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By Neil, 29 March 2009

For Lent this year Kate has decided to give up the internet (see linked post). This just means she tells me what to write and I write it. Don’t worry she is going to do the next 50 posts once she stops “blog silence.”

This week Kate told me, “scan this picture and write a blog about deaf church, I’m going to take a bubble bath and eat red licorice.” As a wise coworker once told me, “happy wife, happy life.” So, I blog away because it makes me happy.

Deaf church is great. We have been called to serve as attendees at the San Diego deaf branch and to learn American Sign Language. Usually, a church calling lasts a year and requires no more then teaching a class or two. Not any more. Our calling is basically until we leave San Diego, so eventually we will be learning ASL. It has been fun. Church slows down when half the congregation is deaf. When someone has a comment or question, instead of raising their hand and waiting to be called on, they just march up to the front of the class and sign away. We also have an LDS ASL sign book that brings us infinite joy. (This is an official publication of the church). For example, today we learned how to sign “sleeping around.” You know, for all those comments you need to make in church about “sleeping around.” Love it (not sleeping around, Mormon ASL)!

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By Kate, 1 March 2009

Perhaps it is because I got to a Catholic University and I saw all the students with ash marks on their foreheads kicking off Lent. Perhaps it is because in the battle between my homework and Facebook, Facebook always wins. Perhaps it is because I feel that my actual connections with people and places are increasingly being subsumed by thier digital replacements. Perhaps it is because I have realized that the internet is not a place for legitimate inquiry and discussion about meaningful issues because the anonymity of it, and blogs, makes people take on a bizarre hostility to other points of view & disrespect other humans (or their digital versions, at least) in a very strange way that they would never do in person. Perhaps it is because even momentary boredom makes me very uneasy, and my attention span is about as long as a Youtube video.

I have decided to give up internet browsers for Lent [yes I do realize that I am a little tardy, but I didn't have an internet Mardi Gras, so I figure it will balance out]. I will still check my email, but in Outlook, so that I am not tempted by their harlot-like links. (Come on people, this is the 21st Century.) When Easter arrives I will let you know if my life has improved, and what I was able to fit into the void that the world wide left in my life. Perhaps I’ll write in my journal. Perhaps I’ll finally read The Revolution Will Not Be Funded. Perhaps I’ll fail. Perhaps I’ll just sit hunched over my turned off laptop and stare into oblivion. (Let’s hope for the former two, rather than the latter.)

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By Neil, 5 August 2007

To start off let me just say that I enjoy church. I have been going all my life and plan to continue going well after I’m dead (if Kate agrees to take my urn with her). But today I just about didn’t make it out alive. I am rather a robust person. There is little that upsets, hurts, or stops me from preforming. I hike hard hikes, climb big mountains, overcome sickness without medicine, don’t complain about cuts and scraps, and can deal with the climate. But today at church I found the one thing that will knock me flat on my back and leave me for dead…cheap Mexican cologne. Someone sitting near me had the worst smelling of anything I have ever experienced doused all over him or her…in fact he or she probably submerged them self in a bath of the stuff before leaving for church. I can’t quite describe the scent but it was somewhere between equal parts gasoline, vinegar, and paint thiner and an electrical fire in a morgue. The smell was so rank, so potent, and so unbearable after 2 minutes sitting by this person I found myself sliding down the migraine slope into one bad Sunday. Luckily I was near a window and discreetly bathed the chapel for fresh air. Even so well after church while walking to the bus I still had the scent in my nostrils. Next Sunday I think I will take a gas mask and just say I am sick.

I try not to be ethnocentric and judgmental, but there are just a few things culture has no right to claim…female genital mutilation, salvery, and for heaven sakes using cheap awful colognes and perfumes.

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By Kate, 24 July 2007

Yes, it is true. I have been a derelict in my blogging duties. But, I have a very good excuse: Mexican Youth Conference. I spent all of last week (and the past few months really) preparing for and attending Youth Conference. Youth conference here involves rehearsed numbers. Namely a traditional folk dance, a teen dance skit, a chant, scripture mastery & team banner march.

That’s right. Neil danced in public.

That’s right. I was a dancing nun in front of teens.

It was a blast, but at times made me seem pretty old. For example the music at the dance made me plug my ears the ENTIRE time.

I spent several painstaking hours on the sign. Neil thinks I got too obsessive. All for the love of the teens!

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By Neil, 10 June 2007

For Sunday dinner we invited our church missionaries and the Hoovers (the other family living in the compound) for lasagna, garbanzo bean salad, and brownies. Except for Kate’s garbanzo bean salad, which was great, turned out o.k. We tried those no-need-to-precook lasagna noodles that always turn out to be crunchy-tasteless-wafer-crackers. Actually that was the only thing wrong with the lasagna, that and we ran out of spinach filling for the second one and had to substitute with whatever we could find in our fridge. Everyone seemed to like it, although our previous attempt with the local starch´o glue slab noodles turned out much better. Dessert was about the same, with only three of the guests putting their brownies in napkins and throwing them away (good by my standards). We had a lot of fun; even I (Neil) who can understand about 25% of all conversations.