Bringing Up (A Wild Dingo) Baby

So let me tell you about dogs. They give lots of kisses (unfortunately, they don't mind licking inside your mouth) and fall asleep in your lap. They prance on walks around town and balance on their hind legs for treats (yum, Beggin' Strips). They like to hump their pillow, even though they are a neutered female. They jump into empty laundry baskets and scale couches in a single bound. They are excellent walkers and like to watch all the same shows as you (even the surprisingly risque Hope and Faith).

Tanya is the best dog in the world. Her nicknames thus far are "Momma" and "Wild Dingo Baby." She is lovey and snuggly and has excellent manners. She hardly ever barks. She had a puppy about four months ago and the shelter we adopted her from told us that she was a really good mother. The aforementioned shelter found her pregnant and ill and about to be euthanized at a different shelter, so they resuced her (they are a no-kill, private shelter). They gave her a place to crash, nursed her back to health, and then, helped her raise her surviving pup. I knew the minute that I heard this story that she was coming home with me. This was several hours before meeting her, but I just knew. My attachment was instantaneous -- so odd, but in a way, not.

Some of you may not know this, but Russ and I had another dog two years ago named Bearden. We call him "the brute" or sometimes, "the lug." That's because he was a chocolate Lab and didn't so much walk as destroy everything in his path. We had to get two different photo albums because of his inquisitive teeth. I never bonded with him as much as just felt pissed off every time he woke up because it meant I had to take him to dog park again. He needed a lot of space to roam and our 710 sq. ft. backhouse (in among oaks) just wasn't cutting the mustard. So we found him nice, new owners in Fallbrook, home of rolling avocado orchards and mid-life retirees. Bearden is huge and shiny and still a little unwieldy, but very, very happy with his new owners. Last time they wrote, Bearden was learning how to skateboard. I know, it's so Californian. We can't help ourselves.

Yes, Let's

That's what Russ and I said today and adopted a dog. Her name is Tanya.

Wallin Wightman Christmas/End-of-the-Year Newsletter: Year 4 (2005)

This is our first Christmas/End-of-the-Year newsletter. Yes, we know, we wrote that it’s our fourth year, but for any of you who read that and thought “Those jerks, I never got a year 1, 2, or 3,” no worries. There was no year 1, 2, or 3 except in the back of our minds, which we banished to the mental equivalent of Death Valley and tried to forget. But you can’t fight December forever, and thus, you are now reading the first official Wallin Wightman newsletter.

So this is usually the space where people write what they’ve been doing all year and all their many achievements. But we don’t have all that many achievements. We just barely do the dishes these days and all the corners in our house are covered with cobwebs. We clean up when our friends come over, which is why if you’ve been over lately, you’re probably thinking, “But your house looked great!” Other people’s judgment on our living space is the only motivating factor for cleaning up these days.


Russell: This is my portion of the first annual, annual Wallin Wightman Christmas/End of the Year, Fourth edition, first in-print newsletter. In this section you will:

• Discover the fun of juror’s prudence
• Craft a Christmas tree out of a paper plate and elbow macaroni
• Learn how to escape from prison using an empty milk carton, bubble gum, and two-sided duct tape

This past year, I started Graduate School at California Polytechnic University for Landscape Architecture. The program will take three years of school and two years of work for a licensed landscape architect. After all of that is finished, I can then take my licensing exam.

I began classes this past summer. My landscape awareness class went on a field trip of Yosemite and California’s Central Valley. We then went into Sacramento and met with the capital’s architect in residence. The idea was that we would learn about water (or lack-there-of in California) and how cities get it and use it. You can see me in the picture taken at Big Trees. As you can see, that’s one big-A tree.


My class also took a field trip to Arizona in the fall. We studied how people live and used the resources they have in various conditions. Apparently, Arizona is the place to learn about those things. On that note, the trip took us to Palo Soleri’s Arcosanti: an experimental city in the high desert. That is some crazy stuff. Google it some time. You won’t be disappointed.

Overall, I’m having a great year. My classmates inspire me to do great things. They challenge me to think about why I’m doing this whole landscape architecture thing. Group work is a big part of my studies and with that, it seems like all my flaws are thrown out there for everyone to see and, in some cases, experience.

My program is invigorating and exhausting, challenging and uncomplicated. It’s all it’s supposed to be when I’m both depressed and excited to be on break.


