Whew, this has been an exhausting few days--I don't think that Christmas would be Christmas, though, without being completely spent by the time New Year's rolls around (and I say spent in both senses of the word). Last night, a group of Norwegian returned missionaries--or "RM's" in Mormon slang; the invitees were carefully culled from the larger group based on how funny they are, how laid back they are, and how willing they are to dish out any information about other RMs. We met at a brewery here in Salt Lake (and unlike the breweries in Portland, this one doesn't rely solely on brewing beer--or they'd probably go out of business here--they also brew up Mormon-friendly root beer, cream soda, and orange soda--it gives the feeling of sin, without the pesky aftereffects--like confession). We had a fun time, and afterward, came back to Margaret's mom's house and talked some more. We started telling stories about crazy family members and one of the guys told us about his sister-in-law that suffers from O.D.D. We all looked at each other trying to figure out what that disorder was--maybe it was a more acute form of ADD? Finally, he said, she's odd. That's one for the Big Book of Insults, a tome that my brother wrote over half of that I keep at home for continual study.

Speaking of hilarious family stories, Margaret's sister takes her son to a Jewish preschool. During the orientation, they kept stressing that children were forbidden to bring any form of peanuts whatsoever in their lunches. They were pretty forceful in their warnings. Finally, Margaret's sister leaned over to a woman sitting next to her and said, "I know the Jewish thing about pork, but I've never heard about peanuts." The woman, probably trying not to laugh or roll her eyes, informed her that it was a precaution for children with peanut allergies. Oops. I hate it when I do that--your mind just goes off in one direction and leaves reality far, far behind. I remember when I was a kid, every time our school had a fire drill, I would furtively look up and down all the halls on my way out of the building, trying to catch a glimpse of the workers using a "fire drill"--a tool so dangerous that the children had to be evacuated from the building in case of accident or emergency. I was SO disappointed when I found out what a fire drill really was--my version was much more interesting.