The Gainer that Never Was

I tried.

I really did.

I tried as best as I could, but you know how there is that phrase about teaching an old dog new tricks?

First, let’s clarify: I don’t consider myself an old dog.

I just think that perhaps I would have been a bit more fearless when I was younger.

But I tried really hard to learn a new trick on Saturday.

I tried to learn how to do a gainer.

It all started at the second annual Campbell-DeLaMare swimming party at the DeLaMare mansion. They wouldn’t call it a mansion. They just call it home, but I never had my own bathroom connected to my bedroom and a walk-in closet growing up. I never had a swimming pool in the backyard with a diving board and slide. I never had an upstairs and downstairs kitchen. I never had an indoor swimming pool either. I did, however, have a pool table and a ping pong table.*

We became friends with the DeLaMares when they moved in to the average-size house next door over a decade ago. Before long, Maren and I were babysitting their youngest kids, Mom was scheduling her daily walks with their mom, Lisa, and we built a new fence with a door in it so we could easily walk from one backyard to the other. It was neighborhood bliss. And then the DeLaMares decided to upgrade. They moved to a bigger home and left our little neighborhood behind. But don’t worry; we stayed friends.

Isn’t it great that even though they live in their fancy new home they still want to see the Campbells? And they want to see ALL of us? GOOD friends.

This last Saturday afternoon was the swimming party.

Maren, Thane, Laina, Hobbes and I drove up together. Before long, we were all outside swimming and the diving board was just asking for my brothers to fling themselves off of it. I hesitated.

But they made it look so easy to do a gainer: Jarv, Mick and Thane.

“You just arch your back,” Thane instructed me.

Mick said something about jumping higher.

Jarv said something about tucking.

I tried the first time and landed on my head. Not too bad. I was more than halfway around.

I tried again. Back flop. Lost my courage.

Try again.

Went in shins first.

Try again.

Head first.

Try again, jump higher.

Back flop.

I’m done.

So much for learning how to do a gainer.

Guess the remainder of the lessons will have to wait for the Campbell-DeLaMare swimming party next year. I’ll let you know how that goes.

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*You’d think because of this I would be a decent pool player or have some amount of ping pong skills. Your thoughts would be wrong, though. I can, however, play both sports better than I can bowl.

Tracy’s DELICIOUS Guacamole

I’ve really slacked off on the caption contests. My apologies. But I’m back with this GREAT picture. Thanks Jarv for taking it with your iPhone. HIS pictures are actually in focus. This is Kate. She loves her mom’s guac.

Self-Portraits of a Four-Year-Old

Submit your captions for this week’s caption contest in the comments below. Winner will be praised next week.

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Jarv read the captions from last week’s contest to my family after Sunday dinner. Judging by the amount of laughter, there were many quality submissions. GOOD WORK PEOPLE. With that said, here are the top three captions judging by the amount of laughter.

First place: CLANCY! It was the little addition at the end of her comment about the tiny shovel. That was the punch line that brought out the guffaws. High five, Clanc! Note on Clancy: she’s the coolest blogging, landlording, raising childrening, Idahoan I know.

Second place: Janet. In the words of Seinfeld, coming in as 2nd place means that you’re the #1 loser. But at least you’re a funny one! Jarv even read your comment with the right pirate-y accent. Note on Janet: I miss diet coke breaks.

Third place: Emily. The good, former stake president (my dad) chuckled the most at this once, referencing the parable of the mule. Note on Emily: She’s a great blogger, too, so check her out, mmkay?

Dad’s Cell Phone Pic of the Week Submission

Thanks for the submission, Dad!

Now I must admit that I’ve grown a wee bit weary of posting about the caption contest each week so eventually, I’ll just post the rules on a static page somewhere. You regulars already know what they are so go ahead and post a caption… you have ONE WEEK.

And last week’s winner is: Jarv! Way to go, bro. It wasn’t all that great of a caption, but whatever. You won anyway. Just because you posted a comment, really. You have to encourage behavior if you want it to be repeated, right?

The Remains of the Cake

Enter the CAPTION CONTEST now!

The Sciolist Cell Phone Pic of the Week^not-™ is published each week with the intent to entice readers to comment. This is accomplished with a CONTEST! The winner will receive a blog nod in the following week’s post-what a TREMENDOUS prize. Entering is easy. Just click on Comment below, fill in the identification information requested and enter your caption for the above picture as your comment. You have until Larrie posts the following Wednesday’s pic to enter.

Ready… GO!*

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Last Week’s Winner: Hooray, beer! Wait, that’s not what I meant to say. Hooray, Jarv! Big brother’s sugar snooze peas comment WINS. Nice work. Now here’s your prize: a little praise from your little sister, Larrie. Jarv’s my big brother who always put up with me trying to be like him, whether it was copying his cartoons, tagging along with his college buddies (when I was a dorky high school kid), or crashing his party when he lived in Indiana/California/Arizona. Now, I just try and convince his kids that I’m their coolest aunt, but the competition is fierce and Jarv had to go and name his latest daughter after their Aunt Marens. Whatever.

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*And by GO!, I mean COMMENT!

