Sunday Morning

My voice. I had one. I could say I still have a voice, that I sing. But it's not the way it used to be. 

Well, what is.

Let me get this in here before I forget. I directed a large group of young men and women, preparing them to go down to Salt Lake to sing in the Church's final June Conference. Among the music we learned and sang very well, thanks to me, Lucille Wilson, and those kids, was the Beethoven Hallelujah. Thrilling. 

I also directed that piece with a large stake choir in Nampa Stake. Again, Lucille Wilson accompanying. This morning I heard the Tabernacle Choir sing it, and I wept through the whole thing.

Why? you ask. I can think of a few reasons. Only one is that it is exciting and beautiful. The rest have to do with me.

That's the news

I went to have my hair done today. Yes, I have become one of those women. But that's not what this is about.

It's about Gwen and Blake, whose pictures were on the cover of the People magazine I picked up. The bold teaser/headline/whatever said:

Gwen and Blake
Their Untold
Love Story

I said, "How's that possible?" You know, the untold part.

My hair looks good; it's raining. Gwen and Blake are getting married; she's pregnant; oh joy! Different magazine, same stuff.

Spring Cleaning

It's something the sparrows do. 

They go into that birdhouse Paul built and pull out all the stuff from last year's nest. It sits for awhile on the deck railing, in front of their house, then is blown off or pushed off by the birds. I never see which. 

Just this week, the sparrows have completed the cleaning. Now one of them--pretty sure it's the woman of the house--sits on the railing, and I don't know why. Waiting for what? Perhaps her husband is off gathering materials for a new nest.

I can watch them from my bedroom window. I have not sat there long enough to see more than I have reported here. But I need to. I will.

When I was young I thought people who watched birds were . . .  old, maybe, or stupid, should "get a life." Now I'm fascinated by what these birds and the finches do. Of course, I'm also old.

Making Me . . . Either Sick or Nervous . . . or Both

Just went out to get the mail.

Saw a dead mouse on the garage floor.

How could this be?

How did it get there? And what killed it?

I swept it out to the gutter.

I do not like this.

Part 2 Addendum and One Other Thing

Janice just called to report that, after some research, she is convinced my dead, hairless, headless animal was a baby squirrel. They live quite a while in the nest, she says, and quite a while before getting hair.

Makes sense. I know there is a squirrel nest in one of those pine trees.

She suggests the big wind the other night blew the baby out and some larger animal ate part of it. The head, actually.

This may be the end of this particular discussion.

The Other Thing:

This morning I put my sweat pants on backwards. That's a first. I'd like to say it was dark, but it was only a little dark.

I didn't discover it for an hour or so, and by that time I had my walking shoes on (properly, of course) and didn't want to bother taking the sweats off over the shoes, and so on.

You might think, as I did, that pants on backwards would be uncomfortable. Nope. These sweats are big, Maybe that's why it seemed to make no difference.

Tomorrow I'll be sure to put them on correctly.

The Goings-On At My House, Well, Outside My House

Part 1

I am just in from raking up pine needles. They fall from my neighbor's three pine trees that stand close to our property line. I have filled my garbage can with needles, but I haven't made a dent, as they say. Have to do more some other day. As if I could ever get them all. They COVER my lawns.

Can you guess how I feel about those trees? I could mention that they receive no "care." But why bother?

Part 2

On the sidewalk, directly behind the post my mail box sits on, was a dead, hairless, headless something. I thought, at first, a baby mouse. Too big for that, though. Rat. I didn't like that thought.

It's been there--this is the third day.

Today, while raking pine needles, I called Ron and Janice to come over and see. They agreed, too big for a mouse. He said gopher. I said rat. She said rat. Hard to tell since it had no head. But the internet has me thinking it was a rat.

How did it die? you ask. (I knew you would.)

Ron and Janice said there's been a great horned owl around the last few nights. Ron said ,"Yep, it ate the brains." I didn't ask why not eat the whole thing.

Ron picked it up with a twig from the pine tree, examined it, and said, "Do you want this?" Guess what I said. He took it home. Probably going to dissect it, or something.

Part 3 Way outside my house but in my neighborhood.

I went walking outside today, weather permitted such a thing, and I saw something I didn't know ever happened. The nearby McDonald's has closed. Not one single car in the parking lot, that was a clue, so I read the small sign on the door: This McDonald's will close December 15, 2015.

Heavens! It's February 25, and I'm just noticing.

The name is torn off the building, no golden arches anywhere, the children's play area inside is gone.

The little sign suggested four other nearby locations.

This is quite long

Here's every detail, as I remember it.

In the women's dressing room--temple workers' dressing room--I was putting my packet away when a woman on the next shift, midshift, spoke. She had just put on her white clothing and was really talking to herself because she couldn't find her name tag. I spoke to her and asked where she thought it might be. "At home or in my bag," she said. I said, "I'm going to hope for the bag."

She found it, in her bag, and gave me credit, you know, just kidding. I said, "You're a Tanner, aren't you?" She answered, "Yes. How do you know?" I told her I had seen her before.

As she put on her name tag, I looked to see her first name. Christine.

"Are you . . . " but she interrupted. "I'm not related to all the famous Tanners around here. Too bad because they sound like fun."

I said, "You're probably a decent person anyway. Carlene is her name, right?"

"Yes. But my husband is not from here. He's from Milford."

"Milford, Utah?"

"Yes."

"I've been there," I said, which we both agreed was quite remarkable because Milford is not famous or big or even known at all by most people.

So we were connected, sort of.

I said, "My roommate married a Tanner. She was from Carey, a Benson. Lauralie Benson."

"Lauralie Benson married my husband's brother, Gary."

Now that got me. Small world, as they say.

I said, "Wow, I feel like we're kind of related."

Then she told me Lauralie's husband had died soon after they got home from their mission. He had severe dementia. Lauralie, she told me, is doing fine.

I asked, "How's your husband?"

"He's just fine," she said. "One brother died of cancer, one of dementia, another of cancer."

"Is he the only one left?"

"Yes, but he's fine."

It is all quite remarkable to me because two days ago I was thinking about Lauralie. Our speaker in Sacrament meeting was from Carey, so I told him I'd been there and mentioned the names I knew from there: Benson (That's Ezra Taft Benson's brother, Valdo, Stake President and Lauralie's father), Barton, as in John Barton, Lauralie's boyfriend when she was my roommate, and as in Barbara Barton, John's sister--who married Blaine Tingey--and who was our other roommate.

At that time I could not remember Lauralie's married name, Tanner. I remembered it last night, Tuesday. So is it weird? Or was it "meant to be" so that Christine Tanner and I could make this little connection? Not that we'll be long friends, just that such things are very nice.