I was seething. I should have spoken up, but I was honestly so stunned by what had been said that I just sat there under a black cloud in angry rumination. This touches on almost every single thing that I take issue with in church culture. The harsh, ignorant judgment of people who don’t share our religious ideals. The assumption that others –non-members!- should somehow comply to our standards (and if they don’t they aren’t good people). The fact that the discussion then lingered on what women should wear in order to reduce the lust they incite in men. Wrong, wrong, wrong. (Did you know that in areas where women wear the burqa, men sexualize their eyes?) And the use of UGH, THAT WORD “modesty.” Look it up in a dictionary – it has a whole lot more meaning than the definition the LDS culture exclusively attaches to it.

I can’t voice my thoughts on this subject as intelligently or eloquently as others have (see here especially, and don’t miss the comments; I love the emphasis on the other meanings of modesty that are so quickly overlooked in our measuring of inseams), but I am better-than-average at making lists and I have feelings – SO MANY FEELINGS – on the topic of the cultural LDS view on bodies, skin, and clothing, so here goes.

I will begin any discussion even remotely referencing bodies with 1) WE ARE MADE IN THE IMAGE OF GOD. Our bodies are not pornography. They are not inherently shameful or evil; they reflect divinity and glorify God. That is what I will teach my children, and if anyone gets in the way of that message I will mow them down.

2) Endowed members of the Church are the only people who have covenanted with God in the holy temple to wear garment-concealing clothing. Everyone else – non-members and unendowed LDS adults, teens and especially children – have not willingly vowed to God to wear the holy garment, and therefore are not constrained by any law in heaven to wear clothing that covers their shoulders to their knees.

My friend in our old Tucson ward had a similar experience to the one Tracy M. describes in the blog post I linked to above: She had been baptized as a child but was never a part of the culture. Her second week back at church after 14 years’ inactivity, multiple women pulled her aside and told her she wasn’t dressed “modestly.” What she’d been wearing was a perfectly respectful and demure sundress – something that wouldn’t have been out of place in any other church. When Chelsea, mortified, confided this to me I told her it was none of their business what she wore and that they had no right to judge her clothing against their personal dress code which was made by covenant. She would have figured out the cultural norm eventually, ladies. There was no need to make her feel even more out of place.

I will certainly encourage my teens to wear age-appropriate clothing that isn’t overtly revealing. But 3) what’s appropriate for a teen to wear and what’s appropriate for an endowed member of the church to wear are miles distant.

4) CHILDREN CANNOT BE “IMMODEST,” period. I distinctly remember playing in an outgrown nightgown as an 8 or 9 year old and my dad admonishing me for being immodest when my underwear inadvertently showed. I’ll never forget the burning embarrassment and that sudden feeling that I had done something shameful, and I will not fetter my own children with those same adult projections.

My sister Corinne, a member of the Primary presidency in her ward, is sort of my hero for refusing to teach the “modesty” lesson. She wasn’t going to stand in front of a room full of children and tell them to cover their shoulders for any reason other than protecting their fair skin from the sun’s rays. I’m not advocating triangle bikinis on little girls (because it’s a mature look, not because it would make them ‘immodest’), but the far extreme – dressing a toddler in garment-appropriate clothing for fear of a man gazing too long at her shoulders – THAT is sexualizing a child, and it’s flat-out wrong.

5) More clothes does not equal less suggestive! Extra fabric does not necessarily make something less revealing! If you don’t believe me, go take a gander at the swimwear that BYU-I mandates for all pool-goers. For the women, threadbare, unsupportive one-pieces that gap wide open in the front if the wearer is doing anything other than standing still and erect. And for the men (oh gosh, I should have taken pictures) – translucent, clingy shorts that suction unrelentingly to penises upon exiting the water and leave absolutely nothing to the invagination-excuse me- imagination. My husband would literally have been showing less if he were wearing a Speedo; me, a sporty tankini. SKIN is not the enemy.

