I love mom because...

every night, after we say prayers, we tell the person who prayed why we love them. For instance, "I love daddy because he works so hard." "I love Skywalker because he did the dishes today."

Tonight, loli said, "I love mom because she throws pine cones at people."

I have never thrown a pine cone at anyone in my life.

letter to my ex-voice teacher

I finally wrote my voice teacher from Ricks College. I've been contemplating it for a while. Tell me what you think... I tried hard to make it sound like how I feel--- it wasn't his fault, necessarily, because it was my decision to accept his feedback as the truth, etc. But it was still a difficult experience in part because of, well, him. What do you think? Did I do an OK job? It was a neceesary vent... I'm very glad I finally did it. I think I can completely move on, now.

Well, as long as he doesn't send a nasty letter back. :( Eh, he probably won't even read it, right? He'll prob'ly throw it away because that's what we all do with unfamiliar names in our inboxes.

Here it is:

You don't know who I am, Brother Snorflebluss(not real name). So I'll tell you-- I was one of your first voice students at BYU Idaho. Actually, it was Ricks College then. I don't know if you remember me or not-- I was a small girl with long, blonde hair.

I decided to take this opportunity to write to you because I was just discussing the BYU Idaho music scene with my cousin, who is attending there right now. At any rate, I mentioned that you were my voice teacher, and we discussed majoring in music, etc.

I've been thinking about writing you for a long time. I kept deciding not too, because I didn't want to send you an angry letter. I want this letter to be reflective and possibly helpful to you, rather than accusatory or off-putting.

Having said this, let me state one thing: My experience with you, in conjunction with the natural intimidation that accompanies first-time college attendance, destroyed my self-confidence. I did not sing for two years after I left Ricks and went on to BYU to major in psychology. I tried on a couple of occasions to reinstate voice lessons, but was unable to loosen up enough until I met my current voice teacher. I still take from him-- it has been 4 years now. It took about two of them to get back to what I consider to be my ability level at the time I started with you.

Why did this happen? Well, a lot of it had everything to do with me, not you. I was dependent on your opinion as an evaluation of my value as a singer. Instead of growing with constructive criticism, it shattered me.

Again, having said this, I must go on to say that I had a hard time feeling that you desired my success as a singer. You told me, at one point, that I ought to change my major because I wasn't a good enough vocalist.

I have three things to say about that:

1) Voice quality does not necessarily indicate skill. You can have good technique and have a voice that is not like Renee Flemings. It took me a long time to accept this about myself-- I have a different kind of voice, and can still be an enjoyable person to listen to/watch perform. I just had to find my groove (lol) and genre.

2) Voice quality certainly does not indicate teaching ability. My dream was to be a choir teacher, not an opera star. I learned, after I reached byu, that there were music education majors, even with an emphasis in voice, who didn't sing as well as I did.

3) Even if the above two were not true, your job was to help me become better. And even if you felt that my voice quality made it impossible to help me become good enough to be a bona-fide vocal major, you ought to at least have helped me figure out what my strong point were, and capitalize on those. For instance, I have a very good ear. My voice has amazing agility. And, I can really project. None of these things came up in our lessons-- we spent the whole time, I felt, talking about what my voice ought to be that it could never be, therefore I ought to change my major.

Not only that, but I was very good at music theory and sight-singing. It came very easily to me. I remember, when I auditioned for the Womens' choir there, that the auditioner told me that music was a good major for me because I was so good at tonal memory and rhythms, even sight-singing.

I finally enjoy singing again, though every once in a while I still choke up before I perform. I say this to reassure you that this experience did not do significant long-term damage to my ability to keep my talent where people can use it-- in other words, to use my voice the way God intended me-- as a tool for touching those around me.

As I said, I hesitated to writ this letter before. But I have finally decided to write it in the hope that you'll glean something from this that may help you in your future teaching endeavors.

All the best,

nosurfgirl

girly movies

What is your favorite chick movie?

Mine used to be While You Were Sleeping, in part because of the skidding bicycle scene. But mostly because of Bill Pullman, who makes a very attractive romantic interest. And Sandra Bullock who is a nice fiesty heroine in just about every movie she does. Now Bill Pullman looks kind of old... that was really his only hot movie.

