For my friend, Kim, who doesn't talk politics online

A few days ago my friend, Kim Shakeri, posted this on facebook:

"Loralee, remember this? It's not dated, but you write inside that
you and Bruce were "going steady" and Melanie's daughter Stephanie was just born. Does that help with the year?"

(Actually, Kim, that tells me almost the exact date. Stephanie was born on August 18, 1985. I said the 19th on facebook, but I was one day off. Bruce and I had our first kiss the day after Stephanie was born—that was on the 19th.)

The funny thing is that I've been thinking about Kim a lot lately. She must have felt the vibes and started looking through her old stuff, and found this card.

It's also funny that the caption on the front of the card still says it all: "I would have written sooner BUT..."

...but I still just feel like I have nothing to say. I feel that way most of the time. But I'd like to be writing, so today I'm going to talk about Kim and me (...myself?).

I was kind of a lonely little kid for a while. My older sister, Melanie, didn't like me for a long time. You'd think that the baby of the family, the only girl after five boys, who held that prime position for five years, would have been thrilled to have an adorable baby sister to dote on just like everyone else did.
But, no. Melanie wasn't very nice to me a lot of the time, for a long time.

Look how cute they all were!
Notice how none of them can stop staring at their darling baby sister! What was Melanie's problem?! ;-)

The girl I played with the most when I was little was probably Kelma. She lived around the corner from us, was my age, and our moms were friends; it was a predestined friendship until her family moved around the time we were in first or second grade.

I had another friend, Wendy, who was there at the same time as Kelma, but she lived a little further away—around the block which, I guess, was a little too far for me to roam by my six-year-old self. Wendy was an on and off  best friend: there were long periods (probably anywhere from a couple of days to a week!) when she was "never going to talk to me again!" for some offense or other. Little girl drama.

Wendy shocked me one day when we were maybe nine or ten,  and had been on good speaking and playing terms. As I remember it, she asked me who my best friend was; I said she was. Then she told me that I was not her best friend; her best friend was Natalie—who didn't even go to the same school as us! (I didn't even know where Natalie lived; she visited in our classroom a few times that year... Hm. I guess that was kosher back then.) My poor little feelings were very hurt that day.

Still, Wendy was the friend I played with the most. We played at each others' houses, had sleep-overs, caught horny toads together... when we were being friends.

But in sixth grade Kim Shakeri moved into the neighborhood. This was destiny! We had a slow start, but once we got together we were pretty much inseparable. We were both in the highest groups in our school classes, had the same fairy-tale visions of how life should be, and... we just really hit it off. We did practically everything together through sixth and seventh grades. Summers were sad—for me—because she spent them in California with her dad. We wrote each other pretty regularly—not only as ourselves, but as each character of the games we played together. Getting back together in the fall was sweet!

1979
Not just to me, from Kim, but all of our aliases too.
And, a 15-cent stamp.

And then the terrible thing happened: Kim moved to California to live with her dad permanently.

Now, eighth grade is an ugly time. It just is. Kids are growing up enough to try to figure out who they really are, and how they really fit in, but they are just not very good at it. It was a really ugly year for me because I'd literally just "lost" my best friend.

(Fortunately for me, Melanie and I started to be good friends around the time Kim left.)

I had other friends at school, but not a "come to my house and share all my secrets" kind of friend. Well, there was one girl, Rachael, who could have come close...except that her mom thought that a house with five big brothers—the youngest of them twenty years old, and two of them who were sailors!—was not the place she wanted her little girl to hang out. We saw the insides of each others' houses maybe three times in the five years we knew each other.

Even though I adored dance and piano before, I think Kim's going away may have pushed me into full immersion. At the end of that eighth grade year I auditioned to be the ballet pianist at my dance school, and got the job. When ninth grade started I spent every day, from 4:00 to 10:00—from 3:30 to 6:30 on Fridays—at the dance studio. I was either in a class or accompanying one. (I had an hour break on most days, when there was a tap or jazz class that I wasn't in, but it wasn't enough time to run home or go hang out with a friend. My friends at the studio were my two sisters and LeAnn, who was my teacher and employer. Again, I had plenty of friendly acquaintances there, but...)

