Hinckley Blog

In the manuscript of my proposed book for returned missionaries, I include a paragraph on the importance of reading. A lot. One the returned missionaries who reviewed the manuscript for me asked how to decide what to read. Good question. Google "100 best books" and you will find several pages of best books lists, including one listing the 623 best books of all time!

So just for fun, here is the beginning of my list, starting in this post with classic fiction, and not necessarily in any order.

I had the advantage of not reading this in high school or college, so I didn't really care or worry about any deep symbolism. I loved the story! The only thing I was really interested in seeing in Hawaii was the whaling museum at Lahaina. Still hoping to get to Nantucket.

What can I say? The quientessencial novel delineating the difference between the rich and the poor, Easterners and Westerners. I have read it at least three times.

Read it two or three times, and it never fails to inspire. Atticus's closing speech to the jury motivated me to take the LSAT.

One of the few great books I read for fun in college. Have since read it at least two more times. The classic struggle between good and evil, all set in a very medieval world.

A classic for all the right reasons. In fact, just about anything by Mark Twain could be on this list.

The introduction alone, about riding the train across Nebraska, is sufficient to make this a classic. Like Twain, pick any Willa Cather. Death Comes to the Archbishop!

The writing is so good you have to stop every once in a while just to marvel at Steinbeck's writing. 

Of Mice and Men, John Steinbeck

More of that incredible writing, this time in a very short volume.

I had never heard of this for years, but it kept showing up on "best books" lists so I finally read it a few years ago. Life-changing.

Cry, indeed. "It is true that there is a lovely road that runs from Ixopo into the hills." Multiple reads! 

The Cold War is over, but doublespeak lives on.

Haunting.

Just a good read.

The best best of noir crime.

The best of the Bard for the casual reader.

The original Apocalypse Now.  

And I don't even like dogs.

Everybody's favorite mathematician plays with words and our minds.

Fun for all ages, and no childhood is complete without these verses.

Read it every year without fail. The book that created Christmas as we know it.

Coming of age in British India. The next best thing to riding the Grand Trunk Railroad across India yourself. You can almost smell it.

Nineteen year-old boy drops out of college, spends two years out of his comfort zone, and it changes his life forever: the original missionary story.

Sarah Cynthia Silvia Stout. Need I say more?

Just remember that everyone eventually pays the price...

It's the ingenious engineering...

24601.

Oh, yea, it's doublespeak again. Welcome to modern politics, where the politicians are always more equal than others.

Perhaps it would be even a little more hellish if we left them just a little hope.

It's the most populous country on the planet.

Mending Wall, Death of the Hired Man. The New England we all long for.

So that's my Great Classics list so far. A Thousand Years of Solitude shows up on almost every list, but I have yet to read it. I have also not included some "classics" because I am not interested in the language: Catcher in the Rye, for example. And I have never read Pride and Prejudice, though I am told that Elizabeth Bennett is one of the most complex characters in literature (I think that's the way it goes). What else have I missed? What would you add to the list, and why?

On Wednesday, school was cancelled due to an icy snow storm that dumped several inches on us Tuesday night.  All ward activities were cancelled this week as a result, which meant that Rob was home Tuesday night and I didn't have to gear up for the Relief Society quarterly activity Wednesday night (named, ironically enough, "Freezing in February" - it was going to be lessons on making freezer meals).  Rob stared out the window Tuesday night and declared, "It's like the end of days!  It's Snowmagedden! There's no way anyone's going anywhere tomorrow!"  Sure enough, by 9:00 p.m. the phone call came that Loveland schools would be closed.

In the words of Loveland's superintendent, "This has been a most unusual winter for school districts all across the state" and "we still have several weeks of winter left."  That last bit I think he learned from the Groundhog.  (But last year, the Groundhog said winter would be short, and we had snow during spring break - never trust a rodent).  We ran out of snow days at least one snow day ago, and the state has now approved up to three days of Blizzard Bags in the event that the winter weather continues to pound us.  The Blizzard Bag is not a bag - it's a website where students will go to pick up assignments that they can complete so that further snow days don't cut into summer vacation.  A virtual backpack.  And yes, that's right - this Midwestern winter is now threatening my summer.

I managed to get my minivan over the icy snow and out of the driveway, squealing and swerving, to get to the chiropractor on Wednesday morning, but it would not go back up the driveway when I returned.  So I spent an hour with a big shovel trying to dig a path for the car back into the garage.  This did not send my body into labor, much to my dismay and Rob's relief.  It did, however, enable me to get to my OB appointment later that afternoon.  Sensing that the weather and snow day and driveway situation had pushed me beyond my limit of endurance, Rob ditched work and came home so that I did not have to drag all the children to the OB.  He tried to pick up rock salt on his way home, since we used up the last of our supply in the previous week's weather calamity.  The rock salt at the store was long gone, so even after Rob spent another hour plowing the driveway in that early evening's plummeting temperatures, our driveway is still a bit of a bumpy path.