Day 24: Learning from a Magazine

The “Build a Better Blog” task for today sent me to a magazine to get ideas. What I learned is that people want lots of different ways to do their hair, they want to lose weight but only on their midsection and nobody wants makeup tricks that DON’T work. Oh, and people will buy magazines for quizzes and for giveaways. I’m TOTALLY going to create a quiz for a future blog entry. AREN’T YOU EXCITED?

Also, I’m up for anyone sending me gear that they want me to giveaway to some lucky readers. Send away. (At this point, I really wish somebody with influence from some sweet company like Adidas, Chacos, or Hershey’s read my blog. Sigh.)

And with that, on to what you all came here for… the caption contest!

Enter the CAPTION CONTEST now!

The Sciolist Cell Phone Pic of the Week^not-TM is published each week with the intent to entice readers to comment. This is accomplished with a CONTEST! The winner will receive a blog nod in the following week’s post-what a TREMENDOUS prize. Entering is easy. Just click on Comment below, fill in the identification information requested and enter your caption for the above picture as your comment. You have until Larrie posts the following Wednesday’s pic to enter.

Ready… GO!*

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Last Week’s Winner: Tough choice, people. I even had to grab coworkers for this one to get some input and in the end, the precious blog nod goes to… (dramatic pauses really don’t work in writing because your eyes just jump ahead and you’re not likely to even read this part anyway)… Zedd. I think all zoos should have sweet trampoline cages like that. Zedd and I met back in our precious BYU days. I went over to his apartment all the time because there were a lot of single men living there and they knew how to have a good time. That’s where I first watched Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead, where I would get a back massage in exchange for cookies, and where we played Risk. Also, that apartment had a website with funny flash videos that had top ten lists. Is that still around, Zedd? It was quality.

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*And by GO!, I mean COMMENT!

We have ANOTHER Elder Campbell

The last of my brothers has his mission call (for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) and with it, I’m losing my lifting buddy on July 1^st when James reports to the MTC. Instead of just telling you where he’s going, try and guess. We’ll make it a game, shall we? I’ll give you some clues:

He’s not going to any of the missions the other brothers went to, or even the same continent. (Mick went to Santiago, Chile, Jarv to Budapest, Hungary, Pete to Quezon City, Philippines, and Thane to Seoul, Korea.)

He’s not going to Reno, like Maren had initially told Martha who tried to be nice about it for a few hours.

He’s not even going stateside.

He’s not going to the same mission (or same continent) that the “adopted” brother who is really my ex-step-cousin Chris went to: Mozambique Maputo.

He’s not going to Antarctica.

He’ll be serving in a city with over two million residents.

He won’t be speaking English.

He’ll be by beaches, but not at them or in the water (ha!).

He might get a chance to visit some of the historic buildings, which include palatial houses and churches built after an architectural style of the late medieval period.

The first Cathedral on this continent was built in this city.

The first castle on this continent was built in this city.

In 1844, their national hero helped this country gain their independence from their neighbor rulers.

The country has an estimated 2 million internet users.

Columbus’s younger brother founded the city.

That should have pretty much given you plenty of information. Where’s he going? Post your guess in the comments. Unless you already know… then guess something totally wrong, just to throw people off.

A Potrait of the Artist as a Young Man

Here’s a little twist on this week’s book review… let’s review a book that I never finished: A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

I gave up on reading this because I couldn’t follow Joyce’s stream of consciousness. I kept on losing focus; apparently, MY own stream of consciousness was more interesting than Stephen Dedalus’s (the main character). I’ve tried to read this book TWICE, too, because apparently, I didn’t want to fail only once.

Maybe I should try to “read” it as an audio book. Only I don’t know how that would keep my attention any better. See, that’s my problem with reading sometimes: I have to be more interested in the book than I am in my own thoughts. I have really interesting thoughts, I’ll have you know.

What I remember from the parts that I did pay attention were that he started with childhood memories that included his parents and various Irish Catholic priests. This book is constantly praised for Joyce’s prose and description and for its use of stream of consciousness. I feel like an English major failure because I haven’t been able to read this.

I did read the Cliff Notes before I took a test on it. Way to go me.

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P.S. Jennie and Jarv had a new baby girl today! Picture to come…

Born to be a Geek

Poor ‘Bo-Bate’ doesn’t have a chance. She will be a geek. Here she can’t decide which she prefers, her dad’s iPhone or her uncle’s Crackberry.

Just Call Me Bionic (Toe) Woman

I remember the surgery.

Mostly.

They did give me Versed (how mean) so I don’t remember it all. And sadly, I can’t really recall quite what my toe looked like all sliced open, but I remember some. Here’s the play by play:

Walking to Foot Surgery

Obviously, I couldn’t drive home after the surgery so I didn’t want to drive to work and leave my car there. Instead, I left my domestic tank (a.k.a. Volvo) at my parents’ and my mom gave me a ride to work. In order to only take one day off, I scheduled the surgery end of day on Thursday with Friday slated for recovery. After an exciting day in the office, I left a little before 3:00 to walk over to the Orthopaedic Center. It was the last walking I would be doing for some time.

