True Crime Confession

          Do you know anyone who has stolen something from the LDS Conference Center DURING a church General Conference?  Yes you do—me. 

For my non-Mormon readers, let me explain that twice a year there’s a huge gathering of Latter-day Saints in Salt Lake City at the gigantic Conference Center (which seats 21,000), for several sessions of talks from our leaders along with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir performing throughout.  It’s quite a big deal and standing in line earlier this month, we met a man from Angola who had flown 36 hours just to attend it. Here’s how big it is:

So, to process thousands of people through a security check, it’s a bit of a mob scene.  Organized, but still a mob.  It was raining, so we all put our purses, umbrellas, whatnot, on a long series of tables, then picked them up at the end of the long assembly line.

Only my umbrella was missing.  Great.  Someone with a similar one must have picked mine up.  So I grabbed the one that most resembled mine, and took off for our seats.  But I was disappointed.  The one I had to settle for was not as nice as the one I was borrowing from my daughter.

After the session, we headed out.  And as I reached into my purse to turn my cell phone back on, what should I find but MY UMBRELLA! This meant I had stolen someone else’s—someone who is now going to get drenched, thanks to me.  I cannot tell you how terrible I felt.  I had obviously forgotten that I had collapsed my umbrella and stuffed it into my purse. I left the other one at the scene of the crime, but doubt very much that it found its owner.

And so I am confessing to this dastardly deed and hoping that someone out there can forgive the dingdong who made off with their umbrella. If only there were a LOST & FOUND for our brains.

I’d love to make a YouTube Mom video about how to remember you’ve already stowed your umbrella, but I fear not many of you really need the help I do! 

I Guess I Have to Wish You a Happy Birthday

          If you’re a regular reader (or an irregular one, sorry) you know that I went to France this summer with a group of college kids.  Despite my luggage being lost for the first three days,

we had a wonderful time. Two of my kids were there, so that was especially cool.

          After spending some time in Paris, we decided to head for the French Alps, Lake Annecy, and then hop over the border into Switzerland. And it was fabulous, fattening, and fun.

          HOWEVER, no trip is complete without Joni making a fool of herself, so here’s what happened.  One night we all gathered in my bedroom and, in the spirit of college coed behavior, I checked my Facebook page on my phone.  I noticed some birthdays, so I decided to dictate birthday wishes to each of these Facebook friends. 

          “Happy Birthday,” I said into the mike.  And then, to the kids clustered around, “I always feel obligated to say Happy Birthday to people if they’ve wished me a happy birthday on mine.”

          And only at this moment did I realize that the mike was still on and my words were still typing onto the birthday message!  “Oh, no!” I shouted.  “It’s typing that!”

Everyone imagined the birthday girl getting this horrid message that I was only wishing her a happy day out of a sense of duty. One student fell off the bed laughing, and declared this the highlight of the trip. Disaster!

BUT… luckily I caught it just before pressing “send.”  With pounding heart I watched as I backspaced through my confession and erased all evidence.  But, I have to say, now I wonder if that’s why people wish me a happy birthday and this thing could go on ad infinitum.  

          Either way, you can purchase my books out of a sense of duty and I will not be offended.  Find them here.

Keeping Pace

Well, he did it.  St. Bob got a pacemaker. 

Thank you, Richie, for the appropriate artwork.

His brother, Ken, flew in from Mississippi for the procedure, and contributed an apple fritter for post op recovery:

I had wondered if the pacemaker would be like a piano metronome, and we’d hear a steady ticking.

But no, it’s completely silent.  HOWEVER, you can opt for a doorbell feature to alert you that the battery’s running low in a few years.  That ought to wake you up.

And speaking of waking up, in this day of apps that do everything, why can’t they wire these things with a few more options?  Here are just a few I think would be handy:

A sleep machine feature with white noise, chirping birds, crashing waves, whatever you like. Then a lovely alarm to wake you up.

An applause setting so you can clap at performances without even having to move your hands.  For the truly lazy.

A baloney detector that goes “Wheep, wheep, wheep!” when people are lying.

A barking dog sound, just for fun.

GPS, as suggested by our son, Cassidy.

Comedy performances, and thus become a truly phenomenal ventriloquist who can talk even when his lips are tightly sealed.  Ditto for opera singing.

Books on tape that only you can hear, to help you through boring meetings.

And, of course, a whole Honey Do list of ideas to keep one’s spouse busy, along with a remote control for me to use.  But probably no one would sign up for that one.

