The Cookie Thief by Valerie Cox

Pictured: Some of my favorite cookies - Walker's Highlanders Shortbread. Aunt Cathy introduced me to them a few years ago - very hard to find in our area. They aren't very sweet, but the crystalline sugar on the edge of each cookie makes them irresistable!

I heard this story for the first time many years ago, and I suspect it's very well known, but just in case you haven't stumbled across it yourself, I thought I'd share. Its interesting message is told in a fun, memorable way.

The Cookie Thief - by Valerie Cox

A woman was waiting at an airport one night

With several long hours before her flight.

She hunted a book in the airport shop,

Bought a bag of cookies, and found a place to drop.

Though engrossed in her book, she happened to see when

The man beside her, as bold as could be,

Grabbed a cookie or two from the bag in between,

Which she tried to ignore to avoid a scene.

She munched cookies and watched the clock

While this gutsy thief diminished her stock.

She was getting more irritated as the minutes ticked by,

Thinking, "If I weren't so nice, I'd blacken his eye."

With each cookie she took, he took one, too.

When only one was left, she wondered what he'd do.

With a smile on his face and a nervous laugh,

He took the last cookie and broke it in half.

He offered her half as he ate the other.

She snatched it from him and thought ,

"Oh brother! This guy has some nerve, and he's also rude -

Why he didn't even try to show gratitude!"

She didn't know when she'd been so galled

And sighed with relief when her flight was called.

She gathered belongings to head for the gate,

Refusing to look back at the thieving ingrate.

When she boarded the plane, she sank in her seat

Then sought her book, which was almost complete.

As she reached in her baggage, she gasped with surprise.

There was her bag of cookies in front of her eyes.

"If mine are here," she moaned with despair,

"Then the others were his, and he tried to share!"

Too late to apologize she realized with grief

That she was the rude one, the ingrate, the thief.

Cloudy Morning

My son left home before 7am this morning (unusual for a Saturday), and came back inside to tell us that the clouds were spectacular. I grabbed my camera and drove to the end of a nearby street to take pictures of the layering effect. None of my pictures turned out very well and they could not convey, anyway, how cool and wet the air was.

But I decided while I stood there (after the camera battery died) that I miss too many sunrises (like almost ALL of them) and that it really isn't a good trade to sleep in, even on a Saturday morning, at least not on a Saturday morning like this one.

We are really appreciating spring now that it has finally arrived.

Welcome Spring

It's April 24th and it's raining -- that's the way it should be. For now, at least, the snow is gone.

My son mowed the lawn today with unusual eagerness -- the first grass cutting of the year -- decapitating dandelions before they could turn into seed globes and blow through the neighborhood. Trees all over town are white, pink, dark pink, lime green, even purple.

People have literally come out of the woodwork of their houses onto the streets and sidewalks of our town.

Spring is busting out all over, as the saying goes. Which reminds me of a quote that isn't really about spring (EVERYthing reminds me of a quote, as you know): "See God opening millions of flowers every day without forcing the buds." (The quote is from a Hindu guru. It's amazing to think about how nature works with apparent effortlessness, isn't it? Something to think about while doing yoga...)

Bonus quotes I stumbled upon (and enjoyed) while looking for the flower quote:

May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. -- Edward Abbey

Some people follow their dreams. Others hunt them down and beat them mercilessly into submission. -- Neil Kendall

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people. -- Victor Borge

The greatst part of our happiness depends on our disposition, not our circumstances. -- Martha Washington

I've been on a constant diet for the past two decades. I've lost a total of 789 lbs. By all accounts, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet. -- Erma Bombeck

I believe if I ever had to practice cannibalism, I might manage if there were enough terragon around. -- James Beard, food writer (b.1903)

My mother had a great deal of trouble with me, but I think she enjoyed it. -- Mark Twain

Hell is anywhere you are with a bad attitude and no gratitude. -- Anonymous (SO TRUE!)

Would it be subversive...

to declare myself a one-woman tea party?

I've only failed one test in my life (a written Utah driver's license test -- after I'd been driving for five years on an Arizona license! -- and I cried), but the worst grade I ever received as a student was in Econ 100. I think I have pretty good economic instincts, but economic concepts themselves are difficult for me to grasp. (I take some comfort in the knowledge that many people have a hard time understanding the 'dismal science.')

So (especially in difficult economic times like these) I appreciate it when anyone can illuminate the dark recesses of my mind with a better understanding of economic principles.

Today I heard a self-proclaimed 'capitalist pig' explain what is fundamentally wrong with Obama's plan for the redistribution of wealth ('wealth' being a relative term -- ask Joe the Plumber.)

He said that when the government tells you that you will take care of your neighbor -- that you will not have a choice in the matter, but will pay for his doctor's visits, his groceries, his subsidized housing, his prescriptions, etc. -- you have surrendered your freedom. A part of you has become enslaved. You have become a cog in a machine. Your dreams as an individual are officially less important than the needs of the collective.

There have always been and there will always be individuals who have a legitimate claim on support. As a compassionate people, we ungrudgingly allocate part of our nation's wealth to meet their needs. But we are at the tipping point now in the United States where half the population receives some sort of government support. Now taxpayers are supporting investment firms and car companies, too, lest they fail. We need to return to basic principles of self-reliance.

I sometimes wonder if people were happier and more satisfied with life when they had to depend upon themselves, their loved ones, and their religious communities instead of the government.

Benjamin Franklin's 13 Virtues

On an ocean voyage at the age of 20, Benjamin Franklin came up with a list of 13 virtues he would aspire to live throughout his life. Fifty-nine years later, at 79, he wrote about them again in his autobiography and said they had shaped his life.

