Puzzle Brains

I am one of the people who really enjoy doing puzzles. 'Really enjoy' doesn't accurately define how it is for me. It is as though my brain NEEDS them, and finds doing them relaxing and satisfying. I love IQ tests, crosswords, sudoku, kenken, even jigsaw puzzles. I like real life puzzles, too, like figuring out the ideal proportions for furniture details, what the run and rise had to be to make all the stairs consistent for the little staircase in our playhouse, how to take a rectangle of fabric and fashion it into the picture I have in my head.... I actually have a hard time turning my brain off at night if I haven't given it enough exercise during the day. Well, or if it is trying to figure out something that is puzzling it, for that matter. It can be a problem.
In one of my reflective moments, I was thinking about how the Lord teaches and shows us things. We know from reading the New Testament that He used lots of symbol and allegory, word puzzles, to teach. We who don't have Him here talking with us all the time have nevertheless been given a world that teaches and bears testimony in the same way. All around us are clues to decipher, puzzles to unravel, hints too clear to be mistaken, all telling us these types of things: He is there, He is real. We have a Savior who loves us, atoned for us, gives us experiences that teach us in ways that words can't. We are here on earth for a season and with a purpose. This is the most satisfying puzzle I work on as I live my life: Seeing how the pieces fit together so perfectly into the grand scheme.

How Not To Be

One of my favorite funny quotes is: 'If you can't be a good example, you'll just have to be a horrible warning.' (Catharine Aird) No one is perfect, but we can at least hope to be more of an example and less of a warning!
I was thinking about my little grandson Bryce today. Dad and I love him and Alyssa so much, and want to be really good grandparents. I was blessed with wonderful grandparents, and they made a big difference in my life. I knew I wanted to be a grammy like mine were before I ever got any grandchildren. Not only did my grandparents bless my life, but I hope their example will bless the lives of my grandchildren.
Examples...and warnings...have been big influences in my life. Generally I am more affected by the warnings than by the examples around me, I'm afraid. I wish it were the other way around. I'm afraid it both reveals and fosters a more negative view of life. But the warnings have been instructive, if not always entirely effective: Things not to say to, or about my husband, and ways not to treat my children; I've noticed sure-fire ways to alienate in-laws; ways to be needy, boring, or egotistical; good strategies on how to beat others in social competition; how to be a mean girl behind a nice girl facade; and the list could go on for a while. I have lived long enough to note that people who behave unpleasantly towards others end up being avoided by them, and we know that won't be the worst of it. The strongest warnings come from the people who don't try to better themselves as they go along, who ignore the messages along the way from the world and the people around them. (I just saw Don Giovanni.) And some of the best examples are people who have changed for the better: They are inspiring!
We are all mixtures of the sublime and the ridiculous, the charitable and the prideful, of altruism and selfishness. I don't think there is a laundry list of things to do to move myself out of the warning and into the example category. It is more about how, and how not, to be. There is an older couple in our ward who seem practically perfect to me. I don't think that because I know all the things that they do right, and that list is long, but because of the way they seem to do everything out of love of the Lord and charity for their fellowman. When I grow up, I want to be like them.

Misfit Romances

I admit it....I like Twilight. A lot. It is on the list of my top ten favorite books. (The other books in the series, not so much.) I've been a bit puzzled that I like it so much. It doesn't have much in common with my other favorite books, and I don't have much in common with most of the Twilight fan girls (although there is a fan group called Twilight Moms). The first thing I noticed when I started reading it was that it was a lot like Wuthering Heights: An obsessive love affair between two misfit type people. I don't like Kathy or Heathcliff, so that eliminates WH from any favorite book list of mine. But Edward and Bella are all right, especially for each other, and from the moment they saw each other I started wanting them to be able to be together. The similarities of the two books got me thinking about that particular romantic formula, the two misfits who find and fall in love with each other. What is it about that which is so intriguing? There are a lot of books and movies that have used it. A quick scan of some that I can see from where I'm sitting, and others I remember: Jane Eyre, Return To Me, 27 Dresses, Shrek, My Fair Lady (another unlikeable couple. Eliza is sooo annoying, and not even Dolittle's own mother likes him) Tarzan, Beauty and the Beast, Stardust.... the list could go on and on. And if you add in the movies where the misfit romance is a subplot, or where only one of the romantic pair is out of step with the world, it is hard to find a story that doesn't use this formula.