I’ve included side-by-side photographic evidence to further this point. This isn’t a statement on whether or not these looks are right or wrong (well, except for the frumpy flesh-colored t-shirt with two inch nipples stabbing through), I’m just reiterating that how suggestive an article of clothing is isn’t directly proportionate to the amount of fabric that went into making it.

——————–
Frankly, I don’t know the fix. Somehow our culture ran rampant with this idea that we can judge someone else’s works by the length of their sleeves and that a girl’s virtue is tied to her hemline; that the unendowed are obligated to follow the same dress standards others have willingly taken upon themselves by covenant in the holy temple, and that there’s something inappropriate about a child’s bare shoulders.

I unquestionably disagree.

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

It’s been a whole month since I posted this year’s installment of baby names, and WHAT A MONTH. Within the first three weeks the pageviews surpassed last year’s post’s all-time total. This thing gets exponentially bigger each year so to everyone who shared through forums, your blog, someone else’s blog, email, Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook, messages in bottles, carrier pigeons, Pony Express, and town crier, THANK YOU.

Hits to date: 24,036

Facebook shares: 470
Facebook likes: 763
Facebook comments: 1,388
(too bad I can’t read any of them!!)

Twitter shares: Harder to track because they disappear eventually, but if memory serves it was in the 30s. Twitter has never been a big platform for this post. Interesting.

Total number of referring sites: 196
(A lot of these are email servers.)

Number of new subscribers in the past month (Google and Blogger combined): 102

Total number of comments on the original post: 404
Total number of comments I had to delete before my mom saw: 2 (not bad!)

I’m sorta thinking about turning comments off, btw. The page is running slow and a ton of them are repeats of urban legends. If I hear about another La-a or Orangejello, SO HELP ME I WILL SHUT THIS THING DOWN, MAYBE!!!!!!!!!!

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Read it here! kthxbai

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

and this was their reply:

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Additional reading:

1) The woman with the naughty dog screamed, “I’m so sorry! I promise I didn’t look!!” and Jon casually remarked, “What? It’s just underwear…”, collected his pants and snapped them back together.

2) Every single snap had come undone except for the two at his ankles.

3) I said, “So I guess this means you’re never wearing those pants in public again” and he goes, “Huh? No…it was just a freak occurrence.”

4) He didn’t even wake me up to tell me!! When I staggered out of the bedroom bleary-eyed, I found him checking his Facebook.

5) The retelling went something like this:

Jon: So, I took Penny outside this morning, was talking to our neighbors, and a chihuahua attacked her.
Me: [gasp] What????? Is she okay????????????
Jon: That’s not the end of the story. Penny ran around my legs…………[dramatically rips his pants off, drops them to the ground]
Me: [crumples, maniacal laughter mingled with apologies, screaming incoherent sentence fragments, rolling]

6) This blog post has his blessing.

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

This year our preparer was an adorable old lady named, in typical adorable old lady fashion, Beverly. She looked just like this:

At least she does in my mind, four days later. She was an absolute joy and I very nearly kidnapped her on my way out. Anyway, she frequently thanked us throughout our meeting for ‘allowing’ her to prepare our taxes, then this morning she left me the most delightful voicemail. Here is the complete transcript (emphasis mine):

Hi Jessica, this is Beverly at H&R Block and I just wanted to call you and thank you for coming in to H&R Block and letting me prepare your tax return; I appreciate that. And also I just wanted to wish you good luck in your new jobs and your careers and I will think of you often. I hope to see you next year and see how things are going for you. Thank you, buh-bye.

No, thank YOU.

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

2. I had a bunch of dental work done last week. I don’t deal well with any sensation of numbness, so I arranged ahead of time for sleeping pills. If you have to go through the discomfort of dental work, you might as well book a late appointment then go home and sleep for twelve hours til it’s time to get up for work the next day, good as new. No nauseating numb feeling, second in awfulness only to the tingly sensation of the Novocain wearing off. Anyway, all of this to say that apparently Jon woke me up around 8 that night to spoon feed me my ‘dinner’. I had no memory of it until the next morning when I looked in the mirror before my shower and discovered dried chocolate pudding all over my lips and face. Not so fast – I’m taken.

