Sundance

I had Tizzy with me in PArk City Saturday night, but when she saw Scott at church Sunday, she defected to his group and went to Orem, along with Freestone.  Araceli had taken Frontrunner down Saturday afternoon to sleep over at Golda's apartment.  I love that she can do that!  It's fun for the kids to see where Golda went.  They're a little hazy on the whole concept of college.  The other day, Ptolemy said, "Is Golda just living with another family now?"  Sad!

Scott drove the kids on the Alpine Loop and stopped at Sundance to admire the leaves.

Panda for dinner!

They ran into Lisa and cute little Tate.  They're such a neat family.  I wish we saw them more often!

This is a neat quote by Robert Redford about Sundance.

This was Saturday night when the girls (and Ptolemy because he's cute) were in PC.  Scott took Freestone to a movie, then dropped him off at the Haj for a big Magic the Gathering tournament.  It was one of those release parties and Freestone's new deck had a super rare card in it, that's worth $300.  We're going to try to sell it Friday.  Scott was a good dad to stay out until midnight so Freestone could finish the tournament.  He came in 31st out of 31 people.  He quipped, "I did better than I thought!"  Freestone is funny.

This was Scott sending pictures to Tizzy one day because she didn't think he should be at the office when he could be home with her.  That night when he walked in, Tizzy said, "Dad, throw me in the air like you just don't care!"  These kids are so funny, and so great.  It's nonstop fun around here, I tell ya!

Kokanee

Emily and Josh did a hike up to see the Kokanee salmon spawn, and gave us detailed instructions about how to get there and what to look for.  It was Sunday afternoon, Scott and some of the kids were in Orem with Golda, and the rest of us had come down from Park City for church.  We weren't quite ready to leave the mountains, so we went back up after church, to see the salmon run.

The hike goes from Causey Reservoir, and the sign says it's 2.3 miles each way.  I have my doubts whether that's accurate, as it took us an hour and 20 to hike in and an hour to hike back.  Two days later, and I'm starting to feel it in my thighs!  (That might also be all the grand plies I held yesterday at Nutcracker practice.  There are lots of plies in the Chinese dance.  I'll have to remember not to hold them so long or vigorously while I'm explaining them.)

Sunday was perfect weather for a hike.  Causey is pristine and stunning, as if you're in the Northwest, with all the spruce trees and thick undergrowth along the trail.  I kept saying, "Let's pretend we're in the Redwood Forest," or "Let's pretend we're in the Alps."  Ruby said, "Let's pretend we're right here."  Point taken, Ruby.  Right here is good.  It's beautiful, and there are infinite trails to explore within an hour's radius from our home.  Xanthe set a good, fast pace for us, and we thoroughly enjoyed our time.  Even as fast as we walked, Xanthe was faster.  She kept having to walk back to see where we were.  That kid is all muscle!  She probably walked twice as many steps as I did, with all the doubling back.

When we reached the creek, salmon were indeed fighting their way upstream.  It was late in the season, and many fish were dead and bloated, their bodies wrapped around rocks or caught on branches and sticks in the water.  This little fish was stuck on a rock, so I picked it up and pointed it upstream.  It struggled for a moment, darting a few feet before floating back downstream to once again get hung up in an eddy, swirling helplessly.  Having completed its life's purpose, procreation, it was free to drift, its life force ebbing away as it drifted downstream.  It was an honor to be there for the farewell, standing ankle deep in cold water, away from human strife and care, witnessing life at its most pure and essential.  Live, spawn, die.  Mission accomplished.

As humans, our mortal mission is more complicated, to be sure.  Still, it gave me peace to watch the salmon so steadfastly dedicated to their simple purpose.  The salmon seem so close to God in that mountain paradise, fulfilling their role in the circle of life.  Watching them, I had to wonder if maybe, just maybe, we're overthinking this existence.

Flat Courtney

We had a visitor for a couple of days.  Her name is Flat Courtney from Clovis, California!  She got the chance to see what it's like to live with a Utah family who has a mom, a dad and seven kids.  Oh, and one dog, one cat and one fish.  Flat Courtney got up early Friday morning with Araceli and me, the mom, Circe, and went to cello.

Elliott, the cello teacher, thought it would be funny if Flat Courtney hung out with the Halloween decorations.  Musicians have a nerdy sense of humor!

Flat Courtney didn't want to go to junior high after cello, and I don't blame her!  She wanted to see some sights, so Tziporah took her to Salt Lake's #1 tourist destination, Temple Square, headquarters of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  The grounds and the temple are beautiful, and the fall weather was perfect.