Then it was How To Lose a Guy in 10 Days... which is not the best movie in the world. There's a lot of crude stuff in it. Sigh. Why does such a good movie have to have so much garbage? At any rate, Mattew McConaghuey is a very attractive love interest in that movie, and is very attractive in every movie he does. Do men study how to be attractive? For instance, did Mattew McConaghuey watch old Carey Grant and Clark Gable movies on a big-screen projector and pause them at crucial "attractive guy" points and evaluate them with his attractiveness coach? Probably not.

Now, my favorite movie is the move Love Actually (the edited version). How do you feel about watching edited movies? I used to be totally against it, and then I watched one accidentaly at my workplace (people brought it to watch during the night shift, and I didn't know it was an edited movie, an edited R movie, no less) and it was perfectly squeaky. I had no problem with the movie after editing. It could practically be a disney movie. So, Ironically, while I cannot reccomend How To Lose A Guy because of innappropriateness, I CAN reccomend Love Actually (the edited version) because it has nothing. Nada. Well, maybe one swear word.

I know... it's still not a good idea to support R movies. But... isn't it a good idea to support the editing-movie industry, if we feel so strongly about not watching garbage? Plus... there's a lot of good out there. I dunno. What do you think? You can comment and tell me what you think.

And that movie has LOTS of attractive guys in it. Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Liam Niesen (who I love with all my heart), Alan Rickman, and lots of other british guys I don't know who are very attractive.

You know (and this is very cheesy) every single romantic interest in any movie that I find slightly attractive reminds me of skywalker.

I guess that's what being in love is. Or one aspect of it, rather.

Here are a few pics for the heck of it.

"I Will Remember Your Sins No More"

This is the talk I gave today.

My parents did such a wonderful job raising me. I’m not saying I turned out amazing, although I do like the person I’m trying to become. What I mean is, all of us (their children) have been blessed, through their teaching, with a great deal of respect for God, for them, and for righteous living. We have been blessed with an appreciation for covenant keeping. We have been blessed with the deep and abiding desire to do that which is pleasing unto God.

It is with trepidation that I (and my husband, too, I think) begin the process of organizing our own family. There is so much out there that is damaging, blinding, and predatory. And a great deal of it is so easily obtained—just a button or mouse click away.

I have worked for the last two years in a residential treatment facility with women who have had a great deal of difficulty in life because they have failed to develop coping strategies that are socially acceptable. And their need for coping is great—

When they first come in to us, I see in them self-loathing. Some have an intense need to distract themselves from this with material possessions. Some have never learned restraint and therefore have never learned how to gain anything of long-term importance, including the respect of those around them, and so they turn to that which they know will make them feel good for a time. I see in some of them a fear of failure so intense that they are terrified of recovery.

I no longer work. But it has been one of the most educational experiences of my life so far… I will benefit from it for the rest of my life. On my way to work every evening, I would say two prayers: one, that I would have the words and skills to be able to reach some of Heavenly Father’s most desperately hurting daughters. And two, that I would have every tool at my disposal, every inspiration and ability necessary to keep my own sons and daughters from going through such agony of body and spirit.

But what if, as in the case of Corianton, Alma’s beloved son, they do? As Elder Ballard says:

“It is a wicked, wicked world in which we live and in which our children must find their way. Challenges of pornography, gender confusion, immorality, child abuse, drug addiction, and all the rest are everywhere. There is no way to escape from their influence. Some are lead by curiosity into temptation, then into experimentation, and some become trapped in addiction. They lose hope. The adversary harvests his crop and binds them down.” (I Will Remember Your Sins No More, Ensign, May 2006).

I feel such an overwhelming sense of sorrow when I consider what my children, and your children, and really, all of us have to combat in today’s world. I can’t read the newspaper anymore. There is too much in the headlines that just makes me ache inside with sadness for the victims of violence, selfishness, and seeming cold-heartedness that exist in growing proportion.

Having said this, I want to say that, like President Hinckley, I am not a pessimist. It is a pernicious lie that, once you have slipped up somehow, or involved yourself in something unworthy, or become a victim of an addiction, you are lost forever. Christ has enough room in his atonement for every one of us; for every single sin that we commit and are ready to lay in front of him. He suffered such agony for that very reason—he was atoning for every sin.

What would I say to my child if I were in Alma’s position? What would I say to anyone who is struggling with something that is dragging them down, or who has made some mistake that they fear will keep them from Heavenly Father’s presence forever? What about someone in my own stewardship who doesn’t really want to repent, and therefore, is voluntarily struggling with burdens they shouldn’t have to bear? Or really, what should I be saying to myself when I know I’m not exactly right with God, and repentance seems like a task that is too inconvenient to really bother with?