Anyway, Kim and I were reduced from "inseparables" to "pen-pals." And I was a pretty lousy pen-pal. I know this because I was going through a box of "Letters from Kim" today, and one-third to one-half of her letters to me started with something like, "I was starting to think I'd never hear from you again!" (Sorry, Kim.)

The strawberry stationery: July 21, 1986
"Dear Loralee, Well. So you are no longer among the missing."
Oh, man!

This was partly because I really didn't know what to write about.
"Reading 'Crime and Punishment' in AP English. Worst book ever."
"Went to dance all night. We're doing pieces from Swan Lake again this year; I'm in Pas de Quatre this time."
"Had a piano lesson on Thursday before I went to dance. Learning 'Wedding Day at Troldhaugen.'"
...That's pretty exciting stuff right there.

I wasn't super interested in boys yet; Kim was starting to be. I didn't have lots of friends to talk about; Kim did. I hardly watched TV because I was hardly ever home; Kim adores good TV and movies. (Consequently, Kim often asked me what I thought of  this-and-such good-looking actor, and I had no idea who she was talking about.) I listened to classical radio; Kim was talking to me about pop songs and singers. I still loved my dolls and fairy tales; Kim was moving on to real, live people and British literature. I just didn't know what to say, and the longer I went without writing, the more difficult it got.

Despite my own silliness, Kim and I are still friends. She still sends me a Christmas card every year. (I'm crappy at Christmas cards—or any cards...) And she's one of my best facebook friends. I find we are interested in a lot of the same things still—cooking probably taking top spot. She's a little crazy about dogs; I feel a little bit crazy...
 And... She never talks politics online (or COVID-19, these days, which is the same thing). Well, at least I've never seen her talking politics. And I appreciate that so, so much because I am often drowning in it here.

Anyway I've been wondering lately if my life would have been different if Kim had been around while I was a teenager. Kim attracts and keeps friends; I could have been part of that circle. When Melanie, who became my best friend, got married (when I was fifteen) Kim could have been there to still be my best friend. Would I have lived my life in the dance studio, or would I have backed off a little? That's super, super hard to say. It's possible that I would have felt out of place with Kim's new friends, I'd have retreated into the dance studio and, while we'd still be friends, it wouldn't have been the same as before. Who knows?

Kim and her oldest daughter, a few years ago.

At any rate, I'm glad she still considers me a friend now. <3

My birthday request

Day before yesterday (Friday, April 3) I saw so much about corona virus all over facebook—as I do every day. I saw companies taking even stronger measures to implement "social distancing." I heard of a foreign leader telling the police to shoot anyone who breaks curfew—even to kill them if "necessary." (Because that will help the death-toll.) My friends and family posted many (too many) variations of "stay home" which, although the words themselves sound innocuous, have an underlying voice of doom-mongering, imply that we are uncaring and irresponsible, or even go so far as to threaten us with everything bad if we should darken our own front doors.

By the end of the day I felt weighed down, and my mind seemed dark. I went to bed wishing I could cry and cry and cry. At 2:37 I woke up and couldn't get back to sleep; by 5:00 a.m. I was finally able to have that cry. I never did get any more sleep for the night.

Saturday morning I joined with members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to watch our general conference and hear the words of our prophets and apostles. Despite being exhausted from a night of very little sleep, I felt the weight lift from me. The world seemed a better place. I gained some peace.

This evening our prophet, Russell M. Nelson quoted Matthew 17:21:  "Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer and fasting." He further said, "I invite all, including those not of our faith, to fast and pray on Good Friday, April 10, that the present pandemic may be controlled, caregivers be protected, the economy strengthened, and life normalized." 

