This e-mail arrived at work today.
"I remind you that the state holiday falling on the third Monday of February is referred to in statute as Washington and Lincoln Day (63G-1-301). I encourage the use of this name in school calendars and other communication"
Larry Shumway, Ed.D.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
So, in Utah, we don't have Presidents' Day, which might involve celebrating the contributions of presidents that out legislators don't like. I can see them in my mind's eye, carefully pondering the REALLY BIG issues: should we have an official state firearm? If we have Presidents' Day, could that be interpreted by some to include Barack Obama? Oh, and if we have a Constitutional Convention, should we get it catered? Red punch?
Showing posts with label Passes for news in Utah. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Passes for news in Utah. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Sunday, July 4, 2010
Well, the Bolsheviks Thought is was Patriotic...
I was driving last night with the radio on and there was some sort of very conservative message about our patriotism here in Utah; our love for the flag and all it stands for, etc...
The music in the background was the typical orchestral pomp common to this sort of message...but... wait! I knew that tune! Whoops! It was the Internationale!
The music in the background was the typical orchestral pomp common to this sort of message...but... wait! I knew that tune! Whoops! It was the Internationale!
Sunday, January 24, 2010
WOO-HOO! Or Something Like That
It's the beginning of Sunday Ski-Date season for Simon and me. The kids will be in ski-school for the next 6 Sundays, pretty much all day; Simon and I can ski alone together. Not alone, together; I mean together. Alone. For people as privacy-deprived as we are, that makes it a date.
We were off to a slow start today at 8:00 AM, joining the long line of traffic that stretched down from the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. It had been snowing all night, and the Canyon had been closed for avalanche control. Si got text after text from Snowbird. Opening was delayed until 9:00. 9:15. Further delay was caused by a slide that came down on the road. I read. Si had to pee and had just climbed out of the truck to go find a place to siphon the python, when the Canyon opened and the line of traffic started moving. He had to hold it quite a while longer. I keep telling him that some old empty drink bottles in the cab are a good idea on day like this. We putzed along until we were part way up the canyon, and the traffic stopped again. This time, an avalanche had come down in-bounds at Alta and knocked 4 ski patrollers down with it. Everyone was OK, but Alta closed and so did the Canyon road. Only the people who were already partway up the canyon, on the wrong side of the closure gate, got to continue to Snowbird.
We didn't arrive until about 10:30, pulling in next to truck after truck of guys that had needed to pee all the way up the Canyon and couldn't stand it. They were all lined up at the snowbanks in front of their cars, trying to look discreet about taking a piss. Guys! Old drink bottles! Try it!The skiing was SO worth the hassle. The few of us who made it up had the resort to ourselves for an hour or two. Not much was deemed safe enough to open, but the terrain that was open was fabulous. The best moment was riding along on Gadzoom and looking down just as a patroller opened Bassackwards. He took down the rope that restricted access to a pristine run with about 18" of fresh powder,and we all made a dive for it. Skiing Lower Bassackwards in thigh-deep powder was worth howling about. The shredder dudes were screaming YEEEE-HAH! WOO-HOO! I'm a prissy English-major, so I shouted, "MY GOODNESS THIS IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!! Then came the first of several wipe-outs that went, "WHOOMPH!" and buried my skis so deep I had to dig down to free my feet. Epic!
My boobs held up really well, (thanks, boobs) even when I was poling. I pulled the incision a little once when my pole stuck and jerked my arm back. No big deal.
It was tiring, though. Si went on a last run without me; I went to his office, lay down on his floor with my head on the mitten-bag and took a nap.
We were off to a slow start today at 8:00 AM, joining the long line of traffic that stretched down from the mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. It had been snowing all night, and the Canyon had been closed for avalanche control. Si got text after text from Snowbird. Opening was delayed until 9:00. 9:15. Further delay was caused by a slide that came down on the road. I read. Si had to pee and had just climbed out of the truck to go find a place to siphon the python, when the Canyon opened and the line of traffic started moving. He had to hold it quite a while longer. I keep telling him that some old empty drink bottles in the cab are a good idea on day like this. We putzed along until we were part way up the canyon, and the traffic stopped again. This time, an avalanche had come down in-bounds at Alta and knocked 4 ski patrollers down with it. Everyone was OK, but Alta closed and so did the Canyon road. Only the people who were already partway up the canyon, on the wrong side of the closure gate, got to continue to Snowbird.
