Thank You, President Hinckley!

I wasn't going to post on President Hinckley's passing until I read posts by several of my friends that brought back such sweet memories.

President Gordon B. Hinckley was an example to me of courteousness, faith, and strength. I have never met him, but was priviledged to live in NYC during the time the temple was built in Manhattan. As my friend, Lizzie, noted, Pres. Hinckley didn't really like NYC as a place. However, he was our greatest friend in getting a temple built right in Manhattan, when we thought we would have to continue waiting for the legal battles surrounding the Harrison site to be resolved.

Just three Sundays ago, Pres. Hinckley spoke to the Southern California area via satellite broadcast. He seemed a little bit run-down, but still much younger than his 97 years. His message was about families, particularly married couples, and how we should treat each other. When I was single, I looked for a man that would treat me the way that he treated and spoke of his wife, Marjorie. (And I found him!) I know that he's so happy to be with her again.

Last Sunday, Pres. Monson spoke at a devotional for San Diego Temple workers. He looked tired. He must have known that his time to take on the mantle of prophet was very near at hand. I am really excited to see how he goes forward. Each prophet seems to have a theme to their tenure. He's always spoken of service to others, so perhaps that will be an emphasis.

Good Stuff!

The dill in this salad really makes it for me.

After I used this luxuriously thick cream instead of a lotion, Rowdy commented on how much softer the skin on my legs was.

For me, the motion-sickness queen, these were a vacation-saver (despite my biffing it on my bike).

Saucony running shoes fit my feet well and are always comfortable and long-lasting. I got a good deal on these on Amazon.com. (Thanks Mom and Dad for the gift certificate!)

Two months ago, I didn't even know you could get a GPS watch. This Garmin Forerunner has made my meagre running efforts much more fun. And once and for all, it proves to my husband that I do run faster than I walk.

A Tea By Any Other Name

My local grocery store has a Starbucks right inside the front door (as I'm sure many of your local grocery stores do). This morning, it was chilly outside as I started my shopping, so a nice herbal tea sounded good.

Me: What flavors of herbal tea do you have?
Barista: We have Passion, Calm, Zen and Energize.
Me: Hmmm. Well, what flavors are they?
Barista: Well, I've had the Passion before. It's really good.
Me: You know, that doesn't help me know what to choose. Zen and Passion aren't flavors.

At least at that point the barista had the presence of mind to bring me each of the tea packets so I could read the flavor descriptions. I chose Calm, which as you may have guessed, was Chamomile.

Shenanigans?

I've been following, on a popular culture blog, what might be termed the "Katie Holmes NYC Marathon Conspiracy". If you actually have a life, you might not be familiar with this particular conspiracy as, say, well, any conspiracy you may think of. Simply put, there are those who question whether or not Katie Holmes actually ran the 2007 NYC Marathon. There are pictures of her at the end, and I believe at a few locations along the course, but questions remain.

She said she trained while in Berlin with her famous husband, KooKoo Magoo. No one actually saw her running in parks as she claimed. (She apparently actually trained on a treadmill. Ugh! Can you imagine how dull that must have been?) She wasn't wearing a sports bra, which unless you're totally flat, would be quite painful in the long run. And for Katie, her marathon was just that, a looooong run.

Katie ran the marathon in over five hours. Purists forgive me, but I refuse to look up her actual time. If you're wondering, look it up yourself. I believe it was around 5:20. There are those who would contend that Mrs. Magoo jumped into the race sometime after the start. This contention puts me in mind of Inspector Grandpierre's response to Reggie Lampert and Alexander Dyle's contention that they were in their separate rooms at the time of Leopold W. Gideon's death: You must be telling the truth, for who would make up such a ridiculous story."

If you were going to cheat at a race, wouldn't you at least go for a respectable time? Okay, I have to go for full-disclosure here. In 2003, I ran the NYC Marathon. And when I say, "ran", I mean, I ran for most of it, but resorted to the run/walk plan at least halfway through. And my time was--I think it was around 5:40. I had Brightroom crop out my time on the commemorative photo.

I understand the desire to run a marathon, and particularly something as iconic as New York. Frankly, I hadn't been much of a runner before I started training. I have been pretty much a shuffler when I run. But, I was in my last year of residency and had the time to train. I signed up with Team in Training (shout out to TNT! 20 years of raising money for patients with leukemia, lymphoma and blood-related illnesses!!!) Originally, I was going to do the Marine Corps Marathon in Virginia, but I knew someone who knew someone who was able to get me an NYC entry.

It was totally worth it. I had a wonderful time, running with two of my training partners Jane and Victoria. I don't care that it took me far, far longer than a lot of people.

But anyway, back to Stockholm Syndrome Spice. She was almost ten years younger than me when she ran. She's an actress who had given birth within the last year and a half. She no doubt has had access to trainers constantly since the moment she popped that little poppet out. You'd think that she would have put in a better effort. You'd also think that maybe she'd be able to give better interviews about it. Oh, wait....

They call him Flipper! Flipper! Faster than light-ning.

Well, actually, his name is Deke. He's an adolescent dolphin, living at Sea World San Diego. He flunked out of the Navy and ended up at Sea World, where he works at Dolphin Encounter.

Jordan got this photo of me telling Deke to jump.



Good boy!

Work In Progress

I'm going to be upgrading my blog in the near future, including this new name. Watch this space!!

