# Chateau de la Tobler

## Friday, May 09, 2008

### Non-teenage mutant non-ninja people

The healing idea is so good, Caren, that I probably would want that one, too. Can you heal just yourself or others, too? Obviously both would be nicest. But maybe a little too--angsty, I guess. I mean, can you heal everyone in the world? Probably not. But who do you pick to save or help?
Of course, can we count superpowers as mutant powers, too? Because I have often wished to be able to stretch out like Elasta-girl. Or stop time--even for a few minutes or hours at a time (think of what a bonus this would be for a newborn's mother!). Those would be less troublesome on the conscious, I think.
**********
So yesterday I agreed to watch my friend's baby while she and the rest of the Primary Presidency went to the temple (of the Primary Presidency, two have just one baby under two years old. The other two don't have children). So Caleb comes over at noon--no big deal, right? Provo Temple is about twenty minutes away, with a session starting nearly every twenty minutes. So, give them three hours--because they probably want to talk, and stuff, and the drive and stuff...she should be back at four at the very latest. Uh, yeah, right. What I didn't realize--what Liz thought she had told me but hadn't (she's had a ton on her mind lately and she very honestly thought she had mentioned it)--was they went to MANTI. Yup, Manti.
The funny thing is that if I had known, it would have been much less of a deal for me. I'm all about expectations--if I know that Bradley isn't going to be home on the 6:00 pm bus because he has to work later, I deal with it much better than if he calls at 5:58 to tell me he's still at work. So the fact that they didn't get back until 6:30 was something of a difficulty for me. And for poor Caleb--well, he's a month older than Gideon, and smart as a tack, and knows EXACTLY how to get from my house to his house walking-wise, since we visit back and forth all the time. So we were playing outside, and poor Caleb would keep trying to walk home. He didn't take a nap, he wouldn't eat from me, and keep pinching his fingers in various places and then screaming bloody murder. Poor baby. Not that he would have acted any different if I had known his mama was still going to be a while, but at least then I wouldn't have felt like joining him.
Manti is 90 minutes away, usually, but apparently they are wokring on the road and so the Primary presidency got stuck just a few miles from the temple in traffic and missed the 1:30 session. So they had to wait until the 2:30 (Manti does live sessions, and so the first room has to be empty before you can start again). And Liz forgot her cell phone, so all my calls just went to her voice mail. I had visions of her having gone into early labor, car accidents, hostage situations in the Provo Temple ('cause remember, that's where I thought they had gone), Provo getting dropped into a hole in the space-time continuum (because I couldn't reach Bradley, either. But I finally called Telima and she assured me that Provo was still there, and that she hadn't seen any big clouds of smoke rising from BYU campus or the Provo Temple. But she hadn't been outside in a while, though...thanks, Telima!). But all was well, and Liz was SO embarrassed she hadn't told me that they were going to Manti. I promised to take it out of her later, when her new baby is safely here and settled and I'm about to give birth. Muh-ha-ha. And I was glad they didn't all die.
The really funny thing to me was thinking about how many temples in Utah are closer to us than Manti. Well, because we live here in Happy Valley, right next to the Great Salt Lake and all, we have FIVE temples closer to us than Manti--Bountiful (an hour away), Salt Lake (45 minutes, not counting parking and all), South Jordan (35 minutes), Timp (30 minutes), and Provo (20 minutes). Not counting the two new SL Valley temples being constructed right now in South Jordan and Murray (both closer than Salt Lake City). Logan Temple is about two hours away, and Vernal is three, and St. George is four. So, there you have it. I've managed to mention every temple in Utah in the course of this extra long post. And yes, it's embarrassing how long it's been since I've been to the temple, especially if you realize how many temples I have within easy driving distance.
But at least Samuel, Caren, Jen, and Jeff can soon get a temple closer to them--Gilbert! When's the groundbreaking?

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