Familiar

I spent three hours on the road this morning driving home from Central Utah. As the sun rose over the East mountains and lit the rural streets of Salina, the sunlight on the slightly shaded barns sent long dark oblique shadows across the adjacent pastures. Shadows of cows became stretched boxes with squatty angled legs and horses elongated into giraffe caricatures. I drove alone, both in my car and on the road, and the Autumn air muffled the waking noises of the small towns. I remembered travelling to Panguitch as a child along the same road long before the faster route was built. The boarded up café at the Levan turnoff seemed to wake as I passed by and I saw 1960’s cars parked along the road waiting for their turn at the drive-thru. The morning sun glinted through my side mirror and I blinked away the image of that familiar yesterday as I made the final turn toward Nephi.

The Sweet Smell of School

The air smells like linseed oil on redwood getting ready for the early snow storm and yeast foam on Oktoberfest beer. It’s the time of year when the sun sets before it’s ready to say goodnight so it lingers on the East mountains until the very last minute until it’s past time to relent and say goodbye to the valley. It’s September, when sweat drenched kids start to smell like new corduroy and leather shoes and waddle to school with over sized backpacks filled with nothing. I braked for a red-flashing sign this week as the summer squash bus spewed sixth-graders and their siblings; then I took a deliberate breath to see if it smelled like rotting leaves yet. Soon, I suppose, but the Indian summer may linger a while longer until quaking aspen begin to change from green to lemon yellow and the backpacks start to bulge with new Scholastic books, Elmer’s glue and rotten apples.

A Matter of Perspective

As I drove to work yesterday near the Jordan River, I came upon a gaggle of tiny white chicks in the middle of the road. I squinted to see them better from 200 yards away as they spread themselves across both lanes. They were a square dance in unison; weaving among each other in little short lines; tipping, and bowing and doing a happy do se do. Like a mirage dancing out of hot August asphalt they flew up then fell, then up again. There we so many that they could not move out of the way of an oncoming car and my heart sank as many of the dancing chicks were scooped away.

The car passed with no concern of stopping! And as I neared, fearing a melee of tuffs and feathers I was surprised by the rise of white packing peanuts blowing in the morning wind.

Random Acts

We try to be a charitable family, so when Kristin and I tried to do five random acts of kindness one Saturday afternoon, we discovered that five are hard to do if you aren't proficient in philanthropy or charity. Aside from the several minutes we spent shopping, then donating, we hardly moved the kind-o-meter.

Our failure got me thinking of a couple things I could do to fill my karma bucket between major philanthropy opportunities that don't come along every day. I've been leaving pennies in parking lots and hoping someone feels the small rush of luck I do when I pick up one. We set books free on airplanes, park benches and train stops hoping the titles call out to someone to take them home. And I discovered that an, "I like your shoes," in elevators makes anyone smile all day.

Word Play

We love words. Our family discusses, writes, and plays with words. It’s who we are. Talk, quip, read, chatter, confer and utter. We are novices, but words mean something to us. We spell, speak, verbalize thoughts from letters. And occasionally we say what we feel.

On a recent Girls’ trip to the beach we blogged, wrote, and talked for a week about whatever flew across our minds. The last day we stopped at the restaurant at the airport for a last beverage and chips.

We four women, forty- and fifty-something, sat in a booth next to another Girls’ group: sixty- and seventy-something. We typed out last minute emails and text messages to our daughters (twenty- and thirty-somethings), before we boarded the plane while the sixty- and seventy-somethings played a ferocious bout of Scrabble. Between sips and munches, I watched the sixties and seventies quip back and forth and marveled at the difference of how we cherished words. Generations use them differently to say the same thing; connecting to others in whatever way works.

However that works for you, say, “I love…,” to all your generations.

Trading Service

Recently, I spent a week in Southern California and shopped at Trader Joe’s several times. If you don’t know Joe, he runs a successful food store chain that dots cities up and down the Pacific and Atlantic Coasts. Their slogan says that they won’t steal your money; they are not “Pirates.” And it’s true. I watched an employee jog from car to car in the parking lot looking for a customer that had left their $.99 item at the checkout stand. I recommend Trader Joe’s to a lot of people.

Two days after my last Trader Joe’s purchase, I was in Chicago on business. Our company has a contract with a particular Car Rental so we are highly encouraged to use their service. Their slogan says that they are trying to be the number one car company, but my car experience with them will be my last. After seven separate really bad screw ups I decided to talk to the Customer Non-Service Representative to get a refund for my GPS non-service. He insincerely asked how I enjoyed my car experience, so I told him. I’m not sure if he decided to give me a full refund before or after I described how the parking attendant threw the car keys at the windshield.

Trader Joe made true customer service a part of the store’s culture. His service is actually the best; he doesn’t just try to be better.

Primary Care

Many years ago, Kevin’s eight-year-old little sister spent late October in Primary Children’s Hospital awaiting possible surgery to explore a massive lump on her neck. Their mother juggled time between being home with Kevin and his younger brother and being at the hospital with Sister. It was a lonely time for Sister and she missed Kevin terribly.

Halloween came; the lump remained, and doctors made plans to do surgery the following day if the lump had not reduced its massive size. Although Mother reassured Kevin that his little sister was being taken care of by loving nurses, he fiercely wanted to do something special for her. So Halloween night, he set off with a starched pillowcase intent on gathering candy galore. He ran from house to house through the late evening hours hollering, “trick-or-treat for my sick sister,” and filled the pillowcase half full.

The following morning Mother surprised Sister with Kevin’s love surprise, and Sister surprised Mother with a smooth lumpless neck.