Maybe these virtues (and others we may choose to add individually) can shape our lives in positive ways as well. After each virtue, he gave a succinct definition as follows:

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.
2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.
3. Order: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.
4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.
5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.
6. Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.
7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.
8. Justice: Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.
9. Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.
10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.
11. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; Never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.
12. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.
13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

He focused on one virtue each week and kept a chart to see how many times he violated it. Over time he saw a positive trend.

At first he had only 12 virtues listed but then added humility. He gave the following explanation:

My list of virtues contain'd at first but twelve; but a Quaker friend having kindly informed me that I was generally thought proud; that my pride show'd itself frequently in conversation; that I was not content with being in the right when discussing any point, but was overbearing, and rather insolent, of which he convinc'd me by mentioning several instances; I determined endeavouring to cure myself, if I could, of this vice or folly among the rest, and I added Humility to my list).

In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride. Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.[Thus far written at Passy, 1741]

The more I know about Benjamin Franklin,

the more I love and admire him!

Living History

Sometimes you have a sense that you're living history -- that you're progressing down one of those timelines you see published in textbooks demonstrating what happened when, giving the reader an understanding of cause and effect.

You're sitting in your high school economics classroom when President Reagan is shot. You're a newlywed, home alone, when the Space Shuttle Challenger disintegrates. You're balancing a mattress on top your van driving home from the furniture store when Diana is killed in Paris. You're getting the kids ready for school when the World Trade Center collapses.

Right now I have a sense that I am living through something vaguely familiar from another time and place -- that history is, at last, repeating itself, as it always does.

Maybe I've watched too many documentaries over my lifetime, but in my mind's eye I see sepia toned footage from the Weimar Republic, a woman pushing a wheelbarrow full of cash down the street to buy a loaf of bread. Is this the Bolshevik Revolution, with the government nationalizing banks and businesses, or the French Revolution, with peasants demanding that CEOs line up at guillotines?

But we have no czars and no aristocracy. We are all peasants! Every American is free to parlay his time and talents into money and position, if that is what he wants. And money and position are relative anyway. What it takes to make me happy is not what it takes to make anyone else happy.

Let me figure out what happiness means to me and how I can attain it. I'll let the government know if someone or something is standing in my way, blocking my path, but another person's success is not a threat to me, while government intervention is.

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness -- those are proper government concerns, but they are not given to us by government -- they come from the creator, as Thomas Jefferson said. The government cannot give life, liberty, happiness or anything else -- it can only take. If it isn't taking from you, then it's taking from someone else.

We do not have reason to fear or despise a person who seems to have more than we do (and very often that is only an illusion). We do have reason to fear a government that is powerful enough to decide that we have too much and to take from us what we have earned.

Conference Weekend Cinnamon Rolls

This is a picture of two of the two dozen cinnamon rolls I made tonight. I rarely make cinnamon rolls -- maybe once every three years -- because, like childbirth, I have to let my memory of my last experience with breadmaking pass before I am tempted to make bread again. (Breadmaking is extremely messy and time-consuming, and half the time the dough doesn't rise for me or something goes horribly wrong.)

So why did I make cinnamon rolls and why have I written TWO blog entries today? Because I have three newspaper stories due by noon on Monday which I have hardly started to work on. That's my M.O.

I tell myself I thrive under pressure, but I don't think that's really true. I am productive under pressure, but I do not thrive. I would like to break this habit of procrastination. I need to hire a personal coach to follow me around and keep me on task. (My personal coach would carry a clipboard and a stopwatch and he'd have a whistle between his lips, ready to blow.)

I first realized the gravity of my problem with procrastination when I was in college. On the first reading day of finals week my sophomore year, I went to the fabric store and bought a variety of fabrics to make a simple patchwork quilt...by hand. (I did not have a sewing maching at the time.) Back at my apartment, I cut the fabric into squares and arranged them on the ground, when my roommate, totally stressed about finals, asked, 'What are you doing? It's finals week!!!'

(Aside: I am pleased to report that I did eventually, a couple of years later, finish the quilt, and every stitch was sewn by hand. It was the first quilt Scott and I used after were married. I am not a really great 'finisher' of projects, either, generally speaking.)

So making cinnamon rolls and blogging -- those are stall tactics. Why am I stalling? I have no idea. But I do know that I will write the stories, and they will most likely be turned in on time. Meanwhile, we'll have cinnamon rolls to enjoy with the morning session of general conference and it will all be good.

Three Definitions

I never use these three words because they are so similar that I become confused about which means what...So to get their definitions straight in my mind, I thought I'd blog about them.

After each word's simplified definition I've written a sentence to clarify how they might be used in context.

implacable: cannot be placated or appeased.

Despite the defense attorney's best arguments, the judge was implacable in his demand

that the full sentence be served.

inexorable: unalterable

He was confronted with the inexorable truth that his deception had caused her pain.

intractable: not easily controlled; stubborn

She had the mistaken impression that her intractable disposition was a virtue.

My Ongoing Theme: Quotes on Housework

I am a marvelous housekeeper. Every time I leave a man I keep his house. -- Zsa Zsa Gabor


My idea of housework is to sweep the room with a glance. -- Anonymous


I hate housework. You make the beds, you wash the dishes and six months later you have to start all over again. -- Joan Rivers


I'm not going to vacuum 'til Sears makes one you can ride on. -- Roseanne Barr


Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful. -- William Morris, English designer and philosopher


The reality of the house is order
The blessing of the house is community
The glory of the house is hospitality
The crown of the house is godliness. – Frank Lloyd Wright


His house was perfect, whether you liked food, or sleep, or work, or story-telling, or singing, or just sitting and thinking, best, or a pleasant mixture of them all. -- J.R.R. Tolkien, The Hobbit