You can, however, stay busy reading my books and watching my YouTube Mom videos.  Find everything here.

Ten-Ten

          I’ve been waiting years for my weekly blog day to fall on October 10^th.  This is because Ten-Ten is a HUGE, COLOSSAL, MEGA-GIGANTIC day in Chinatown.

          Years ago we took our kids to San Francisco on October 10^th.  We live just a two-hour drive away so we go there often, but had no idea we were arriving in Chinatown exactly as an enormous festival was just commencing.

          It included the Double Ten Parade, and suddenly we were surrounded by fireworks, confetti, drummers and the pageantry of the Lion Dance:

          It was mesmerizing. If you can possibly visit a Chinese or Taiwanese district for this celebration of the Wuchang Uprising which led to the collapse of the Qing Dynasty, don’t miss it (yes, we should enjoy all the food and music but we should also know what we’re celebrating, right?)

          But this is Joniopolis.  So it can't go perfectly, right? A couple of years ago St. Bob and I decided to go back, just ourselves.  All our kids had flown from the nest, and we thought a trip to “the city” on 10/10 would be a perfect vacay. We knew the parade had gotten underway after sunset, so the night lighting would be gorgeous and dramatic, but what to do until then?

          We visited the wharf, rode the trolley cars, even made reservations at a great restaurant to while the time away until the parade. Finally it was dusk and we headed over to Chinatown.  But what was this? People were sweeping up colorful confetti and hauling trash cans back to the curb.  They had moved the parade up to mid-afternoon and we had missed the entire thing! 

          “Oh, it was so gorgeous,” we were told.  “Best ever.”  Happy residents were now bustling about, still aglow over the fun and excitement, as Bob and I stood there with long faces, chagrined and feeling like we had just awakened from comas of stupidity.
          BY THE WAY, I just texted the kids that it was 10-10 and already Nicole had forgotten it.  She texted, "What's 10-10?"
          Cassidy: 0
          Brandon: Yep
          Cassidy: There's actually a calculator on your phone.
          Nicole: Ha ha ha.
And this, my friends, is what life is really like in the Hilton house.

Luckily you can order my books on any day, at any time.

Bionic Bob

          In our last episode, we saw Joni getting hot under the collar, and everywhere else, over Bob’s ER visit for his skyrocketing blood pressure. Yes, he is now on medication for that.  BUT… what was also going on was an erratic heartbeat.  His, not mine.

And, of course, we were sent to see a cardiologist who strapped him up with a monitor and several stickers on his chest to wear for two weeks. One week into this our doctor called and wanted him to come right in. 

Now, first of all, here’s what’s on the wall as we’re waiting to see him:

It takes no imagination whatsoever to see that these are boxes of truffles, every one shiny from a coating of beautifully tempered chocolate. Right?  I get up from my chair and look closer.  It turns out these are not candies at all (so disappointing) but heartbeat diagrams of some kind. And I’d had such high hopes.

          Then the doctor comes in, shows us Bob’s Richter Scale paper, and announces that Bob will need a pacemaker.  Despite my telling him it’s only the size of an Oreo and can be installed in 20 minutes, Bob is crestfallen.  “You want one?” he asks.  Okay, point taken.

I’m actually relieved that he doesn’t need bypass surgery, but Bob has always felt invincible, has never even taken so much as a vitamin, and is heartsick, pun intended. He also has a knee operation coming up in two months.

 I remind him how lucky he is that he had a wrist operation that revealed cancer, and then a cancer treatment that revealed high blood pressure, and then an ER visit for that which revealed the erratic heartbeat, and now, Ta da!  His life is saved.

“Yep,” he says, “I’ve been thinking how lucky I am to have cancer for three years now.” 

We tell the comedians, I mean the kids, and immediately Brandon says he’s always wanted a cyborg in the family.  He also texts, “Robert Downey Hilton as Iron Dad.”
Richie suggests getting the theme song from Six Million Dollar Man for a ring tone and Cassidy says, “Can they install GPS too while they’re in there? Or LoJack at least?”  Brandon suggests there’s an app that comes with it, and I suggest we get a drone mechanism so I can control him remotely. I’m telling you, this whole thing is a win-win.

I realize not every wife’s reaction to her husband’s prostate cancer is to write a musical comedy about it, but that’s kind of our relationship.  You can see more about that (or bring it to a theatre in your city!) at jonihilton.com.