Month in Review

How the Johnson's keep cool in 90° heat w/ 80% humidity.

So here's the promised update.

Memorial Day weekend, we moved. Thanks to our awesome ward, it only took four hours to get everything moved and the old apartment clean. When I took a car-load of stuff down to the new place, to see it for the second time ever, I found out the key I had for our door didn't work. I should have taken it for a sign.

Tuesday after moving in, I left the apartment with Elizabeth to run some errands. I paused on the landing as soon as the door shut behind me. I had no keys. I had no phone. The best bit was that I had left inside the only working key we had for the one lock I'd already promised Adam I wouldn't lock until we got a duplicate. I was saved from death by starvation and/or a bursting bladder by the mercy of my friend, M, and our landlord's mother who had her grandson, with M's help, shimmy up the fire escape to an open window. I'm still waiting for his mom to call and scream at me for putting her child in danger.

All the excitement (plus a parking ticket and a disastrous trip to the laundromat with Elizabeth) must have been too much for my body b/c on Friday, June 4th, I found out from the doctor that I had tested positive in a fetal fibronectin test (that tests for signs of labor) so I was put on more or less bed rest. I could still go to the bathroom and get myself a sandwich, but was supposed to eliminate "all unnecessary movement." Somebody please tell me what on earth that means? Isn't shopping for groceries necessary? How about going outside for my own sanity's sake? Once again, the ward came through. I let the Relief Society president know on Friday and Sunday, right after church got out, I started getting phone call after phone call of people offering to bring food, watch Elizabeth, and (bless them) do our laundry. I can't tell you how moved I was by the compassion everyone showed us. Even just the simple act of being able to take the sacrament at home, made me feel overwhelmingly grateful to be a member of such a wonderful church. At any rate, with a lot of help, we survived my week of bed rest and, at the next doctor's visit, my test was negative and I was back in business. Whew!

Let's see, so then on Sunday, June 20, I was released as the president of the young women group. It was something I had been expecting (and honestly looking forward to) for quite some time. But when the moment came, I looked at one of the girls' moms who was sitting up on the stand at the organ, and I just burst into tears. I've been in Young Women for over two years now, since before Elizabeth was born. I still got to teach the lesson, but now it's over and it's very bittersweet.

So now it's just been a matter of settling into our new place and me trying to figure out a new routine. Luckily, that has become 100% easier now that my husband's little sister has arrived. For reasons I cannot begin to fathom, she was willing to give up her entire summer vacation to come help me with Elizabeth. Pretty selfless 13-year-old, huh? All I can do to repay her is handle all the poopy diapers myself.

We've got most of the furniture where we want it. Adam's put up curtains and in his ingenious way figured out shelving and storage. He's even put up our gargantuan bookcase and mostly filled it. We still have tons of boxes to go but all the essentials are in their place. So how do I feel now that I'm finally living where I've wanted to live since we moved here? Depends on the day. Some days, I'm grateful to be so close to so many friends. And it's been such a blessing to have a playground just down the street. But on other days, as I'm trying to squeeze my huge belly past a kitchen chair, or lying in bed sweating, (since we STILL haven't gotten our a/c's properly installed—a whole other story—) or sitting on our stoop with no one to talk to, I start to really miss our old place. But rather then dwell on the negative, I'll just show you some pics of the place. I was going to wait until everything was unpacked and tidy, but—let's face it—that's not gonna happen for, oh . . . years?

(Now that I've uploaded these, I really wish I'd tidied up more before taking these. I really wish I tidied up ever. Sigh.)

Living Room

The tiny kitchen, complete with blue and white tile.

Elizabeth's Room

The bathroom, AKA the Blue Room

I don't have a good picture of our bedroom, which is ironic b/c that's the reason we moved: to have our own room. But it's big and nice and even more messy than all of the above so you'll just have to imagine.

Oh My Heck!

We haven't posted in a while. Mostly b/c of moving/temporary bedrest/internet problems. But I will update you on all of that, and post pics of the new diggs after I say my piece about swearing. What is up with it? Am I taking crazy pills? Have I lived in Utah too long?

When did it become okay to use the f-word in print?

What set this all off, or rather, started the slow, steady boil in my brain that has finally erupted, is my subscription to the New Yorker. We got it as a thank-you gift for supporting our local public radio station (which I highly encourage, and they do NOT use the f-bomb.) I felt rather cosmopolitan and erudite and somehow more redeemed as a former English major by receiving such a famous and well-respected magazine. I especially looked forward to reading the fiction pieces. Maybe I know zilch about contemporary short-story writing and its market, but I could have sworn the New Yorker was a good place to start reading. When I got my first issue, my excitement fizzled away into a sad heap of disappointment. I don't remember exactly how I felt when I saw the first four-letter word right there in the middle of my "classy" magazine, but I know how I feel each time now: assaulted, betrayed, and disgusted (with myself and the writer.) And it wasn't just profanity. Week after week, the fiction piece would have, besides a slew of f-bombs, at least one crude reference to sex.

Okay, so I don't read the fiction. The news articles, analysis, and op ed pieces should be safe. WRONG! Exactly how does vulgarity enhance my understanding of the credit crisis? Or a new art instillation? Or the challenges facing eco-minded inventors in the 21st century??? Was there a huge shift in cultural values while I wasn't looking?

Adam is always bringing home from work novels he thinks I'll like. (What a good husband, I know.) I'll start one, get into it just far enough to where I'm hooked, then have to hand him back the book and say, "Sorry. Take it back." And then I feel so angry that I've just filled my mind with filth simply to read—and not finish—a good story. It's gotten to where I'm wary to pick up a book if it wasn't written at least half a century ago.

And don't even get me started on the language people here use in every day life. Adults and children alike can't seem to manage to communicate without the f-word. When Adam tells me what it's like at his work, I'm shocked and outraged. Since when is it professional to swear like a sailor in an office setting, with people you're not "totally friends" with, in meetings and such? I thought that kind of language was seen as "low class" and immature. Are we all turning into teenage boys? Are we condemned to live forever in a football locker room?

So those of you who are out in the working world, living outside Happy Valley, what have been your experiences? And to all my more-literate, more-published friends, am I way behind on the norms for professional writing?

Like I said, am I taking crazy pills? Or am I too enmeshed in my Mormon culture?

P.S. And what's up with the NY-er putting umlauts over the second vowel in words like "coördinate?"