Dave and I both love wild, desolate desert
spaces. As we drove towards the Spiral
Jetty, the road turned to gravel and the dusty rocky hills reminded me of Edna
St. Vincent Benet’s poem about geometry, “Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.” These raw, rocky hills and sheets of snow-covered sagebrush were also “Beauty
bare.”
On February 28, 2021, I hosted my annual Chinese New Year dinner. “I thought you were going to make things simple,” David grumbled, as I rolled out a buffet of egg rolls and pineapple lemonade as an appetizer; shrimp with asparagus in garlic sauce, barbecued spareribs, chicken chow mein, beef with broccoli, ham fried rice with peas, and a fruit salad of pineapple, red grapes, and kiwi fruit as main dishes, and, for dessert, almond float with strawberries, mandarin oranges, and lychee nuts.
“This is one of the main family parties of
the year,” I defended myself. Dave hung
my traditional decorations—the red and gold posters with Chinese characters for
“good luck” and other aspirations, the red, gold, and green dragon hanging down
our mantle, and the beaming Chinese man and woman posters. Today I added an extra decoration to my
collection—a sheet of plastic, 9’x6’, printed with a picture of the Forbidden
City in Beijing, which covered two of the windows in my living room, next to
the main dining table.
When I asked Steve if the food was good, he showed me
his plate—completely empty, except for two little chicken bones. As usual, everything tasted better to me two hours
later, after everyone had left, and I had relaxed after being hostess!
I got a phone call from Jonny the evening of February 22, 2021. He said he was at the Denver airport. “What are you doing there?” I asked. “Where are you going?” “I’m coming to Salt Lake,” he replied. “Didn’t you know I was coming?” “Well, I sometimes know things at one point
in time, and then forget them,” I said, searching my mind for whether Dave had
mentioned Jonny’s visit. “Would you like
to stay with us?” I asked, remembering that Jonny sometimes stays at a hotel,
even in Salt Lake, if he is here on John Deere business. “If you’ll have me,” Jonny said.
I brought the red beans and rice and some pimento cheese with crackers for an appetizer.
Mike had Louis Armstrong music playing as guests
arrived, and, after dinner, we gathered in his theater to watch short You-tube
biographies of black icons—Harriet Tubman, Louis Armstrong, Jackie Robinson,
and Barack Obama. We then went around
the room and each told about a black person whom we admired. A number of us—Naomi, Sophie, me, and several
others—told about mission companions, school friends, or clients whom we knew
personally.
Audrey was sunny and happy, and she reached for Dave and
me to be held. She also showed off her
new talent of riding her miniature bus.
She climbs onto the seat, pushes the bus around with her legs, and
presses buttons to make the horn squawk.
Audrey loves buttons. She turned
the TV on and off with the remote until I begged Mike to make sure it is left
in a position where Dave can find his JAZZ game next time we visit. Audrey also loves cell phones. She held Heidi’s cell phone to her ear and
jabbered into it. She also watched with
fascination as Mike showed Audrey and me the video Mike had made of Audrey scooting around
the travertine floors in her new house in her walker. “She’s a sweet baby,” Mike said over and
over.
After Saturday lunch, we hiked along the trail by Dave’s parents’ old house, which starts at the confluence of the Santa Clara and Virgin Rivers. It rained heavily this morning, and the sagebrush was fragrant as we walked.
Back home, we played with Audrey again, until it was time for her to have her bath and bed. Then Mike and Dave watched a JAZZ game as Heidi and I talked about all sorts of things—her beautiful new home, raising Audrey, buying a piano, how to stay healthy and trim, the best way to listen to and understand the scriptures. It was a very relaxed, fun weekend, just being together.
It was so fun to sit with Emilie over lunch and just
talk. She is smart and
career-oriented, with a wry sense of humor. Emilie is excited about graduating from college this spring and then moving
to Dallas during the summer to be a consultant for Oliver Wayment, a
distinguished consulting firm. Emilie
mentioned how impressed she is that her siblings, Jono and Annie, have already made so much of
their lives. “They’ve done so much, so fast,” she said. “And you haven’t?” I laughed. Emilie was awarded one of the University of Utah's top four-year scholarships, was a member of the Honors Program, and then served a mission to Romania and Moldova.
My eyes were squinched shut, in fear and pain, as I got my first COVID shot on January 29, 2021. Dave forwarded the photo to our children with the comment, “Mom got her COVID shot today. She wants you to know that she was brave.”
It was tough to get an appointment, on January 31, 2021. Hordes of people were scared of the pandemic, and competition was fierce to get the first appointments for the new vaccine. The shots were limited to health care workers and then people 65 and older. Steve Ebert was surfing the internet, trying to schedule shots for his parents, who are even older than Dave and me. When Steve found a couple of slots, Camille and Steve quickly called Dave and me, and we went online to sign me up. Dave had already been vaccinated as a health care worker.
The shot appointments turned out to be a party. For both the first and second shots, we ran into Al and Marilyn Ebert at the South Town Expo Center, as we waited for 15 minutes in the "recovery room" after the shot. We relaxed and talked about our fabulous shared children and grandchildren. There were even golf carts to haul the newly vaccinated oldsters to their cars.
Dave brushed away the very thought of having to be hauled to our car in a golf cart, but I thought it would be a rare luxury, like the time we went trick-or-treating with Camille's kids in their upscale neighborhood, and the parents rode golf carts to ferry the kids from house to house!
