Monday, August 31, 2009

okay, someone needs to explain this poster to me


because technically, I'm teaching a class right now and i don't have time to go to the website and figure it out. www.theIHS.org/cure.


FYI, the first line below the subtitle is, "Millions of people every year suffer from the debilitating effect of government corecion."

I can't figure out if they're serious or joking and which one of those options is funnier...

New crop of students!

poor things. I'm not sure they know what they're getting themselves into...



I know, you thought I'd forgotten

But I finally got the rest of the prizes out!

for my web-survey hero, Nicole:

for my mom:

and for the 17-book incredible Katrina, who came in first!


thanks, everyone!

Friday, August 28, 2009

Miss Provo has commandeered my house

so y'all are invited over, too.

celebrate the end of the summer by taking over the world and stuff.

RISK party night.
bring food, any fancy RISK games you have (we have one, I think, but if you have one with Yoda on it or something, Steve might squeal like a girl), and come party.

sunday, august 30, 5:00PM

ps: if you need directions, email me kerryspencer at byu dot edu.

Only if you have a bad back like me, honey.

Lily: "Mommy?"

Me: "Yeah?"

Lily: "You're a grown up."

Me: "Yeah."

Lily: "Mommy?"

Me: "Yeah?"

Lily: "If I groan and I groan and I keep on groaning, will I be a grown up too?"

Thursday, August 27, 2009

Do you want a MWF mind warp? Are you at BYU?

take my class!

Honors 150: section 026

register today because the class is getting canceled tomorrow if enrollment doesn't top 13 students.

ps: tell your friends

Monday, August 24, 2009

Makes you kinda wonder about priorities, right?

at Miss Provo's pool, there are several signs.






Only one of them is about not pooping in the water.

(I wonder if they know that modest swimwear doesn't protect you from the Crypto?)

Friday, August 21, 2009

Lily's Brutal But Effective Method of Defeating the Chinese Finger Trap


Fitting. (As my Uncle Fred--another engineer!--says, "If Brute Force doesn't work, you're just not using enough.")

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

In honor of Lily's future career

First, a disclaimer: I took an ambien an hour ago, which means I am not allowed to be posting anything

But Steve just made me laugh really hard and I knew that if I didn't write it down, I wouldn't remember it tomorrow because, yanno, Ambien makes me forget stuff that happens after I take my evening pill. (It also impairs my judgment and lowers my inhibitions, which will have to be considered caveat #2. Ergo, I cannot accept full responsibility for the appropriateness/inappropriateness regarding any of the following and readers should be duly warned thus.)

So, Steve has always had this habit of literally falling asleep in the middle of our conversations. Only… He keeps talking. And sometimes it takes me a minute to figure out the precise point where his consciousness has been compromised. See if you can spot the PPCC (precise point of compromised consciousness) below!


Me [fluffing up my pillows and such, getting ready for bed]: “So, Doogie says I have to have a bone scan done.”

Steve: “And it'll take all day?”

Me: “Yeah. I’ll be at the U hospital. They wanted me to get a CAT scan the same morning, and I heard them on the phone wrangling to get both procedures done in the same hospital so I wouldn’t have to trek up to Huntsman Cancer and I almost yelled out the hallway, ‘Naw! I LIKE Huntsman better! PLEASE send me there!”

Steve: “20 year old hospitals *are* pretty creepy.”

Me: “It’s not just that the U is creepy. They’re *nicer* to you at Huntsman. There are all these soothing fountains and aromatherapy and all of the posters on the wall say things like, ‘You aren’t going to get addicted to pain killers! Please take MORE! And if you still hurt, we can give you STRONGER STUFF!’ Or my personal favorite: ‘Ten ways to sneak extra calories into your diet.’ I liked the one about just randomly adding heavy cream to everything. So tasty.”

Steve: “So, what does the bone scan show?”

Me: “They usually only use it to monitor cancer progressions, etc., but it also has some uses particularly suited to identifying degenerative facets in the vertebrae.”

Steve: “What does the messed up facet look like?”