Most of you, my friends and family, probably saw this same conference session, and heard President Nelson's plea. Many of you are probably already planning to fast on April 10.

For the rest of you, I'd like to ask personally that you do this—as a birthday gift to me. (Yep. My b-day is April 10.)

In our church we try to fast for 24 hours—or skip two meals. During this time of fasting, we pray for whatever blessing is needed (a growling stomach is a good reminder that it's time to pray ;-) ). To make it an even better fast, we use the money that would have paid for those two meals to help someone in need. Instead of donating money, perhaps  you could check up on someone who might be lonely, donate TP or food to a neighbor...

It's up to you to decide the best way to do your fast. The personal sacrifice and the prayer are the important things.

If you can do this on April 10, I would be grateful. If you choose to join the fast, invite your other friends to participate too. I don't need replies, or want any kind of written commitment here. I'm just asking, as a favor.

Thanks,
Loralee

Virtual Reality

The other day my friend Sharla posted this on facebook:

She is, of course, talking about COVID-19. Which I didn't think I'd be writing about, but it has been kind of a big deal.

Since I don't watch TV at all, and I don't search for the news on my computer either, I pretty much get all my information second-hand. This means I don't know what's going on until someone else tells me about it, someone on facebook starts talking about it, or until there's suddenly no toilet paper in any stores. (And then I start doing some research...) So I can't give you all the facts, or the dates, but if you really need to know I'll bet you can look it up online—even twenty years from now, unless the world comes crashing to a halt.

COVID-19: (also known as CoronaVrius) Is the new super-virus that's going to wipe out the planet. Please don't correct me if I'm wrong, but I hear it started out in China (saying that makes me a racist these days...). It spreads super-fast, and could possibly mutate just as quickly. Because it's new, we don't have a vaccine or super-medicine to super-kill it. Super-Duper!

The worry is that, because it spreads so quickly, the healthcare systems won't have space, equipment, or enough staff to take care of everyone who contracts this virus which, in certain groups of people, can be deadly.

I had no clue two (three?) weeks ago that there was a possibility we'd be told to stay home. Forever. Did everyone else know this? Because the first thing I saw—around March 6 or 7—was that there was no toilet paper on the shelves of any stores. No TP, no "flushable" wipes, no Kleenex (facial tissues—like anyone calls them that...), and only a couple cases of paper towels.

It's like this everywhere. Still.

 I guess bottled water made a sudden disappearance too, as well as all kinds of household cleaners and disinfectants. Huh?

But by now people were talking. I kept hearing more and more about it...all conflicting.

The biggest thing, though—and the one everyone agreed on—was, "Wash your hands and don't touch your face!"

And then we weren't supposed to meet in groups larger than one hundred people. Sixty people. Ten people.

Then on March 12 the church (my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) announced that we would be cancelling all meetings for the next two weeks (two weeks being the supposed incubation period for coronavirus). Soon that changed to "until further notice" (not how it was stated, but that's what it meant). Then temples started closing (this is a pretty big deal). Then they started sending missionaries home from the foreign countries where they were serving. This is a pretty big deal too.

Around March 12 we also found out that Rachel's college class would shift to an online, at-home class. This was a bummer because of the four concurrent college classes Rachel took, this was the first one with a teacher in her classroom instead of one teaching from a remote campus. :-(  Later that day she got a text message from the library, where she works. The library would be closed for two weeks, or until further notice. "At least," Rachel said, "I still get to go to school." Well, no. Public schools were shutting down for two weeks. (During the second week of staying home, they announced that public schools will be closed until May 1, or possibly later.) 

There was a run on the grocery stores like I've never seen before—canned goods, pasta, rice, beans, flour, sugar...all gone. Some (non-food) stores are closing. Restaurants are closing. Theaters are closed...

"Social Distancing" is in full swing. And coronavirus—or anything related to it—is all people can talk about. Memes abound:

This, by the way, is not factual...