Home Again

We got in early early yesterday am. We went to Stake Conference anyway, but then I spent the rest of the day sleeping. I just don't shake off injury and lack of sleep like I used to.

The remainder of our trip was so fun. We went parasailing on Thursday, surfing at Waikiki on Friday and snorkeling in Hanauma (sp??)Bay on Saturday. There was a high surf advisory at the North Shore on Thursday, so we went up there to watch people catch the big waves. Pretty amazing.

Advantage: Curse

WARNING: This post contains mildly graphic depictions of road on girl violence.

I like to mountain bike. It's fun to see how my skills have improved over the last couple of years. I'm much braver on downhills and much more skilled in technical areas. I would still consider myself a beginner, but not a newbie.

So, how is it that I crashed on my bike on a perfecly flat section of Jeep trail, just after an uphill, not a downhill??? Gotta be the curse. That and maybe my equilibrium is not so great with the scopolamine patch.

The patch has been great in many ways. I've not had motion sickness at all on this trip. There was no way I would've gotten through our shark adventure without puking if I hadn't been wearing the patch. But I guess that when the warning label says, "Do not operate heavy machinery" they also mean a 28-lb mountain bike.

One of our guides says that he'll try to take us on another ride before we leave, since our ride ended after about 1.7 miles. [Rowdy, being the good husband that he is, aborted his ride and stayed with me until the rest of the group was done (about two hours later).] I am definitely going patch-less on that one.


My helmet was cracked. This is the first time I've ever hit my head on a ride. I haven't had a headache, nausea or change in mental status, so it's all good.



I also have a 7 cm x 6.5 cm hematoma on my left hip, but I'll spare your eyes.

Where's that ancient Hawaiian burial ground?

Rowdy has a curse on him, and evil, evil curse. It all started in 2005, when Terry and Lezlie decided to take the whole family to Hawaii for a week. Unfortunately, Rowdy had the choice of going on the trip and dying (I'm not exaggerating this point) or having part of his small intestine removed. Lucky for me, he decided that he wasn't literally dying to go to Hawaii, and stayed home and had the surgery.

Flash forward to 2007/8. We decided to test the curse and made arrangements to go to Oahu to celebrate our wedding/sealing anniversaries. Rowdy came down with a bad cold during New Year's week. It was bad enough that we didn't do anything on New Year's Eve, because he was sacked out on the couch.

Haha! He was able to get over his cold by the end of the week--take that, Curse! It was raining when we left for the airport on Saturday morning to catch our plane to Honolulu. The Curse decided to make people all over the West Coast miserable with a storm, just to try to keep Rowdy from going to Hawaii. We knew before we even left home that our plane was delayed 1.5 hours, but we weren't worried.

Once at the airport, we discovered long, long lines at the ticket counters, presumably fallout from the storms. So, we took our bags to the skycap outside. A very pleasant gentleman checked our bags, and then announced to us that we should have a paper ticket, not an eticket.

"But we got our tickets through Orbitz! They never send paper tickets. And look, here on our confirmation--it says, "E-Ticket".

"Oh, Orbitz does that all the time. Go to a ticket agent and she can help you."

Note to self: never use Orbitz again.

The lady at the ticket counter told us that unless we could produce a paper ticket, we were not getting on the plane. I think that this is where flying First Class paid off, because she went ahead and printed us tickets. If we had been flying steerage, it would've been tough noogies for us.

Our plane was delayed approximately two hours. San Diego really needs either a total revamp of Terminal 1 or a new airport, because there was probably twice the number of people as seats at the pod where our gate was located. By the time we got on the plane, we had developed a real hatred of two little moppets, Andre and John, who we so frickin' annoying, obviously trained that way by their idiot parents.

But, hey, we got on the plane, so TAKE THAT AGAIN, CURSE! Lalala, sitting in first class--but wait--the curse is still trying hard to punish Rowdy for thinking that he could actually go to Hawaii. A 300+ pound man sat right in front of him, nearly pinning Rowdy into his seat for the entire flight.

Things were going fine, just a couple of little adventures due to my poor navigational skills, through the end of Saturday to Monday evening. At trip to Pearl Harbor, walking up Diamond Head, going to the movies all went fine. I have to say, though, that we're not too impressed by anywhere we've eaten so far, but that's a minor consideration.

By Monday evening, the curse decided to try once again to ruin our vacation. Rowdy had fever/chills and severe abdominal pains. Great. Now what??? Fortunately, Maalox, a shave ice and lots of prayers resulted in another loss for Mr. Curse. Rowdy was back to himself this morning, and we were able to go for a swim with some sharks.

I highly recommend this activity and North Shore Shark Adventures on your next trip to Oahu. It was so much fun, and like many things, much scarier in the anticipation of the event than the actual event.

Advantage: BRICCO!!!

Happy New Year!

We have so many things to be grateful for, as we look back on 2007. One thing I'm thankful for is how blogs have reconnected me with far-flung friends. It's so nice to be updated on people's families, their joys and their struggles. Your posts have entertained me, inspired me, and even brought me to tears a time or two.

Over the next year, I look forward to reading about new babies, books and productions; vacations, triumphs, challenges, and everyday occurrences.

Love,
Di

PS--A "first" for me today on the 1st of January--I learned how to ride our little 50cc motorcycle. I even popped a wheelie (unintentionally, but still...)!