Two Inches

Regency vs Victorian

I was at yet another random (monotonous?) party this weekend, and I stumbled into a conversation where a girl was telling a guy about her favorite author: Edmund Spencer, an old British author I have no use for.

The guy was not familiar with old British authors, so he said, "Oh, did he know Jane Austen?"

*Is it safe to say that the general public only knows a handful of British authors off the top of their heads? (Charles Dickens, William Shakespeare, and Jane Austen, for example, then later C.S. Lewis and even later J.K. Rowling)

And then the girl said, "Oh, no, he's Elizabethan.  Jane Austen is Victorian."

And I said, "She was Regency, actually."

Which I'm sure did not endear me to her.  Whatever her name was.

But if you are going to talk like you know what you're talking about, know what you're talking about.

The Victorian Era didn't start until 1837, when Queen Victoria...became queen.  Jane Austen died in 1817, so she never saw a Victorian day in her life.  Her adult writing career was largely marked by the extravagant rule of the Prince of Wales (the prince regent), who took over as proxy king when his father was deemed unfit to rule.  As I said before, this period was called the Regency period.  It went from about 1811-1820.

Austen's life overlapped significantly with the British Romantic period (Her contemporaries included William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, and Percy Bysshe Shelley, among others) but her writing doesn't fall into that category.  Romantic themes--late Romantic themes anyway--included idealism, the idea of a utopia, a fascination with the supernatural, and a glorification or deification of nature.  Austen's content and themes are very much more real and present; although she addresses the ideal of marriage, her stories have real people and real settings.

The Regency period is less of an artistic period than it is a political period, and it was significantly shorter (9 years) than the Victorian period (64 years).  The official dates of the Romantic period are somewhat unfixed, but they stretched for several years before and after Austen's lifetime.  

The Regency period was a period of playfulness and flamboyance.  The Prince of Wales, standing in the place of his mentally ill father, spent exorbitant amounts of money while much of the country lived in extreme poverty.  The Victorian period was much more restrained, much more concerned with duty and uprightness.

I know you wanted to know all that, right?

Well, in case you haven't gone crazy yet, here's a bit of context for Jane Austen's life:

1770 - William Wordsworth is born. (Romantic)

1772 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge is born. (Romantic)

1775 - Jane Austen is born. (Regency)

1776 - The Declaration of Independence is signed.

1795 - John Keats is born. (My favorite Romantic)

1805 - Joseph Smith is born.

1810 - Elizabeth Gaskell (North & South) is born. (Victorian)

1812 - Charles Dickens is born. (Victorian)

1817 - Jane Austen dies at the age of 42.  (Way too young.)

1821 - John Keats dies of tuberculosis. (Too bad, really, he was a nice guy.)

1834 - Samuel Taylor Coleridge dies. (He lived a depressing life.)

. . . . .1837 - Victorian era begins. . . . .

1850 - William Wordsworth dies.

1859 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (Sherlock Holmes) is born. (Victorian)

1861 - The Americal Civil War begins.

1865 - The American Civil War ends, and Elizabeth Gaskell dies.

1870 - Charles Dickens dies.

1897 - My great grandpa White and my Grandpa Creviston are born.

1828 - Sliced bread is first sold.

1930 - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle dies.

 

It's amazing how short time seems when you put it in perspective. 

But Jane Austen wasn't Victorian.  That's the main point.  :)

 

 

Pint-sized Happiness

If you ever want to make me really, really happy, get me some raspberry truffles from the Choclate Apothecary.

My sister bought be some truffles around Christmas time, in a exchange for a night or two of baby-sitting so she and Michael could go out for a night on the town.

I love my sister, and I love my sister's kids, so this really was a pretty sweet deal. Katie-Beth named the date, and last Thursday I showed up at her house for a night of authoritative craziness (me=authoritative, kids=craziness).

Me baby-sitting Katie-Beth's kids is kind of a funny idea, really. I mean, there's no doubt that they like me, but I'm usually the one that gets them all wound-up and rowdy before I send them back to their parents. That's what aunts are supposed to do. Actually being the one in charge was a different story.