Check-in and WAIT

Why would they have a waiting room if they didn’t want you to wait? I checked in, paid my co-pay (ouch) and sat down to read the paper. The assistant who checked me in said that I would be prepped for surgery around 3, and then be in surgery from 4-5, recovering for 30 minutes after and then my ride could come. I gave them my mom’s numbers to call when I was ready to be picked up (kind of like a take-out meal). After five minutes in the waiting room, a nurse came to get me and I thought, “Great, not much waiting.” Silly me.

She brought me in to another room and told me that the surgeon was THREE HOURS BEHIND. I waited for her to laugh and say, just kidding. It wasn’t a joke. He really was behind. This required me to send texts to my mom to try and arrange another ride. They wanted a name of the person who would pick me up before I went into surgery. I guess they didn’t want to send me home with the wrong person.

The next estimate of when I’d be done and in recovery was 8:00 pm and Mom recruited Laina to pick me up.

Now that I was all gowned-up, flapping in the wind (lots of wind in surgery waiting rooms), I pulled out my crossword puzzle, of course. However, the anesthesiologist interrupted me before I had filled in more than a couple. What happened to three hours behind?

My First Ultrasound

I asked the anesthesiologist if we could just do local. Of course he said sure. I’m the patient and it’s my body, right? So we rolled into another room where he did an ultrasound on the back of my right leg (in my knee pit) in order to find the nerve leading down to my middle toe.

Silly me to have thought that they would just numb my entire foot. But, I can’t lie to you, internet. When I could still feel the inside of my ankle, I was worried that I would still feel my toe, too and then how was I supposed to hold still when they started cutting? Rest assured: I felt no cutting. They only numbed the nerves they needed to. Fancy modern medicine.

Don’t Forget to Breathe

Have you ever heard that blonde joke? About the blonde (obviously) who had headphones on when she went to the doctor’s, he asked her to take them off, she warned him that it wasn’t a good idea, but did it anyway and shortly after, collapsed (or possibly died). So the doctor picks up the headphones and listens: “Breath in… breath out… breath in…”

I felt like the dumb blonde.

But it’s the fault of the anesthesiologist, right? Whatever he gave me as we were rolling into the operating room, really made me drowsy. They put the oxygen mask on me and I remember him saying a handful of times, “Keep breathing.” Apparently, being under partial anesthesia doesn’t mean your brain remembers to breathe in and out. Eventually, I came out of my stupor and could again remember on my own to keep breathing. It was at this point that I saw the monitor.

Surgery is NOT Delicate

“Hey, can I watch that?” That’s what I asked the anesthesiologist. (By the way, it’s rather annoying to keep typing that word.) He said of course and even pulled the monitor closer.

I watched my surgery, ate some popcorn and jujubes, and chatted with the numbing doctor (so much easier to type than anesthesiologist). He told me about his dog, I pointed out how well you could see the hairs growing out of the surgeon’s ears.

I remember when they took at least one picture and I’m pretty sure it was after he had cut open the toe and bent it in such a way that the bones were protruding out where there once was a joint. I’m going to ask for a copy of that picture.

I also remember the holes in the bone, but I don’t recall hearing them drill them. They did fill up with blood pretty quickly, but they soon stopped that by sticking blue titanium devices inside the holes. (I have no idea what the specific term is for a new, permanent, titanium toe, but that’s what I have.)

The surgeon had a slightly difficult time getting them to snap together, though. Okay, maybe they weren’t quite like Lego’s so they didn’t snap, but it didn’t look like it was very easy trying to hook them together. They twisted, pushed, shook my leg some, used a handful of tools, twisted some more, and eventually got the male titanium piece in the female piece. It was something to do with lining up the hexagon shape. Ask Jarv. He could probably explain it better.

I couldn’t really see when they were stitching me up because their heads were in the way so I talked with the numbing doctor about his weimaraner. (I want a dog.)

Chocolate and Recovery

They rolled me into the recovery room where the nurses were waiting.

“You’re awake?” She sounded so surprised.

“Yes, and she watched the whole thing,” the numbing doctor said, sounding proud.

And by then, I was STARVING. They brought me my stuff and I asked if I could eat the chocolates I had in my purse. So while they tried to find out who was going to pick me up, I ate chocolate-dipped pretzels.

It was just before 6:00 p.m. Remember how the previous nurse said I would be out by 8:00 p.m.? Clearly, they SUCK at time estimates. It was too early for Laina, too late for Mom and I didn’t know who to call. Thankfully, my family took care of me and eventually, Tracy was called into duty and pulled up shortly after I had changed out of my cozy little gown. Hooray for family.

Dependent on Others

The biggest thing that I learned from this (besides that watching surgery on my own toe was beyond cool) was that I’m excessively blessed with friends and family. PLUS, they’re the friends and family who pick you up, take you food, bring you movies, etc.

I started making a list of all of the things that people did for me in the last few days and realized it was getting very long and if I forgot somebody, I would feel awful. Lots of people checked in on me, gave me rides, brought/bought me food, kept me company, etc. Thank you! Thank you!

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Political Link of the Day: “Does Bernanke Realize What He’s Doing?“

Afraid to look passive, policy makers risk making things much much worse.