4. I observed this picture on Facebook (as in, I don’t know who posted this, but we have a mutual friend who “liked” their picture. Is there a word for that yet? Facebook eavesdropping?) Anyway, just imagine how pants-wettingly scary the movie would be that used this image as its poster:

CUE HORROR MUSIC. And would you believe that in all 30-something comments, there wasn’t a single word on terrifying womb-parasite monsters?? (Note to future self – the three-quarter profile isn’t the best look on a fetus.)

5. This, because it’s pretty:

6. Jon was abandoned in the Costco parking lot while I went all paparazzi on this dog. It might actually be illegal how many pictures I took of it. IT WAS MY FIRST EVER PULI, CAN YOU BLAME ME??

Could use a grooming for sure.

———————————————————-

EDITED TO ADD:

I just discovered the joy of pulis jumping.

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

WHY OTHER PEOPLE GO ‘POO-FREE’:

This site has tons of information, so instead of rehashing it all, there’s a link, and here’s a summary:
There are a shload of chemicals and detergents in shampoo that are designed to strip your hair of its natural oils, plus it’s cheaper and greener to use natural cleaners.

WHY I WENT POO-FREE:

My motivation had less to do with cost (how much of an expense is shampoo, really?) and helping Mother Nature and more to do with my own vanity. My hair was sick. It was limp, it was greasy within minutes of a blow-dry, it was unstylable. I started looking into how to breathe a little life into it, and that’s when I came across this idea of ditching shampoo. The major selling point is that people who go poo-free are able to get two, three, four days out of a single wash, which would be the best thing to ever happen to me. In addition, people who don’t use shampoo claim that their hair is fuller, shinier, healthier, and easier to style than it was before. This is the day I officially decided to go for it:

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

It went like this.

I was perusing the after-Christmas sales at the Gateway Mall in Utah (Jon, my mom, my dad, my grandma, and my sister Annie were all there. They have nothing to do with the story, but I think they’d like to be included). The girl that let me into my fitting room was in a wheelchair. This is a key element to the story. Do not forget that the girl was in a wheelchair.

The shirt I tried on got the green light from my shopping companions, so I made my way to the register. When the cashier asked if any employee had assisted me with my purchase, I realized with horror that I didn’t know the girl’s name, and the only defining characteristic I could think of was her wheelchair. Obviously I couldn’t say, “The girl in the wheelchair” (or could I have?), so I wildly glanced around the store, willing her to roll into sight so I could point her out to him instead. He recognized the panicked expression on my face and said matter-of-factly, “Must have been Marissa”.

So now, I ask of you. Aside from paying careful attention to her name, what could I have done differently? Are you hyper-vigilant in committing wheelchair peoples’ names to memory in the unlikely event that you’ll be asked to recall it with no warning? How would you have handled the situation? What could SHE have done to help? (“I’m Marissa. MUH-RISSSS-UHHHHH.”)What if it had been her first day on the job, and the cashier wasn’t yet familiar with the uncomfortable reactions to that seemingly benign question? What if he had never saved me by his knowing response???

And in that case, would it really have been THAT BAD to have eventually said that other thing, the first thing that came to my mind? Certainly no worse than Jon’s suggestion of, “It was…you know…the girl…. [wheelchair locomotion gesture, 'yikes' face] “

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Names 2010!

And last year was no different. LET’S JUMP RIGHT IN. Here are the best of the worst names published in the “Born in 2011″ newspaper insert for the Rexburg area (thanks again to my mom for mailing it!):

Up first, as always, is the Mix-N-Match category. Choose a first syllable that suits your fancy and pair it with an incompatible second syllable! It keeps people guessing! Everyone will admire your ability to string together random sounds!

Rhyelle
Taylee
Brenley
Lynlee
Braedyn
Raylee
Ryken
Maeleigh
and THREE babies named Brynlie (same exact spelling)

Next, the Sound-it-Outs. Do these resemble real names (or cities) phonetically? You’ll have to sound-it-out, and sometimes bend pronunciation rules, to see!