We can think of the story of Alma. Or Almas, rather. Alma, the father of Alma the younger, was one of the priests in the wicked King Noah’s court. He was persuaded of the error of his ways when he heard the powerful testimony of Abinadi—which as you know was basically just a very strong chastisement, pointing out the error of the ways of the King and his priests, and detailing their sins. He called them to repentance. He held them accountable for the knowledge that they had—that is, a knowledge of God’s laws, and an awareness that they were at odds with those laws.

Alma the Younger was called to repentance,chastised, by an extraordinary experience that Elder Ballard stated occurred “… not because he deserved it, but because of the prayers of his father and others.” Alma’s father taught him about Christ, and so, while in the depth of the mind-numbing pains of Hell, he could latch onto the thought of the Savior and make his repentance real.

And then we have Alma the Younger and his son Corianton. Elder Ballard uses this story as an example of the repentance process. First, Alma sternly chastises his son and pleads with him not to “excuse himself” because of the issue he takes with the doctrines of justice and mercy, which Alma then goes on to explain to his son in some detail so that there would be understanding. Alma brings his son “down to the dust in humility” with his rebuke.

So the rebuke must be an important element of repentance. How do you go about rebuking someone? Personally, I really dislike this aspect of stewardship. I struggle every time I have to punish my daughter for something. I feel so mean and unrelenting. But then, I realize that she’s kind of asking for rebuke. She needs the rebuke to feel secure that the laws of the universe are always there… and that what she is learning from me is true; that each and every time she disobeys, she receives a consequence.

This is exactly what Alma explained to Corianton: “And now, ye see by this that our first parents were cut off both temporally and spiritually from the presence of the Lord; and thus we see they became subjects to follow after their own will.” We are here to learn, and part of that learning involves rebuke, or consequence.

So what do you do when you are called upon to be the Rebuker?

Let me share an experience. I have an old friend, let’s call him Mark, who converted to the church in his early high school years. He is the only member in his family, and most of his friends were not LDS at the time of his conversion. I always felt that, as one of his only good member friends, I had a responsibility to make sure that he was OK. Don’t ask me why, it was just a feeling that I had. It went both directions: sometimes he offered me a little bit of help. One time, during a rough period of my life, I called him on my birthday because I was alone. He talked to me for a long time and wished me a happy birthday; it made me feel happy and not so friendless. Anyway, a few years after he had returned from his mission, he asked me for help, though not in so many words.

He explained to me, rather abruptly in the midst of the casual Instant Message conversation we were having, that he struggled with certain bad habits, and had for awhile. They had plagued him on his mission, to the point where he talked to his mission president. His mission president told him that he “wasn’t breaking any commandments.” Mark talked about this with me as if it were no big deal. He said that he had given up on being able to stop, and mentioned that he was pretty sure almost everybody had his difficulty and that he didn’t feel a need to repent of it any more.

I was cornered. I could sense in his discussion that he was looking for something from me. He had brought it up, as I said, rather abruptly and with no precedent. Was it justification he wanted from me? Was it reassurance that he was a good person? I agonized for a split second as I contemplated what to type back to him in that little dialogue window. I am not usually one to chastise people, not unless it is absolutely necessary.

Well, it was absolutely necessary in this case. I realized that, if I let him say those things without a ‘rebuke’ of some kind, he would think I agreed with him. Or really, he would know I didn’t agree with him but didn’t have the integrity to call him on it. I prayed, took a breath. Finally I typed,

“Mark, you know what is right.”

There was a long pause, and then he typed back, “Yes, I do.”

I realized in that moment that what he really had been looking for, though maybe he wasn’t even aware of it, was a rebuke. He wanted me to tell him that he was smarter than the voices in his head that were convincing him that he was too weak to overcome his difficulty. In rebuking him, even in the mildest of mild rebukes that I gave him, I was telling him that he was capable of more, and that he didn’t need to live with guilt shoved under the rug. He could get rid of it, if he wanted to.

Next, Alma addressed the concerns that were underlying his son’s insecurity as a missionary, which were perhaps contributing to his poor choices. He had a lengthy (3 chapter!) discussion with his son about justice and mercy, about repentance, about the resurrection, and many other things. He related his own experience of repentance, perhaps as a vivid example to his son that complete repentance is possible, and that, having sinned once, a sinner is not condemned forever to a life of spiritual mediocrity.

