I don’t know what it is that makes me such a favorite of cats.

I don’t try to attract them. I don’t even like them that much. But they like me.

Kyra, for some reason, loves me more than John. If John and I are in the same room together, and John gets up to leave, Kyra stays. If I get up to leave, she goes with me.

When I get home from work, Kyra comes to greet me. When John gets home from work, and Kyra’s in another room with me, she doesn’t budge to greet him until I do.

No matter where I am, no matter what I’m doing, she’s right there.

I imagine this might be an accurate indication of what it’ll be like to parent a toddler.

I should point out, though, that Kyra loves loves loves John whenever he feeds her.

To emphasize the historical accuracy of this blog entry, here are two pictures. The first was taken when I was a teenager (dig the glasses) when my family’s cat Lightning was “helping” me with my homework. The second photo was just taken today with Kyra “helping” me work at the computer.

Some things never change.

While packing John’s lunch for tomorrow, I made the mistake of reading the back of a peppered beef jerky package. I was just going to glance at the nutritional info, but the box titled “EXPORT STATEMENT” caught my eye. Half of its text is in English and the other half is Chinese characters.

EXPORT STATEMENT

The meat contained herein is derived from animals that received ante- and postmortem inspection and were found sound and healthy and has been inspected and passed as provided by law and regulations of the FSIS/USDA.

Am I alone in thinking that the word “mortem,” and especially “postmortem” should never, repeat, NEVER be on the packaging of food people consume? Especially meat? Because when I read that, it didn’t matter that the USDA said it was good to go, I had a sudden bloody image of a cow being hacked to death so that my husband could eat peppered jerky in his lunch.

Two things about Dubuque, my hometown in Iowa.

1) Last week I went to a retreat for work. At breakfast one morning I was at a table surrounded by high-flyers, people with much more status than me. One of them, a middle-aged lady who is much respected, suddenly started to say to each person she didn’t know at the table, “Tell me your life story.” She asked me second. The girl who went first had some really interesting and admirable experiences that everyone oohed and aahed over. It was a pretty impressive introduction.

Then my turn. Everyone turned expectantly to me as I started my life story.

Me: Well, I was born in Iowa and lived there seventeen years before–

Middle-aged lady, much respected: Wait, Iowa? Which town?

(Interjectory Note: Ever notice how no one ever refers to places in Iowa as cities? They’re towns. And the people who live there are folks, not real people.)

Me: Um, Dubuque. Anyway, I–

MAL,MR (brightly): Oh, I know Dubuque!

Me (shocked): You do? Have you seen it on the Weather Channel map?

(Note: It’s true. Dubuque is on their U.S. map. Not on their Web site, but on their TV broadcasts.)

MAL,MR: No, silly, I’ve been there.

Me: Wow. What for?

MAL,MR: A few years ago–

(The woman beside her giggles loudly, which indicates to everyone at the table that by “a few years ago” MAL,MR means “about a hundred years ago, when I was quite a bit younger than I am now.”)

MAL,MR: A few years ago I was on a river cruise, on the Delta Queen.

(I nod my head encouragingly to show my recognition of the Delta Queen and support of her decision to travel on the river that runs beside my hometown.)

MAL,MR: It was one of those BYU Travel Study trips, and I was with several CES employees, including Dallin H. Oaks and Jeffrey R. Holland.

(Note: Dallin H. Oaks was the then-president of BYU and Jeffrey R. Holland was his successor. I respect both men very much.)

Me (very excited that general authorities have seen my hometown in person): Oh, cool. So you went past Dubuque?

MAL,MR: We stopped at Dubuque. It was a port of call.

Me (enthusiastically): Wow, that’s so neat. When I hear port of call I usually think “Caribbean.” It’s funny that my hometown was a port of call. So, what’d you think? (Sits forward in seat.)

MAL,MR: (Hesitates) Well, I think Elder Holland summed it up best when after our tour of the city he said to me, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many folks so excited about so little.” (Laughs lightly.)

Me: (Horrified silence)

Me (finally): Well. Um. I’m sorry to hear that. So, anyway, um, after my seventeen years in that hell-hole known as Dubuque, I came to BYU . . .

I managed to finish up my life story for her and the rest of my audience at the table, but it was a little awkward after that. My life story was pathetic compared to the girl who went before me. How do you continue on in a dignified manner after a much respected lady two feet from you and a general authority who became president of the very university you graduated from openly criticized the place you lived in and loved for the majority of your life?

