…the woman learns how to do “man” things. I hope no one is offended by my labeling some tasks as MAN tasks. But I guess my point is that these tasks can be accomplished by both genders.

I have considered the poor response to my interview post and come up with two conclusions.

Either

1. All the readers of this blog are humble and don’t consider themselves worthy of an “interview”.

Or

2. The readers of this blog have no confidence in my interviewing skills.

For the sake of my self-esteem I will you give you the benefit of the doubt and assume it is the former. But, I refuse to post again until I have three more subjects willing to be questioned.

Trust me, you are interesting people.

Did I mention today is my birthday?

My friend Krista was “interviewed” on her blog, and I enjoyed reading it because the questions were not a standard tag, but unique to her. She offered to interview me so here it goes:

1. I know you are a jogger. I am curious to know how long you’ve been doing it and can you honestly say you enjoy it?

I’ve been jogging off and on for a few years, but the last few months I’ve really committed myself to it. Do I really enjoy it? That’s complicated.

Jogging is tough and sometimes I dread it. There are times when it is miserable; it hurts, it is exhausting, my muscles get sore.

But then there are moments I love it. I love jogging outside when the sun is shining. Because jogging is hard it makes it all the more satisfying. Maybe it is the endorphins or maybe it is the sense of accomplishment or maybe the health benefits. But put all those things together and I can definitely say I enjoy it.

2. We all know how crafty you are! What inspires you?

Other people inspire me. In fact, I’m honored that people think I am crafty. Mostly I am just a copy-cat. I’ve yet to come up with a project that isn’t a version of someone else’s invention.

3. What are you looking forward to most on your trip to Peru?

I’m a consumer. I value material posessions. But I don’t want to be this way, and I am hoping that my visit to Peru will give me the opportunity to observe the ways people find happiness unrelated to money and objects. I am also hopeful that my service there will bless or enrich the lives of the people I meet in some way.

4. I remember from your list of 101 Things about you that you love board games. What is your favorite?

That is a tough one. I go through phases where I have favorites. Growing up my family played the game Acquire and I always looked forward to that. I like games with strategy and lately I’ve been into the game Ticket to Ride. I don’t think I’ve ever played a game I didn’t like.

5. Would you say there are any perks to having a husband who travels?

Yes. Richard’s company is good to the employees, so when I have the chance to go with him we are able to stay in nice places and eat at nice places. He also accumulates frequent flyer miles and hotel points… which I look forward to cashing in. The sort of lame perks, but perks nonetheless are that I don’t have to cook as much, I get all the hot water, the whole bed to myself and he can watch football while I watch old movies and foreign films. __________________________________________________

If you are interested in having me give you a few interview questions for you to answer on your blog, be one of the first five people to follow these instructions and I’ll be in touch.

INSTRUCTIONS

1. Leave me a comment in this post saying, “Interview me” (please include your email address as well).

2. I will respond by emailing you five questions of my choosing.

3. You will update your blog with the answers to the questions.

4. You will include these instructions and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When others comment asking to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions each.

Here is my dad with the two athletes from El Salvador that my parents hosted. Cesar and Miguel are on the floor hockey team. From what I hear they are pretty good too. My dad said the only indication he had that one of them was any different than any other 23 year old male was that he didn’t seem to mind carrying a pink Barbie backpack. Oh I love it!

My mom and I took the boys to watch Figure Skating. It was great. That’s all I’ll say about that.

To all Boiseans: All Special Olympic competitions are free and do not require tickets. They continue today and tomorrow, and from what I hear V.P Joe Biden is on his way… No offense to Mr. Vice President, but the athletes are what you really want to see.

You can find a schedule here.

When the Olympics were in Salt Lake City I lived in Pocatello. Only a three hour drive and to this day I kick myself that I didn’t drive down just to be a part of something so great. So I really wanted to participate somehow in the Special Olympics World Winter Games here in Boise.

My parents hosted a couple of athletes from El Salvador (I’ll have to post a picture of them later) and so they received tickets to the Opening Ceremonies. (I would have cropped out the guys in the background but to me they are just another testament of the joy and friendship in the atmosphere.)

Oh man. What an experience. It was AWESOME. And I mean that in the way the word AWESOME was formerly used. I was full of AWE. No one was thinking about enemies, war, politics or economy. These were 2,500 of the most exuberant and happy individuals I have ever seen and they came from 100 countries.

One hundred countries.

Oh it gives me chills.