A missionary introduced Flat Courtney to the Christus statue, which is a majestic replica of a statue by Bertel Thorvaldsen, in Copenhagen, Denmark.  Speaking of Denmark, Flat Courtney met missionaries from all over the world during her visit to Temple Square.  There were many from Spanish-speaking and Chinese-speaking regions, the two languages that most tourists to Utah speak.

When in Salt Lake, one must sample some goodies from the Lion House Pantry.  This traditional restaurant is located in the historic Lion House, where early LDS church leader and prophet Brigham Young lived with his very large family.  If you visit there, you will hear stories of some Utahns' pioneer ancestors crossing the American plains over the Oregon Trail in covered wagons or pulling handcarts.  Shen they reached the Salt Lake Valley, they irrigated the land and created a beautiful community.

After Flat Courtney's day of tourism, she accompanied Xanthe to her piano lesson.  She sat on the piano so she could see if Xanthe's fingers were nice and round.

She said hi to Xanthe's dad at his law office.

Flat Courtney helped the kids practice their music, then dropped off Freestone at ballet, and Xanthe at Nutcracker practice.  She will be a Sugarplum in the Nutcracker this year.  Flat Courtney wanted to go to ballet class like everyone else, but she...was too flat.

Friday night was a special night to be a visitor with the Dopp family because it was our turn to host Chinese Playgroup!  In case you haven't noticed, one of the Dopp children is adopted from China.  Her name is Xanthe, and she has a big group of friends who were also adopted from China.  Flat Courtney got to accompany them on a hayride at our local waterslide and mini golf have, Cherry Hill.  There were some not-so-scary skeletons to spot along the hayride.  Afterwards, there was cider and donuts and LOTS and LOTS of giggles!

Saturday morning was Utah Youth Symphony rehearsal for some of the kids and more ballet for others.  Flat Courtney went to youth symphony because it was in the big city, and she wanted to see the Utah State Capitol and the University of Utah on the way.  Go Utes!

Flat Courtney really loved hearing a Brandenburg Concerto on a Saturday morning...

...but she got hungry, so she skipped down the street to Einstein's Bagels and got a baker's dozen.  That's a lot!  I hope she shared!

Later, Flat Courtney went to a baby shower, and a birthday party for the Dopp kids' great-grandmother Nana Ruby, who turned 99.  Hooray for Nana Ruby!

Then there was a visit to Circe's violin shop, where this lucky girl got to try out some violins and buy one to take home.  She is going to be in her school's orchestra.  By this time, Flat Courtney knew all about orchestra, but she knew even more about bagels.

Flat Courtney, being a girl, got to go to Park City, in the mountains, with all the girls in the family, for a special Saturday night retreat.  There was a meeting being broadcast live to all the girls in the world, talking to them about their unique potential, all the important things they can accomplish with their lives, and all the ways they can help and serve others.  Girl power!  Oh, and there was ice cream.  Everything is more fun with ice cream.

Sunday morning Flat Courtney went on a hike in Deer Valley before leaving the mountains.

The drive back down to the Salt Lake Valley was beautiful because of all the autumn leaves.  Flat Courtney and Ruby jumped out of the car to admire one of our favorite local landmarks, a pair of granite slabs called "Devil's Slide."

The Dopp family was so happy to have Flat Courtney with us for a few days.  Next , bring the whole class!

Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate! {Stomps Foot}

Nana finally did it.  She hit 99.  "Only one away from a hundred," she says.  It was a beautiful fall day here in Utah, maybe like the day Nana was born in Fillmore, in central Utah.  Her mother wrote a poem about what a bad idea it was to have a baby right during canning season, when she already had 18-month-old twins.  It was a cute poem, bursting with wry humor.  Although Nana's birth came at an inconvenient time canning-and-bottling-wise, she has been a saint on earth for 99 years, blessing everyone around her.

Dance party!  Nana and Coco showing Tizzy and Ro some moves.

Chocolate!  

When Coco and I arrived at the Villas for Nana's birthday, Marilyn, Clark and Owen were just leaving.  It was already a full day for Nana!  We brought a platter of brownies and cookies, all chocolate of course, my recent conversation with Nana notwithstanding.  See, my whole world view has been shaken this week.  I said to Nana, "What kind of cake do you want for your 99th birthday?"  It was a rhetorical question.  DeBrys love chocolate.  Period.  (Unless you're talking about Aunt Marla's lemon dessert.  A special exception has been made for anyone who wants to worship that fluffy confection despite its lack of chocolate.)

