Author Archive

Evan, Little Brother, my mom and three of Evan and Cheryl’s children at the family cottage.

Lisa

Back in October 1997, my older sister Cheryl went on a blind date. That blind date ended with plans for a second date; the second date ended with a marriage proposal. Cheryl—who was a college sophomore at the time—called home, ecstatic.

“I’m getting married!” she said gleefully.

“That’s great,” I responded, “But… um… who are you marrying?”

Some guy named Evan Smith had won my sister’s heart within the space of four days. My parents were a little panicky. (Okay, a lot panicky.) Since work wouldn’t allow them to fly down to Utah to meet their future in-law that week, they let me skip school to go and check him out.

I showed up guarded, skeptical. I didn’t care how quickly my sister knew, I would not be so easily convinced that all was well. But as he came bounding up to me in the Salt Lake airport—wide smile and brown curls, beaming the way only the pure in heart can—I knew she was making a good choice. And when my parents were able to meet Evan, they, of course, came to the same conclusion.

We laugh and joke about our original skepticism. (As does anyone who meets Evan. How could you be worried about that guy marrying your daughter? He ranks higher than Mary Poppins on the practically perfect scale!) But, sadly enough, it seems to be a common reflex towards any would-be immigrant. You weren’t born here. You are different. Things were going along just fine. You could ruin all of this. I still feel that jingoistic flare of emotion when Little Brother calls me to tell me about his current crush. (Maybe even more so, actually. My mother always pointed out that the Bible says a man should leave his parents and cling to his wife, not the other way around.) Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

When I was in college, I bought a pet plant and named it Herbert.

“Give me a plant that I won’t be able to kill,” I said to the lady at Home Depot.

She pointed towards the pothos.

I returned to my apartment, delighted. I even made a little sign out of some crafty stuff and stuck it in the soil so everyone would know my plant’s name.

But before the semester was over, my roommates scratched H-E-R-B-E-R-T off the sign and wrote L-A-Z-A-R-U-S on top. You see, I only ever noticed that Herbert needed water when he was on death’s door. I’d run to him with the water can, like an EMT with a first aid kit. “Hold on!” I’d say, as I’d drench the parched soil. Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

I come from a long line of low maintenance women. Women whose make up drawers consist only of mascara and a tube of lip gloss, whose nightly face washing routine involves splashing water on their face and calling it good.

Consequently, many of my early experiments with cosmetics did not go well.

In college, my best friend Kristen and I decided that we’d give waxing a try. It didn’t occur to us that it might be a good idea to go to a salon and pay a professional just to see how it was done. Nope. We didn’t have the money or patience for that. Instead, we ran to the nearest corner store and bought a home kit and went to town.

The results were comedic. We over heated the wax, burned our legs and accidentally spilled the jar on our kitchen table. I’m pretty sure that poor table is still sticky and that its current owner is still blaming the stickiness on a maple syrup mishap. Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

Readers, I know I promised to post the completed Sunday talk. I’m still working on its print format. (I realized that I write very differently when I’m writing a spoken piece.) I’m working on making it more readable. I’ll let you know as soon as it’s up. But it went well and thank you so very much for your help! See you Tuesday.

Lisa

I worked all night on a post that was worthy of following Sarah’s grand slam weekend. But I failed because the only thing that seemed equally exciting was to announce that I’m pregnant. (Which I’m not. Sorry, parents.) Rebecca was even on the same page. Here’s the email she sent at midnight:

So glad you’re the one set with the task of following Sarah’s double whammy of incredible performances.

I swear if you announce you’re pregnant I will quit.

I told her that I was indeed pregnant and was going to announce it to the world. Even though it wasn’t true. Her response?

WHERE DOES THAT LEAVE ME?

Readers, you’ll never believed what happened this week: Levi died.
Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

Years ago, I read an essay written by Maile Meloy, a writer who grew up in Montana but now finds herself living in Los Angeles. “I still have the… idea that you must survive winter to earn your summer.” When people ask me why I didn’t fall in love with Los Angeles, I always quote that line of hers.

I lived in LA from September through December and then ran back to New York City in January after the tree at Rockefeller center and the Christmas windows at Macy’s had been disassembled. That particular January was so cold that by its final week all three of my roommates took off in search of reprieve. The day after they left, New York had the worst snowstorm of the year. Schools were closed. Cars buried. I was delighted.