Thus, another step in repentance is a hope in redemption—willingness to turn to Christ for our salvation. And it was brought about in Corianton through an outpouring of love and attention on the part of his Father.

Elder Ballard ends his talk with a series of scriptures from the D&C:

(D&C 1:31-32) “The Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance; nevertheless” (D&C 58:42) “he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.”

What an amazing promise. We can look to examples like Alma the younger, or Paul in the new testament, or Zeezrom, another book of Mormon missionary, or Ammon and the other the sons of Mosiah, as proof that once we are fully repented, the Lord accepts us fully as an instrument in His hands, and we can still do great good for His cause.

Whenever I feel discouraged about my mistakes, and the pain and difficulty associated with correcting them, I think this:

Christ was scourged and crucified. He had pain and it was a tragedy. But He triumphed- for us, and for Him. The tragedy turned into something gorgeous and astounding. It was a complete triumph over evil, and over pain and death. Christ descended below all things to rise above them.

I can, too.

I will end with a scripture from Isaiah.

Chapter 57, verses 17-19:

“For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on frowardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts to him and his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips: peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him.”

talks and lessons

I have to give a talk on Sunday. It's on Elder Ballard's conference address, "I will remember your sins no more". It's been quite a while since I have given a talk in church, and in a way I'm excited, but I'm also pretty nervous.

Giving a talk requires a different kind of preparation than teaching a lesson, which I have done quite often. I like teaching lessons because all you have to do is prepare well, construct a loose sort of outline and direct everyones' comments to certain questions/facets of the discussion. The more participation you can invoke, the better an experience it is for everybody. Therefore, a good lesson is defined as a lesson in which the teacher talks the least, in a way.

With a talk, you are speaking the entire time. For twelve minutes. All by yourself. You can't easily gauge the audience's reaction to what you are teaching (whether they agree, dissagree, etc) and so you have to rely entirely on the Spirit to direct your own comments. It's easy to have a spiritual experience when everyone in the room is listening to the Spirit and commenting with their own experiences and viewpoints... when you're the only one up there, and nobody expects to have to participate, quite often people fall asleep.

I hope nobody falls asleep this Sunday. We'll see.

I wanted to share a scripture that I am using in my talk, that I love:

Isaiah Chapter 57, verses 17-19:

“For the iniquity of his covetousness was I wroth, and smote him: I hid me, and was wroth, and he went on forwardly in the way of his heart. I have seen his ways, and will heal him: I will lead him also, and restore comforts to him and his mourners. I create the fruit of the lips: peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him.”

What a powerful message to those who are repenting, or maybe who are afraid that they are not redeemable through the atonement.

Wish me luck (or really, I guess, pray for me) on Sunday.

the simple things

OK, I'm going to start out with two funny anecdotes. Yesterday, loli was playing with two girls in a big sandbox that is close to our house. The two were sisters, and they began fighting and the fight became a sand-slinging war. My daughter pipes up and says, "Hey guys, please don't fight." As polite as can be. It made me chuckle and proud of her at the same time. And also made me realize that, as she has been an only child for 4 years and her sister is only 2 months old right now, she has not experienced a fight with siblings! Or even freinds for that matter, I don't think. She hasn't ever fought with another kid. How extremely wierd. I hope she'll be normal anyway. (Just kidding, I know she'll be normal. Plus, we're looking into adopting a child closer to her age, and with a sibling that is closer to her, and therefore competitive, I'm sure fighting will occur). Anyway..

the other anecdote-- last night skywalker informed me that this new job that he has is his dream job. He then started talking about how one of his bosses blogged about all those coke and mentos experiments.

I fell asleep last night before he finished explaining why this related to his statement that the job was a dream come true. So I asked him this morning. He lookd at me like he wasn't sure why I was asking. "Well, my boss blogged about mentos and coke!" he said.

I'm so glad that the simple things in life keep my husband happy. I guess I have similar things... I like pringles. It's a good day when I can eat a half of a can of pringles... especially that new loaded-baked-potato kind.

And I just blogged about trying to create healthier meals for my family. I ought to be ashamed of myself advertising pringles on my blog like this. But seriously... loaed baked pringles will be in heaven. At least in my part of heaven.

