Rice Cereal Adventures

My newest niece is one optimistic little kid.  She has a bright outlook that just amazes me.  Here are some examples of that from this weekend.

(1) During church, she spent most of the meeting trying to eat the flowers on her mother's shirt.  She'd look at the flowers and pick at them with her hand and then pull them forward to put into her mouth.  Invariably, she would always end up chewing on her own hand, which she would happily do for quite a while.  Then she'd pull her hand out of her mouth and open it to look at the flowers only to find nothing there and then look completely shocked.  Undeterred, she'd start the whole process over again.

(2) At one point, I was taking care of her while her mom did something else so I took her in my room and set her on my bed so I could go pick up the teddy bear and moose I have.  I turned back to see her completely flopped over, her face planted into the futon.  I hurriedly ran over to pick her up and apologize - I didn't realize she couldn't sit up by herself yet.  However, she didn't complain at all or even fuss (in contrast to later, when I wanted to see her flip over and purposely put her on her stomach when she complained quite a lot).  She seemed to know it wasn't my intention.

(3) While walking back from my personal tour of UVa which ended up being a longer than anticipated walk, my niece woke up and was tired of being in the stroller so her mother started carrying her.  It was getting dark and chilly and surely, she had to be getting hungry and in need of a diaper change.  However, because my sister was carrying her, my niece only smiled.  In fact, it was such a big smile, my sister and I just laughed to see her.

(4) After dinner on Sunday night, we had brownies and ice cream for dessert.  My brother-in-law was holding my niece while he ate his portion.  Suddenly, we noticed that every time he got himself a spoonful of ice cream, she opened her mouth really wide like she was expecting him to give her a bite.  Her eyes would follow the spoon all the way into her daddy's mouth.  Rather than get frustrated that she wasn't getting any, she had this look on her face that seemed to say, "Oh, that bite was for Daddy.  The next bite must be for me!"  And then she'd open her mouth really wide again.  It was adorable and hilarious.  If it wasn't ice cream which she really can't have, we would have been tempted to share with her.  We think she thought it was for her because it was the same color as rice cereal that she gets to eat.  But she's never seen her Daddy eat rice cereal so we were quite taken back by her willingness to share or think that they should take turns.

(5) On Monday, while at the restaurant, she grabbed her mother's water glass and tipped it all over the table.  While we worried about the water and the ice she had pulled onto her herself, she just kicked her feet happily in the mess.  We watched her while we picked up the ice and then just laughed.

(6) Whenever my niece fell asleep and awoke to find herself in new surroundings, she would panic for a second before her parents showed their faces and she realized that she hadn't been abandoned in some random place.  While in the bookstore, she woke up and panicked for a moment and then her mom said her name and she settled down.  Just at that moment, a little boy stuck his face in the stroller and close to my niece, "Hey Mom!  There's a baby in here!"  He was so excited at this revelation and he didn't try to touch her or anything that we just chuckled at him and my niece didn't seem too ruffled by it at all. Later, in another store, she saw her mom and just started giggling in joy.  She was so excited to see her mother's face.  It's kind of adorable how much that baby really adores her mom.

Here are a few pictures of my adorable, optimistic niece.

She discovered books this week - she thinks they are for eating

She likes grabbing for everything

Look at those baby blue eyes but we think they are here to stay - she has her mother's eyes

Sleeping Beauty 

33 度 C

This morning, I faithfully toted my bike up to the road and got on it to ride to work.  That was when I realized that the back tire was completely flat.  Busted inner tube and I didn't have a spare.  I sighed and lugged my bike back down to my apartment and propped it up against my living room wall.

"Well, I'm going to think of this as a good thing rather than a huge inconvenience.  Something great is going to happen today."

No one was on the streets today.  Except for one man who locked his car and started walking ahead of me down the sidewalk.  The competitive part of me immediately calculated how long it would take for me to catch up to him.  Then I noticed how put together he was, his shirt and shorts, his backpack all in shades of brown or gray; everything about him was neat and orderly.  This man did not wake up and throw on some clean clothes and just head to school (which is how I managed to prepare for my day).  Everything he did, every action he took had purpose.  I followed him, willing my feet to match his pace and it was then that I realized he swung his arms with a certain carelessness that surprised me.

I chuckled to myself to imagine what kind of friend I would be in his life.  I'd be this whirlwind of disjointedness who flits in and out of his life with ebb and flow of busyness in my life.  Then, as I got closer, I realized that I had done just that.  A few years ago, when I was helping with teacher development, I had attended a few weeks of an atmospheres and weather lab.  It was one of those small labs where it was pretty much impossible to not be noticed so I pretended instead to be a student, happily took quizzes that I failed (one I aced and still have it hanging up in my office), took notes on the lecture and then jumped into the lab work with my new lab partners who assumed I was making up for a missed lab in a different section the first class and then started asking more questions the second class.  By the third class, this man (the neat one) had asked if we wanted to study together for the next midterm.  I never went back.

