Friday, May 14, 2021

7 Quick Takes about Being the Old Couple on Campus, Finding the Meaning of Life (Or Not), and Making New Friends

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week?

1


Phillip and I are back from Utah. His sister's wedding was beautiful. They were married in the Provo City Center temple, which has an interesting story. 

It used to be a regular old meetinghouse called the Provo Tabernacle, where Phillip and I sometimes attended church conferences and devotionals 15 years ago, but after a fire in 2010 they built it back as a temple. 

It was fun to see it in person after the transformation, and having not been in any temple for over a year due to Coronavirus it felt like a very special privilege to go inside and see our sister and new brother-in-law's sealing.


The Provo City Center temple is near where we used to live as college students, so after the sealing we took a stroll around town and the campus of Brigham Young University to see how things had changed.


Getting old is weird. In a lot of ways, it doesn't feel like it's been a long time since I was a college student. But walking around the BYU campus, I was very aware of two things:
  1. All the students were oddly closer to my kids' age than mine
  2. When the college kids looked up, they saw "an old couple walking around campus" even though I totally did not feel like the old couple walking around campus
It's a beautiful campus, though, and we had a nice time. The whole trip to Utah, while slightly anxiety-provoking because of COVID and wanting to be extra-cautious not to bring it home with us, was a wonderful time to see family.

2


Soon afterward it was back home to regular life, where my 5-year-old had apparently been asking himself the big questions.

I was getting something out of the garage before running some errands when he appeared in the doorway eating a granola bar and asked, "What even is the point of life?"

"That's a good question," I said. "What do you think the point of life is?"

"I don't know."

"Some people think different things, but I think the point of life is to help people and try to be like Jesus."

He looked unconvinced, and said, "I don't think there is one."

"Well," I said, realizing that this philosophical discussion was not going anywhere, "Right now the point of life is to get to the UPS store to return this Amazon package before the code expires, so get in the car."

Actually, I didn't say the last part out loud, but it was kind of nonverbally implied.

3


My son has a new toy courtesy of Grandma and Grandpa. It's a set of 5 trucks you can assemble into a giant robot. 

The funniest part is, the box calls it the "PEACE DEFENDER ROBOT." I'm guessing the awkward-sounding name is probably to justify the weaponry.

Be right there, guys, I'm just attaching my peace bazooka.

As you know, I've been super-interested in minimalism lately and am not a fan of any object that takes up physical space at the moment, but I'm actually okay with this toy{affiliate link.} It's just the right level of challenge to keep my 5-year-old occupied for hours, poring over the instructions and disassembling and reassembling everything with his little screwdriver.

4


Speaking of defending the peace (or maybe not,) I'm finding these all over the house.

Just in case you wondered what a machine gun made out of tinker toys would look like.

Yesterday when I went to go put someone's laptop in its charging spot, I opened the drawer and found it full of colorful plastic handguns.

5


Since everything shut down for Coronavirus over a year ago, my youngest child has played A LOT with his siblings but hasn't had much chance to meet kids his age or make friends outside the family. 

I haven't been too worried, but it's been so adorable watching him have his first few real social experiences.

A few weeks ago we got together with my 9-year-old's friend who has a brother about his age, and they hit it off immediately. This week we met them at the playground.

On the way there, my son said with characteristic optimism, "I think me and Alexander are probably going to be best friends."

"You certainly did get have fun together when we went to their house," I agreed.

"Yeah, we didn't even have any  rude with each other! We just played the whole time!" 

Which I guess must be kind of a mind-blowing experience after only playing with siblings for a year. They love each other, but there's often a fair amount of "rude" mixed in.

6


Our basement is still stairless, and Phillip is working on the new ones. Unfortunately, he spends a lot of his time being employed and that really slows down all the fantastic home improvements we've got planned.

Eventually we'll have stairs again, but for now we've gotten mostly used to physically leaving the house to re-enter the basement through the walkout stairs in back to watch a movie. 

I've taken to calling those doors 'our private theater entrance,' which sounds very sophisticated when I mention it to other people at the country club. 

7


Lastly, for a bonus can anyone guess what's inside this package? Zero points if you just Google the company name. That doesn't count.

Most oddly-shaped package delivered to our house in a while.

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Unremarkable Files

2 comments:

me said...

Looks sort of bike- ish. And exercise bike? An eliptical? Probably too small for that.
What ever it is, I hope it's fun.

PurpleSlob said...

A hockey stick, with an intentionally broken stick??
No rude- love it!!
I feel ya about being the old couple on campus!!