Also, my shoes. I love my tennis shoes-- they're nike cross-trainers. And they're light blue. Can't get any better than that.

But please don't try the mentos and coke thing without watching the video ... I'd hate to be responsible for any unnacountable injuries.


Time to nurse the baby-- so I'm signing off.

Happy Dad's Day

This is the second year that my little 4 year old has a daddy to give her church sponsored father's day project to. How wonderful that is.

This year it was a candy necklace. She had a really hard time handing it over. :) My favorite little lolipopoholic did it anyway. When you think about it, that's an amazing sacrifice from a four-year-old. Don't you think?

My dad is one of the most intelligent people I know, but he's not very phone-verbal. I wish I could spend Father's day with him in person, but calling is what we're limited to at this point, as we reside in separate states. So I'll call him and make him a little embarrassed, and then when I see him in a couple of weeks for our family reuninion, I'll consent to go rock climbing with him... that's MY ultimate sacrifice, in monument to the hefty sacrifices he has made for us. Too many to list. Too many to repay. Hours of commutes, hours of overtime with only a couple of weeks of vacation, hours of careful teaching and long philosphical conversations at 2 am the night before he has to get up to teach seminary in the early morning...

And everything else. I love my dad. I'm so grateful for him.

Happy Father's Day.

new names and my woeful tale

So my husband wants me to give our family fake names so that nobody can identify us in this world-wide-web community. Which is understandable. Thus,I have renamed him Luke Skywalker because his 70's honda motorcycle reminds me of the speeder Luke flies around in the original version of Episode III. My daughter will be lolipoloholic because of our sugar-war, and my baby will be Jaws, which I think is self-explanatory. I will remain nosurfgirl.

I have to get a root canal today. (Imagine that in a plantive whine.) OK, I know I'm a wimp. And I just had a baby naturally. So I should be able to handle this. But there's something so much more scary about pain that invovles sharp implements and a tender area of one's mouth.

Sorry if that's TMI. If you want, if it will make you feel better, post any grody dental stories as comments on this post.

Anyway, Jaws just had a major diaper explosion that will definitely invovle spray'n'wash and lolipopoholic has yet to assume clean panties.

How am I going to manage life as an invalid for the next two days? OK, I did it for two weeks after Jaws was born. But I had my mother there. And Skywalker has taken care of me for four weeks already... I feel so bad trying his patience further this weekend. Not that he woudl be anything but patient... that's skywalker for you.

Which just makes me feel a little guiltier. Oh well.

I will floss religiously for the rest of my life, this much I have learned.

What to do?

I had something really devastating happen to me a few years ago, and it got a lot of media. It was not a pleasant experience. I spent several months having to avoid cameras and potential interviewers and random people calling me and sending me unwanted mail asking me to do their news shows, etc.

I did one news show, because they marketed it to me as an opportunity to raise awareness of the issue surrounding my unhappy experience, namely pornography and its tie to emotional abuse in a marriage relationship.

I lived to regret it, because they sold their footage to all of the local news stations, who used it, when the next major event in the court case surrounding my situation occurred.

I've had people from the Montel Williams show continue pursuing me over the past few years. I've hemmed and hawed with them... They have also painted it as an opportunity to raise awareness, about adversity and making it through adversity, and about pornography/emotional abuse, and what a woman should do in the situation I was in, etc. I want to raise awareness, and I think that this may be a unique experience. But you know? One burned, twice shy or whatever the correct cliche is.

This lady has called me again. She has switched over to another show, a new one, by some young psychologist guy who was made famous by Oprah. And again, I'm hemming and hawing.

I want to raise awareness. I think it would be a wonderful opportunity to express how my testimony of the Gospel and my faith has gotten me through a difficult time. Also a wonderful time to speak out against pornography to an audience who perhaps thinks of it as innocuous.

But what if they twist it? What if they make it into something sensationalized and trashy?

Or what if my ex husband is hurt by it, even though I have asked for no pictures of him to be shown and for his last name to be withheld?

Should I do it?

Skywalker's new Job

OK, he got a job offer and accepted it. Yay!!! We're so excited. But I'm also incredibly nervous. This means I no longer have starving student excuses. I have to try to prepare healthy meals and keep my home in order, and not half-neglect my kids. Which is wonderful!! I love that I have so much time with my kids... but.