I know the lady was just making conversation. But sometimes timing is critical, and her watch was off on this one. I don’t care that she disliked Dubuque, or even that a couple general authorities weren’t impressed by it. To her and all people like her: Just think before you speak and consider if the opinion you’re about to express will add constructively to the conversation you’re in. And if not, bite your tongue!!!

2) Today I was listening to a book on CD at work (Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld) and I heard a character in the book, an English teacher, tell her class she was from Dubuque, Iowa. I had to rewind the CD to make sure I heard right. Hardly anyone knows where Dubuque is, right ? Let alone how to pronounce it. Not unless you’re from there. Or been there. Or knew someone from there.

I went to the author’s Web site and discovered that a) Curtis Sittenfeld is actually a woman, and b) she was part of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop in Iowa City, which is only an hour and a half south of Dubuque.

So. Confusion abated. And, in her bio she said she really liked living in Iowa City! And she probably doesn’t call Iowan residents folks all the time or its cities towns. And if she had ever felt like dissing Dubuque she probably would have thought before she spoke and said something gracious like, “Iowa sure has great corn, doesn’t it. Can’t get enough of the stuff.”

So we’ve been a little out of touch with our blog lately. That should change.

Whether “that should change” means “that shall change” or “it would be nice if that changed, but I can’t control the fates” remains to be seen.

Also, some have wondered why we don’t have links to all our wonderful friends’ blogs. The answer is: It’s John’s fault.

Okay, no, it’s actually my fault for not being as brilliant with working computer code as he is. And since altering code is the only way to add links to the side of this page (versus pushing a button so the links magically appear) we’ve gotten up just a couple and we’ll work to get the rest on ASAP.

Rest assured, we love you anyway. And sometimes we even check out your blog.

Why do we women…

…buy a bunch of bananas because we know they’re good for us and then eat one and let the rest brown on the countertop because we don’t ever feel in the proper banana-eating mood and end up tossing them out once they’re black and totally inedible?
…go out and buy a bunch of bananas again even after last week when we threw out the previous bunch, minus one?
…never get around to making the sixteen loaves of banana bread possible from the umpteen frozen bananas tucked in freezer when were too guilt-stricken to throw away more black bananas than already have?

So we went to Moab last weekend to celebrate our wedding anniversary. This was #4. We went on an overnight rafting trip down the Colorado River. It was a good time, overall.

Here’s a picture of us at our campsite.

John and I both have fair skin that burns easily, so we were extra careful to slather ourselves completely in SPF 45 the morning of our first day of rafting. Even so, by nightfall we discovered that we were noticeably red and in pain in the arm, leg, and shoulder areas.

Dang SPF 45 Sun block.

Friday night we slept on cots on a beach under the stars. A storm was passing nearby, though, so it was super windy for a few hours that night–which meant no sleep for me. Somehow John (a.k.a. Mr. Insomniac) seemed to sleep fine.

But the stars were gorgeous. Or so I heard (since my contacts were out).

Here’s a photo of the red mesas surrounding our campsite.

The night before our rafting trip started we ate dinner at the fanciest restaurant in Moab called the Center Cafe, which was neither on Center Street nor a Cafe. Go figure.

But the food was fabulous. We weren’t super hungry, so we split a beef tenderloin, which I guess is like filet mignon, and was so tasty. We told the waitress we were celebrating an anniversary and she said, “Well, you better keep an appetite for dessert, because it’s on us tonight.” When we got the dessert menu we picked the $10 lemon trio dessert. It had a lemon tart with raspberries, homemade lemon ice cream, and some sort of lemon custard with a French name I can’t remember. Yumm, it was good.

We stayed the night prior to our rafting trip in the La Quinta Inn. Not a bad place to stay, but pricey for a basic motel. I guess that’s what you get for going during tourist season. We thought our room was . . . interesting. It was large, which we liked. But it was sort of odd in that it was more decorated than any other basic motel room I’ve ever been in. I mean–look at all the Indian stuff! (And this is just one tiny corner of the room.) There’s even fake leather fringe hung around the top of the lamp and our very own artificial cactus arrangement in the lower right corner. They thought of everything.

They must’ve used a different decorator for the bathroom, though, because it lost all its southwestern flavor and went for a more oceanic feel. Check out these fish.

They were above the towel rack (brown towels, by the way; a little scary to use since all dirt is hidden). Some of them are painted on and others are those plastic 3-D ones you can hang in your bathtub. Fun stuff. Borderline tacky. But at least they tried.