Quick hello

Today's post-haircut sneer - the Vein of
Approval on his forehead liked it - I
gotta tell ya, I love this kid!

We are, as of today, just shy of seven weeks away from TMFKATB's return from his two-year missionary service. If he's counting down the weeks and days, his letters do not really reflect that. Today's letter still shows a young man focused on the work to be done, particularly in the face of more than a little change.

At the end of this week, a new mission president begins his three year service in TMFKATB's mission. This, people, is no small task and not for the faint of heart. The men and women that lead these missions across the world are a special breed and we are grateful for them. With any large change that impact a bunch of 18 - 20 year olds, the rumor mill is running at DefCon 5 about what's coming. TMFKATB's take on it? "Excited" was the word he used. Because the LDS community is the definition of a small world, we have some Kevin Bacon-esque 'Six Degrees of Separation' to his new mission president and it's nothing but good. So excited is a good place for him to be.

In his pearl of wisdom today, I was counseled to get my haircut in, and I quote, "the ghetto" because they know how to cut hair there. So a couple of things...he got his haircut today by a lady from Puebla, Mexico. She is living in a suburb of Salt Lake City, Utah. They are behind the Zion Curtain. Doesn't that just scream "ghetto?" Yeah, I didn't think so. But then again, he still thinks that growing up on the mean streets of the Dirty 630, Naperville, IL, was a rough go.

Like his father, he's not right. But I'm so good with that.

Point/Counterpoint

"Jane, you ignorant..." well, you know the rest.

For those of you of a certain age (like mine or older) and you were, like me, a news nerd even as a younger child, you will remember the "Point/Counterpoint" segment on CBS' venerable "60 Minutes." The format was fairly simple - for a few minutes in every episode, a wizened conservative (in this case, an older man who looked like he'd smoked more than his share of Camels in his lifetime) and a brash liberal (a woman, natch, because it was the 70's) would face off on the issue du jour. It was a format that was rife for farce and the early seasons of "SNL" were brilliant in their skewering. I can still hear Dan Ackroyd imperiously intoning, "Jane, you ignorant..." well, you know the rest. Let's just say the spoof highlighted the differences in their respective point of views. It made you laugh.

Sadly, in today's political discourse/horror story, there doesn't seem to be a lot of room for laughter. Unless, of course, you find the thought of a racist, bullying, mysoginst xenophobe with literally zero policy plan leading the nation funny. Queue the laugh track, right? I didn't think so. This current environment has led to some interesting (some inspiring, some soul crushing) conversations with my friends who are on all sides of the political spectrum. Through it all, the hope is that there is some common ground where we can meet. Call it moderate, call it crazy.

The funny thing is that I know it's possible. For the last nearly year and a half I've been serving in a calling at Church with a woman whose affinity for Fox News and their 'fair and balanced' drivel terrifies me and she pretty much thinks I am deranged because I don't share that affinity, among other reasons. To say we are oil and water politically is an understatement. It's made for some lively conversation at dinner parties. In proof that God knows what's best (and that He has a sense of humor), she and I were asked to teach our adult Sunday School class and we've been doing so for like I said, at least a year and a half now. Why on earth are two lay people teaching Sunday School, you ask? That's how we Mormons roll. It's a lay clergy, so you staff with the resources you have. I have to say I think we've made it work. We stayed focused on what we we'd been asked to teach. We've had great participation from the people in our class and they've made it so we've been the learners more than the teachers. It's actually been a lot of fun and we always kept it cool, too. No shout downs, no imperious pronouncements (although that could have been really fun).

Well, today my partner in teaching crime was given another assignment so our version of "Point/Counterpoint" has come to an abrupt screeching halt. I'm going to be honest here and say I'm going to miss teaching with her. It's been a really good run with someone I can call a friend, in spite of our differences.

In the end, it's probably for the best. With this presidential election turning into the surreal train wreck that it is, it was probably only a matter of time before one of us laid the other out flat in front of the class (like the way that Trump's supporters seem to enjoy using on those who are, oh I don't know, exercising the right to protest). No one needs to see that in a Sunday School class. No one.

Ch-ch-changes

Riding dirty in the 801, or maybe the 385

While the title of today's post would suggest this is a long overdue homage to the late musical genius David Bowie, alas, it is not. It references the title of this week's letter from TMFKATB. In this week's all too brief letter, he updated us on changes in his world.