So I wasn't entirely sure what to expect.

Here's the run-down: Stephen 7, Kathryn 5, Parker 3, and William 1

Here's what I thought would happen:

• William is usually a mamma's boy, and if KB is around, you can forget cuddling with him. You are no one. Without KB or Michael, he starts to panic, and crying ensues.
• Parker and Kathryn, as delightful as they are, are little kids, and there was a %75 chance that one or both of them would have a meltdown before the night was over.
• Stephen was my one constant. As long as Google maps is handy and he's got a hanger in his hand, he's happy.

Here's what actually happened:

• KB and Michael left. I was in the kitchen with William, feeding him cheese puffs and hoping he didn't know his parents were gone. Then we went to the living room where the other kids were, and I waited for William to start crying. He never did. Except for when he needed a diaper change. It's kind of silly, but baby crying makes me really edgy, and I still kind of see it as kind of a magic trick when something as simple as changing a baby's diaper makes them happy. Cuddly happy baby: check
• Kathryn drew me a picture of a watermelon that I could put up in my cubicle. She forgot to write "Love" before she signed it, so instead of saying "love Kathryn," it says "Kathryn LOVE." Got me some Kathryn love: check.
• We were in the living room eating popcorn and watching X-men, and Parker was climbing behind the couch to the monster sack and jumping off. As with most two-year-olds, he can repeat this action hundreds of times before getting tired of it, so I was surpised when I realized about three episodes later that Parker wasn't jumping off the couch anymore. Then between episodes I hear a quiet "Hep! Hep!" which in two-year-old talk translates to "I managed to get myself stuck between this giant beanbag and the corner and I can't get myself out." In reward for saving him, he grabbed his two fuzzy blankets and snuggled on my lap. Rescue of extreme sports toddler: check.
• Although I love singing, I never considered myself a very good singer, but apparently it is a necessity that you sing these kids to sleep, so I figured if they didn't mind, I didn't mind. Stephen got to stay up a bit later because he's turning 8 next year and his parents are reading the Book of Mormon with him. I am always amazed at how STINKING SMART that kid is. Not only can he read and pronounce most of the words better than some adults I know, but he actually understands a lot of the concepts. We came on the word "Messiah" in one of the verses, and I explained that it was another name for Jesus. Then he rattled off a whole bunch of other names, and we kept reading. I answered a few more questions, knowing that if I fed Stephen any false doctrine, Michael could set him straight. I felt a love for Stephen as we talked about things. It felt good to share my knowledge of the gospel with a child, who I knew was taking it to heart. Bonding moment with stinking smart nephew: check.

I half expected Kathryn or Stephen to get up with some excuse about needing water or forgetting a blanket or something, but if they ever got up, I didn't notice, and I played pathetic games on my phone till KB and Michael got back, bringing me a mini-frosty for my troubles.

As I drove home, I was just really, really happy. I thought about how it could have been frustrating. I'd spent the whole night doing mom-like things with kids that weren't mine and would never be mine. Despite that, I knew that they loved me, that KB and Michael loved me, and that Heavenly Father loved me.

The sum of how I felt came when I was putting the kids to bed. William was out in a blink and, again, didn't cry like I expected him to. Kathryn didn't make a fuss, and when I closed the door to Parker's and Stephen's room, I heard parker say quietly "Soooo happppy."

Me too, Parker, me too.

 

 

Obey and Prosper

 

My Grandma Allsop has always been a good example to me as someone who continually reads and studies the scriptures. She loves the word of God, and it shows in the way she has lived her life. She has inspired me in my own scripture study.

A few years ago my mom made us scripture study journals, and when I first started writing in mine, I started a few lists:

1. Book of Mormon Authorship: The plates of the Book of Mormon were passed from ancient prophet to ancient prophet. Sometimes it can be easy to forget who is narrating. I've been keeping a list up through Words of Mormon, after which it gets tricky, because in all the books after that, Mormon likes to interject things and do summaries, and then go back to the text of the original prophets.
2. The Contents of the Brass Plates (as noted by Nephi in 1 Nephi:10-14)
3. Prophets Mentioned in the Book of Mormon without Current Books of Scripture
4. Book of Mormon Bad Guys: I need to update this list, but I generally keep track of whether they were Lamanite or Nephite, the prophet they rebelled against, and how they died.
5. Verses that have some form of the phrasing "If ye keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land."