I should have expected unusual cold this year - it happens with every pregnancy.  The summer that Ellie was born, Cincinnati declared a heat emergency.  The weather people warned us not to go outside unless absolutely necessary, and even then to refrain from any strenuous activity such as walking.  Violation of this warning was sure to send the entire population into deadly heatstroke.  I walked 5 minutes each morning from the parking lot to my office, sometimes 9 blocks up to the courthouse for mid-day litigation tasks, and another 5 minutes back from my office to my car at night.  I did not have heatstroke, but I did swell up like a balloon.

The week Matt was born, a major hurricane (was it Katrina?) hit the south, and we encountered the remnants in the form of a disastrous windstorm.  It knocked over trees and destroyed roads and houses.  By the time we arrived home from the hospital with Matt, our power was out.  That first night home from the hospital (which is always the worst night of your life), we tried very hard to feed Matt without shining the flashlight right in his eyes.  We were lucky - our power came back on just 24 hours later, although it took several more days to restore phone and internet service.  Unlike the house up the road, our trees didn't fall over and smash our roof.  The Gibsons didn't have power for a week, so they came over at least a few times to share the meals people were bringing us.

And that brings us to Tessa, wherein we encountered another heat emergency season.  The day after my due date (and two days before she was born), our air conditioning broke.  Just shut off.  Repair companies said it might be 2-3 days before anyone could get out to fix it, because the same thing was happening to overstressed air conditioning units all over the city and they were swamped.  "Would that be okay?" one customer service rep asked.  "Well, I have two young children and I'm 9 months pregnant, so NO THAT WOULD NOT BE OKAY!!"  She was sorry she asked.  The day Tessa was born, Rob and I were wide awake, sweating, at 3:30 a.m.  "Maybe I'll just go into work," Rob said.  "No, please don't leave me," I begged.  Mercifully, my body went into labor just two hours later.  Bus met the air conditioning repairman at our house the next day.  "I bet it's just all froze up," he told Bus. That was the official diagnosis:  our unit was "all froze up" from trying to cool the sweltering air.  We paid him a few hundred dollars for his well-spoken diagnosis and he worked some trick to get it to unfreeze faster than it would on its own.

So here we are.  In 2014, we've endured the Polar Vortex and Arctic Apocalypse, Winter Storm Maximus, Snowmagedden, ice storms, and apparently we're about to encounter something called Winter Storm Orion. Rumors are floating that there will be bad weather tomorrow and again on Monday.  Weather.com doesn't indicate what, if any, weather severity may be in store for us over the weekend, but the temperature certainly isn't going to be high enough to melt the ice on our driveway before the next real snow arrives.  The good news is that by sometime next week, I'll be able to pull my boots on with much less effort and ordeal than it currently takes.  Some days, just being able to get your boots on is all you can ask.

I didn't actually cry myself to sleep last night.  I wanted to, very badly.  But before I let it happen I remembered that I am 266 days pregnant and that bursting into tears was likely an exaggerated response to a relatively minor difference of opinion.  Later came silent anxiety over why we were having a difference of opinion about paint color, and why we can't come up with a name other than Caboose, and whether such matters reveal any serious flaws in our spousal communication.  Later still came actual sleep.  Resolution on paint color is pending.  Resolution on Caboose's name is also pending, presumably, although I think it may not come up again until we're on our way to the hospital.

The painter is coming on Monday at 8:30 a.m. to paint the living room/office and the playroom.  This deadline means that yesterday I finally pulled out the paint samples I bought two weeks ago and put brushstrokes up on the walls.  When Rob got home last night, I had four options on the walls:  City Loft, Wall Street (both chosen, I believe, because as a native New Yorker the names subconsciously appeal to me), Antique Red, and Perfect Greige.  I had almost settled on Perfect Greige for the office and perhaps even for the wall above the chair rail in the playroom, because Perfect Greige is everything it sounds like.  Wall Street, which was my favorite paint swatch, proved way too dark for either a playroom or a largish office that is poorly lit and spends most of bathed in outside shade.  City Loft, as it turns out, is an okay, not overly stunning white.  Antique Red looks lovely on the swatch but looks more like Cherry Red on the wall.

Rob's assessment:  Perfect Greige is too light and somewhat bland.  Wall Street is perfect - dark and rich, just like the olive green walls he's loved so well in his upstairs office (which, come to think of it, were the subject of my last near-meltdown).  City Loft is an okay white.  Antique Red looks lovely on the swatch but looks more like Cherry Red on the wall.  Writing this in the light of day I now see that we actually agreed on 50 percent of the paint colors!  Glass at least half full!  But last night, I agonized over his dislike of Perfect Greige.  I thought about how many paint colors we have already in this house, and how I really would prefer navy blue cupboards in my kitchen but I can't have them because the walls are green (and also because we're not remodeling the kitchen right now and, come to think of it, if we were, repainting the walls would be a mere drop in the money pit).  I thought about how dark and gloomy the office would look painted in Wall Street, how it would clash with the black piano and dark wood end tables.  This is the part where we said goodnight and I rolled over and decided not to cry myself to sleep.

