Christmas 1999

I have to apologize for not writing last year. We let our lives get out of hand and soon the season had passed us by. One of the reasons I didn't write is that in September of 1998 I was called into the Bishopric again. It is truly a great opportunity for growth and a chance to work with some wonderful people. As a result of that my Wednesday nights are now spoken for and I had to quit the Eleanor Kennard Choral. I miss singing with a group on a regular basis and I miss performing. I got to where I looked forward to performing a solo every once in a while.

In my spare time (what little there is) I do my best to neglect auto and home repair and maintenance and the financial business of the household. One of the tasks that has really become onerous for me is that of paying the bills and reconciling the monthly bank statement. A couple of years ago when I broke my clavicle I tried to get Lenore to take over these tasks. She utterly refuses and it's due in part to the trouble she has working with negative integers.

Both Lenore and I have become somewhat regular viewers if not bidders on eBay. I'm always looking for bike parts that are lightweight, made of exotic materials, or have lots of cachet. Lenore managed to find a set of porcelain plates with cat faces on them that she had years ago but had fallen out of her possession. It's amazing what you can find and if you are patient, you might get a really good deal. This is my kind of recreational shopping.

For some reason I had not done much pleasure reading for years. Earlier this year I found that I was watching too much pointless TV. So, in the late spring I started reading again and since then have finished about 20 books, mostly science fiction and most of those were written by Orson Scott Card. My parents are both now retired and will be leaving for Nairobi, Kenya in January to serve a Church Education System mission for the LDS Church.

Lenore has been kept very busy this year as the PTA president at the elementary school. Like most things, she got roped into it because a good friend asked her to do it and she meant to shake her head no but it went yes instead. She tries to keep a cheery outlook despite all the things that have to be done and all the tasks that get handed down from upper level state and national PTA big wigs. I think she actually does a good job and it seems she at least has most of the parents and school administrators fooled into thinking so too. She has also been serving as one of the Gospel Doctrine teachers in our ward. It's a duty that she enjoys. Most of us agree that it is the best job in the church. She also directs the ward choir.

Lenore's passion for reading has turned lately to books on the O.J. Simpson trial. If any of you want to know the minutest detail about that topic or the Jonbenet Ramsey murder feel free to bring up the subject with her. She loves to sound off on them whenever given the chance. What she hasn't learned from the numerous books she has read on the topics she has picked up from Rush Limbaugh or Dr. Laura Schlessinger. Actually, I'm proud of her many interests that step beyond the mundane.

Lenore has also taken on a job where her rewards are not merely spiritual or emotional. She has begun work at the elementary school as a teacher's aid 15 hours a week. She genuinely enjoys doing this kind of work. Plus, it was the easiest solution to the Principal's constant requests for suggestions of who could fill the role. In her spare time she has put together a children's book that grew out of a rainy day project she did with the kids a couple of years ago. She's trying now to wrap it up and get someone interested in it.

Ailsa has finally gotten braces on her teeth and is quite pleased with herself. On her second visit to the orthodontist he placed a rubber band on her front two teeth to close her Lauren Hutton gap. By the next morning it was gone. I know teeth move more easily sideways. But, I was very surprised at the speed with which they moved on her. She has really taken off in the sixth grade. For a couple of years she struggled at school. But, now she is bringing home very good grades and is the top reader in her class. One of our biggest challenges with Ailsa is keeping her from growing up too fast. That's both figuratively and literally. She is now about 5'3". She loves to "play" with make up and wear heels that are much too tall for her. A couple of weeks ago she spilled a bottle of bright red nail polish on our cream colored carpet. We now have a slightly pink stain in our bedroom.

Jensen is now in the 4th grade and may have finally caught on to the fact that to get good marks at school you have to do the work. She is absolutely obsessed with Pokemon. There are times when I feel a parental edict proscribing any "P" word would not be out of line. This craze is even worse than Ailsa's Animorphs mania from last year. Jensen lives to play with her many friends and loves to spend time playing games on the computer in the basement. We often have to call her to dinner several times using our sophisticated home intercom system (We yell through the heater vents.)

Our pets are doing fine. Maxine still doesn't know a weekday morning from a weekend morning. She is so used to her routine that she will often come into our room on a Saturday morning complaining that we still haven't gone in to wake up Ailsa. When she is bored she will open a drawer in the girls bathroom and choose a hairband to play with. We find them everywhere. I see her with one end in her mouth and one end in her paw. I can only imagine what happens when she accidentally snaps herself in the face. Ruby has always liked to sleep on our bed. When she was young she would bolt at our slightest movement. Now she is so used to it that she won't budge for anything. She often ends up occupying one third of our queen size bed while Lenore and I are crammed into the rest.

Ptolemy (Tully) is the most feral of our cats. But, he has become quite a bit more sociable. He is still often very wary and thinks you are going to turn on him. But, when he's feeling secure he will come up to you and ask to be petted. Lately he has to taken to chasing his tail which is quite comical. Cleopatra still is at the bottom of the pecking order and has to withstand some bedeviling from the two older cats. When she gets nervous she just blinks her eyes at you.

Besides the rats we also now have a hamster. We had a bit of a stalemate trying to name her. I wanted to call her Barbarella. But, everyone else wanted to call her Alice. So she mostly gets called Alice and sometimes BarbaraAlice. She has escaped from her "habitrail" type cage several times. Once she chewed through and a couple of times we suspect that visiting boys and girls or our own naughty children left the latch undone. We have found her sleeping in one of my tennis shoes, down three flights in the furnace room in the basement all dirty and on death's door (she recovered remarkably), and in the floor of Ailsa's room. That's in not on. She crawled into a hole in the wall under the sink and made her way down into the floor. Fortunately Lenore could hear her and she responded to Lenore's voice.

Please let us know how you are doing. We like to keep in touch. Our e-mail address is twlilly@deseretonline.com