You know how everybody does that tagged thingies? I did one a while back, with ten jobs I did not want. And it was pretty fun. So here I go again, because it is late, and I don’t feel like writing my book (don’t tell). Everyone who reads this, consider yourself TAGGED.

1. I like to read those Nigerian scam letters. I know, I know, I get at least seven a week, and I am truly wasting time, but DAMN, those people are resourceful. I have more dead relatives in foreign countries than you can imagine! And a lot of people find me very trustworthy, even though they don’t know me, and have bcc’ed a bunch of other people. I read them just to see how they vary, and how alike they are. I’ll try to stop. I promise.

2. I like to watch Arthur on PBS. I can’t possibly tell you why. When my children were little, I despised Barney, and watching an episode was torture. Worse than General Conference Sunday. But Arthur catches me. Even now, I’ll sit down and watch an episode or two. Followed by some SEX IN THE CITY, of course, just to clarify my mental age.

3. I find Pete Wentz from Fall Out Boy oddly attractive. Eyeliner and all. Don’t tell my children. Immense mortification will follow. They will never be able to ogle him properly again.

4. I thought NAPOLEON DYNAMITE was the stupidest movie ever made. You can tell my children. They already know. In fact, they are tired of hearing it.

5. I’ve seen the naked pictures of Disney Queen Vanessa Hudgens. Jt was kind of an accident. I was reading a blog, and clicked on a link, and VOILA, there she was. Oh to be young and firm again.

6. I’ve never seen the sex tape of Tommy Lee and Pamela Anderson (and don’t want to). Ditto for the sex tape of Paris Hilton and that guy who married Pamela Anderson (I already seen this one coming, don’t you?). Or an other celebrity sex tape.

7. This one time, at band camp…. KIDDING! Never played an instrument, never been to band camp. (For the totally clueless, this is an American Pie reference)

8. I bore my testimony as to the truthfulness of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints EVERY Fast Sunday until I was about twelve. I never believed it was true, really, except for my parents SAID it was. And it was a microphone, and I had dreams of stardom. Tough crowd. You had to repeat the same things over and over, and they weren’t much for humor. To this day, my mother bemoans the fact I “lost” my testimony. Would it break her heart to know I was imagining I was on the Donny and Marie show?

9. WalMart scares me. The girls think this is the funniest thing EVER. Before you get your knickers in a knot, and think I’m one of those anti-WalMart groupies, the truth is, it’s not about politics, or sales tactics, or whatever. The damn place is TOO big and I wander around lost and can never find what I’m looking for and it’s totally overwhelming. I need Valium just to step foot through the door.

10. Um, okay, yes I WAS a Donny and Marie fan. Okay, there, it’s out. Can you say GOING COCONUTS?

I haven’t done this for a while, and I was actually going to blog about Marie Osmond collapsing after she performed (quite admirably, mind you) on DANCING WITH THE STARS, but who can resist a little controversy, huh?

Our newest friend, Juestra Migonozopolatza (and no, I cannot say or spell it. Try cut and paste) claims, on my POST ABOUT SEATTLE, of all things, that many of my comments are blanket statements. I admit, I needed many blankets in Seattle. It was cold. Even Seattle-ites are agreeing with me there, Juju.

Perhaps my complaint about the wet, bone-chilling cold in Seattle is not what you are referring to, in which case, PERHAPS you should have clarified?

Anyway, here is what our new friend Juju said.

I find many of your comments to be blanket statements, lacking solid, specific evidence, substance, or intellegent critiism. Its ok to vent negative frustrations you have towards an organization you do not believe or wish to be part of; however, recognize that criticism is only valid when approached with objective measures…your complaints stem from petty acts, and these petty acts force you to reduce a massive organization into your own small-scale construct.

This is the very means by which malevolent dictators in the past and present eliminated massive populations that violated the views of a single individual.

Not good. Not intellegent.

People who cannot SPELL intell-I-gent are obviously woefully unqualified to measure someone ELSE’S intell-I-gence.

Dismissed. Next?

ADDENDUM: Here’s my next already.

Name: zoolandrrrrrrr | E-mail: zoolandrrrrrrr@

you should have fucked the missionaries.. now that would be a good story.

you sound like a spoiled little loser brat still living with mom and dad and already failed at marriage. lacking faith to repent and really serve christ…you hide behind this bullshit as if you are doing anyone any good. my dog chases his tail and thinks he’s a hero. the church is true. the evidence is astounding. there is no other way to account for its success. every knee shall bow sister…and i am not perfect either, so if you want to bow them for me,,,,um yahha

And you? You sound like a seventeen-year-old hypocrite. Spoiled little loser brat? Look in the mirror, Zoo Boy. WHAT evidence? There is no evidence, you complete and total moron. Astounding? Give it to me, and I don’t mean your minuscule little member. I’m talking about EVIDENCE you claim you have, when you come here and comment (quite stupidly, I might add). The way to account for the Mormon Church’s success, Monkey Boy, is lies, smoke and mirrors, and deceptive practices, along with the desire of people to be told what to do, and what will happen when they die.