That last list is really why I am writing today. I pretty much blazed through the last half of Alma this week, and even though I've been keeping the obey/prosper list for a few years now, there are always verses I miss.

But I've been thinking a lot, especially with the upcoming elections and the general state of people in the world right now, about how our blessings correlate with our dedication to God. While this definitely has a personal application, I've been thinking about it more on a country- and worldwide scale.

Lots of people don't like the "war chapters" in Alma, because they describe...wars. There is a lot of fighting and strategem and people dying or getting captured. But the righteous leaders remind the people that if they remember the Lord that they will be blessed, and they will overcome their enemies. I think our country as a whole has forgotten the Lord and that he is the source of all our blessings.

Anyhow, there's a lot more that could be said about that, but I won't say it. I'll just say this: the scriptures are true. And we have them. And since we have them, we have the benefit of learning from the mistakes of previous civilizations. It would be a shame to waste that gift.

I'm sure this list is incomplete (especially since it stops in Alma, and there are six more books aftere that), but I've included the verses I've found that fit under my obey and prosper list. So far there are 25 references. (So maybe it's an important concept?)

1 Nephi

• 2:20 - the Lord to Nephi
• 4:14 - Nephi recalling the Lord's words
• 7:13 - Nephi to his brethren
• 14:1-2 - Angel to Nephi
• 17:13-15 - the Lord to Nephi before he builds ship

2 Nephi

• 1:9-10 - Lehi's prophecies to his sons
• 1:31 - Lehi to Zoram
• 3:2 - Lehi to son Joseph
• 4:4 - Lehi to Laman and his posterity
• 5:10-11 - Nephi

Short Books

• Enos 1:10 - the Lord to Enos
• Jarom 1:9-10 - Jarom quoting what the Lord said to his fathers
• Omni 1:6 - Omni quoting the Lord to his fathers

Mosiah

• 1:7 - King Benjamin to his sons
• 1:13-14 - King Benjamin to his son Mosiah
• 2:22 - King Benjamin to his people

Alma

• 9:13 - Alma to the people of Ammonihah
• 9:24 - Alma to the people of Ammonihah
• 36:1 - Alma to his son Helaman
• 36:20 - Alma to his son Helaman
• 38:1 - Alma to his son Shiblon
• 45:6-8 - Alma to his son Helaman
• 48:15 - Mormon talking about Nephites
• 48:25 - Mormon talking about Nephites
• 62:51 - Mormon talking about Nephites

Who Needs Math Anyway?

A friend posted this on FB.  You many have seen it already, but it was so good, I thought it was worth reposting.

 

How to Choose an Auto Shop

There are some choices in life that are really difficult.

Like whether to put both socks on, and then your shoes, or to put on one sock and one shoe, and then the other sock and the other shoe.

Life is fully of tricky choices.

I arrived at church this past Sunday to discover that I had a flat tire. A guy friend changed it for me because I was in a skirt, but then by the time I got home, my spare was flat as well.

It was clear that I needed to take action.

Here's the deal, though. There are two auto shops within about a mile and a half of where I live. The one has the advantage of being near Walmart, having updated decor, and employing a beautiful, young, blue-eyed mechanic.

And when he looks at me with those baby blues and tells me that my air filter is clean and that my windshield-wiper fluid is full, my heart just starts beating, and I want to kiss him right then and there.

But then he tells me it's $80 to run the diagnostic test that will tell me why my engine light is on, and, if I ever thought I loved the blue-eyed mechanic, I realize with heart-breaking reality that he will never be good enough for me.

So I cross the street. To the other auto shop. The one that plays the Christian music station all day long and has the bleached-blond receptionist and the tall, skinny mechanic in a jumpsuit that looks like it's never been washed.

