Secret, Black, and Midnight Hags

30 July 2006

Reader, we are a family of philosophers, wholly unaccustomed to such swirling activity as has, these two weeks past, disturbed the tranquil flow of our domestic river. Indeed, so manifold and boundless have our activities been that one week ago we had neither world enough nor time to present an expectant world with an installment of our illustrious Review. But now in the serenity of a Sabbath afternoon, our activity level having once more subsided to our customary philosophic calm, our thoughts assume a reflective cast, and we turn once more to the composition of our Review, resolved that the world shall not, on this occasion, be disappointed. We pause only to assure the Reader that we are guided in this installment as in all our communiqués by a strict adherence to Truth, untrammeled and unadulterated, and should the Reader, having perused this particular post, feel stricken with incredulity that the Collings family should have devoted itself so entirely to projects that the common sort might designate as "fun" and to activities of a decidedly "social" bent, we can only remark that in this instance, as in every instance, Truth—solid, diamond, caveats-of-postmodern-thinking-to-the-devil Truth—must stand as its own defense. We proceed.

Monday (24 July): Our trip to California having come to a close, we returned home, celebrating the arrival of Brigham Young into the Salt Lake Valley by driving through a desolate landscape that stands as an eloquent witness that, barren as the Valley looked 159 years ago, Brother Brigham was wise indeed to proceed no further. Riding in the notorious Suttnermobile with David (at the wheel and garrulous as ever), Mindy (at David's side, sound asleep), Davy (at the passenger window with his feet on the dash, emitting an odor barely this side of pestilential), Gabe (trying in vain to induce Julia, even momentarily, to close her mouth), and Boe Suttner (periodically producing slugs and snails from Plato-knows-where), we proceeded smoothly. That is, until we crossed the Stygian flood (dried out this time of year, as it happens) and entered the infernal realm—the inscription "PER ME SI VA NELLA CITTÀ DOLENTE, etc.," it turns out, has been replaced by the more superficially congenial, "WELCOME TO LAS VEGAS." Upon entering Dis, we mean Vegas, Eli's moral indignation was roused beyond the proverbial boiling point, and she launched into an invective of such savage ferocity and mordant acerbity that might have brought blushes to the cheeks of an Antebellum Southern journalist. Eli's shrieking jeremiad was interrupted only when something of greater interest—food—captured her attention. With Las Vegas rapidly receding in the distance of our rear view mirror, Eli's wrath subsided, but not before she quite ceremoniously wiped the desert dust from her size 2 diaper. We cannot say that the rest of the journey was uneventful; we can say we have no further wish to write of it.

Tuesday (25 July): Arrived home, we settled back into our quotidian regime—Lia waded bravely into the mountain of our postfestal laundry while Justin sought refuge in the Harold B. Lee Library.

Wednesday (26 July): In the evening we inaugurated a week's worth of partying by trekking to the Bushman home for a summer seminar social in honor of Fiona Givens, the refreshingly outspokenly and Britishly vivacious wife of seminar co-director, Terryl Givens. We turn for our account of the evening's festivities to a primary source, penned by Lia herself, who was present, with light editing provided by others, also present: "We [the ladies of the house] had made a pact to embarrass [Justin] and the work started immediately when I made a grand entrance by knocking [kicking, really] over Terryl Givens' water, pushing an entire sofa out of place trying to look at a picture on the wall, and failing to recognize Claudia Bushman, hostess of the event. Julia did her part by positioning herself at the head of the social circle, at Richard Bushman's side, and repeatedly thundering the inscrutable shibboleth, 'Wassabee!' Eli misunderstood our resolve and acted 'charming,' rather than 'embarrassing,' but we will forgive her."
The evening's fun was punctuated by party games, one of which involved the anonymous leveling of mutual compliments; among Justin's were such soaring lauds as "He has the stealthy intellect of an assassin" and "He's so gentle when he tells you that you're wrong." More extravagantly, he was voted by his fellows, "Most likely to win a Pulitzer."