Olympic Mood Swings

We love watching the Olympics. There are so many inspiring, amazing, wonderful performances. I just can't believe some of the things that people are capable of, and I mean that in the best way possible. Bravo to China for the superb opening and closing ceremonies, and to the athletes for these awesome games . But they could have been better....
To China: DON'T CHEAT. You have more people than any other nation, and you work hard to train your athletes. They should be able to compete with anyone. Sticking prepubescent girls in the women's gymnastics competition and lying about their ages is shameful.
To the women's gymnastic judges: Time to retire. Maybe your eyesight is failing. Maybe you are incompetent. Maybe you are corrupt. (We are already aware that China is willing to cheat to win.) One thing is sure--you are a huge blotch on the Olympics, awarding ridiculously high execution marks for obviously flawed performances by the Chinese 'women' (term used very loosely). You stunk it up, big time.
To NBC: We don't appreciate having to stay up into the middle of the night to see the most popular events, like gymnastics. And why couldn't we see more of the volleyball matches, more tennis, more of the decathlon, and less of marathons and race walks. A little of the beginning, a little of the middle, and the very end would be great for those. Seriously, who wants to watch people run or walk for several hours? There had to be some better choices. I realize that your strategy is to tease and promise and get people to watch as much as possible while they wait for their favorite events, but I feel annoyed at the missed sleep and things I would have liked to see that were chopped up or missed altogether. I don't intend to buy anything that your sponsors advertised, and I'm not changing my mind about how I will vote for president. I wish everyone who didn't like the coverage would complain by closing their pocketbooks, because it is all about money to you.
But a huge thank you to Michael, Dara, the rest of the swimmers, Derek, Jonathan, Sasha, Nastia, Shawn, the US volleyball players, Chinese men's gymnastics, Russian women rhythmic gymnastics, so many others....we loved watching you. We loved your hearts and spirits and your amazing abilities.

It would have been a great prank......

I'm still thinking about Breaking Dawn. Rachael and I had decided after reading the spoiler chapters online that they had to be a hoax, perpetrated by none other than Stephenie herself, with the help of Pel from the Twilight Lexicon and possibly some more of the TL mods. There were clues around that convinced us that this must be the case:

• Stephenie has admitted to writing a spoof called "Breaking Down" where she wrote things that would agitate her fans--OCC, out of character and canon, things that we didn't want.
• She warned us in the weeks preceding the release to watch out for spoilers, and that something put out on the internet was likely to be a hoax.
• She has said she loves to mess with people.
• She gets carried away with things.
• Speaking of getting carried away, the gals at the Lex revamped (pun intended) the whole huge website for APRIL FOOLS DAY to make it look as though the Volturi had taken over the site. It was very funny, very clever....and a huge amount of effort for a prank that didn't last very long. So we know that they have it in them.
• Pel has a banner with a picture of her and a picture of Stephenie. Pel's caption says, "Let's break fandom's heart, Okay? and Steph's says, "Okay!"

So I was very disappointed when I got the book, and no joke, the spoilers were the real story. I'm still trying to figure out how much of the disappointment is actually with the book itself, and how much of it is because we didn't get this great prank played on us that I had all figured out.

What makes a good book?

Several of us in the family have been awaiting the novel Breaking Dawn. Rachael got it in the middle of the night Friday, and had it read by Saturday morning. I had it read by Saturday afternoon. We didn't hate it, but I have to admit to being disappointed. The best books have an intriguing plot, clever writing and living characters. Chronicles of Narnia and Lord of the Rings pop readily to my mind. I love Jane Austen's writing, for the clever phrasing and living characters. I was surprised to like Twilight....a novel about vampires?! But it was sort of a Wuthering Heights, with better characters. I've always wanted to like Wuthering Heights, but didn't find any sympathy for the characters. Oh and didn't care for the plot or the writing. S Meyer made use of the compelling obsession that must be WH's redeeming quality, but gave her characters life and light and an interesting story to interact in. So I liked it, a lot.
The problem with Breaking Dawn is that the characters went flat. It is almost entirely plot driven, and the people in the story became paper dolls. It feels like the manuscript should have been worked on a lot more, making sure the characters developed as they faced hardships and gained experience. It doesn't seem like the same person wrote this as wrote Twilight.
Another problem was the messiness of the novel. Loose ends were sloppily tied or left hanging. The worst example I saw of this was Bella and blood. In Twilight, SM established that Bella had a strong aversion to human blood...it smells like rust and salt, and nauseates her. This should be a foreshadowing for Bella's being able to resist human blood as a vampire. It would have been great, except that we got the weird passages where Bella thinks blood tastes good-while she is still human-and drinks it through a bendy straw. (um, and from someone who has been pregnant a few times....aversions to tastes and smells are exacerbated by pregnancy, never alleviated!!) I could have bought this whole thing if Bella had to choke it down for the sake of her baby....but have her like it? NO. There were just some things that didn't work, that jumped the shark, and then some things that worked way too conveniently, deus ex machina. It seems like the book was written too hastily, too many things out of the blue, too much crammed in, and not well edited. I blame the publisher as much as the author for the shortcomings. We had read some 'spoilers' before the book came out, and they seemed so different that we couldn't imagine that they came from the real book. But at least the likeable, misfit protagonists are happily together at last. The book was alright, even though the spoilers were the real thing. So Breaking Dawn.... Not as good as I hoped, but better than I feared.