Category: John

  • gift


    Last night, as a Christmas present, John took me to see men in tights. Um,… I mean The Nutcracker.

    The last time John and I watched ballet was a bit of a disaster, so he wanted to make it up to me. Very thoughtful of him! :) The show was preceded by dinner in a lovely little French restaurant (who knew that an Irvine strip mall could have such charm). :)

    Though I am still a bit miffed that John didn’t discreetly take a picture of Clara’s throne in fairyland for the Internet. It was so funny–surrounded by huge stuffed purple ‘sugarplums’, which looked more like huge plummy butts than any kind of fruity confection.

  • gentle

    Yesterday I went to GameBoy’s parent-teacher conference. At his teacher’s request, GB accompanied me to the appointment. What followed was 20 minutes of praise for my super-amazing son.

    GB truly is a wonderful human being. He’s humble, generous, thoughtful, smart, and full of delight. GameBoy never does anything halfway. He acts with his whole heart, body and mind. He doesn’t willfully break the rules, or lie, or deceive for personal gain. He is without guile.

    I worry, sometimes, what will happen to this sweet child as he enters middle school, as he moves on with his life and encounters people who will take advantage of his sincerity [Though this has happened a few times already, like the naughty boys who taught him the middle finger, but didn’t tell him what the gesture _really_ meant. Then GameBoy demonstrated ‘the bird’ in front of his 1st grade class and got in trouble. silly boys.]

    GameBoy definitely doesn’t take after me. He is his father’s son. Like GB, John is so honest that many people don’t know how to react to him, who is so compassionate [even I am often quite mystified by this sensitive creature that I married]. I found a poem a few years ago that always reminds me of John:

    There are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves

    There are men too gentle to live among wolves
    Who prey upon them with IBM eyes
    And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon.
    There are men too gentle for a savage world
    Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween
    And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.

    There are men too gentle to live among wolves
    Who anoint them for burial with greedy claws
    And murder them for a merchant’s profit and gain.
    There are men too gentle for a corporate world
    Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
    And pause to hear the distant whistle of a train.

    There are men too gentle to live among wolves
    Who devour them with apetite and search
    For other men to prey upon and suck their childhood dry.
    There are men too gentle for an accountant’s world
    Who dream instead of Easter eggs and fragrant grass
    And search for beauty in the mystery of the sky.

    There are men too gentle to live among wolves
    Who toss them like a lost and wounded dove
    Such gentle men are lonely in a merchant’s world
    Unless they have a gentle one to love.
    -James Kavanaugh

  • overheard

    Last night:

    “I have a student who’s really cute. He’s not doing well in the class, but he tries really hard.”

    “Should I be worried that you think your students are cute?”

    “He’s not that kind of cute. He’s like wookie-cute.”

    “Wookie-cute? [insert really pathetic imitation of Chewbacca that sounds like a howler monkey w/hemorhhoids]

    “No, No, No. Not wookie cute, _ewok_ cute. Like a teddy bear.”

    “Oh. Yah. Big difference.”

  • late fees

    From Aunt Susan (a.k.a. “Conan the librarian”):
    900 years ago monasteries were tough on people failing to return books, even to the point of excommunicating them and places curses on their heads. For example:

    “For him that stealeth, or borrow and returneth not this book from its owner, let it change into a serpent in his hand and rend him. Let him be struck with palsy, and all his members blasted. Let him languish in pain, cry aloud for mercy, and let there be no surcease in his agony til he sing his dissolution. Let bookworms gnaw his entrails in token of the worm that dieth not, and when at last he goeth to his final punishment, let the flames of hell consume him forever.”

    So maybe I’ll use this curse the next time that someone (who shall remain nameless) asks to check out his books on my card because his is maxxed out. And somehow all the books on his card get turned in on time and all the books on my card end up overdue?

  • busy

    Today was busy. Not just your regular garden-variety busy, but the kind of busy where you are timing how long it will take to put away the frozen stuff from the grocery store because you are already late to your next meeting and you have to choose whether to take 20 seconds to pee or to change your shoes that are giving you blisters.

    I got so flustered this afternoon that I goofed and took the car to a meeting when John needed it to get to class. And then his cell phone broke. And then my cellphone starting ringing like crazy in the middle of my meeting when he got home and found no car. ACK!

    So…what I’m trying to say, John, is that I’m sorry. And I hope you made it to class on time even though you got a late start.
    Ganbarimasu!!
    :)

  • Make me smile…

    leave off studying at midnight to spend some time with me. even when you really should be reading for class, even when you’re tired, even we we both know that we’ll need to get up in just a few hours….
    :)

  • paris


    musee d’orsay
    Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    Woke up missing Paris today. Looked through some of the photos from our trip last summer and decided to post this one of me sitting in the cafe at the musee d’orsay. [I highly recommend this cafe, BTW. Though the museum itself is amazing, you have to eat there to really appreciate it!]. This morning I also loaded just a few of our pics from the trip onto flickr for everyone to enjoy.

    I decided, after looking at this photo, that the inspiration for the new blue wall in our bedroom may have come from the ceiling in the musee. Peut-etre?

    P.S. John took this picture of me. It’s wonderful to have a husband who makes me feel beautiful through the pictures that he takes. :)

  • 13 years


    Fancy date, 1990
    Originally uploaded by pilgrimgirl.

    Well, as of tomorrow John and I will have been married for 13 years. Unbelievable.

    Some days I wonder where the time has gone? Can it really be 13 years since that Wednesday morning we were married at the LA Temple?

    But when, like yesterday, I look through the boxes of old pictures, I realize just how much time has passed–seeing it visually makes it all seem real.

    So I put together a brief slideshow of pics from our early years. I apologize for the graininess/poor quality of the pics–but these are old! :) Perhaps you’ll enjoy this trip down memory lane with me and John.
    Love,
    Jana

  • schedule

    Well, this will be a big week for our litle family. This is the week that John will start back to school. He’s been waiting for this day for a very long time. He’s finally going back to study a subject of his own choosing (religious studies), and not a study that is practical (MBA) or highly employable (japanese politics and economics).

    This evening as we planned our week John and I realized that once the kids start school it will take a miracle for us to be able to get everyone where they need to go. With one car, four busy schedules, and a Long Beach commute, well, it’s mind-boggling. There will be sacrifices (bus rides, missed gymnastics practices, no time for visiting w/professors, babysitting, etc?). There will be stress.

    But I think it will be worth it.

    To me, it’s far better to be struggling towards a lofty goal, than to be wandering aimlessly without one. I am keeping my fingers crossed, keeping a prayer in my heart, and hoping for the best. For all of us.

  • name

    Guess I’ll feel really comfortable in my Mormon community now that I have an “official” Mo name. Here it is:
    My Mormon name is An’Janae.
    John’s is even cooler than mine:
    His Mormon name is Jadon.
    What’s yours?

  • leavin’

    John’s heading up to Sunstone tomorrow. I am staying home since I’m usually the one heading out of town for conferences these days and one of us has to see the kids through the end of summer school.

    I’m renting some good movies while John’s gone. Movies with Ewan McGregor that don’t involve light sabers. {BTW, did you know that Ewan, John and I are all the same age? Ewan was born in one of the two months between me & John’s birthdays}. Oh, and I might rent some Brad Pitt movies, too (tho he’s no longer as attractive to me as he used to be. Even though his photo shoot with Jolie was oh-so-vintage-cool).

    But I’ll also be incredibly lonely and more than a little bored this week without John. I’ll miss him…

  • About a year ago John drew this picture of me to celebrate my new pair of reading glasses…