Uncle Perry

Last week, our family lost a very dear person--my uncle Perry.  Being so far away, it is hard to believe that he can be gone.  With his death being so close to Thanksgiving, it made me think about how thankful I was to have him in my life.

This is Uncle Perry at my wedding.  He and my Aunt Pat have been at every major event of my life to support me, and most of the not so important piano recitals and and choir concerts, too.  I remember a time when the three of us were driving from Twin Falls to Boise and I mentioned how they must be so happy for their grandchildren because they had to wait awhile before they got these great kids:

He told me that he had always thought of me as one of his grandchildren.  I have thought about that many times because it meant so much to me.  It is hard to put into words what someone can mean to you.  Uncle Perry wasn't the kind of person who had to be in the limelight, but it was his presence--calm, kind, always ready to laugh that made you feel like there was something safe and right with the world.  It is a tremendous thing that I can say that in a lifetime of knowing him I never heard him say one bad thing about another person.

It's really hard to say how many times I barged into Pat and Perry's house without knocking because I was excited about something, or had a bad day at school, or was just bored.  I am so thankful that I had someone who didn't mind me barging in and would always be there in his faithful chair to listen and laugh with me.  I'm really grateful for our camping trips and the time we spent sitting around the fire.  I learned so much from my uncle's kindness.  I loved him a lot.

Sometimes words just fail a person.  I really wanted to let Aunt Pat, and Mike, Theresa, Jim, Susan and Paul know how my heart is with them, and how very much I love them.  I was so honored and blessed to have Uncle Perry in my life, and I will dearly miss him.

The Frida Flop

Let us go back in time.  Back far into the recesses of our memories to that long ago holiday--Halloween of this year.  Back then I had a grandiose sense of my own abilities.  Sam and I had been camping in the wilderness like we do, checking out the fall colors.

Here we are at the beginning of the trail like two gazelles ready to bound through the forest.

We said to ourselves, we can do eight miles up and down a couple of mountains in our sleep!  Who needs lunch when we are so cute with our wedding ring pictures and our love?

We needed lunch, as it happens.  We also needed sleep.  I think the whole thing would have ended differently had we not been trying to roll ourselves sideways up a hill all of the previous night due to an unfortunate (and unavoidable!) tent placement on the side of a mountain.  One of us actually ended up crying when faced with an unexpected extra hill to climb near the end of our hike, but I won't name names.

Suffice it to say, with all this going on, Halloween kind of snuck up on us.  As we were driving home from the camping trip, I suddenly realized that it was Halloween day, I had to work, and rumor had it that my boss always dressed up.  I racked my brain for a costume idea that could be accomplished in twenty minutes using stuff I already had in the house, and hopefully one that represented another country since I work at Ten Thousand Villages.  I bet you know right where this is going...

Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, of course!  Maybe I'm just unique in this respect, but in my world Frida pops up all the time.  She is on all kinds of pins and cards in hipster coffee shops, and you can't leave your house without tripping over old movie posters from when Salma Hayek played her in the aptly named movie Frida a couple of years ago.  Some people might think that the hiking failure would have made me more cautious about so quickly taking on another big adventure.

But no, when I saw Frida staring back at me in the mirror I was so pleased with the floral arrangement on top my head I didn't even consider that my foray into the Mexican art world might be a bad idea.  We didn't have enough time to research what her husband looked like, so Sam contented himself with being an everyday Bandito.

Please note, Mom and Dad, that is not a real gun.

Honestly, I was pretty proud of our efforts.  I thought it a great sign that the Starbucks Barista knew right away who I was.  However, things took a bad turn at work.  My boss slept in and hadn't dressed up after all, so I was the only Mexican painter there.  And it turns out that not as many people as you would think had heard of Frida, despite all of Salma Hayek's efforts to raise awareness.  What people did seem to think, from the stilted conversations I had with them in the store, was that unibrows are very, very scary. In fact, it is my belief that Frida was far more terrifying to people than if I had shown up with elaborate zombie makeup and blood dripping down my face.  No one would make eye contact with me, mothers hid their children behind their legs so they wouldn't have to see it me, and old ladies gave me frightened glances out of the corners of their eyes when they thought I wasn't looking.

I'm not proud, but I couldn't handle the terrible reception my costume received.  I had to abandon the Frida ship fairly quickly for a more traditional look.  It hurt my soul to wash off my unibrow, because who can say who might have a similar abundance of brows her own self if nature wasn't constantly being battled against?  It seems to me that this was a great blow for all who choose less conventional facial hair situations.  It was a hard lesson that I learned that day.  We have a long way to go, people.

I'm glad that no matter what style of eyebrows I sport, I've always got this Bandito by my side.