 

SOCIAL DISTANCING:

We all sit here complaining about "social distancing." Or complaining because we don't think people are doing it. Well, we are! Don't get me wrong, I miss my friends. I would love, at any time, for people to drop by my house to visit; most of the time you don't even need to call first (there are some times that I might not be home...). And I—even I, who am naturally more reserved—always wish that, as a whole, we were more social.

But, really, what we are doing now is only—or only needs to be—Physical Distancing. You'd think that with facebook, skype, portable telephones, email, and , yes, even the US Postal service, we could remain social (definition: marked by or passed in pleasant companionship with friends or associates).

The thing is, we weren't necessarily all that social before.

I mean, this does give you a little dopamine hit, but real words are so much nicer! And, yeah, I am guilty again.

I had a friend who blamed our antisociality (is that a word?) on garage door openers: We drive into the garage, close the door, and head into the house, never talking to our neighbors. I've heard people blame it on the lack of a good front porch: We don't sit out on our front porch and say "hi" to our neighbors as they pass any more. People have blamed it on smartphones: Our noses are so glued to our phones at all times that we don't notice the people in front of us. And I like to blame it on facebook: Cat memes and videos are pretty great, but they don't tell me anything about...anything.

And maybe that's all true.

A Modest Proposal:

Let's use social media to be—get ready for this...

...Social! Not just now, but all the time! Radical, huh?

Facebook could be pretty fabulous for actually keeping up with our friends. Whaddaya know? Instead of re-posting the old *chestnut memes (yeah, I am guilty of this), let's talk about our lives. Let's ask our friends about their lives. I actually love Sharla's question (way up at the beginning of this very long post). It was a good question, and she got some really good answers. We could do that all the time! (!!!!)

*"chestnut [is] a figurative term meaning an aged and moldy joke." ~Mark Twain

So, if you've stuck with me this long, let me tell you how my family is doing with Physical distancing:

It's hard to say how much it's really affected us. We are a family of readers and game-players and that hasn't changed, although we do miss the library.

We got a Big Boggle game last Christmas, and Bruce and I have been kind of obsessed with it. We play it most nights. We've learned that the more of our family that joins the game, the lower our scores get, and if Rachel, Kaylie, or Jessica play with us, we are toast! We play other board games together, too. This is nothing new.

Sometimes we gather around the piano and sing together. With a family of—eleven now!—we almost have a choir of our own, although a bit heavy on the bass. This is also nothing new.

Well, if we're all singing around the piano I can't take a picture of us doing it! But Rachel plays the piano a lot throughout the day. That's not new either. Just nice.

I do all the cooking from scratch—always have; Physical Distancing hasn't changed that. The new thing about cooking is that some ingredients are pretty difficult to find due to all the panic-buying. I didn't play the "buy out the stores" game because I was too clueless...and I wouldn't have anyway.

With all the kids at home cookies, brownies, and home-made donuts are more prevalent in the house. That's a little bit different.

Flour was my big worry for a while. But this week a local restaurant posted on facebook that they had flour (among other foodstuffs) that they would sell to the public. What a great idea! Maybe this can keep them afloat until they can open for business again, and, although I paid more than I would have at the grocery store, I got a 50 lb. bag of flour. With that staple in the house, I feel a lot better.

Here are some things that have changed:

I cleaned my oven yesterday...for fun! Well, at least it was satisfying. It kept me busy, kept my mind a little occupied and my hands working. And it looks pretty spectacular! And, yes, that is different. The last time I cleaned the oven was six months ago.

Another change is having church at home, but we've been prepared for that. Last year (Jan. 2019) the church asked us to focus on having more home-centered, but church-supported, gospel learning (instead of church-centered and home-supported). We have tried to take this to heart and have scripture discussions with our family at least once a week. It's been really nice. I do look forward to being able to meet with our friends at church again, and the temple being open again, but we have some really good Sundays at home.

