ball gowns and draperies, you know.

It is also interesting to me the strong adoption-related themes throughout the book, Les Miserables, I mean. I don't remember them being that noticeable back then. And clearly the author has some strong opinions about adoption, as well as his views on politics, society, human rights, etc. My goodness, it was heart-wrenching to read the scene where Fantine leaves her beloved daughter Cosette in the care of a woman who clearly adored her own children, trusting that she had love to spare. Only to have that woman scorn and abuse Cosette because she was not her own child. Believe me, I do not think that to be a parallel in my own life. Still, I am shocked that my former self was not terrified of this prospect, that the couple I chose for my child might turn out to be not as ideal as I thought. Apparently, the inspiration I was meant to receive from the reading back then was not meant to include those kind of fears.

And then Marius, when he discovers that his estranged father truly loved him, when he had been made to believe he was indifferent to his son, that was such a tragedy! And also a sermon on the way some misguided adoptive parents will sometimes lie to their adopted children, telling them their birth parents never cared about them. This, because they fear the child might love the unknown parent(s) more than them. I am not saying most adoptive parents do this, or even that they do it intentionally, as Marius' grandfather did in the book. It was just a theme that was really stark to me. And also, how when something like that happens, the child (or young adult) will turn on his parents because he feels wronged, like Marius did. In a way, that is also a tragedy.

My goodness! I really don't know if I am making any sense.

I am only halfway through the book at this point. Of course, another adoption theme is the fact that Jean Valjean takes guardianship over Cosette. I think this is the theme I latched onto as a young pregnant woman considering adoption. The father figure is what I was seeking for my daughter, more than all those other things. I needed her to have a daddy. In the book, I related most strongly to Jean Valjean. And of course, in the musical, he is the most major character.

Of course, recently, besides reading the book, I have been listening to the music from the musical, Les Miserables. Garrett recently watched the musical in Salt Lake with his high school French class. And I was so jealous. I suppose I still could have gotten tickets to the show for another time, but that just didn't occur to me. He came home with a poster and a CD of the music, which I immediately loaded onto my computer. But besides that, I have been listening to the Les Miserables broadway musical channel on Pandora, which I like even better because it includes some of the old versions of the songs, the ones I knew back then. Who doesn't love "On My Own"? Well, I personally don't love the new version, but then I don't even like the original version as much as I LOVED it when Chrislynn sang/performed it for the Miss San Juan Pageant in 1993.

And then the songs tie in with a lot of the feelings I have been having about how I feel about where I am in my adoption situation now. That helpless limbo I am stuck in. I am determined not to be whiny about this whole thing. I don't want to keep harassing you like I am "Oh, poor me!" all the time, because I am not. But I do feel that loss keenly, and there are songs that remind me of that. And if it weren't 11:00 at night, I could probably give you a specific song.

Anyway, I am LOVING reading this book. It is not necessarily an easy read, especially when you don't filter out all the seemingly extra stuff. You know, the author did have a point (several, actually) that he was trying to make with all those words. So maybe if I read the whole thing I can figure it out.

By the way, you are thinking I "named" my birth daughter Cosette because of this play/book. And so you know, that is sort of the name that is on her original birth certificate, the one of which I have a copy. Actually, the birth certificate says "Cozette". And the reason I gave her that name was I once had a friend named Cozette, a good friend who I met when I was 14 and spent the summer with her at BYU while my mother went to Graduate School. We stayed in touch for several years after that, but eventually I lost track of her. It was something I always regretted. And in a way, I was honoring her and maybe even recognizing that our relationship (mine and her family's) might follow the same track. Did I really realize that at the time, or was that inadvertent? Wow, I honestly don't know.

After a couple years, I decided I liked the other spelling better, and I started using the S instead of the Z. I worked with a girl named Cozette at the college cafeteria and she was NOTHING like my Cosette, so I felt like I should change it. It kind of threw the family for a loop, I guess. I remember her mother said something about it in one letter, but then they spelled it differently too, with two S's.

Well seriously, now I am just babbling.

Have you read the unabridged version of Les Miserables? What did you think? Have you seen the musical? Recently? Oh, I am so jealous, but I guess it is my own fault for not doing something about it. It is kind of funny to me that the whole musical and everything have come back en vogue.

And of course, I suppose I am trying to reconnect in an abstract way with her family now, because Les Miserables was one of those things we both really loved when we met. And her father being a high school English teacher and me being an English Sterling Scholar, it was a natural literary connection. I have to admit to you also, the little poem at the top written by William Blake is also an homage to her adoptive father, because he is the one who recommended I read some of William Blake's poetry. This was all back in the days when I loved to write and read just about anything I could get my hands on. (Yes, way more than now)

I hope you don't mind. I just wanted to share. . .

Thoughts

First of all, I had no desire to see this movie:

But I do like to spend time with my husband, and when he suggested we go Saturday night after he got back from the hunt, I seriously considered it. But I told him the critics hated it, and some fans were suggesting it was Sandra Bullock's worst movie ever. So Britt did a little checking online to see what he could find out about the movie. I can't tell you what site he went to, but he said that Sandra Bullock's character was supposed to have Asperger's Syndrome.

Hmmm.