I took my car there to get the tire fixed. I really don't know much about cars. Put gas in them. Stop the car when the oil light comes on. Keep a flashlight in the glove box and your gun under the seat. I always figured that if you had a flat tire, it was flat, and if it was flat, you bought a new tire.

And you never buy just one new tire, you always have to buy at least two. At least, this is how my non-car-minded brain works.

So you can see why I was surprised when the mechanic came out of the shop after only fifteen minutes.

"That'll be $13.70," he said. "We fixed the flat, and we fixed the spare."

"Thirteen-seventy?" Are you sure you fixed it?

"Yep. You had a wood screw in the tire, so we took it out, plugged it, and put some air in your spare. You're good to go."

I think he mistook my amazement that the problem could be fixed so easily for disappointment that I didn't have to lay down $200 for a new pair of tires. I thanked him prettily and went on my way.

There are a few lessons we can learn from this story:

1. If you must do annoying things like wasting money on your car when you could be buying a new computer or pillow-top bed or a hot air balloon ride, try to find an auto shop that has mechanics with beautiful blue eyes.
2. If, once you find that auto shop, despite the fact that you're sure it was meant to be between you and Beautiful Blue, he tries to fleece you anyhow, move on, you deserve better.
3. In the end, it's not really looks that matter anyway. Go for the bleached-blond and the dirty jumpsuit guy. They're honest, capable, and even if they're not beautiful, at least you'll have money left when you leave.

 

 

Evangelical Christians and the Mormon Dilemma

This article made me laugh.  Laugh.  Apparently evangelical Christians in South Carolina are having a hard time deciding whether to vote for Newt Gingrich, a known adulterer, or Mitt Romney, a Mormon.

Wait.  So they're saying that voting for a member of the Latter-Day Saint church is just as bad as voting for someone who can't be faithful to his wife?

If that's the dilemma, folks, then I have a hard time having respect for any of the people caught up in it.  If their bottom line for who they vote for comes down to religion, and if they vote for Gingrich instead of Romney, what they are saying is that they're religious bigots.

Yep.  If they vote for Gingrich, an adulterer, because he is a "Christian" in their eyes, over Romney, who has been faithful to his wife their entire 35-year marriage, then they are bigoted hypocrites. Because then it's not really about voting for the candidate with the same values as them, its about hatred.  

It's about voting for a man who doesn't live the values you profess to believe over voting for a man who does lives the values you profess to believe but has the misfortune to not be liked by your preacher, who's afraid that if you knew anything real about Mormons, you'd join their church, and he'd be out of a job.

I'm not saying vote for Romney.  You can vote for whoever you want.  But just make sure that whoever you vote for, it's for the right reasons.

 

Blue Possums

I know, I know, I know.

I haven't written much that's terribly entertaining lately.  I've been busy with violin and finishing my book and all sorts of other stuff.

And yes, I know that possum is supposed to have an O in front of it, but really, that's silly, and it wastes perfectly good Os that you could use in words like chOcOlate mOusse and Oliver WOOds and tandOORi chicken.

Anyhow, I wanted to tell you about this person I know, and maybe there was an additional person too (I don't have firsthand knowledge) who may or may not have had a penchant for catching possms, dying them blue, and letting them go again.

That's all I really have to say about that, except that I sort of wonder what people thought if they saw the blue possum.

"Wow.  That's a BLUE possum."

"Nice that they dyed it blue for me.  It will make it easier to run over."

"That's blue, dah-bah-dee-dah-bah-dye....."

I only thought about the blue possums because I read a story about a farmer playing a trick on some bird watchers by painting some hawks red.

The trouble with that is that hawks are actually smart and kind of respectable and even somewhat majestic.  The farmer got in trouble, I think.

No one would blame you for dying a possum blue.  Possums are not smart or respectable.  In fact, they're rather ugly with their beady little eyes and nasty little tails, and I don't think they taste very good. 

Not that I've ever tried to eat one.

But I can't imagine that anything that ugly would be worth eating.

Anyhow, there you go.  Blue possums, huh?  Well, see you later.