Nana's answer was, "If Opa were here, he'd say chocolate."  The hairs on my neck tingled.  Some sort of primordial alarm was dinging.  I pushed it a little further and said, "What about you?  Do you love chocolate as much as Opa?"

Nana sat politely.  I remembered the adage, "Don't ask any questions you don't want to know the answer to."  Then Nana said diplomatically, "Nobody likes chocolate as much as Opa!"  I was mildly concerned that maybe my whole life has been a lie.  Perhaps Nana's favorite flavor isn't chocolate!! And to think that Nana's chocolate chip cookies on Sunday nights had been my link to sanity all through high school.

The next day, I went through the same conversation, but when I asked Nana if she liked chocolate as much as Opa, she paused and then answered, "Chocolate is just universally loved."  Nana was hedging!  I bet if someone were willing to pin her down, we might discover that she secretly likes strawberry or caramel or - gasp - vanilla!  I, for one, am not asking anymore!  I don't think Nana would ever willingly admit an allegiance to any other flavor anyway, just out of sheer adoration of her late husband.  And really, who among us DeBrys has had much of an opportunity to taste anything but chocolate?  How would we know if we liked something else?  It's better not to test those waters.  Avoid the very appearance of white batter.

Hence the platter of chocolate-chocolate chip cookies and chocolate brownies with chocolate frosting.  You can tell I was feeling a slight bit defensive of chocolate.

Is that a look of love or a look of indifference?
We may never know.

Chef Izzie made a special cake for Nana.  Izzie, that cake had better be brown on the inside.  If not...heaven help us.  Stay strong, Nana.

BEST FRIEND

I was talking to some friends about the junior high years, and what we as parents could do to make them successful.  None of us really know.  It's different with every kid, and to some extent, junior high just has to be endured.  It's not always the smoothest transition.  Awkwardness abounds.

I posed the question to Araceli, "My friends are wondering what a parent can do during junior high to help their kids.  What should I tell them?"

Without hesitation, Araceli replied in her emphatic way, "Be their BEST FRIEND.  Because you lose a LOT of friends during junior high and it can be confusing, and you KNOW your mom and dad will ALWAYS be there for you."  (Araceli talks in all caps sometimes.)

I was taken aback by the directness and clarity of her answer.  Thoughts went through my head like, "That's not what the experts tell you to do..."  Then I looked at my beautiful daughter.  SHE is the expert.  She's living junior high every day.  Those hallways can feel like a war zone, and it doesn't stop when you leave the school.  Kids are connected by social media 24-7, for better or for worse.  It's not something you can fight against.  You have to adapt in the healthiest way possible, and that takes considerable mindfulness, not denial.  It takes the presence of someone "older and wiser" to direct you through the muck.

Araceli has lost friends, she has gained friends, she has been confused, just like she said, by people who she thought were friends.  All of her peers are developing and making mistakes, just like she is.  I always tell my kids, when they're having trouble with a peer, "This kid is not fully developed emotionally.  Give your friends time, and give them the benefit of the doubt.  They're trying."

Araceli's answer was spot-on, I think.  Scott and I try so consciously to log the time with our kids that will make them understand that we WILL always be there for them.  From stopping at Fiiz on the way home from ballet to taking that extra 15 minutes at night to be still and listen.  Diving into their interests and drawing them into ours, we do try to create points of common ground, hoping that we eventually have a whole safety net of shared experiences, strung together with the hours and hours, gained minute by minute, that reassures these struggling adolescents that we see them and we care.

I don't know exactly what Araceli means by BEST FRIEND, but I intend to listen and pay attention so that I can fill that role just the way she needs me to, while making room at the table for her peers.

Painting the Golden Gate

Ruby wanted to drive to San Francisco last week, and I can't blame her.  I completely relate to the restlessness that the existence of San Francisco can create.  The gleaming bay is right there, just at the other end of I-80.  And it IS possible to get there from here in roughly the time it takes to finish your homework, brush your teeth and get a good night's sleep.  You could, technically, be looking straight up the towers of the Golden Gate Bridge in a few short hours, inhaling the misty scent of eucalyptus, thrilling to the gastronomical possibilities of that hilly city, which are right in front of you because you just got in your car and drove.

