Now Playing in the Honda Pilot

Frances Ruffelle, Les Miserables

Julie Andrews, My Fair Lady

Idina Menzel, Wicked

I've long held it as a one of the great disappointments of my life that I can't really sing. I'm passable in a choir or for a lullaby, but beyond that the"pitch problem" becomes intrusive.

This was hard in my theatrical days because no matter how much grace or passion or stage presence you can muster, if you make the audience wince, you're out of luck. I spent my first semester at BYU pretending to be a Music Dance Theatre major, weekly humiliating myself while trying to belt in front of a group of musical prodigies.

Much of the growing up I had to do as a Freshman involved trying to reconcile my faith, optimism, and the famed Lindsay work ethic with my very real physical limitations. I could spend the rest of my life cloistered in the Hinkley Hall basement practice room, but I was never going to sound like Celene Dion.

So instead I married Wade, whose voice is my favorite of all the sounds in the world. Sometimes I tease him because he notoriously jumbles lyrics while I know every one. The injustice rankles. But because he is without guile (a prerequisite for any truly gifted singer or dancer) he sings for me anyway.

And in the life we've built together, where I am an often mediocre laundress, chauffeur, and short-order cook, I remember those college days when I daily struggled to know my destiny. I earnestly believed it was to be where I am now, and I knew this life would require the most vigorous preparations I could muster. I was right, and yet some days I feel I'm not living said destiny with that same earnestness in tow.

All of this is to say that this morning I was driving the Pilot blasting Peter, Paul, and Mary when Thomas put in a request for "If I Had a Hammer" (communist that he is). I sang with abandon. And when it was over he said with wide eyes, "Mom, you're a star."

I could have danced all night.

Devil or Angel?

Today’s deliberation is inspired by Costco, purveyor of discount milk, fruit genetically engineered to perfection, and most of the clothing in my home. I have sat many a midmorning at the Costco food court, sipping my refillable 59-cent 20 oz. Diet Coke watching the parade of carts. Sometimes I scoff at the line of drones wandering the temple of consumerism, until I think, Ooh! Could I splurge on one of those gorgeous orchids?

And so a tribute to Costco the Conundrum.

Costco, My BFF:

· Extra wide parking spaces and two-seater carts

· Employees with a strong collective sense of customer service and personal hygiene

· Dunford Donuts *

· The flowers—cheap enough that Wade often brings them home, abundant enough that walking through them this morning I felt like Eliza Doolittle

* see also Costco, The Devil

Costco, The Devil:

· Dunford Donuts

· Annual rebate check sent attached to annual renewal notice, often the amounts are the same

· The tower of chocolate delights in December that displays gym memberships in January (this is not nearly as cruel as the kitschy lingerie displays Wal-Mart now has up in place of last month’s marshmallow snowmen)

· Because I remember I need toothpaste while I’m there, what could cost $1.97 sets me back $19.97

Is Costco a merciless mercantile machine that singlehandedly creates and fulfills my desires, or is it just offering a helping hand as I navigate the inevitable spending of a middle-class American family?

Whichever it is, I’m sure to end up there again soon. But I’ll be armed with a force more powerful than the world’s collective marketing genius—my agency. And a cheap soda.

Potato Blight

I figure one of the perks of being the YWP in my ward is that I can let the weekly service clipboard pass right on by. So Sunday, when the empty slots on the massive funeral signup winked plaintively at me, I deflected the guilt and thought of spending more quality time with my boys.

So began the Potato Blight.

Tuesday 10:25 am: Sister Bushman calls. Could I please bring 25 baked potatoes wrapped in foil on Thursday at 11:30 following her dear friend’s funeral? Guilt’s thrust to my parry.

Tuesday 10:30 am: I scribble “25 potatoes, 11:30”on my calendar and resolve for once in my life to successfully bake potatoes. Not underdone. Or withered. Or with sprouts coming out of them.

Tuesday 10:00 pm: I make it to Target for the day. I buy napkins, binkys, a white shirt for T’s portrait, and replenish my chocolate supply. Then I get distracted trying on a polka-dot dress that I decide against when I realize I look like a Dalmatian.

Tuesday 10:30 pm: I get home sans potatoes.

Wednesday 8:30 pm: YW activity is over for the night. I consider running up to Harmon’s to get potatoes but remember Wade has to hurry over to clean the church and help the Elders with the piano I roped them into hauling upstairs to the YW room.

Thursday 9:35 am: My hair is wet and I really don’t want to go to the grocery store.

Thursday 9:40 am: T really doesn’t want to go with me.

Thursday 9:45 am: Neither does John.

Thursday 9:45:05 am: I preheat the oven in a too-little-too-late attempt at planning. Will 450° work in a pinch?

Thursday 10:08 am: Picking up a bag of potatoes (and just a few quick extras) totals $53.00.

Thursday 10:15 am: Potato chaos. Foil everywhere. A 10-lb bag has exactly 23 potatoes. Johnny crying. T needs to be wiped.

Thursday 10:29 am: Potatoes in oven. Decide against 500°.

Thursday 10:36 am: Johnny in crib. T playing Legos. Me passed out on couch.

Thursday 11:24 am: The potatoes are kind of hard.

Thursday 11:27 am: Sister Bushman calls. The funeral is running short.

Thursday 11:31 am: How close to criminal neglect is it that I’m at the church and Thomas is in my basement? I toss the potatoes into varied warming bins so they won’t be sure the underdone ones are mine. Maybe a few more minutes in the foil will help?

Thursday 11:35 am: I remember the healing meal the RS served after my grandpa’s funeral.

Thursday 11:40 Thomas gets a lunch of Cheetos and licorice.

Into the Woods (one of my favorite musicals) opens with a series of platitudes, including, "A slotted spoon doesn't hold much soup." In the second act, that idea (along with everything you thought you knew about fairy tales) is modified to say, "The slotted spoon can catch the potato."

I sure hope so.

Pedestrian

pė-des’tri-ȧn

• adj. dull; prosaic.

• n. a walker.

Just another way children prove the everyday miraculous.

P.S. In honor of Johnny’s new talent, I spent the morning pretending to be Beyoncé on Sesame Street (check it out here). Somehow shuffling around in my blue fleece jammies doesn’t have the same vibe.

On the Potter's Wheel

Among the many awesome gifts I got for Christmas this year, one was particularly thoughtful. It was from Marissa, my tutee (a terrible word) and friend (a much better one). It was dishes. Painted with blue flowers. That she made with her own hands.


Marissa made them last semester in her pottery class, and she told me a few things that have helped me feel more connected to the craft. (Before that all I had was Ghost with “Oh, my love, my darlin’” and trying to blink down beautiful tears like trashy Demi Moore.)

First, one of the hardest things about working with the wheel is centering the clay. If you don’t get it on right at the beginning, the whole thing will be off balance. Next, it’s hard to make big things. What starts out large continually winnows down, often even if you don’t want it to.

I imagine the lessons that can be learned from the potter’s wheel are as varied as the pieces it can produce, and they are lessons a real artist spends a lifetime learning and expressing.

As the happy recipient of an artist’s gift, I’ve been wondering about some of its applications for me. How’s the balance in my life? What sorts of things am I creating? How am I being shaped? I hope the answers I live will be like the ones my mom has found in the words from the Shaker hymn “Simple Gifts”:

To turn, turn will be our delight
‘Till by turning, turning we come round right.

And even if it is artistic heresy to evaluate creation in terms of function, I’m glad the bowl didn’t turn out any bigger. It fits perfectly in my kitchen display nook. I see it all the time and think of my friend.