Now, here he was, walking now just a few steps in front of me.  I suddenly got nervous and shy and decided  to split ways before he noticed me.  I stepped off the sidewalk and, waving my arms self-consciously, ran over to the funny light intersection and pushed the button like I always do, balancing on the curb.  I lost my balance and jumped off the curb to find the man right at my elbow.  I was listening to music so his sudden presence startled me even more and how did he come up so quickly?  We both waited, not looking at each other, waiting for the light to change and then he charged as soon as the cars were gone while I waited for the walk sign.  This meant that after all, I was following him anyway.  I knew I would catch up to him in about thirty seconds but I was too shy to scoot past him on the sidewalk.

I kept kicking myself for not saying something.  I could pretend to be a student again, "Hey, weren't we in the same Environmental Science class a few years ago?"  Except that I had hated lying to him the first time around.  And I wasn't even sure what the lingo among undergrads was for that type of class.  I thought about  simply trying to strike up a conversation but starting one five minutes into the walk seemed awkward.

Why are you so awkward, Erin, I asked myself.  Wouldn't it be great to make a new friend?

Except that it wasn't somehow enough to convince me to take a chance.  But somehow, following him was enough for me to decide that he's going to be the protagonist of my next story.

I guess this is the real reason why I write: to befriend the people I'm too scared to in real life.

The Talk of the Town

There is a sign on McCormick Road that reads: BRIDGE CLOSED TO THRU TRAFFIC

This is what that bridge looks like:

Yep, there's not a bridge.

It was taken down this week and my friends and I all just marvel at it.  In my seven years in Cville, I've gone over that bridge literally thousands of times.  And now it's just gone.

It's funny how much construction goes on all the time here.  My friend and I tried to think of getting anywhere in town that didn't run into a construction area and we couldn't - at least not anywhere that we would normally think to get to.  So, you'd think we'd all be used to it and not even bat an eyelash at a bridge disappearing.  But we do - in this case, mostly because we're hoping our instincts don't try to lead us across a road that no longer exists.

These Days

わたし​は​自​の​真上に、​太陽​の​輝き​に​も​勝​輝いて​いる​​光​の​柱を​見た。そして、その​光の​柱​は​次第​に​降りて​来て、光​は​ついに​わたし​に​降り注いだ。そして、その​光​が​わたし​の​上​に​とどまった​とき、わたし​は​筆紙​に​尽くし​難い​輝き​と​​栄光​を​持つ​​二人​の​御方​が​わたし​の​上​の​空中​に​立って​おられる​の​を​​見た。すると、その​うち​の​御​一​方​が​わたし​に​語りかけ、わたし​の​名​を​呼び、別​の​御方​を​指して、「これ​は​わたし​の​​愛する​​子​で​ある。彼​に​聞き​なさい」と​言われた。

If you want, I can recite the entire above paragraph to you.  I've memorized it and I repeat it to myself on my daily commute now to keep practicing.  

It's Joseph Smith's First Vision in Japanese, which is the same thing that missionaries memorize.  I decided to memorize it because when I was in Taiwan, people would perk up when I got to that part.  The description in the old Chinese translation (that I learned) was beautiful and people would just stare at me, "Wow, your Chinese suddenly became perfect."  For the first time, they could focus on the words and not try to understand what I was saying.  

Since Japanese is incredibly difficult for me, I thought this might be a way to start to practice the cadence of the language without stumbling over trying to make a coherent thought along with saying the syllables.  It only took me a few days to learn it (easy to do since I walk for 80 minutes a day).  

Yesterday, I ran (yes, I went on a run) to visit my dear friend and gloated to her.  "I can say the First Vision in Japanese!  I memorized it."  

Her response?

 "I love that this is your idea of relaxing - to go memorize something in Japanese."  

"You might need to learn some more Japanese to accompany that, such as, 'Joseph Smith said this.'  If this is your way of proving to Japanese people that you're suddenly fluent in the language, what will they think when you tell them you saw two personages in a pillar of light?  They'll think you're crazy."  

Touché.

Off to learn more Japanese.  

On a Wednesday

Here's a short story for you:

It was nothing like he had expected.  One hopes, of course, that the arduous hike to the top of a mountain will be rewarded by grand vistas and the feeling of accomplishment.  As he reached the summit,  his entire body trembling from exhaustion, his skin burned and flaking with salty residue from his sweat, he looked around for the grand moment, that feeling that he "had arrived."  Instead, he found a five year old kid staring at him, bug-eyed,from her perch on a rock and a crowd of tourists tumbled loudly off the elevator, pulling out their cameras to click, click, click.  "Oh, it's so pretty up here!"