We didn't arrive until about 10:30, pulling in next to truck after truck of guys that had needed to pee all the way up the Canyon and couldn't stand it. They were all lined up at the snowbanks in front of their cars, trying to look discreet about taking a piss. Guys! Old drink bottles! Try it!The skiing was SO worth the hassle. The few of us who made it up had the resort to ourselves for an hour or two. Not much was deemed safe enough to open, but the terrain that was open was fabulous. The best moment was riding along on Gadzoom and looking down just as a patroller opened Bassackwards. He took down the rope that restricted access to a pristine run with about 18" of fresh powder,and we all made a dive for it. Skiing Lower Bassackwards in thigh-deep powder was worth howling about. The shredder dudes were screaming YEEEE-HAH! WOO-HOO! I'm a prissy English-major, so I shouted, "MY GOODNESS THIS IS TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE!! Then came the first of several wipe-outs that went, "WHOOMPH!" and buried my skis so deep I had to dig down to free my feet. Epic!
My boobs held up really well, (thanks, boobs) even when I was poling. I pulled the incision a little once when my pole stuck and jerked my arm back. No big deal.
It was tiring, though. Si went on a last run without me; I went to his office, lay down on his floor with my head on the mitten-bag and took a nap.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Orange Corvette
So, I was awakened this morning by a colleague telling me that the streets around Guadalupe Schools where I work were closed, because the police were trying to apprehend a guy who had killed a cop during a traffic stop in Millard County. He had escaped and made his way to the neighborhood near our school, where he has family.
This caused problems for the school, both major and minor, and many phone calls were exchanged. I ended up having to deal with some of it while I was getting my hair cut; when I left, the stylist said, "The news says his getaway car was an orange Corvette. He shouldn't be hard to find in that, huh?" I laughed and promised that if I saw the car, I would let her know.
So, I made it to school, sneaking past the roadblock by using an alley connecting a couple of parking lots. Sure enough: as I came into the building, there was the car, parked on the street at the north end of our playground. Naturally, I called my hairdresser and left her a message: "I'm looking at the orange Corvette right now."
For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, we fought to remain dignified professionals in the face of overwhelming curiosity. With each new development ("They're sending a robot over to the car!" "Why is that guy with the cell phone running away?" "I think the helicopter is landing.") we would stampede [trottrottrottrottrot] from one window to another. If the school had been a boat, we would have capsized it. At one point, I glanced toward my office window and saw a reporter hidden there, with a telephoto lens trained on the orange Corvette. He was oblivious to us, on the other side of the tinted window, but I could have opened it and handed him a sandwich. If I had wanted to. He had one.
At one point, my boss and a couple of other staff members and I went upstairs, thinking we could see more from the second floor. There is a fairly big window there, which faces out onto the playground and the Corvette. We could hear a couple of cops talking under the window, or maybe a cop talking on his radio. My boss cracked the window open, hoping to listen in. But the cop sneezed. "Bless you!" she said. Shit! We all slapped our hands over our mouths. Sure enough, footsteps under the window and a knock on the school door directly underneath us. Trottrottrot down the stairs to open the door. The police officer says, "We think you may have some schoolchildren near the upstairs window. We have snipers with high-powered rifles trained on this parking lot from every angle, so we need all the kids away from the windows." "Yes, sir, Officer, sir." "We'll take care of those kids right away." He seems to have forgotten that school had been cancelled. Or he was trying to be tactful.
This caused problems for the school, both major and minor, and many phone calls were exchanged. I ended up having to deal with some of it while I was getting my hair cut; when I left, the stylist said, "The news says his getaway car was an orange Corvette. He shouldn't be hard to find in that, huh?" I laughed and promised that if I saw the car, I would let her know.
So, I made it to school, sneaking past the roadblock by using an alley connecting a couple of parking lots. Sure enough: as I came into the building, there was the car, parked on the street at the north end of our playground. Naturally, I called my hairdresser and left her a message: "I'm looking at the orange Corvette right now."
For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, we fought to remain dignified professionals in the face of overwhelming curiosity. With each new development ("They're sending a robot over to the car!" "Why is that guy with the cell phone running away?" "I think the helicopter is landing.") we would stampede [trottrottrottrottrot] from one window to another. If the school had been a boat, we would have capsized it. At one point, I glanced toward my office window and saw a reporter hidden there, with a telephoto lens trained on the orange Corvette. He was oblivious to us, on the other side of the tinted window, but I could have opened it and handed him a sandwich. If I had wanted to. He had one.