Sarah: This is my personal portion of the first annual year four Wallin Wightman Christmas/End-of-the-Year Newsletter. In this section, you will:
• Find out where the phrase “You done good” originated
• Discover how lame the world of online blogging is
• Learn just where Russell’s fifth finger is hidden in our house
• Start your own democracy, based on the iPod revolution

This year, I finished my first year of my M.F.A. program and started my second. Just for those of you who still might be a little hazy on the details, the M.F.A. is not just a master’s degree, but the master’s degree for the arts, including (but not limited to) painting, dance, and yes, creative writing. It’s a terminal degree and the same amount of units/hours as a doctorate. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that I’m going to get a book deal when I graduate, like a business MBA might get a six-figure job offer after graduation. Like all creative degrees, it doesn’t really get you anywhere fiscally, just raises your cool factor in academic circles.

I love my program and the people in it. They’ve not only helped make me more aware of my writing, but helped me become more comfotable in my own skin, in my own voice. They also make me laugh, which is invaluable in the sometimes-humorless days of reading and writing and feeling like nothing that comes out is original or witty.


Right now, I’m about 1/3 of the way done on my third novel, tentatively titled The Ocean Below. This means I’m at about 150 pages and have 200 more to go. It’s going well and I’m having fun writing it – I plan on finishing or getting close to finishing it over January, which is my month long break from school. In short, the novel is about a marine biologist who loses her father and must fly to help out with the funeral and then, confront a secret she shared with him that has been haunting her since she was in high school. Every short synopsis sounds so Danielle Steele, but I swear, it’s much better than Danielle Steele. My book would never hold up to grocery store checkout lane standards.

Okay, enough long winded paragraphs of blah blah blah. Here is our year in review, bullet style:

• Celebrated New Year’s Eve/Day with Christina at Lucky Baldwin’s and the Rose Parade
• Visited the San Juan Capistrano Mission and ate at the Ramos House, once together, once with the whole Wightman clan

• Planted, plucked, trimmed, and watered our garden, designed by Russ
• Celebrated Todd’s birthday and many talents
• Led Westminster’s youth groups, which included leading some very corny games
• Got hennaed for Josh and Elizabeth’s Engagment Party, thrown by Christina (shown: Elizabeth's foot)
• Was present (Sarah, along with Kristan) when underwear was found in a Long Beach library bookcase by Jeremy
• Partied with Russ on his actual 28th birthday at a mini-golf course and at his party at Café Mundial with good friends who took the infamous “Russ Quiz”

• Read some great books, watched some great movies: too many to list, but write us if you want some receommendations.
• Cheered when Danielle graduated from Claremont Graduate University
• (Sarah) Danced a little with Elizabeth at her Bachlorette Bash
• After a rockin’ Easter service (thank you, Imre), dined on lamb and mint sauce at Christina’s annual Easter luncheon
• Spent way too much time on Ebay
• (Russ) Went on two road trips with classmates
• Had a blast when our niece Beyonce came to stay for a weekend

• Blogged some
• Went hiking and saw/photographed a huge, fascinating, potentially-harmful Tarantula Hawk

• (Russ) Slid down the slippery rocks in Tuolumne Meadows River
• Went wine tasting in Pasadena then to Taos, New Mexico for Christina’s 30th birthday
• (Sarah) Cut head while river rafting in the Rio Grande Gorge in Taos

• Celebrated my birthday at a campground in San Onofre
• Said goodbye to the 350 year-old oak tree that shaded our house

• Was totally unrecognizable as Edie Sedgwick (muse of Andy Warhol) on Halloween/Day of the Dead with Long Beach friends
• (Sarah) Went camping at Leo Carillo with Christina, Emilio, and Josh; went camping together at Malibu Creek State Park
• Rejoiced in the birth of Lucille Scout Jarot, first daughter of dear friends Diana and Chris
• Listened to the parrots squalling outside my house every morning as they ate the persimmons off the tree in our backyard
• Took lots of photos of ourselves that didn’t turn out well, worked on our imitations of famous people, laughed so hard we cried, and generally enjoyed all of our time together.

Sarah: Christmas is a beautiful time of year and for me, a time of reflection and renewal. My favorite Christmas carol is the song “O Come, O Come Emmanuel.” I always get a little teary while singing it because I think it captures the spirit of Christmas and what it means so perfectly. Namely that we are all waiting, full of hope, but also, full of despair about the way the world is so fubar. But according to the chorus, we can rejoice because there’s hope for all of us (crazies that we are!) – our hope is realized by doing our best to make this world a place full of love, of communion, of reconciliation, of peace, and of grace.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Love,
Russell and Sarah

The Family Stone

Just spent the afternoon at the movie theater with Christina watching the Family Stone. We both wept. It was a great movie, especially if you happen to have real, slightly dysfunctional and/or overfunctioning, non-perfect family members in your life.

If not, you'll probably want to skip this one and go see something fantastical.