 

Living What We Believe

 

For those not familiar with him, George Albert Smith was, if I counted correctly, the 8th prophet of the LDS church.  We are studying his teachings this year in Relief Society and Priesthood. For today's post, I've included a quote from chapter 1 of the manual.  The entire chapter is pretty powerful, though, and I'd recommend giving it a good read.

Said of George Albert Smith by Bryant S. Hinckley:  His religion is not doctrine in cold storage. It is not theory. It means more to him than a beautiful plan to be admired. It is more than a philosophy of life. To one of his practical turn of mind, religion is the spirit in which a man lives, in which he does things, if it be only to say a kind word or give a cup of cold water. His religion must find expression in deeds. It must carry over into the details of daily life.

 

 

Priorities

I've been making an effort in the past few months to make my life more productive.  It's an art, I've discovered, to balance meaninful, productive activities with entertaining, pointless activities.

Here are the items on my productive list:

1. Practice the violin:  A good goal.  And I'll never be good unless I practice.  I try to spare my roommate from listening to me, so I generally practice right when I get home from work, before she gets home.
2. Write:  Another worthwhile goal.  Finish that dang book.  Help the good guys find the bad guys.  Before January 31. Hurry, hurry.
3. Go grocery shopping:  I should say plan a menu, then go grocery shopping.  So I stop eating out, gaining weight, and spending more money than I need to.
4. Exercise:  Okay, not really a priority, but it should be.  If I were magically skinny, I wonder if I would stop being a puppy dog (see previous post).  I mean, is that really what it's all about?  Really?  Unfortunately, I'll either have to start exercising again or give in to skinny pills to find out.
5. Read my scriptures:  I go in cycles with this.  Sometimes I'm really good, every day.  And then I go for a week or two and...don't.
6. Edit:  I have a freelance project I should be working on.  But there are so many other things to divert my attention.

Here are my not-so productive things:

1. Finish Alias:  My roommate has every season of Alias, and now that I am all the way into season 4, I can't stop now.
2. Watch my other shows: Bones, Once Upon a Time, Grimm.  No more Terra Nova. And I have sort of lost interest in Psych.  it's funny, but it doesn't engage me anymore.
3. Go geocaching:  This could actually be in the other list too.  It's not all together pointless.  It gets me out of my house and gives me a bit of exercise.  But when it's all said and done, I don't have much to show for it (usually).  Still, fun.

As you can see, there are more productive things than unproductive things, but sometimes it just boils down to what takes the least effort, which is usually watching Alias.  I need to hurry and finish it so I can get my life back.  In the meantime I will dream about being a super skinny world famous writer and violinist with a fabulous love life.

Un-fall-in-lovable

I was talking with a friend this weekend about the joys of being single, and I decided that I am un-fall-in-lovable.

At first I started out saying that I was just unlovable.  I mean, that must be why I'm still single, right?

She told me that of course I was lovable, so I concluded that I must be un-fall-in-lovable.

I have a decent number of guy friends and a handful of guy acquaintances.  But despite actions or words that communicate that they respect me, think I'm smart, funny, or kind, or even that they enjoy my company, it seems that not one of them is capable of maybe, possibly, loving me.

It's not because I'm not lovable.  It's because I'm un-fall-in-lovable.  A puppy dog is lovable.  But you don't want to marry it.  I'm just everyone's puppy dog.

After some serious consideration, I've made a list of personality traits that might contribute to this unfortunate state.

1. I snore.  Truth.  That pretty much cuts it right there.
2. I have an unhealthy liking for gyozas, creme brulee, and homemade bread.
3. I know what the word "psychometric" means.
4. I have an M.A.
5. I like listening to my favorite songs over and over.
6. I own three black coats.
7. Sometimes my elbows have dry skin.
8. I don't make my bed.
9. My car needs to be washed.
10. I don't know how to make a convincing duck noise.
11. I can't do a cartwheel.
12. I haven't had a Twinkie in at least three years, probably longer.

Yep, clearly, I am un-fall-in-lovable.  And there's no hope for it, either.

(The duck noise classes are always full, and a girl can never have too many black coats.)