At one point, my boss and a couple of other staff members and I went upstairs, thinking we could see more from the second floor. There is a fairly big window there, which faces out onto the playground and the Corvette. We could hear a couple of cops talking under the window, or maybe a cop talking on his radio. My boss cracked the window open, hoping to listen in. But the cop sneezed. "Bless you!" she said. Shit! We all slapped our hands over our mouths. Sure enough, footsteps under the window and a knock on the school door directly underneath us. Trottrottrot down the stairs to open the door. The police officer says, "We think you may have some schoolchildren near the upstairs window. We have snipers with high-powered rifles trained on this parking lot from every angle, so we need all the kids away from the windows." "Yes, sir, Officer, sir." "We'll take care of those kids right away." He seems to have forgotten that school had been cancelled. Or he was trying to be tactful.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
37,000
That is the number of Americans who died last year of the plain-old, seasonal flu. If another person tells me that I should beware an ugly death because I regularly share germs with Mexicans, I am going to get annoyed.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Those Wild, Crazy Americans
I have to share a story I read in the paper about a Consumer Reports telephone survey of 1,000 respondents. The conclusion of the survey is that Americans indulge in all sorts of risky behavior. I read further, expecting a discussion of extreme skiing; wandering off into the desert; driving motorcycles without helmets; stuff like that. Turns out (as if you didn't already know) that I am a bad girl.
Did you know that 75% of Americans put cotton swabs inside their ears?
Yep. I do that. So much safer than the cap of a ball-point pen.
40% confess to having eaten raw cookie dough.
And raw cake batter, which is even tastier.
50% of us have a carbon monoxide detector in the home.
Well, we had one in the old house, when we had a wood stove, but not now. My colleague Rebecca says that she decided to get a CO detector after she and her husband got a fondue set. I find myself imagining a fateful dinner party at Rebecca's house: a fondue set the size of a jacuzzi, with corpses littering the dining room.
And 61% of us don’t have a rubber mat in the shower.
Shower mats remind me of a housemate I had once. He was trying to avoid some people who were looking for him (yes, this was a more exciting epoch in my life than the one I am currently experiencing), so he dyed his red hair "Rich Dark Brown". But the dye made his hair fall out. He would hoard it under the rubber shower mat. One day he took me into the bathroom to show me his hair collection and I really haven’t felt OK about shower mats since then.
This survey has done a lot for my feeling of suburban confinement. I AM edgy! If I stand on a street corner, licking the beaters from my hand-mixer, I could get a reputation. I have been wanting a reputation.
OK, time for true confessions. Please comment and share your responses to the following questions. Do you:
1. put Q-Tips in your ears?
2. eat raw cookie dough?
3. have a CO detector?
4. have a rubber mat in the shower?
Did you know that 75% of Americans put cotton swabs inside their ears?
Yep. I do that. So much safer than the cap of a ball-point pen.
40% confess to having eaten raw cookie dough.
And raw cake batter, which is even tastier.
50% of us have a carbon monoxide detector in the home.
Well, we had one in the old house, when we had a wood stove, but not now. My colleague Rebecca says that she decided to get a CO detector after she and her husband got a fondue set. I find myself imagining a fateful dinner party at Rebecca's house: a fondue set the size of a jacuzzi, with corpses littering the dining room.
And 61% of us don’t have a rubber mat in the shower.
Shower mats remind me of a housemate I had once. He was trying to avoid some people who were looking for him (yes, this was a more exciting epoch in my life than the one I am currently experiencing), so he dyed his red hair "Rich Dark Brown". But the dye made his hair fall out. He would hoard it under the rubber shower mat. One day he took me into the bathroom to show me his hair collection and I really haven’t felt OK about shower mats since then.
This survey has done a lot for my feeling of suburban confinement. I AM edgy! If I stand on a street corner, licking the beaters from my hand-mixer, I could get a reputation. I have been wanting a reputation.
OK, time for true confessions. Please comment and share your responses to the following questions. Do you:
1. put Q-Tips in your ears?
2. eat raw cookie dough?
3. have a CO detector?
4. have a rubber mat in the shower?
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