This is it. I'm now a full-time mom. And for some reason, that's a little scary for me. I know it won't change ME. I'll still be fun and intelligent and capable. But will the world view me differently because I don't have a full-time job?

Probably. But it's time to start not caring about that stuff.

And oh, I am so excited to have my kids all to myself all day. Really, really.

Picky Eaters

My family is vegetarian. I'll say that up front. So we don't eat meat. Which doesn't mean we don't eat junk food--- there is plenty of vegetarian junk-food out there. Twinkies, for example.

Anyway, We're trying hard to be healthy, frugal eaters now that we're no longer students... so I've been trying out new recipies using whole grains, putting lots of veggies into what we eat, buying the organic stuff, etc.

My daughter loves peanut butter. She loves nuts. She loves salty snacks. Anything with jelly, jam, or honey, she will eat.
BUt she will not eat vegetables!!! I'm trying hard to be a good balance of firm but not overbearing... but where do you draw the line? I also want to teach my kids that we don't waste food. So I have her sit there until she finishes, or serve her what she didn't eat at the next meal, etc. And she's starting to get it and just down the stuff she doesn't like so she can move on to a new meal with stuff she possibly does like.

But every once in a while (like today) the power struggle takes on an epic nature. So she has been at the table an hour, refusing to eat dinner from last night (a grain dish with carrots and cauliflower in it, which I think tastes good but she thinks is the very devil, of course.) So I let her down from the table. But I can just sense today will be one of those days... she's going to refuse it at lunch, and maybe even go until dinner before she eats it.

Am I being too harsh? Some would say yes. But I really do believe that removing the junk food preference from one's diet takes a while... and it's only every once in a while that she has these days... mostly she's pretty OK with eating whatever and going on to what's new. So maybe she's just testing me. So I should be firm right?

Sigh.

Uber-Lactation

I don't know why, but recently my baby has not been able to keep up with me. Milk-wise, I mean. If you've ever breastfed an infant, you know what sort of logistical problem this presents. I almost feel like I ought to confine myself in my house, away from all decent society that may be embarrassed by evidence of lactation. You know. As we all know, anything having to do with the actual breast is taboo in public.

But then, is it really fair to confine us lactators to our teeny dark basement apartments? Shouldn't the dedication invovled in breastfeeding and mothering the next generation be rewarded by admiration and interest in the ongoing lactation issues that we, the lactators, are so beset with? I would think so.

The other day I had to emergency breast feed my daughter in public. I had at least half of my grocery list left, and baby was not taking pacifier for an answer. So, I sat down at a display of plastic patio furniture and just fed her right there. I got a few wierd looks. Mostly from the young, un-married sector. Ah well, who cares what they think anyway. They're still under the impression that leg-shaving and hair-blowdrying is necessary... who would want to live under that kind of social pressure? I'm sooooo glad that I'm no longer single. I was a single parent for a while, and that was the hardest place to be: lactating, with the additional social expectation of immaculate appearance.

I am so grateful for Skywalker. And for my two daughters. Being a mom of babies is my dream come true. I feel grateful that it came true for me... I know that some have not had the blessing of children. I don't know why I have been blessed... but lactation is a small price to pay for it.

electronics geeks

So last night, my husband and I went and did a tinfoil dinner with our brothers and sisters at a nearby park. It was very nice. I like tinfoil dinners better as a vegetarian.

Skywalker brought his little gas-flame lighter to light the campfire. It was well used, and by the time we brought all of our stuff back home, it no longer worked. Skywalker likes his little gadgets, and so I thought he'd be sad. He examined it and said the gas was all used up, but it was no big deal because he could just get another one from the dollar store.

And then he said that he's been waiting for it to break, anyway, because he wanted to take it apart and play with the electric sparking mechanism inside.

Girls, beware of electronics geeks. Don't let them around your electronic gadgets. They may just find a reason why to take them apart.

Anyway, when I asked him why he was interested in playing with something that produces electric sparks, he got an absolutely evil look on his face and said, "need you ask?"

This from the man who shoots broccoli rubber bands at people. And if you eat broccoli on a regular basis, you understand why this is significantly evil.

Well, he messed around with his toy and accidentally fixed it. That tends to happen to Skywalker a lot--- he accidentally figures out how to fix things.

So now it works. So he can't have the electric shock thingy after all. Ha hahahahaha.. Too bad for him.

I think I'm going to buy some broccoli today.