If you tell people you have THE ANSWERS, they will come. Along the way, an interesting thing happens. Many leave when they realize you DON’T have the answers. Others find ways to research and convince themselves that the answers are THERE, if you just look in a different area, or don’t take things so literally, or pray and listen to the heartburn, letting it rule you instead of taking ZANTAC. Those people stay. And some? Some are born into it, and stay because it’s the culture. But it’s NOT about success.

You, little Ape Boy, need a good spanking and some lessons in manners, as well as some repentance of your own. This comment was your equivalent of the shiny big red car. Lacking something in the “male” department, are we, so must shove our priesthood around?

I’m not playing. Go home to mommy.

I spent the weekend in Seattle, where I signed at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop. Guess what? It rained. Pretty much the entire weekend. And I discovered that the “cold” there is “colder” than Utah cold. It IS. I am not lying. Something to do with the moisture, I think, but I was shivering and in a hoodie or sweatshirt the entire time.

The signing was great, the staff at the SMB the best, and the coffee was WONDERFUL. And I required a LOT of it, because it was so freaking cold. My aunt, who lives outside of Seattle, put me up for the weekend, and she was a very gracious hostess, but she apparently has a furnace burning inside her body, because she swore she turned the heat on for me before I came. I imagine that gave the icicles time to melt, because there were none of those apparent, but I swear I could see my breath.

Now, yes, I am aware I live in Utah, and in the winter, we hit some pretty bonechilling temperatures, but we are honest about these temperatures. NOBODY every says Seattle is cold. “It rains,” they say, “but it never snows,” so you think, well, it must be warmer than Utah, right? A little rain never hurt anybody, right?

Good God. That rain is like ice daggers. Once I got into the bed my aunt made up for me, though, and pulled on six extra quilts (and she had a lot of them, because quilting is her guilty pleasure) I discovered that Seattle rain made me sleep quite well.

Better than I have slept in months, in fact.

Just call me, Sleeping in Seattle….

When my children were babies and toddlers, I was vigilant about making sure that all of our electrical outlets were safe from prying, chubby baby fingers and any of the myriad things those little fingers might try to push into those sockets. I bought the little plastic protectors and whenever a socket wasn’t in use, it was covered and safe–and so were my children.

Today, I think back on those memories, and wonder if Valerie Nye is remembering the same thing. Maybe she is wishing somehow she had something so marvelous, so small and convenient, and yet worth so much for all the heartache they save. Wishing life was that simple again, and that Friday she wouldn’t be burying her 15-year-old son, Scott.

I can’t imagine anything more terrible than the loss of one of your children. Especially in such a horrible way.

Friday, after school let out, some local teenage boys, including Scott, headed up to a trail that led up into the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains. I imagine they were just hanging out together, passing time, maybe talking about girls. Maybe swearing or cursing a bit, because they are kids and they will experiment.

Because boys will be boys, when they happened upon a metal-frame transformer tower, they decided to climb it. It looked like fun. It was adventure, and of course they knew there was danger involved, but teenage boys are mutants. They think they are invincible. They walk down the middle of the street, playing chicken against cars as though they can fight off anything–ANYTHING–and walk away unscathed. Even a three-thousand pound metal car. Oh would that they were right. That they could withstand the crushing weight of a vehicle, or 46,000 volts of electricity. But they cannot.

One of the boys climbed the tower first, and recounted the terror when he got down. So two more of them decided to go up, and Scott was about two-thirds of the way up when things went horribly wrong. Authorities–and his friends–are unsure exactly what happened, but it is possible he slipped and grabbed the power line, or that it arced.

And his friends watched as he died. In a story in The Salt Lake Tribune, one of his friends said:

“We heard this loud pop and [saw] like a huge light - like a huge flash of fire and sparks - and he [Nye] just fell,” Croft said.

And with that flash of light, that pop, a young life was forever ended. The boy slightly below Nye on the tower happens to be the son of my good friends. I know him well, and I know that his entire family is in mourning now. Not only for the horrible loss of a childhood friend, but for the loss of innocence for their son.

There must be a bubble of protectiveness around our brains when we have children, because if there wasn’t, we would never do it. We would realize the world is full of speeding cars, bullets, incurable diseases and 46,000-watt towers that have an incredible lure. Sure, we know these things exist, but they exist for someone else. Not for us. Not for our children. Because if we knew that, if we knew the pain of that loss and the fear that comes with the horrible dark knowledge that no amount of prayer, or any belief system, or ANYTHING at all can save you sometimes–well, we just wouldn’t be willing to risk the pain.

For more than one family tonight, that bubble has popped. The dark knowledge is real.