Today I went back to the paint store for more samples:  Spaulding Gray and Storm Cloud.  Spaulding Gray is just a shade darker than Perfect Greige.  Storm Cloud is a shade lighter than Wall Street.  I want to name paint colors for a living, because I really think that Wall Street looks more like a storm cloud and Storm Cloud is much cheerier than the name suggests.  I asked the paint store employees what white I should use, and they suggested either Snowbound or Pure White, since those tend to be the most popular.  There are precious few opportunities in this world to safely follow the crowd; why not take advantage of the places where we can?  Do you think we will raise our social standing if we have Pure White below the chair rail rather than City Loft?  I'm likely to veto Snowbound, because I hate snow and I'm afraid it might be a bad winter omen to put something on my walls that is named after winter storms.  Why I am not similarly vetoing Storm Cloud is not rational, but then again, women who have been pregnant for 266 days are not known for their detached, rational opinions and decisions.

After carefully examining today's paint colors, Rob offered the following:  "I love you more than paint colors.  Please choose what will make you happy."  And so I sat, indecisive, for several minutes before deciding that I'll make this decision in the morning.  In the meantime, I think our spousal communication is in pretty decent shape after all.

Yesterday I was reading People StyleWatch, which I absolutely never do, except for every month.  One page featured something called Vita-K, a serum that will cure puffy baggy eyes as well as those pesky dark circles.  I immediately ordered it from Amazon and then looked in the mirror and thought, "I can't wait to use my anti-wrinkle cream again."  See, you can't use anti-aging products when you're pregnant.  And then it occurred to me that perhaps one shouldn't need pre-natal vitamins AND anti-wrinkle cream on the same day in one's life.  Perhaps the need for anti-wrinkle cream is a clear indication that it's time to leave the baby-bearing stage of life.  Multiply and replenish the earth:  check.

I think my nose looks fat and I'm wondering if a new shade of lipstick would help.

I broke the cardinal rule of pregnancy, which is never, ever cut your hair.  In my defense, it was only bangs that I cut and, furthermore, I didn't actually cut them.  My Korean hair dresser Kimmie cut them and she says I look like a movie star.  Then again, I pay her to say things like that.

Caboose is still without a name or a room.  The room is slightly easier to resolve.  At 10:30 pm last night, Rob said to me, "We need to come up with a three week IKEA strategy."  He was at IKEA last Friday after work, bought several things, and spent several hours building two of those things last Saturday.  So we started discussing this weekend's IKEA trip, including returning two bookcases that we bought before accurately measuring the space in our family room.  They don't fit.  Meanwhile, the wall shelf and media cabinet he built last Saturday are still in the basement, because we're too tired to haul the completed pieces upstairs.  Fortunately, the missionaries are coming over for lunch on Saturday and when they say, "Is there anything we can do for you" we have our answer ready.  We'd ask our home teacher, but he's in his 80s.  The sweet man has already offered to come over and help out with the kids while I'm in labor.  Bless him.

By midnight, we were still discussing the IKEA strategy, only now it had moved to a complete reconsideration of room arrangement chez Lesan.  We've been thinking of installing Caboose in the room that has served as the guest room/Rob's office for the last few years.  I floated the idea of painting it something other than its current dark olive-ish green.  "Veto!" was Rob's response.  "This room has been a sanctuary lo these last few years, and the color cannot change!"  But it's such masculine space, I countered.  We can't put a baby girl in here.  "Matt and I need some masculine spaces in this house.  You girls can't paint everything pink." Moreover, Rob can't face painting one more room in the house, and he's not emotionally prepared to pay someone else to "ruin the office."

Rob thinks if we take out the desk and move the bookshelf to the back wall, there will be just enough space for a mini crib or pack and play; then we could put a rocker in between the guest bed and the mini crib.  I think that sounds ill-configured and I start to get weepy about my little girl having to live crammed into a guest room with olive green walls.  I realize that I'm weepy because it's midnight and I'm 36 weeks pregnant, which is to say that my feelings, while valid, are highly exaggerated.  It's a delicate balance really.  One we'll try hard to strike over the next few months as we navigate round four of late pregnancy/early postpartum emotions.  (Which reminds me that several months ago as we were falling asleep, Rob decided it would be funny to recite every postpartum conversation he anticipated us having - and did so with amazing accuracy).

We finally came to what I think sounds like a reasonable solution, one Rob floated and I vetoed months ago but which now sounds amazingly sane.  Matt will move into the guest room/office with masculine walls and his current room, which until 6 months ago was Tessa's nursery, will now be Caboose's nursery.  On the rare occasions when guests come, Matt will get to have a sleepover with the girls or he can crawl in bed with us.  He crawls in bed with us at least once a week anyway.  Some nights when we go to bed, we find Matt fast asleep hiding under our pillows.  (Totally freaked out a babysitter last week when she went to check on the sleeping kids and Matt was nowhere to be found.  She called us in a panic, afraid Matt had snuck out of the house. Thank heavens we knew otherwise).

But with everyone coming through in the next few months for birth and blessing, it doesn't seem logical to move Matt right away.  So by 12:30 am we decided that all the upstairs rooms will currently stay as configured, and we will make a little corner for Caboose in our room with a bassinet and a glider.  The more things change the more they stay the same.  I think I'll go buy lipstick.