Bumps in the Night

I felt another earthquake last night. It was while I was in bed, doing cryptograms. Everything began to vibrate. I thought I was going crazy, because I've been feeling quite a few small shakers over the last two weeks, but when I mentioned it to Christina, she affirmed that I was in fact not going crazy because she'd been feeling them, too. It made me wonder what would happen if there was an earthquake in the middle of the night. It'd be good because a lot of people wouldn't be on the road when the freeways melt into dust. On the other hand, we'd all be screaming and running around in our pajamas wondering if it was just a dream, so we might not make full efforts, thinking, "Ahh, well, we'll all wake up from this."

I had a bizarre dream last night. I dreamed that I was hanging out with a few girls I knew - Jessie Conklin was in there and this girl from Russell's program that I've never met, Haley - plus Jessica Simpson. We were also hanging out with three Australian guys - one of whom was a merging of Jon Stewart, Dermot Mulroney, and Russell (hmmm) - and Nick Lachey. We were in some sort of dormitory, I think at some kind of school because I remember a bunch of us visited a professor's office in the middle of the dream. Everything in this cozy little school/hotel was fine until Paris Hilton and her sister showed up. They were great with cut downs. Everyone hated them. Unfortunately, their presence also ignited fury in Nick Lachey, who turned out to be an evil, butcher knife wielding spawn of Satan. He was seriously Satan's child. When he ran somewhere, he left a trail of fire behind him. So he had to kill all of us and started off with poor Haley. Then it was on to Jessica and I think he must've gotten to her because in the final scenes of my dream, she was nowhere to be found. A lot of the dream involved the group of girls and guys running around and trying to avoid Nick's butcher knife of terror.

But then, the dream took a weird, fascinating turn. When Nick was about to slice off the head of Jessie, his knife wouldn't cut anymore. He was sawing at Jessie's neck and nothng was happening. Instead - or perhaps because of this - he fell in love with Jessie. The last time I saw them in my dream, they were sitting at a bar drinking cocktails. I, of course, fell in love with the JS-DM-GRW character who wanted me to move to Austraila with him. He confessed his love for me when we were clinging to the top of a flagpole, hiding from Satan Nick. At the very end of the dream, I was going with him and in the Quantas terminal at LAX, you didn't ride up escalators, you surfed them. If you didn't catch a metal wave, you had to use the steps. I caught the wave.

Feel free to analyze my craziness.

Shorts in December

Christmas shopping is tiring. I love the walking around, the Salvation Army bell ringers, and the looking at the many items in the many stores, but what I don't like is the choosing of the many items. I spent all day wandering nomadically around on Colorado Blvd. I knew I was looking for something -- just what that was, I had no idea.

I decided that I wanted to buy Russell a nice scarf for Christmas. But this was before I actually went shopping and found out that most all menswear is ugly and without style. Even me, with my horrible hemming, could probably make a million just designing decent men's scarves. Perhaps that will be my side project as I continue working on my novel this January. As a writer, a million dollars may come in handy when writer's block strikes.

I am much cooler than I ever thought, although I'm constantly posting things on this site that throws that statement into question. When I was reading through my Sunset Magazine this weekend, I noticed that they featured Garden Grove and Brodard, the Vietnamese restaurant I ate at last week. Then they did a full spread on hanging out in Sedona, where Russ and I will be hanging out with his parents during our Golden-Brown Christmas in Arizona. So I'm ahead of the cool curve according to Sunset Magazine. This makes me less cool-cool and more like March of the Penguins-cool. Endearing and education, but a little corny.

Today while shopping at Vroman's, I saw a friend from college, Jessie Conklin, who I hadn't seen since we were in Israel five years ago. She's the kind of hilarious that makes you snort Pepsi out your nose. In a few hurried moments (she caught me at the cash register), I found out she's banding around the greater L.A. area with Bodies of Water (http://www.bodiesofwater.net). It was nice to see someone with whom I actually wanted to catch up. Generally when I see random people from college, I get that sour taste in my mouth, like when you throw up a little after drinking too much orange juice.

Bio-Mutation

I strongly believe that there is something in my biological makeup, no wait, my very DNA, that necessitates the watching of at least one total crap TV show regularly. It's something that I've fought up until recently and then, with the advent of grad school and the heavy procrastinatory behaviors that come with it, I've given in.

This summer, it was the show Ambush Makeover (until it was cancelled in favor of "Tyra!"), a cheesy grab-someone-off-the-street-and-give-them-a-quick-fix. Then it was a few -- okay more -- episodes of America's Next Top Model. I consider that research for discussions on postmodern reality TV and feminism. Yeah, that sounds good. Right now, ever since finals week started, I have been watching (gulp) Kelly and Regis. I know, I know. I'm pathetic. But as Dr. May always says in his wonderful Kentucky accent, "You know it's just a bunch of crap, but you can't resist it." (He is usually talking about T.C. Boyle, but still, it applies.)