There has been some small controversy in the Trib story comments, because someone was angry that the boy who reached Nye first stopped to pray before performing CPR. One commentor wrote:

Stopped to kneel & pray before performing CPR??? I am impressed mommy & daddy filled your head with all the false Mormon BS so you could let your friend have a better chance of dying. My condolences to the family of the deceased.

First of all, I have to say that the few short seconds of prayer doubtless had no impact on whether or not Scott Nye died, but undoubtedly gave the boy administering CPR the courage and faith to TRY to save his friend, even when he knew that Scott was already dead. I found the above comment a little horrifying, simply because I don’t feel it is relevant or factual. This is bitter tripe spit out and spewing at the Mormon Church, when this is not about Mormonism at all. Yes, these boys were raised LDS, for the most part, and their behavior was instinctual, but this is more about human nature. Anyone who has read this blog knows I don’t believe Mormonism to be true, but I do understand the basic human need to believe in miracles. To reach out and grab something out of air, anything, to change the circumstances.

They reached out for help in the places they felt they could find it. At that point in time, prayer was it. Someone else was calling 911. Help was on the way. A few seconds of prayer was needed for the boys still living to carry on, and try to save their friend.

In 2003, while visiting Idaho, near Yellowstone, I had my own little miracle. My own little intervention, reaching out and grabbing help. My youngest child was on the back of an ATV, and my soon-to-be-ex husband was ahead of us, leading us down a treacherous hillside, when something told me to just GET HER OFF the back of the four-wheeler. I told her to walk down, and not one minute after she got off the front wheel of the ATV hit a log, flew off balance and rolled over on top of me several times. I was injured. She was safe.

I don’t know if it was common sense, or guardian angels, or WHAT that day, but I still have her.

Scott Nye’s family and friends do not have him. They tried. But he died.

My condolences to the family in this time of horrible tragedy. I’m sorry you’ve been visited by the dark knowledge. And I hope that your faith makes it easier to bear. I wouldn’t dream of taking it away from you at a time like this.

Last week an interesting thing happened at my daughters’ junior high. On Thursday, all the REALLY ACTIVE MORMONS in the 9th Grade came to school in their Sunday-go-to-meetin’ garb. Now, why did they do this, you might ask? See, this past weekend was the Mormon General Conference. And apparently, in honor of General Conference, they all dressed up. Now, this might sound innocent, and perhaps it even was, on the face of it.

But when we dissect it closer, if you have even ONE OUNCE of a crack in your mind that isn’t completely steeped in all things Mormon, and through which a little light shines, you might see there are some issues here.

First of all, living in this Mormon state, asking kids to do something like this proved one purpose. It showed WHO was Mormon and WHO was not. And nothing else. It also showed that the MAJORITY of the ninth grade is Mormon, and attends Seminary. And it also served to point out just WHO WAS NOT MORMON, so the rest of the masses could avoid them like the plague.

Now, Mormons, I can hear your arguments, because I’ve already heard them from my dad. So let me get this out right now. I do not think that the seminary teachers thought, “Hey, here’s a good way to ostracize everyone at our school who isn’t Mormon. Let’s tell all the kids to dress up in honor of General Conference, and then they will know just who is chosen, and who is not.”

No, I don’t think that’s how it went down. I sincerely hope that’s not how it went down. But in reality, none of that matters. What DOES matter is that it was wrong. Whatever the reason, it backfired, because it only spotlighted that Mormons think they are special, and there is a HUGE gap between Mormons and non-Mormons, and that divide will NEVER be bridged. Whatever you do on Sunday is your business. And how you live your life is also your business. But SPOTLIGHTING just who ISN’T what you are is stupid, rude, and downright nasty.

And that is the only outcome that could come from this. Because this IS a Mormon state. And this IS a Mormon city. And we even have politicians in this Mormon city that have deemed it almost illegal to have city-sanctioned events on MONDAYS because that is the Mormon Family Home Evening night.

The majority of the population is Mormon, and so it was not brave, or honorable for these kids to wear their Sunday clothes to school. The majority of the ninth grade was doing the same damn thing. It was the same old, “I”m a Mormon and you aren’t, so neener, neener, neener.” Or “Boys and girls, take a good look, because the kids NOT in dress clothes? Not temple material. Don’t date them.”

My father argued that the intent of the seminary teacher/teachers was pure, and perhaps it was. He also argued that the Mormon Church does NOT teach they are better than everyone else. They do not encourage division and separation. Wrongo. Only Mormons will go to the Celestial Kingdom. Ring a bell with ya? The Mormon Church has been one of division and separation for years. Things have started to change, but as long as events like this happen, it’s just three steps forward and forty-two steps back.

Because, after all, these kids were NOT dressing up to GO TO CONFERENCE. Oh no. Conference was on the weekend. This happened on a Thursday. DURING REGULAR SCHOOL HOURS. Public school hours, no less. They were not attending a program, or putting on a special program. No, the only reason to wear the clothing was to show that they WERE MORMON. And spotlight who was NOT Mormon.

So much for separation of church and state.