On not Laboring over the weekend

Down to San Diego this weekend. Girls only. Hosted by Lovely Lady.

Drove down with Shimai J. Need to reiterate that I don't really like driving. Except that I love taking road trips with congenial company. It's almost like an extended meal. Except that there's no food to distract you, so there's an even bigger imperative for conversation. Just reinforces my supposition that most meaningful conversation occurs when the parties involved are seated.

One of the things that I appreciate so much about Shimai J is that I perceive her viewpoint to be very personally conservative, and yet very open (charitable?) when focused on others. In other words, she's intelligent without being judgemental.

At one point, we were talking about how the language of the endowment ceremony is very patriarchal, and doesn't correlate to how I believe that God will see or treat us. Gospe according to Dora: like the restriction of priesthood from the blacks, I believe that this will change when the membership of the church are ready for more knowledge. At first, Shimai J quite disagreed with me, saying that we would never be in a position of being married to a man who justified his wrong actions solely by his possession of the priesthood. Yet, as we parsed it out, I think she could understand my argument that it doesn't matter if we wouldn't ever place ourselves in that situation. Just the fact that the literal interpretation of the endowment ceremony allows for that very real interpretation. And, in the end, as Wonder Woman likes to say, we should say what we mean, especially in such important ceremonies as these.

Finally got down to Del Mar around 1230-ish, having endured lot of stop and go traffic along the way. Found Lovely Lady and Feminist A sunning themselves in the backyard around the inviting pool. So, we quickly changed into our suits and joined in. For me, this entailed a lot of moving around, to obtain the perfect amount of water contact (lower legs dropped down into the pool), sun exposure (on my legs and torso), and shade (on my face). What I really needed was a back wedge so that I could recline the top half of my body, while sitting directly on the ground and dangling my legs into the pool. That and the fact that I'm not a sit-around-and-tan kind of woman.

Yes, there was some shopping. W did check out the outlet mall. But I am pleased to announce that my resolve held, and I did not spend nary a cent.

Fell asleep during some late night conversation, relaxing in the Lazy Boy in the living room. It drew me in and enchanted me. Woke up around 0400, and went up to bed. Tossed around for 30 minutes until I returned to the magical spot downstairs and resumed my somnolence.

The morning was again sparking and beautiful, if still a tad hot, but better than LA. Kerri had arrived, making our five-some complete. Interesting conversations throughout the weekend. The one I remember most is Feminist A talking about her work ... she is a social worker with the state, and works with adoptions. And since we'd had some discussion over this at the Exponent II Blog, I was very interested. Someday, I would like to foster or adopt a child or two. I don't know that I will ever actually bear a child, but I am interested in providing a loving home for a child in need. And I know that I'm not the only single LDS woman who sees this as a distinct possibility in my future. So, I asked Feminist A if she would be interested in writing something up for the X2 blog, and she seemed really enthusiastic. Just can't wait!

The five of us did go down for sacrament at the Del Mar building, which was coincidentally hosting a singles conference. In my opinion, this year was worse than last year. The main speakers were a couple, the husband an Area Authority Seventy, and his wife, a Relief Society President. Wife seemed pleasant enough. My main argument with her was that during her talk, she started to compliment a woman in her ward. Not that that's bad, but she complimented her by saying that the woman was wonderful because her children had such strong testimonies of the gospel. There was no mention of the woman herself having a strong testimony, or being very sharitable and service-minded, or indeed anything personal about the woman. She just had good kids. Which is admirable, but doesn't necessarily say anything about the woman's parenting skills. Especially when the wife went on to describe the oman having a meltdown at church. The second thing that seemed very wrong was that the wife said that it had been very difficult getting herr many children ready for church on Sundays because her husband was never around, implying that he was always at meetings, or had other big responsibilities to attend to.

The Husband had a very genial air. An air that was also very condescending, although he probably wasn't cognizant of the fact that he talked to an audience of 31+ years of age, who I'm supposing had mostly professional careers. I felt like I was in a youth morality discussion. It also didn't help that both he and his wife used mostly child-rearing examples to illustrate their point. Of course, it's possible that there were many single parents in the congregation. Or, maybe they just had no idea of what to talk about, or how to do it for this very homogenous group. Talk about needing to understand your audience! Also, i thought it was very sad that he just wasn't available for his children. I believe he even complimented his wife on what a fine job she did with raising the children. Very, very sad.

Back at the house, we talked through the disurbing aspects of the talk as we prepared for dinner. Al fresco, poolside dining on Lovely Lady's wonderful rib recipe. Her younger brother showed up for dinner, and was quite the entertainer. I like meeting my friends' families. Somehow people make so much more sense when placed against the backdrop of the family scene.

After dinner and cleaning up, Shimai J and I packed up the car and headed back home. Had thought about stopping by at Pilgrim Girl and Nichan's, but we were just tired and hot, and wanted to be home, so we zipped on by on the blessedly congestion-free 405 freeway.