The worst part is that I somehow have influenced Russ's DNA as well to watch these same terrible shows. So I'm not just dangerous -- I'm contagious.

Such Great Heights

Now that I have taught my last class, finished most of my reading, dotted the i's and crossed the t's, I am feeling back to my usual heights of blogging genius. I have a new blogging space, lots-o-time, and a space heater to keep my fingers from freezing in typing position over the keyboard. I will once again spend my days watching Club 314 1/2, a.k.a. the alley outside our house, the hottest spot for limbless alley cats in heat, illegal Hispanic teenagers smoking weed, and the weird man who sits in his dark garage on a riding lawn mower, to get their respective grooves on.

Speaking of new heights, I had my first sampling of Vietnamese food today in Garden Grove and it was, in the words of the boba shop we got drinks at afterwards, "tast-tea." Spring rolls with crunchy pork, a clear vermicelli packed with pork, carrots, cabbage, and crushed walnuts, and sweet potatoes fried with shrimp and a yummy dipping sauce. Why have I lived this long without grubbing on Vietnamese food? Oh yeah -- I grew up in Aurora, Illinois, not only home of Wayne and Garth, but such local delicacies as "the slider" from White Castle. I didn't know any Asians, unless you count my doctor, Dr. Hao, a nice guy and doctor whom I was nevertheless mortified to have examine me by the time junior high rolled around. What thirteen year-old girl wants their male doctor (of any ethnicity) to check and make sure that she's developing? I don't know that I've ever been more embarassed than by that visit to Dr. Hao, unless you count the time that I mentioned I had diarrhea in a microphone at an all-school assembly, followed by an utter all-school silence.

Dog-Gone

Russell and I found a great little dog, a friendly, tail-wagging, cute-faced chihauhau at the Pasadena Humane Society. Unfortunately, when we went today - after being told this morning that there was no waiting list to adopt - we found out that we were two hours too late. Damn.

But in good news, I found the most beautiful pair of Lulu Guinnesss wedges on Ebay and ended up winning them. They came in the mail today and woo-hoo -- instant fierceness, as Kristan would say.

More on the Isle of Wight

Kristan has requested that I write more about the offending Isle of Wight t-shirt AND include photo documention. I will do so now.

The Isle of Wight t-shirt has a long history of offense. As you can see, it's very old. The embroidered steering wheels and sailing ships have definitely faded since I first encountered it. I believe the story goes something like this: Russ got it somewhere in England. It was either a gift from a friend or he saw it, and since it basically shows that there's an island named after his family line, he bought it. Or he jumped for joy when he opened it (if we're going with the friend-gift-theory). It is the t-shirt of his isle dreams.



I've never liked the shirt. It reminds me of the shirts that my grandma Adra wears. She's an 80-something woman, so she's allowed a little embroidery, a little froo-froo scripting of places she's visited via t-shirt. Plus, she can barely see anymore, so we're all really sympathetic when she shows up with mismatched cardigan buttoning and too-short stretch pants.

He didn't love it until I told him I thought it was aesthetically offensive. My feelings, of course, have made it Russ' favorite shirt. Now when he puts it on - which, I'll admit, is less than he used to - he struts around the house. I swear. It's at least a swagger.

Russ and I have had the Isle of Wight discussion many times. It goes something like this:

Me (playing it cool, unconcerned): "When are you going to get rid of that shirt?"

Russ (grinning): "Oh, never, I think. It's a great shirt."

Me: "No it's not. You just say that because you know I hate it."

Russ: "It's my favorite shirt. Plus, it's got my name on it. Your last name, too, ha ha."

Me: "My last name is hyphenated."

Russ: "Actually, it's a spaced double, so technically, Wightman is the last of your last names."

Me: "The shirt is ugly."

Russ: "No, it's not."

Me (losing my cool): "Get rid of the fucking shirt, Russ."

Russ (still grinning): "You know -- I think I'm going to wear it out tonight."

And that's final

It always happens around the end of the semester -- just when it becomes imperative that I get all my work done in a timely manner, I just want to sit around and play on Ebay or clip my toenails. I want to spend time fiding errant eyebrow hairs. I yearn to organize Russ's messy dresser and secretly hide away that nasty "Isle of Wight" shirt in an undisclosed location. I want to apply for jobs online that I'm neither qualified for nor want, just to see what happens. I find myself fighting the urge to clean the refrigerator and read In Style. I'm dying to run outside and check up on the praying mantis egg in our garden, to see if it's still unhatched.

In other words, I'm up for pretty much anything that keeps me away from doing what I actually need to do.