The biggest change came in the form of transfers, a ritual that occurs about every six weeks. It's a time when missionaries may be assigned to new areas, companionships changed, or there can be no changes at all. For TMFKATB, he lost a companion, was given a senior leadership role, and got a new companion. He seemed a bit surprised by it all. I get the impression he did not anticipate that he would be impacted by transfers this time. Well, buddy, as the late Mr Bowie said, 'Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes.'

We had to toss a bit of a change grenade his way as we had to tell him about the 'decline' notice we got on his first choice of schools. He took it totally in stride, saying, 'I've got too much on my plate right now to be distracted by this.' He's resilient and it makes me proud.

I need to channel how he's taking the news. He's handling it a lot better than me, can I just tell you? I don't think I will ever understand the voodoo that is the college acceptance scheme. Grrr.....

"Take it easy!"

This wasn't too far off the mark

When CAL and I were in Dallas on our own version of a BYU-I Parents Weekend reboot last week, I posted the following brief screed on the Twitters and the Facebooks:

Ill-fitting tuxes and gowns. Overpowering stench of Axe in the air. Vocal warmups in the hallway. Glee club coach/prison matron with typical big Texas hair raking the kids over the coals for being late. Love it when the hotel you are in is taken over...

Indeed, our hotel had been taken over by a very large high school choir/glee club that was participating in some kind of vocal choral deathmatch. We'd gotten to the hotel the night before quite late and I was crestfallen when I saw the two large buses in front of the hotel. I've traveled far too long to know that buses at a hotel are never a good thing. It's either a group of elderly tourists who will make eating in the hotel an unmitigated nightmare or it's some kind of high school group and no good has ever come of that. Ever. My fears were confirmed when we entered the lobby to the last dregs of the kids checking in. They all carried the enormous pillows that are now the calling card of the traveling American teen and there was all manner of yelling about who had the keys. As we checked in, I gave the somewhat beleagured agent a look that simply pled, 'By all that's holy, do no put us on their floors.' My request was mercifully heeded.

The following morning, as we went down to breakfast, we met the full brunt of the choral bruhaha. Hence the tweet and Facebook page that you saw above. We did not meet the Matron until after breakfast. I'm telling you right now, had I been able to get a picture of her, what you see above would have been her, except she was sporting a bad spiky haircut instead of the "Alice the Brady Maid" wash and set you see above. As we walked into the elevator landing to go back to our room, there she was. The Glee Club Coach/Prison Matron. Shrouded from head to toe in black, she was facing the elevator doors. The toe of her shoe tapped furiously to the beat of the unheard death march that was playing in her head. In her left hand, she held her Smartphone up, time displayed, also facing the elevator doors. You knew this was going to be ugly. As I watched the elevator descend, ticking off the floors to the lobby, I couldn't help but feel badly for the unsuspecting teen songsters. They were about to feel the brunt of a clearly insufficiently caffeinated glee club harridan.

The doors opened and so did her tightly wound fury. Four kids walked off into an onslaught more appropriate for the battlefield in Fallujah than a hotel lobby in Las Colinas, Texas. "Do you know what time it is?" she bellowed. I think one of the boys cowered so hard that I think he went from an alto to a soprano right then and there. "We are late. L-A-T-E! Now get on that BUS!" she hissed. Suffice to say, she was displeased. Glancing over my shoulder into the lobby, which through the haze of the Axe stench, I could see there were still a slew of kids not on that bus, and I thought to myself, 'Lady, take it easy.'

I get it. There are schedules to be kept. There are people to be seen and places to go. Any one who has worked with teen-agers, especially those who teach them (and they deserve to be sainted), knows it can be a bit like herding cats. Sure, some times you need to throw down the hammer. That said, the Matron needed to just take it easy. If only The Boy, or TMFKATB, had been there to say that to her in his obscure accent that he would use on me when saying it. You'll be shocked to know that from time to time, I would allegedly get a little high-strung with my children. Leave it to The Boy to would diffuse it by saying, in that stupid accent, 'Hey, take it easy.' Those little words rattle around in my head even today and I find myself hearing it when I'm in a stressful situation. It's one of those gut checks on how I should react.

'Take it easy.' Try it. It changes things for the better.