Maybe I over romanticize that week because of the people I spent it with. My roommate’s boyfriend was studying for the bar exam. Since his apartment was, well, inhabited by a bunch of men who didn’t believe in Clorox, he’d come over to ours and study during the day. Boyfriend 6.0 was self-employed and I was job hunting, so the three of us spent the days together, working away in different corners of the living room. In the evenings, I’d cook dinner as they’d serenade me with their voices and guitars. Roommate’s boyfriend always helped with the dishes and, no matter where the conversation started, he always ended up talking about my roommate and how wonderful she was. When she returned from her trip, I was determined to see that she marry this Levi Smylie guy. Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

My mom was the kind of mom who loved us so much that she wouldn’t let us eat junk cereal. I’m not going to lie: I always wanted her to be the kind of mom who loved us so much that she would let us eat junk cereal. But high prices and the ingredient list always stood between me and that box of Lucky Charms.

I used to commiserate with Jody, my best buddy in grade school. We couldn’t figure out if her mom was crueler or kinder than mine. Her mom let her get any cereal she wanted—so long as she could correctly pronounce the entire ingredient list. Since our second grade reading materials never included words like topopherols or pyridoxine hydrochloride, Jody never got to eat junk cereal either.

My only reprieve came in the form of visits to my Aunt Cindy’s house. Aunt Cindy let her boys eat junk cereal only on Sunday mornings. She’d put the boxes on the table at 7am and take them away at 8am. If you wanted a bowl of the best, you had to be up, dressed and waiting at the table. Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

People often tell me and Tagg what a good match we are, which we know basically translates as “you two are the exact same kind of crazy, a testament that there really is someone for everyone!” We like hearing it.

But we are—without a doubt—a very different kind of crazy when it comes to technology.

Emailing caught on when I was a junior in high school. I remember listening to Robert Robertson, our IT instructor, explain to us that the school was providing every student with an email account.

“Lisa,” Mr. Robertson said, “You could type a message during break and send it to Nora.”

“Why would I want to send a message to Nora? Her locker is right next to mine,” I said.

In fact, I managed to avoid emailing anything until the year 2000. I remember being really sad when I finally opened my very own hotmail account, an account which I still use daily.

Tagg, on the other hand, had a 1984 IMB PC AT with a dial up modem that looked like something out of the movie War Games. (If you don’t know what this is—I certainly didn’t—check it out here.) He used to call bulletin boards across the nation. “They were like the precursors to websites,” he explained. “Like monkeys to humans.”

Before we got married, we asked our closest friends and relatives if they’d video tape themselves answering a list of questions Tagg had written. We figured our kids would get a kick out of it one day. One of the questions was:

What do you think Lisa and Tagg’s first fight is going to be about?

Though we got wonderful answers, none of them turned out to be right. Read the rest of this entry »

Lisa

Readers, don’t register for the race. We picked that particular one before we realized that there were qualifying times. Since I’m not a runner, I just thought this was standard when I did the research for the post. We’re going to try to find a race in March that’s also on a Saturday and doesn’t have qualifying standards.

So, keep running. But don’t register yet. We’ll keep you posted.

Lisa

Because Sarah is so charming, we couldn’t help but want to be more like her after reading Monday’s post.

So—though we may seriously regret this around mile 10—we are inviting all of you to come and run our first ever This Was Sarah’s Idea Apron Stage Half Marathon.

Washington D.C. March 20th, 2010. Sign up here.*

Sarah’s clearly in. Rebecca’s in. I’m in. This is the first time Louise is hearing about it. When we started throwing this idea around Sarah said, and I quote, “What will Louise say? Will she vomit on us?” Louise, I vote you come and heckle us from the sidelines with an herbal cigarette in hand.

The runner with the fastest time will have the honor of wearing Tagg’s Star Wars hoodie to a picnic following the race. I suggested that the slowest runner should be given this sort of a prize. “No,” he said. “That’s what Tom’s Jonas Brothers hat is for.”

When we’re closer to the event, we’ll give you all details about matching tees and iron-on sayings and picnic plans and meeting times and and and.

Stop reading. Start running.

Boom shakalaka.

*Please note: There are qualifying standards for the half-marathon. Read about them here.