Michael has been saving money for a long time to get himself a Virtual Reality set and he was finally able to buy it about two weeks ago. It arrived at our house just before we were asked to never leave home again. So we've all—even I have!—been having fun with that. I'm kind of in love with Beat Saber: in this game colored cubes come flying at you; each cube has an arrow on it (pointing up, down, right, or left—sometimes diagonally). You are holding two lightsabers, matching the two colors of the flying cubes,  and you have to slash the cubes in the direction it's arrow points. All this is done in time to music. So the VR has been way fun! And maybe, when the quarantine is over, Michael will let me have some friends over to play with it. :-)

That is not a look of boredom on Ryan's face, I assure you. He's having fun! It is a look of fierce concentration as he plays Beat-Saber (which you can see on the computer monitor). You can also see Bruce reading upstairs, to your left.

My kids get to sleep in, which means that I get to sleep in! And I've discovered that I don't just naturally wake up at 6:00 every morning. Well, I do, but only briefly. When I don't have to get up, I sleep until 8:30 or sometimes even 9:00, and I don't need a nap by 1:00 or feel desperately tired all day long. This is lovely, lovely, lovely. Aahhhh!

There may be more; I don't know. We've had our little moments of anxiety and boredom. We miss seeing our friends in person. But overall, our family is doing great!

And now here is my question for you: How are you and your family doing?

Who can I trust?

Here is something I wrote in September of 2016, that I feel is pertinent now:

Yesterday morning I woke up and glanced at the clock and thought I saw that it was 5:30 a.m. I did not want to be up that early, but I was awake, so I got up. (I realized, after an hour on the computer, that I’d actually gotten up at 3:30.) Everyone else was asleep, so I went to look at facebook where I was bombarded with political memes and the bickering that always follows them. As I read, I suddenly thought of Joseph Smith’s history. It struck me that his words—with a few changes (from religion to politics)—were very applicable here:

For, notwithstanding the patriotism which the voters for these different candidates expressed at the state primaries, and the great zeal manifested by the respective parties, who were active in getting up and promoting this extraordinary scene of political feeling, in order to have everybody vote, as they were pleased to call it, let them join what party they pleased; yet when the voters began to file off, some to one party and some to another, it was seen that the seemingly good feelings of both the candidates and the voters were more pretended than real; for a scene of great confusion and bad feeling ensued—politician contending against politician, and voter against voter; so that all their good feelings one for another, if they ever had any, were entirely lost in a strife of words and a contest about opinions.

During this time of great excitement my mind was called up to serious reflection and great uneasiness; but though my feelings were deep and often troubled, still I kept myself aloof from all these parties, though I followed their several campaigns as often as occasion would permit. In process of time my mind became somewhat partial to a third party, and I felt some desire to be united with them; but so great were the confusion and strife among the different parties, that it was impossible for a person such as I was, and so unacquainted with men and politics, to come to any certain conclusion who was right and who was wrong.

My mind at times was greatly excited, the cry and tumult were so great and incessant. The Democrats were most decided against the Republicans and Libertarians, and used all the powers of both reason and sophistry to prove their errors, or, at least, to make the people think they were in error. On the other hand, the Republicans and third-parties in their turn were equally zealous in endeavoring to establish their own tenets and disprove all others.

In the midst of this war of words and tumult of opinions, I often said to myself: What is to be done? Who of all these parties are right; or, are they all wrong together? If any one of them be right, which is it, and how shall I know it?

As I said, I wrote that in September of 2016.

Today, February 23, 2020, with the whole political and election season hard upon us again (if the craziness ever really did die down from the last time) I’ll add these quotes by President Russell M. Nelson:

“You don’t have to wonder about what is true. You do not have to wonder whom you can safely trust.”

“If we will truly receive the Holy Ghost and learn to discern and understand His promptings, we will be guided in matters large and small.”

This time of politics is wearisome enough, with all of the mud-slinging that goes on. Let’s not add to it by bickering on facebook. This is not the place for debate, because without body language, vocal inflection, and facial expressions to help out, it’s difficult to tell whether you’re engaged in a “friendly discussion” or a bout of verbal fisticuffs. By all means get together with your friends and family, face to face, on both sides of any issue, and discuss it like you are friends and want to stay friends—please do! But let’s be above the fight.