And yet, you're here still, even though you COULD leave.  It makes a person restless, I tell you!  What makes it worse is when you look at your calendar, framed in as it is with classes, rehearsals, lessons, things you have to be present and accounted for.  Your windows of time are like portholes, tiny ones that you can't see the whole picture out of.  Ironically, your life is like the Golden Gate Bridge, or rather the maintenance of it.  Is it true that the bridge is continually being painted, and that by the time the painters reach the far end, it's time to start all over again?  It's true here in this Sisyphean suburb, where it's time to pick up kids just as soon as you've dropped them off.  Time to eat dinner just as soon as lunch is digested.  Another kid throws up as soon as the recovered one goes back to school.  And you know that the minute you finish a stack of homework, more will magically appear in its place.  It will never end, ever.  The completion of a task seems to create another task.

While you're pushing that big rock up the eternal hill, you wonder what would happen if you let it roll down.  Maybe you'd be free, and then finally, you could get in your car and drive west, to see if it's true what your grandfather Opa told you in 1978: "That big road that goes as far as the eye can see?  It leads all the way to California."  He had a bad case of wanderlust, Opa did.   I remember so well his face when he said that, squinting out into the horizon, telling me stories of "'Frisco,"  It's an old-fashioned word that always reminds me of Opa.  I thought he was just a story-teller with some good material.  Now I understand that his restless soul stretched as far as that road, into the distance.  I was one of his cans of gold-orange paint, one of the many reasons he didn't just let that rock roll down the hill and go to "'Frisco."  He and Nana Ruby had their adventures, to be sure, but mostly they stayed here to roll on that paint, coat after coat, for their children.  That's why I remember Opa.  He was here.  He didn't set down his paint brush and walk away.  He knew where his treasure was, but he also never stopped dreaming for a second.

I think Opa would approve if Ruby and I just took one tiny road trip...

Lunch With Dancers

Ruby is in charge of the Dance Company lunch schedule this year, so I nabbed the first date of the year.  I love having these girls over!  I wish it could be more often. They do lunch together at someone's house every other Friday, when they have rehearsal right after.  Since they only have a half hour for lunch, the food has to be plated and prayed over by the time they start arriving so they can immediately dig in.  All of the moms do an exceptional job welcoming the girls and feeding them.  It's a real highlight of their week to relax in someone's home and be fed at a beautiful table and taken care of.

This Thursday and Friday, the night before and the night of the lunch, was the Davis High Performing Arts Spectacular.  Dance Company did two pieces.  The first one was described by the choreographer as "my most minimalist piece.  There's hardly any dancing!"  And it was 12 minutes!  Even for modern dance, that's pretty long.  It's incredible that these dancers have the maturity to sustain 12 minutes of material that has no counts and very little choreography, yet has to convey to the audience the idea of the piece, which happened to be transformation.  Each dancer also had to invite a civilian in street clothes to perform the dance onstage with them, with no preparation.  I think the piece blew the audience away.  I'm sure some of them felt like they were in an alternate universe.

The other piece was beautiful, too.  Dance Company this year includes a young man, Gabe Adams, who is missing his arms and legs.  Watching him dance is powerful.  He has the stage presence of a true dancer, yet his physical limitations are on display in a stark way that pushes the audience hard to scrutinize their own preconceived notions of what dance is, and what the limitations of dance are.  Maybe dance truly has no limitations.  Maybe physical differences can be overcome to a greater extent than you previously imagined.  Having Gabe in Dance Company is a huge boon to the dancers, as well as the audience.  I love that he is part of the group, and I love how readily he was accepted by the girls.  These young women are, collectively and individually, so talented, driven, hard-working, kind, open-hearted, generous and grateful.

I made chicken caesar salad.  Here's the recipe:  marinate the cooked chicken in Italian dressing the night before, and the cooked pasta the day of, then toss it with all kinds of good greens, tons of fresh romano and parmesan, and caesar dressing.  Plate it and throw a twist of fresh ground pepper and some croutons on top.  I served it with an apple, so they could take the fruit with them in case of a time crunch.

Dessert: chocolate chip cookies.  Our ovens have been broken for a year and a half now, so I'm way out of practice with baking, but Ruby said the dancers really like chocolate chip cookies, a predilection I can completely identify with.  So I took four batches of dough to my mom's house where my mom and I proceeded to turn out batch after batch of horribly disfigured cookies.  The ones that melted into a giant cookie, I turned into pizza shapes.  Some were square, some were extremely fluffy.  All of them were delicious.

Ruby, Abi, Natalie, Lauren, Alise, Amanda, Emily

My mom is the classiest.  I'm always tricking her into helping me.  After making cookies at her house, I "forgot" the forks I wanted to borrow, so she brought them over.  Then of course, she had to stay and help me pour juice and plate salad.  Thanks, Mom!  WWIDWOY?

First place for funniest cookie.  It looks like it has flames coming out of its head.