Thursday (27 July): This day witnessed the long-awaited Summer Seminar Symposium. Since his paper was bound to be universally slept through in any case, Justin was scheduled as the final addresser of the six-and-a-half-hour symposium. The upshot of this for our hero was that he sweat bullets through a grueling morning and afternoon and, by virtue of what Davy might call "anxiety attacks" (read "paralyzing fear"), made some seventeen dozen trips to the restroom before his turn finally rolled around. But roll around it did and, in the words of one observer, Justin's declamation reverberated through the hall in such shining English periods as reminded one venerable attendee of the eloquence that rocked the halls of Parliament in the age of Gladstone and Disraeli. Pace this observer, however, the united witness of some three dozen others was that the reported "reverberation" was merely the product of much collective snoring.
[**Our editors here insert a special thanks to all of Justin's many friends and family members who did much to fill an otherwise sparsely populated hall and who waited longer than was advertised to hear the reading of a rather middling sort of paper.]
In the evening, we piled into the now-famous Bull and made our way to the Provo home of Richard Russell, Justin's bosom chum of ancient date, for a reunion of sorts—a delectable barbeque, as it happened—among those who were once the pick and flower of Provo High School. Rich proved a spectacularly kindly and amiable host and we enjoyed a wonderfully rich and nostalgic evening.

Friday (28 July): Fairly launched in his career as a neophyte socialite, Justin attended a social breakfast in the morning—the farewell breakfast, in fact, for what has been a summer seminar of tremendous success, a privilege for which our family will be forever grateful. Feeling the fever of fun like fire in his bones, Justin went home from the breakfast and announced to a surprised family that he was in the mood "to do something." We decided to appreciate some of the architectural marvels of pioneer Utah by visiting the old stake tabernacles in Logan and Brigham City. Through the long hours of our drive through the northern Utah countryside, Julia harangued us all from her backseat bully pulpit. The tabernacles were beautiful, and in Logan we were treated to the organ practice of a Sister Cardon, who made the old building rumble with the majestic faith of J.S. Bach. Surrendering momentarily to the wild proposition that one can never have too much fun, we went straight from Logan to Springville (with a stop at the Provo home of Justin's parents to leave Julia in hands less disposed, at that historical moment, than ours to do her physical violence) where we attended a farewell soiree in honor of Professor Terryl Givens. The party was terrific, thanks in large part to the scintillating conversation of Fiona, whom we selfishly hoarded to ourselves. Eli dropped immediately into "charm" mode, apparently to great effect.

Saturday (29 July): If at this juncture you think, dear Reader, that all of the cats have been let out of the proverbial bag—that we simply could not have had any more fun this week—think again!!!!! This day we attended not one, but two birthday parties!!! (repeated exclamations provided by Jini Suttner) The first of the parties was for the third birthday of Julia's latest suitor, one Kayden Ericson, in whose direction, for some weeks now, she has been leveling the subtlest of flirtations during Nursery and ward playgroup. It was a pool party, and with much coaxing from her ardent father, timorous Julia was induced to enter the water. The fiesta was set to a pirate theme, and Julia's efforts to curb the buccaneer exuberances of her fellow party-goers (three-year-old boys all, in spirit if not in body) proved vain. Indeed, over dinner she seemed to adopt some measures of the ill etiquette of her masculine peers (though the so-called "raspberry" seems to have been appropriated from her maternal grandmother).
We departed post-haste from this birthday bash to attend another, only slightly more tame, this one in honor of Julia and Eli's young cousin, Emi, now a full year old. The maid of honor was adorable as usual, her elder brother and female niece conspired to effect a customary rumpus, and we were pleased to see many of Justin's aunts for likely the last time before our transcontinental hegira. And now, finally, Reader, the fun stops; but not, we trust, before your slumbers have begun.