Small Elephants Sometimes Forget

My lab ran out of gloves last week.  That was expected - we were running through so many with pump repair, it was only a matter of time.

My lab partner and I found a pair of reusable rubber gloves in a bucket somewhere and started using those.  They quickly got covered in oil but as we worked with different chemicals to clean off pump parts, we had no choice but to pull them on again, rather than risk damage to our skin.  

The gloves are still usable but they are so dirty and greasy and oily that you can't do anything without leaving brown smudges on everything you touch.  And trying to use those gloves to clean something? 

Forget about it. 

So, today, I started trying to clean up the lab and get it organized for the continued pump repair.  I carefully wrote a list of things we needed: gloves, o-rings, a stainless steel plug for the vacuum chamber, shop cloths, and degreaser.  Then, I went up to my office to order the materials.  

As I typed in gloves, I suddenly remembered that there was an unopened box I had received over a week ago from a supplier.  I already knew it had bolts in it that we did not need any more so I just left it, under my desk.  

However, suddenly, looking up gloves on the online ordering page, I had a feeling of déjà vu.  Had I already ordered gloves?

I leaned down and retrieved the box and opened it.  Sure enough, I found the bolts but also two boxes of nitrile gloves.  

At that, I just wanted to put my head in my hands and just cringe at my forgetfulness these days.  But as you can see, my hands are too dirty.  

Can You Feel the Love?

Lately, I've been in a Lion King mood.  Have you ever really paid attention to the lyrics of Can You Feel the Love Tonight?  I am not sure if the Broadway version differs from the movie version but I'm sharing the Broadway version, since that is what I have been listening to.

Simba sings: So many things to tell her, but how to make her see?  The truth about my past?  Impossible!  She'd turn away from me.

A hero not being completely honest and being afraid to be so?  This is kind of a common theme with Disney movies, right?  Cinderella runs from her prince before he finds out her name.  Aladdin gets his genie to make him a prince so he pretend he was a prince pretending to be a beggar.  Mulan cuts her hair.  Ariel gives up her voice.  Aurora's parents whisk her off to the woods.  The Beast holes himself up in his castle.  The whole Disney world, it seems, is full of secrets.

But what are the secrets they are trying to cover?  Well, in the case of Cinderella and Aladdin, it seems to be poverty.  In the case of Mulan, it's that she's a woman.  With the Beast, it's that he's a man (and not an animal).  With Ariel, it's her identity as a mermaid.  And Aurora?  Well, she's so innocent, I don't think she realizes she has anything to hide but her parents do.  They are hiding that she's a princess.

In most of these stories, the thing they are ashamed of or keeping a secret are things that are seemingly harmless to us.  So, you're poor.  And?  You're a woman.  Or a man.  And?  You're a mermaid - ok ,well, I've yet to meet one of those.

I'm not downplaying the moral of their stories.  There is something absolutely terrifying for anyone in any story to expose their whole selves to another person.  It a moment of vulnerability for even the rich and perfect that cannot be understated.  We like these stories because we all hope that someone will see us, truly see us for who we are and love us anyway.

However, in most of these stories, what they are hiding is not because of what I would consider anything they've really done wrong (with the exception of the Beast who was mean to an old lady once).  However, in the Lion King, that feeling is different.  Simba thinks he killed his father.  We know he didn't  but that doesn't remove his guilt.  As far as he knows, the previous king was killed because of him and then, rather than face up to his actions, he ran away.  (Again, this is not quite true since we know they wanted to kill him too but you get the point.)

For years, he has avoided this part of his life.  He's pretended it never happened.  But deep down, he's still terrified of facing his family, facing his past and ultimately, facing himself.  There's a lot riding on the line for him to open up and confess this to Nala.

I can get behind such a character and such a dilemma.  Certainly, I've never been in his situation but I've definitely done the wrong thing and regretted a lot in my life.  For me to have that vulnerable moment one day with someone who I hope will love me, I am absolutely terrified.  In the exact same way, I am scared stiff they'll turn away.  I keep thinking they'll wish they hadn't even tried to get involved.

I love though, Nala's thoughts on the subject: He's holding back; he's hiding, but what? I can't decide.  Why won't he be the king I know he is, the king I see inside?

It's the response we want someone to have even before we've uttered a word and laid bare the ugliness we see in our souls.  We hope desperately that someone will see something in us that is good, that they will look beyond our weaknesses and our shortcomings and see our potential to be something absolutely great.

I think that's the definition of love.  I also think love will be the thing that gets us through those vulnerable moments.  Our loved ones will come to understand our flaws and weaknesses, whether we tell them all our doubts and worries and sins or not.  But in their eyes, the negative does not ultimately define us.  Instead, they can help buoy us up and lift us until we can see for ourselves the good that we hold within us and help us to bring it out.  Can you feel the love?

I hope so.