And as you work on making a decision, remember who you can really trust.

  

The difference between my mom and my dad

I love my mom. She is a great person—funny, generous, and smart.

I love my dad. He is a great person too—witty, intelligent, and kind.  

Mom and Dad were alike in the important things—shared beliefs and values; hard workers; loving; good parents; great people. But they were also very different from each other. Here are a couple of illustrations for you:

This picture was taken of Mom at work,
about ten years before this story happened.

1.  Bruce and I started dating about a year after I got my driver's license. He was surprised that I couldn't drive a standard transmission car. Well, I'd never had to drive one; I always drove my mom's automatic. But when he said he'd teach me, I thought it would be pretty cool to learn, to have my boyfriend teach me, and to be the only girl in my family who drove a stick-shift.

So Bruce taught me to drive a stick, mostly in my dad's Ford Ranger, and I did really well! So well, in fact, that I was confident to drive it all by myself one day. I don't remember where my mom's Subaru was for the day—maybe out for a repair, maybe my dad had it; I don't know. But one afternoon only the truck was around, and I wanted to go hang out with Bruce at his house for a while. So I told Paul, that I could get Mom from work that evening if I could take the truck over to Bruce's house. (Paul was supposed to pick Mom up.) And I drove that truck right on over to go see Bruce. Perfectly smooth. No jerking starts or stops, just smooth sailing all the way there. Bruce was proud of me! Then, just before 5:00 I drove over to my mom's office to pick her up; again, it was a smooth ride. I felt pretty awesome. And wouldn't Mom be surprised to see that I had come to get her in the truck all by myself?

Oh, she was surprised all right! Not surprised like, "Wow! Look at you, driving the truck!" but more like, "What in the world are you doing driving Dad's truck?!" and, "I hope we make it home in one piece!"

Well, I was instantly nervous. And it was rush hour, stop and go traffic all the way home. And I killed that darn truck every time I had to stop, and had a hard time starting it up again every single time, and Mom kept up an anxious, worried scolding the entire drive. To make things worse, our bishop had been behind us the entire way, and that weekend he laughingly told my mom that he was sure whoever was driving that truck had stripped all the gears. Which she then told me as proof that I should not be driving the truck. And I never did again.

This picture was probably taken pretty close
to the time these stories took place.

2.  On the day I registered for my senior year in high school—while I was at the school, actually—my dad had driven the motorcycle to work and was in an accident. He broke his ankle pretty badly. I don't remember if he just had to stay home for a long time, or if he was just home this day, or what. But anyway Dad was home, and I was home (hm... it must have been before school actually started back up, then)... and he needed to stop at his workplace for something. I had driven Mom to work (in the automatic transmission Subaru), so Dad asked me to take him to work, and I did, and of course made it there without incident.

On the way back home we were driving down the freeway, which was wide open and empty... except for the car that was directly in my blind spot. So we're flying along at 55mph, Dad's reclined in the passenger seat, and I need to move left so that I won't be in the exit lane. And I didn't see the one. single. other car on the entire freeway for miles. Now, this guy could have moved into the next lane over as he honked his horn at me, and he could have flipped me off, and sworn at me, but he didn't. He just laid on his horn and stayed right where he was. I, on the other hand, had a near heart-attack, and over-corrected, yanking the steering wheel hard to the right. And as I'm racing toward the freeway barrier, I freak out again and yank the wheel hard to the left, making a swooping, speeding arc toward the left barrier. Once again I pull the wheel to the right, braking this time, and shrieking out my best horror-movie, blood-curdling, "we're about to die" scream as we come to a stop about a foot away from the right-side barrier. And after a second, Dad looks over at me and calmly says, "Did that scare you?"

And that is the difference between my mom and my dad. ♥