The world gathered together yesterday in Nampa. I love it when the world feels small. And yesterday it felt like thousands of people from the four corners of the Earth all had something in common. Even though we were are all so different, we all had something in common. It was a feeling of unity that transcended language, race, religion, gender and physical and mental capabilities.

Not the least of the things we had in common was that we all wore a blue and white scarf. Knitted or crocheted by hand, there were 55,000 scarves. The story of the scarves brought the crowd to tears, but I’m not going to write it here. In fact, I can’t even choose just one article to link because there are so many moving stories. If you have the chance, google “special olympic scarf project.” It will inspire you as you read about the goodness of people.

One of the highlights of the event was when a local band played a cover of “HOT, HOT, HOT”. The enthusiasm of the athletes was contagious and my mom and I were somewhere between laughing and crying at the sight. I spent a good portion of the event being choked up. All my life I’ll never forget that three hours and the way I felt.

More often than not we take pictures of the rare or unusual events of our lives. And rightly so. It is best to catch them on camera so we can later recall them with laughter, tears or what have you.

This picture is of something ordinary. Typical. Happens all the time. But no matter how often he leaves, his returns are always wonderful.

Having a non-functioning dvd player left us wondering how to spend our Friday night. Typically we relax and let Richard unwind and enjoy the comforts of home in front of the boob-tube. A good movie and a bowl of popcorn.

Any spouse of a traveler knows this worn out argument. Richard wants to eat at home, he’s tired of eating out. Jo wants to eat out, she’s tired of eating at home. With the promise of a homecooked meal on Saturday Richard took us all to Red Robin. (Not Five Star, but very family friendly.)

We then headed to my favorite, but not oft enough visited, place in Boise. Powell’s Sweet Shoppe. We all picked a treat, I enjoyed some peanut butter gelato and then we headed home. That is what I should have photographed. Gelato. NOT ordinary.

Okay.

Deep breath.

Here we go.

Several months ago I dipped my toe in the waters of Facebook. I registered at the request of some college friends as a way to stay in touch. At that time I wasn’t familiar with the ins and outs of Facebook (I guess I’m still not) and so months went by where I didn’t ever pay any attention to it.

It seems that in the last month or so I have fully boarded the Facebook bandwagon. I’ve spent a good deal of time looking up people to re-establish contact (if you can call it that) and get updates (if you can call them that) about how they are doing. I have been generally successful in finding friends from my past and “re-connecting”. Making those original discoveries sent me into a tailspin of nostalgia.

So on a quiet Sunday afternoon while all the boys napped I dove headfirst into memories. I opened up my green trunk that contains all my memorabilia from childhood up to marriage. (Approximately.) I especially focused on one box. This box contains letters written to me during a period of ten months while my family lived in Virginia. After reading through these letters I am convinced that a movie could be made from them, from my perspective of the drama and desperation of a group of 15 year old girls at Fairmont Junior High.

So after reading many of them for the first time in years, and pretty much laughing myself silly all alone there in the playroom, I plunged further into reminiscence. So I went back to facebook. I looked at the ‘walls’ of these my jr. high friends. And…

I am left completely unsatisfied. So dear readers, I am in need of your feedback. I need to know…

Is it normal and healthy for me to want to reestablish REAL friendships again with these, now women, spread out across the country? Is it even possible? Have our paths diverged too far?

Or

Am I a pathetic loser unwilling to let go of the past and move on, finding satisfaction in new friendships? Because, chances are, that my dear friends have already done so?

****Comments are back, for now, by necessity. I know the term ‘pathetic loser’ is a little harsh, but please, be honest.****

When we first arrived and the nurse was asking the usual questions: Allergies? Up to date on immunizations? she asked “Does he have any chronic conditions?”

My response: “Clumsiness?”

Granted, this time he didn’t do it entirely on his own, but nonetheless, he is a little accident prone. What exactly did he do? He took a tumble off of a chair and bit through his lower lip.

He was in such good spirits waiting in the hospital room and I happened to have my camera in my purse so I felt justified in taking a picture. He was actually quite happy and friendly to the nurses and doctors until they put the little oxygen probe on his toe. That made him pretty angry. My sister Lori works in the ER and she says that is pretty common. Of all the things they did to him last night it strikes me as so strange that that was the thing he hated most.

Here is the post-suture photo taken this morning. Poor little guy was still exhausted so I put him back to bed and he’s been sleeping soundly since. Which is good, because the inside of his lip was looking pretty sore. He had some scary looking apthous ulcers going on in there. (That is the fancy dental hygienist word for canker sore.) The more he sleeps and the less he chews on his poor little lip the better.