Aydyn
Izibele
Lyncoln
Ayva
Gavyn
Gracee
Londynn
Maddilyn
Wiliam
Lynzee
Arryana
Ella Jaculyn (Jack-ewe-lynn?)

Invasion of the Ks (continued from last year):
Kellen
Kaimen
Kasten
Kayson/Kasyn/Kasen
Kayrie
Kenadee
Kimbree
Kaydee
Khloe LoAnn

Her mom’s a ‘Bachelor’ fan!
Tenley/Tenely (yep, two)

Hopefully just a typo:
Sebastain

Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t lose:
Riggins (middle name Klyde)

HEE-HAW!!!!!!!!!!11
Brayah

Aaaaaaaand, the “What the EFF??????s”
KeiseLyn
Tytan
Reggie Tayzlie
Zavan
Acelyn
Skylee
Auree
Razdyn
Jenikka
Paizli
Loey
Jerrick
Arkadian
Blyss (AGAIN!! There was a Blyss last year! People really ARE looking for name ideas in this thing!!!)

And let’s have a moment of silence for the little baby boy named Boen. BOEN!

(Do you suppose it’s pronounced ‘Bowen’? Do you think kids on the playground, and in college, and by the water cooler will actually pronounce it that way?)

Discussion:

Point 1: One of my favorite parts of doing this each year are the anonymous comments I get from disappointed people outing their friends and family members as terrible namers. Keep doing that.

Point 2: I just thought of a possible inherent perk of invented naming – in five years, when little Razdyn wonders the meaning of his name, his mom gets to make THAT up, too!

Point 3: I feel sorry for the grandparents. A few months ago I sat in front of an older woman on a flight who was cheerfully explaining to her seatmate that she was on her way to visit her new grandson. When the lady asked what the sweet little dear’s name was, the grandma clammed up and replied reservedly, “Slate”. To some degree, his name diminished her joy. (It came out later that Slate was the younger sibling of Crimson, Indigo, and Sage.)

Point 4: Each name is accompanied by a photo of the poor child, and you’ve never seen more crocheted owl hats in your entire life. My mom included a note urging me to seek out “the baby with a giant lavendar cabbage on its head” and I think I found it:

kthxbai

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

I wasn’t a lost cause, though, because in every other aspect I was a textbook teenage Mormon. I lived for group dates and Stake dances. All of my friends were LDS. I looked forward to Girl’s Camp every year. I never once had an abortion. And most importantly, Wednesday night was my favorite night of the week. Mutual! A mini-weekend, a chance to spend time with my friends learning how to cook and how to plan fun dates and how to decorate cakes and all sorts of terrible things that seemed fun at the time that, in retrospect, were perhaps not the most fruitful ways to spend our Wednesday nights. A few offenders are obviously more egregious than others, and I hereby submit the three worst ones:

THE MODEST CATWALK:

We’d bring our moms’ wedding dresses and our leaders’ hideous old prom frocks and put them on over our street clothes, giggling at the huge bows and puff sleeves and crinoline, then sashay down the runway to the hoots and hollers of the crowd. I can safely say that whatever lesson we were supposed to take away from it – that you can be modest AND beautiful, I presume – was the exact opposite of what we learned. (Related: My feelings about the unhealthy obsession Mormons have with the word ‘modesty’ to be reserved for another post, or maybe just kept to myself entirely.)

THE DOLLAR DINNER:

I shudder just thinking about it, especially when I remember how much we girls LOVED this activity, how we BEGGED for it to be included in the schedule every few months. We were divided into teams and the objective was to feed the other group a two course meal with only a dollar to spend per person. We’d race around the grocery store looking for the absolute cheapest food available then return to the church building to prepare it, set a table, and pat ourselves on the back for feeding the other team a meal of hygienic, digestible substances. The most common Dollar Dinners were ramen, Totino’s pizza, and tacos from Jack-in-the-Box, and I specifically remember once serving pretzels as an appetizer. We’d smugly watch the other team eating our meal, thinking about what good wives we were going to be. We could cook noodles! We could feed five whole people for a dollar apiece! We were going to be able to keep our children alive!!!! (In all fairness, I get where the leaders were going with it, but a shout-out to vegetables and a little less assumption that we’d all grow up to wait hand-and-foot on husbands that make minimum wage would have been nice.)

