A Quick Biology Lesson

When I was in college, I had a professor who always told us "Fat Albert" stories.
Stories that lead up to more stories.


So here is my Fat Albert story.

When I was in college I studied stream ecology. We took many field trips to streams where we would study their ecology, the flora and fauna, etc. Occasionally we would collect water samples to take back and analyze to determine the health of the stream.

One of the first things that we learned was that each stream or body of water has it's own biology/ecology. It's own microorganisms, it's own plant life, it's own balance. By introducing organisms from other bodies of water, we might do harm and throw the balance of the stream off.

So after each field trip and trip into a body of water, we were required to scrub and bleach down our waders and equipment. We spent a lot of time over the sink with a scrub brush scrubbing the bottoms of our boots. It's really a very responsible thing to do. It protects our waterways and keeps us from transporting these bugs.

So. On to the second part of my post today. Yesterday I came home from church and changed. I had to go out later in the evening, so I left my nylons on and just put on my jeans over them. Not wanting to put holes in my feet, I slipped a pair of anklet socks on over them. Well, our day went on. I napped, had dinner and prepared to go back out again. I took my socks off and put them on the bed, put my skirt on and headed back out. When I came home, it was still early enough I didn't want to jump right into bed. So I put my pj's on. I stood there for a moment contemplating my socks. I very rarely will ever put a pair on twice. Even if they've only been worn for a minute. I've been known to go through three or four pairs a day. But as I stood there, I found myself not caring that much. So I grabbed them and put them on. I put my first one on, then as I put my second one on, I realized I was putting them on the wrong foot. The one that was previously on my right foot, was now on my left foot and so on.

So my question is this:

Do you think that each of my feet have their own individual microorganisms?

Do you think that by mixing up my socks I've contaminated my left foot with my right foot's goobers?

Have I permanently thrown off the ecology and biology of my feet?


Have I doomed myself to to a lifetime of foot organism chaos??

Excuse me, I have to go scrub my feet off.

Alpine, Wyoming

We are coming up quickly on one year in Wyoming.

It was on the evening of January 30, 2010 when we arrived in Alpine. A very dark, very cold, and after a very long day, we were very exhausted. We were so lucky to be met by many, many wonderful fellas from our new ward who helped us unload our three horse trailers worth of junk- er, I mean belongings. We were invited to dinner for the next day. People brought us cookies. We met long lost family, and were quickly called into new callings in the ward. It was a lovely welcoming to our new lives!

Alpine is beyond lovely, too. The summer high was only low to mid-nineties. The autumn was simply breathtaking. The spring was beautiful. There simply isn't enough good things to say about the weather here. Except it always seems to be windy.

Alpine has been so welcoming. The Post Master lady, Cheryl, was nice to help us out when I forwarded all of our mail to our house, which address doesn't exist. The guy at the grocery store chased me down to give me the corn dogs that were on sale after I grabbed the ones that weren't on sale. A different guy rummaged around the back of the grocery store to find us matches when the display was gone. The owner of the local hamburger joint offered to let us ride his horses after just meeting him, and he was very serious. The lady at the whole foods store spent a half hour reading a book with me to find a good remedy for what ailed us. And I can only think of a few times, out the hundreds of occasions, when someone didn't hold the door open for us. Everyone here is beyond nice!

I thought I would list some of the fabulous things about Alpine.
Go to their website for more info.

Things that Alpine has:

• A Post Office- open 9AM-3PM
• A basic grocery store- open 8AM-9PM
  
• A Subway Sandwich shop
• The Bull Moose Saloon (with dancers on Fridays and Saturdays!)
• A Whole Foods Natural Store
• TWO gas stations
• A Baptist and an Apostolic church
• Three Parks
• A Small Public Library
• A Brand New Civic Center
• A Fire Station
• A Combo Police/City Offices/Day Care Center
• A Doctors office and a Dentist that's open two days a week
• A Copy Spot
• An Art Gallery
• A Ballet Studio
• A Fly Fishing Store
• A self-serve Car Wash
• Two Banks
• Several Real-Estate Offices
• The Cheeseburger Factory
• A Pizza Place
• Four Other small restaurants (only one is good)
• A Hardware Store
• Two Small hotels and several large
• An Elk Refuge
• Lots of boat ramps
• Three rivers converging here
• Bananas-the outfitter store
  
• They block off part of river bridge so snowmobiles can cross safely
• A veterinarian
  

Things that Alpine lacks:

• An LDS church (it's ten miles down the road)
• A 24-hour anything
• A pharmacy
• A school (elementaries are 10-20 miles, Middle & High are 35 miles)
• No shopping
• No fast food
• Horrible Cell Phone service
• Car Mechanics and Tire Shops
• No TV signal with our bunny ears
  

Even with all of the things that Alpine lacks, it is a wonderful place to live. There's miles and miles of bike trails, hiking trails, snowmobile trails, four wheel trails, etc. TONS of places to camp, go have cookouts, go fishing. Oh my goodness, you can always find something to do here. We love it here and are so glad to have found our way here. If you are ever in the area, come stop and stay. We love having visitors!

Butt Dialing

I have a small problem.

Well, let me start by telling you something else. I have eight people on speed dial. My closest friends. I won't tell you who they are, so you can assume that it's you! Because you really are one of my closest friends, for sure!

Anyway, I, like many people, often keep my phone in my back pocket when I'm about doing my duties. Occasionally when I pull my phone out of my pocket, I will have pushed buttons or turned it off.


And then there are times when I magically unlock the buttons, hit #8 speed dial, hold it down while it dials, don't push any buttons while the person is on the other end trying to talk to me, and then somehow manage to hang up on them.

How in the world do I do this? Besides the fact that I never call anybody else but them! I've debated taking them off of speed dial, but I don't want to because I love them. I don't want to because then I'll have to search through my numbers to find their number. I should really call them more. And isn't that what the lock function is for anyway? So I don't push all the buttons?

It's a good thing they are such good sports about it, too. She simply calls me back asking if I called. When I say, "No, I don't think so...", we both realize whats happened and start laughing. It's always a good way to get in touch with her anyway. I really miss them. They live in Idaho Falls.

As funny as it is, it always leaves me feeling guilty and slightly silly that my rear end is a multifunctioning secretarial appendage of my body. Anyway, the other day I was on MSN reading the news.

After reading this article on MSN about a fella who accidentally "butt-dialed" his wife I feel less silly about my weird habit, and glad that I'm not the only one.

One day his wife gets a call from him. When she answers it's muffled and she hears loud voices shouting and saying "gangster type things." She freaks out that someone is holding him at gunpoint at his office at the school he works at. She calls the police, who call out the SWAT team, and invade the school. A few minutes later he walks into his house calm as if nothing had happened. Turns out he had "butt dialed" his wife from the car on the way home. He had been listening to gangster rap or something in the car, hence the voices.

Good times.