I don't know if that actually made me want to see the movie even less. Maybe it did. I wasn't sure how I would feel about her portraying someone with Asperger's. I wasn't sure how that would affect my view of the movie. You see, I live very close to someone with Asperger's, and I love him dearly, but I know that I don't get him most of the time. And I know that I get him better than most people. I always worry about how other people see him. And even more than that, I worry about how he sees himself.

I did a little research just now, and I cannot find a site that identifies the fact that Sandra Bullock's character has Asperger's Syndrome. That assumption did taint my view of the movie, but it also made me understand why so few people "got" that movie. They just see Sandra's character as a crazy, freaky-smart stalker chick.

I went to this movie not because I wanted to see Sandra Bullock portray a woman with Asperger's. I went because I wanted to spend some time with my husband. I need you to know, there were parts of this movie where you are supposed to laugh, that I was in tears. It was all a little too real. So grateful for the quirky people who just loved her as she was, but so hurt by the people who recognized her vulnerability. And the realization at the end that she didn't have to be "normal" was beautiful, but still heart-wrenching. Because accepting herself as she was, while a lovely idea, still didn't change any of the challenges she would still have to deal with, day-in and day-out:

Parents who loved her, but who hadn't fully taught her to cope in the real world. People who would take advantage of her naive expectation that everyone tells the truth, just as she does. Her own inability to recognize that not everybody is interested in the meanings of obscure words and other random facts that are fascinating to her. And then the people who respect some of her qualities, but still expect her to make more of an effort to conform, to be normal.

Oh yes, this was a hard movie for me to watch. But not for the same reasons as everyone else, perhaps. Although, I would say, even without the Asperger's aspect, watching someone make a fool of themselves over and over is always painful for me. It's not really something I enjoy watching.

But I am glad I went. I needed to see that, to think about what I can do better to educate my own community about respecting people with Asperger's. I knew that already. This was just a reminder. I think I will finally do that post where I list some facts about people with Autism/Asperger's. I love that Garrett is so high-functioning, but just because some of his symptoms are hidden, they are still there, and I know I personally need to do a better job of respecting him as he is.

Not today, though. That is its own post.



This is what else I have been doing this weekend. Sad story for you. When I moved, a couple years ago, I had less than 3 weeks to get everything out of that house. It was overwhelming, to say the least. Luckily, I had some help. Unfortunately, I had two library books on my shelves at the time, and they got packed without my knowledge. Once I realized what had happened, I couldn't get to them, so I asked the librarian to continue to renew them for me until I could locate them. Well, it has now been over a year since we moved into this house, and I cannot find those books. There has been a new librarian at the library for several months now, and I have had multiple fines incurred. I even paid them a couple times, but that was a while ago. I can't even show my face in the library. I should just go in and pay for the books, but it is just one of those expenses I just cannot justify paying right now.

Lucky for me, my daughter Tyler sees these books on the shelf and thinks they look fascinating. She brings them home from the school library, and we start to read them together. But her attention span just isn't there for books of this nature, so she loses interest fast. Then I sneak away with the book and devour it. Oh how I have missed the library!

A couple weeks ago, it was two books by Gail Carson Levine, Fairest and another one that I forget the name of now. I read those pretty fast, late into the night, because I knew she would have to return them soon. I tried to read one with her, but the next night, she had other things to do besides sit still with me.
Part of Friday, most of Saturday and Sunday, and then late into the night I enjoyed Inkspell. I have seen the movie Inkheart, but now I know I need to read the book, because you know they are always changing things in the movies.

I love the way the author of this book just draws you in. Her writing literally holds you spellbound, and the characters really keep you thinking. I love the way she ties all these different characters who are connected to books in some way. Oh, I have been a lover of books, too. And this is a book I could love.

And I really did love this book until she left me hanging. Then I panicked. Oh no, it is a series and she hasn't even published the next one, I was thinking. It is sort of like that Pirates of the Caribbean movie where everything is so unresolved at the end, you are thinking, how could that be the ending? And then when the next Pirates movie came out, it didn't even resolve any of your questions from the previous movie. Kind of like, really? That's it?!

I have read all of the Fablehaven books published so far, and only the last one really leaves you feeling like that can't possibly be the end. At least it wraps up the main point of the story. At least it doesn't just end. How can it just end, when nothing is resolved (which is exactly how this one ends)? There are all new problems and issues, plus old threats that are still not conquered. Oh, I don't think I could bear to wait two more years for the sequel to be published.

Especially if it is anything like Brinsingr, the sequel to Eldest and Eragon. I really enjoyed Eragon, well-written, well-paced, interesting. Eldest was okay, but seemed to end unresolved. Brinsingr did not pick up where I expected it to, did not answer the issues brought up from Eldest, and just seemed to go on and on like it was trying to make too many points that may have been relevant to the author, but should have been skimmed off by a good editor. And then instead of completing the trilogy, it left it unfinished, but hardly had me begging for more.

Luckily, I found that Inkdeath is the sequel to Inkspell and it has already been published. When Tyler returns the book tomorrow, I will beg her to pick up Inkdeath for me. So more housekeeping and personal hygiene can go neglected.

It really is easier to pick up these series after they have all been published, don't you think?