THE TEMPLE-CLOTHING-CLAD FOOT MASSAGE*

Oh dear, this one was downright creepy. Luckily none of us brought non-member friends or a camera crew that night, because some leader thought it would be a great bonding experience if our moms gave us foot massages in a silent, dimmed room while wearing their temple dresses???????? And my mom wasn’t able to attend, so my feet had the honor of being probed by Sister Muscly Hands who was clearly trying to squeeze whatever demons prevented me from attending seminary out through my toes. (Now that I think about it, it’s really too bad that there WASN’T a camera crew there. I would like a video montage of all the Young Womens’ faces during this activity. Especially mine.)

SLIGHTLY OFF-TOPIC, BUT SPEAKING OF TEMPLE CLOTHING AT MUTUAL ACTIVITES:

One time, one of our leaders hijacked Young Women’s in Excellence, an evening for the teens to showcase their talents and achievements, to perform an interpretive dance in her temple dress. She got a little too close to an empty chair during a particularly emotive spin and whacked her hand so hard I thought she’d die on impact. Everyone startled.

*I texted my friend Christa to make sure this hadn’t been a dream.

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

2. More importantly, I received the following text from my mom:

SHE’S TALKING ABOUT THIS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

(I don’t think it’s laryngitis anymore, but the entire thing is a mystery. I was absolutely miserable yesterday evening and all through the night – fever, chills, nausea – but woke up feeling the same, if not better than, the day before. So.)

But the most important thing is this: My mom came to visit!!!!!!!!!!!1 She was only here a short time so we packed our days full of museums, zoos, sight-seeing, shopping, and eating.

The first thing we did was take advantage of the ridiculously beautiful weather by bringing Penny to the dog park/on a walk. I scared all the animals within a twenty yard radius laughing obnoxiously loud at my mom’s story of walking Gunner when he was an enormous five month old puppy. A woman with a small dog had approached them from the opposite direction and asked if Gunner was friendly. My mom (feeling smug that YES!, her dog WAS friendly!, and she didn’t need to worry about him attacking other dogs! Which was not the case with little Scout, rest in peace) replied in the affirmative, and the two dogs sniffed each other amiably until Gunner inexplicably flattened the poor thing with his giant paw.

After the park we headed to the Deer Valley Rock Art Center for some petroglyph viewing. REAL petroglyphs! Thousands of years old! I live within five miles of an entire hillside of thousands-of-years-old petroglyphs!

The next morning we went to see The Artist (wish we’d seen it before all the hype, because I was disappointed :\). The best part of the entire thing was watching all the octogenarians shuffle in for the show. I knew I wouldn’t need to worry about anyone in front of me texting during the movie:

Next up was lunch at PF Changs with my cousin Katie and aunt Stacey. This was my fortune… sorry it ruined your surprise:

We mentioned to Katie that we might go to the zoo, so what does she do? Fishes around in her wallet and pulls out three tickets. THANK YOU, KATIE!! Admission is $18 per person, so it saved us a shload of cash.

The first thing I saw when we walked in was a giant tank with STINGRAYS YOU COULD TOUCH. I was little-kid excited. One of my favorite memories from living on the East Coast was visiting the Baltimore Aquarium and touching rays there, but I’d never seen anything like it since. I paid the two dollars (it’s like THEY were paying ME to touch their stingrays) and could have spent all day right there. They felt like velvety cooked eggwhite with a little bit of sand sprinkled on top. And they LIKED being touched – they’d pop up to the surface when you put your hand in the water.

Another fun thing at the zoo was this open-air monkey enclosure that you could walk through. The sign said to keep your distance because the monkeys bite, and my palms were sweatier than I care to admit. We emerged unscathed.

OMG LOOK AT THIS ANIMAL!!!