Me: “Well, the scans show bright spots and dark spots. Dark spots are cancer spots. Bright spots are spots where the bone has been doing an abnormal amount of bone re-generation--like if it’s been really stressed from the slouching and the baby birthing and the getting-whacked-in-the-side-by-a-drunk-driver thing. So, dark spots = bad, bright spots = not so bad. Unless they’re tumors, I guess. Those can be bright too.”

Steve: “So, best case?”

Me: “They find a few messed up facets. They inject a few things into my spine. I feel no pain for two years at which point they inject some more things and life is good. Worst case would be that they find nothing and my back still friggin hurts. No, strike that. I guess worst case would be they find a multiple myeloma. That word has been randomly appearing in my nightmares, remember? So I looked it up. It’s incurable. Median survival rate 50 months. Totally hypochondriachiacally creeptastic, right?”

Steve: “But do people your age even get that cancer? You’re young.”

Me: “Youngish. Young people don’t tend to get colon cancer, either. But that’s what my grandma died of. When she was *thirty six.*”

Steve: “Well, I guess we’re going to have to add that to the list.”

Me: “What list? A list of cancers that are completely unlikely anywhere except in my family?”

Steve: “No, The Cookie list.”

Me: “Cancer cookies?”

Steve: “Yeah, Cancer cookies. We’ll have to make some. Put them in Tupperware.”

Me: "Okay, but only if we can randomly poor cream on them." [laughing because I know Steve is totally asleep now and if I wanted to, I could keep the conversation going for awhile just because it'd be hilarious. I'll have to do that some night when I'm not on Ambien.]

Tuesday, August 04, 2009

Last chance to own your own Ewok!


We're going to have to take her to the pound within the next week or two, and we don't want to, so if you need a lap friend, send me a holler right away!

Sometimes three year olds do really disturbing things


like saying, "Look, Mommy!" and then dropping down into the splits. ouch.

When Steve said we had good seats, I confess, I didn't believe him.

till we got there. Nicely done, kid.

Sam's Pioneer Day Prayer

transcribed as per Auntie Barb's suggestion.

Grandpa Mark: "Sam, would you mind helping me say the prayer?"

Sam: Sure. [completely ignoring the "helping" part, he just dives in.] "Heavenly Father, we are so happy to be here with each other surrounded by all of this great food. Bless all of the great food because it's good for us to eat it. And thanks we could all be here today on... [turns to Grandpa] "What day is it again?"

Almost everyone whispers: "Pioneer Day."

Sam: [Voice takes on a more authoritative tone: think the Princess Bride "Marriage" speech.] "Oh, yes. Pioneer Day. Pioneer Day is a very important day. It's a day when we... remember Pioneers... and eat lots of food. It's a day we should all remember because it's so important. We should remember it all week. And especially while we eat all of this food. AMEN."

(am I missing anything, Barb?)

In which the spirit of hip-hop mysteriously morphs into full on Gangsta Rap

scene: the children's museum. Sam has found the sound booth, where you can experiment with sound mixing. He instantly hones in on a beat-box type rap background track. As the beat pulses, he shakes his hips, nods his head, grabs the microphone, frowns, then looks at me and chants (in perfect rap rhythm)

"All I want to do is PkEEW!! PkEWW!!" [uses thumbs and forefingers to approximate the firing of a weapon.] "And take your MONEY!"

I stare at him.

He tells me it's Miss Provo's fault. I'm not sure I want to know what he means by that.

Saturday, August 01, 2009

Lily has informed me

that when she grows up she is going to

1. Drive a purple motorcycle. ("Don't worry, Mommy," she says, "I'll wear a hat." She means helmet, but I do appreciate the sentiment.)
2. Be an engineer for Toyota. (Every time we pass a Toyota she screams in glee: "It's a TOYOTA, Mommy! A TOYOTA!!!")

One would think that I would not take such statements from a 3yo seriously. I mean, I used to tell people that I was going to design tennis shoes for Reebok, and we all see how *that's* worked out for me.

However.

When Lily's Grandpa was in fourth grade, he was assigned to do a report on his future career. This was the cover of what he turned in:

It's also what he does now: 45+ years later, he's an engineer at a petroleum refinery.

So here's to Lily's future at Toyota. And her purple motor cycle.