Life and Times of the Walkers: Happenings 10/20

This last week we received about 6 inches of rain, still short of the 15 or so below normal for the area, but quite a bit of rain still. It was cloudy and rainy all day for about 6 days in a row, and also began to cool down quite a bit. Because of the rain, I had to drive to work, and couldn't play tennis. Mostly I spent a lot of time doing some writing and preparing for the conference I attended at the end of the week at Arizona State. (I am not a fan of rain for 6 days in a row. A reason I could never live in rainy parts of Oregon or Washington. I like a rainy day now and then and enjoy the warm indoors, but a day, not days. Claire loved it because she got to really use her Dora umbrella outside instead of just using it indoors where it becomes an eye poker outer. She made many visits to Bob and Esther's, just to show off her umbrella skills.)

I left on Thursday morning, driving to Nashville to catch a midday flight to Phoenix. Everything went very smoothly with the connection in Dallas and I was able to grade some papers and read while on the plane. My friend, Peter Wegner, who I knew at NAU and he is at ASU now, picked me up and I stayed with him for the two nights I was there. We went out to eat near his apartment that night and stayed up talking and watching baseball. On Friday I spent the whole day at the conference, which is called the Western States Rhetoric and Literacy conference, and presented in the early afternoon. A lot of people were at my session, though I don't think it was because of me but because of a fairly well-known scholar who was in my panel, but I received several compliments afterward for what I presented, which was about a unique approach to analyzing planning and land use language, and I used the snowmaking controversy in Flagstaff as an example. The theme of the conference was on how rhetoric studies could be involved in sustainability, and there were lots of interesting panels, and I was able to visit with all of the members of my dissertation committee and some other acquaintances while there. In fact, one professor teaching at ASU-East told me that her husband graduated from Murray State a long time ago, and furthermore, she was LDS. It was interesting.

Friday evening Peter and I went to a steakhouse and enjoyed a nice dinner, and then visited for awhile afterward. He lives by himself except for his dog, and during the hot Phoenix summer, has done some interesting projects both related to his doctoral work and unrelated. He built a sort of a chamber in his living room that is about 4 x 4 feet, and consists of three panels of movie screens. He has a computer and three projectors that project an image in reverse from the outside so that inside, you have a keyboard and mouse and a surround screen along with surround sound. I'm not sure it has any use, but it was pretty cool to sit inside and pull up pictures or to type something that went from your left shoulder around to your right shoulder. Peter has some "theoretical" ideas for its use, but he admitted that it gave him something to do to keep him from going stir crazy inside the apartment.

Saturday morning I went to another session of the conference, and then Peter and I took his dog on a hike, and then we had lunch and he dropped me off at the airport. The plane trip back was smooth as well, and I arrived in Nashville at 10:30 pm, and as I was
walking to the parking lot, it was a strange sensation to realize that I arrived home, and it was in Nashville. I still had to drive 2 hours to get home, but that went fine, and I didn't hit any of the deer that I saw by the road in between the lakes.

(I didn't realize until much too late that Paul was going to Phoenix. I was soooooooo jealous. I wanted to go and take a little drive up north to Flagstaff. Instead, we sat here with rain. Anyway, we had a very busy week and weekend. Thursday night it was Kaity - from across the street - over for the evening while her mom went to a meeting. After her meeting Bridget- Kaity's mom- sat and visited until late. It was nice to talk to an adult. Friday two boys came over - Brayden and Logan- while their mom went and had an MRI. Claire loves to play with them and gets along great and they usually go along with her requests to play "doctor check-up" and "school", though they don't play "mommy telling kids what to do" very well. Saturday was a whirlwind. We started out the morning missing Musictime because I had a Relief Society Super Saturday morning. We made it very simple and relaxing. Only 2 hours and the women could decide what they wanted to do between making microwave fudge - yummy- making and painting clay christmas decorations, getting simple manicures, making halloween caramel apples or making postcards and then having lunch. It was really nice and quit a few women showed up, so I was pleased. Claire and Rachel had the two men babysitting to themselves since no other kids were there and they loved it! We then had an hour when we got home to work on getting food ready for the nights party at church before heading off to a birthday party. We went to the park for a birthday party for Braydon- one of the little boys I have been watching. It was so nice because it was the first warm sunny day we had had all week. A perfect day for a party at the park. We then came home and finished getting ready food for the Fall Festival and dressing up. At the last minute, Claire decided she wanted to be Belle from Beauty and the Beast, so we dressed her up and did her hair, dressed Rachel as a jack-o-lantern and me as a witch - easy - a black shirt, skirt, boots and a hat we already have. I have perfect witch hair when it is combed out, it is all frizzy and stands out. I also drew an ugly wart on my chin, which Claire loved. She kept wanting to touch it. We picked up Bridget and Katey who were a witch and wonder woman. The wonder woman costume was great! We went to the ward Fall Festival. It was really fun. They had a chili dinner and then games for the kids followed by trunk or treating. It was really fun and the kids had a great time.)

I got up early to attend bishopric meeting on Sunday morning, though there was some confusion about the time -- I had a pretty good idea that daylight savings time was extended, but J.J.'s clock sets itself, and had turned itself back. So I wasn't sure until I heard on the radio that if you did turn clocks back, it is next week. This is all new to us after living in Arizona for 8 years. After church I went with the bishop to give the sacrament and a blessing to a sister in the ward whom we visited last week and J.J. has visited during the week. We relaxed in the afternoon after a dinner of peanut-butter and jam sandwiches to break our fast as next week is Stake Conference for us. (After making a bunch of food for the super saturday and the fall festival-including a kitty litter cake-, I was in no mood to do any cooking, so PB&J it was. I also had to play 2 songs on the piano for Sacrament meeting since our organist/pianist was out of town and another woman played the other two songs. You know our ward is really hurting for piano players if I am playing for Sacrament - that is why we split it between two of us. Also our chorister didn't show up and so we switched places to lead the music when we weren't playing. Oh life in a small ward.)

That's our week. We love you all!

Brayden, Logan and Claire getting ready for "check ups"