It’s called a gerenuk and I’m obsessed with them. I can’t believe an animal this awesome has existed my entire life and I never knew about it until now. I, of course, had a long day of Googling ahead of me as a result. (photos not mine)

The next morning we went to the Musical Instrument Museum in Scottsdale.

THAT IS A REAL INSTRUMENT. Before reading the sign, I’d assumed it was just a giant cello replica. It’s called an octobass (boy you got that boom-ba-do-boom boom-ba-do-boom hey, you got that octobass).

We HAD to take this picture in front of the St Kitt’s display. Those are the exact costumes in the carnival parades on Statia. I was ready to shield my mom’s eyes in case they showed footage of actual Caribbean carnival “dancing” (Search on Youtube for “St Maarten Carnival parade” if you’re feeling adventurous).

Later that day we headed to downtown Glendale where we roamed all the antique shops.

One last story from the visit. My mom told me that her newest piano student completed his first book so she congratulated him and pulled out the next in the series. He was confused because he thought he “was done” after the first, and a little crestfallen when he realized he wasn’t a concert pianist yet.

In conclusion, why can’t I be as funny as my husband? Exhibit A- His comment on my recent post about the sand in my bellybutton (“If you would have waited longer it might have become a pearl.”) Exhibit B- This illustration for the word “hamster” in our DrawSomething match:

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Someone’s gonna be a billionaire.

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Sand, that’s what.

You might think that’s gross, and you’d be right, but isn’t it also sort of sweet to think that I’ve carried a little bit of Statia with me for the past ten months? No?

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

fin

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

fin

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

• The old man sitting next to Jon was pinching one of his nostrils and wheezing through his obstructed nose the entire two hours.
• The girl sitting next to me wore a jingle-bell bracelet. Luckily she took it off after the first couple of songs, because I was ready to remove her entire arm from her body.
• There was a tone-deaf woman sitting behind us who sang along loudly to all the songs she knew. Fortunately she only knew two of them. She must have been mildly retarded (there is no other explanation for a person who thinks a ticketed concert is a sing-along) AND blind, because she didn’t notice the daggers that shot out of my eyes each time I turned around to glare.

Things I forgot to say about life in general:

• MY EYELID STARTED TO SWELL AGAIN! Luckily it went away on its own this time. Really hoping this isn’t going to be an ongoing thing.
• Our apartment complex sent us our rent renewal notice a few weeks ago. In order to sign the same length of contract that we’d signed when we first moved in, they wanted $200 more a month. TWO HUNDRED!!! They clearly forgot that Phoenix is one of the cities most affected by the downturn and that there are thousands of empty condos and homes sitting around wanting tenants. They also must have forgotten that we’re excellent renters, we have always paid on-time, we have consistent income, we always pick up our dog’s poo, and we have never been complained against. But if they wanted to kick us out and have our apartment sit empty for eight months, fine. Anyway, Jon negotiated with them and everything worked out, EXCEPT – they offered us our choice of two “upgrades” (from a list of about ten) upon signing our new lease, which seemed nice at the time but bugs me the more I think about it. Those are things they’re changing about all the apartments, eventually. As people move out, they put in the upgrades before the new renter moves in – if they’re lucky enough to find a new renter. These changes are necessary to make their complex more appealing, because, like I said, renters have thousands of options in Phoenix. So, since they’d have put in all ten upgrades had we moved out, shouldn’t they have offered to put them ALL in since we decided to stay? You know…actually rewarding your good tenants, instead of threatening them with a $200 increase, conceding to a lower rate, then giving them two of the ten upgrades you would have given the next person, a total stranger? Maybe I’m a revolutionary in apartment management.
• The highlight of my month so far was taunting a basenji at the dog park to make it bark. It’s funnier if you know that basenjis don’t bark, they “yodel”. (It didn’t work, by the way. He didn’t make a peep the entire time. Stupid basenji! Can’t even bark!)
• I had a dentist’s appointment last week. The assistant took my X-rays then the hygienist pulled out a picture of black teeth and gave me a lecture about how I was going to end up with periodontal disease if I didn’t change my habits— all this BEFORE she even looked in my mouth! A few minutes later, she sheepishly told me I had beautiful teeth and was doing a great job of home care. I should say so, I floss every day!!!!!!!11 Other than that, and the eye boogers (see my Twitter feed for details), I liked the new place. The dentist is Jamaican! Also, I have four cavities. Blast these teeth of mine. He told me that some people are just cursed with cavities, no matter what they do, and that the grooves in my molars are unusually deep so that’s definitely a contributing factor. Speaking of non-compliments, the hygienist exclaimed, “You have such curvy roots!!” when looking over my X-rays, and I thanked her. Anyway, I have an appointment beginning of March to get my mouth fixed. Yay modern medicine!
• Jon and Penny lounging:

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

My aunt, Becky, is in the MoTab and had several hours free on Saturday before their second concert, so Jon and I were able to spend that time with her. In researching unique things to do in Phoenix on TripAdvisor, I came across the Mystery Castle, a crazy old house built in the 30s and 40s by a crazy, dying man. I sent Becky a link to the website wondering if that was something she’d be interested in visiting, and luckily she said yes because it was one of the coolest, eeriest, most unusual things I’ve ever seen.

The story goes like this. A man living in Seattle and suffering from tuberculosis was told by his doctor that he had only six months to live. To spare his wife and 3-year-old daughter the pain and horror of witnessing him die an awful death, he left them in the middle of the night and moved to Phoenix, where he hoped the weather would help his symptoms. His wife and daughter knew nothing of his whereabouts until his death 16 years later (from cancer, of all things), whereupon they learned that in his absence, he had built his daughter a castle in the Phoenix foothills. She had often begged him, while building sandcastles on the Washington coastline, to build her a sandcastle that wouldn’t be washed away by the sea, and that’s exactly what he did. The daughter, Mary Lou, and her mother moved to Phoenix immediately. Mary Lou lived in the castle for 65 years, right up until her death in November of 2010.

The castle has 18 rooms, 13 fireplaces, and is built entirely from natural and salvaged materials including cement, adobe, river rock, auto parts, telephone poles, and train tracks. It wasn’t until 1992 that plumbing and electricity were added.

A lot of the design was incredibly whimsical, like the above “picture frame” displaying downtown Phoenix (at the time the castle was built, this framed the entire city). But there were equal parts of the creepy and downright bizarre. At one point, Becky mentioned that she felt like she was in Miss Havisham’s lair, and that was before we entered “THE WEDDING ROOM” (!!!), a dungeon-like space adorned with tattered and antiqued lace, shoes of past brides, and an altar with river rock snakes indicating where the couple was to stand. So rad.

This pump organ in the wedding room was said to have once belonged to the “Chocolate Widow of Tombstone” who, according to legend, poisoned six husbands with arsenic-laced cake and buried them all at Boot Hill.

You should totally go.

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

I’ve never had a migraine, but I know that blurred or spotted vision is often a warning sign that one is imminent, so the first time it happened I laid down in a dark room with a pillow over my head in case a piercing headache came next. I fell asleep and woke up an hour later feeling just fine, my vision completely back to normal.

The second time it happened was four days ago. Unfortunately this time I was at work, so I couldn’t just go lay down and sleep it off. The upside, though, was that I was able to track how long it lasted (about twenty minutes, start to end). Jon the med student had his own ideas about what had caused it, all of which ended in painful death or paralysis. My health and vision benefits just having taken effect that same day, I decided to set up a regular exam and mention this weird eye thing sometime during the appointment.

When I called the optometrist nearest my office, however, I was told there were no openings for a regular exam until TWO WEEKS later. I said something along the lines of, “Okay, I think I’ll try to find another office, because I’ve had recent episodes of blurriness that I’d like checked out sooner rather than later” and immediately I had an appointment scheduled for Thursday. I thought it had more to do with my unwillingness to wait for an appointment and their need for new patients, but it turns out that wasn’t the case.

As soon as I arrived, I heard the staff throwing around words like “triage” and “emergency”. When the doctor came in to see me, I politely asked her to put on the breaks. I just wanted a regular exam, had casually mentioned to the scheduler this issue I wanted checked out, and never indicated that it was urgent in any way. I made the appointment on a Tuesday for a Thursday, for crying out loud. No medical emergency here. (My fear was that they would charge me some exorbitant ER-type fee through my medical insurance instead of just checking out the issue during my free yearly eye exam. She was great and assured me that she’d do what she could to make sure my visit was covered under my regular vision benefits.)

She ran a couple of tests just to be sure of her diagnosis. Turns out what I’d experienced was an “ocular migraine” – basically a harmless migraine with no pain. Um, yes please. I’ll take it. (Read about ocular migraines here – I about fell out of my chair when I first read the description of symptoms, then saw the illustration. I had drawn a little doodle for a coworker two days before that was a spitting image of the one on that website. Tree and everything!!)

Anyway. Then the awful part happened. As I was preparing to leave, the doctor decided to do one last test, “so we can both sleep tonight”. [deep breath] …She was going to dilate my pupils. I know that this is a thing that eye doctors do, but I’ve been having regular exams since I was in middle school and have never had it done before. I’m super squeamish; I started panicking, and the questions spewed out.

“How long do they take to dilate after you put the drops in?”
“About ten minutes.”
“How long will it last??”
“Usually three to four hours.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Your eyes will be sensitive to the light. We’ll give you some shades to wear.”

– By this point I’m sweating all over her office, wiping my palms on my jeans–

“But I have to go back to work after this. Will I have to wear them there?”
“You’ll probably want to.”
“Want to? I don’t want to. Wait! Do you mean it’s going to hurt???”
“I don’t want to say it’ll HURT…it’s different for everyone…but your eyes WILL be very sensitive.”
“Oh gosh, it sounds like this is going to hurt.”
“Well, your pupils expand in darkness to let in more light. When they’re forcefully dilated in daytime, it can be a little uncomfortable.”
“What will you do once they’re dilated?”
“I’ll shine a light in and have a look.”
[my voice goes up two octaves] “LIGHT????”
“Safe light.”

–now my stomach is turning, thinking about my pupil stretching like a birth canal and someone shining a light into them when they’re so vulnerable–

“Do people ever get nauseated from it?”
[reluctantly] “…………sometimes.”

–now I’m SUPER panicked, like a caged animal–

“Do people throw up???????”
[even more reluctantly] “They usually don’t throw up unless I’m testing for ______, which requires me to push on the eyeball after dilation. But I won’t being doing that to you.”
“I’m feeling sick just thinking about this.”
[genuinely concerned for my mental health] “Really? I’m sure it won’t be as bad as you’re expecting.”

It wasn’t. She put the drops in, I sat in the waiting room by the trash can until fully dilated, then she completed the flashlight part of the exam more quickly than I’m sure she would have if I’d been different. All in all, not the nightmare scenario I’d gotten so worked up about. The worst part was driving back to my office with my glasses OVER the shield-like plastic shades they gave me.

THANK THE STARS I had my own sunglasses in the car that day. I hardly ever wear them and had just tossed them into the Mazda the week before. They obviously wouldn’t work with my glasses over top (necessary for driving), but once I got to the office I ditched the cheap plastic shield and donned my own shades.

I was sorta hoping most people wouldn’t notice. I mean, is it really that weird to wear sunglasses indoors?? Apparently, yes. Every single person that walked past did an extreme double-take. Some then nodded sympathetically and said something along the lines of, “Eye appointment, huh?” Most everyone else just asked the obvious question, “Uhh…why are you wearing sunglasses?” One guy said, “You must have just had your pupils dilated, because I can think of no other circumstance where a normal person would be wearing sunglasses indoors” and I was glad he gave me the benefit of the doubt. The entire thing was hilarious, but next time I book an eye appointment I’ll make it for 4:30 so I can go straight home.

If nothing else, this whole scenario gave me the opportunity to send Jon the following text:

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss

Source:
http://jessica-jensen.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default?alt=rss