Pet Peeve

If someone were to ask me, off the cuff, what my pet peeve is, I might hesitate, squint my eyes in thoughtful reflection, and eventually come up with "Utah Drivers". That answer would only pop out because of my poor short term memory, which could be Pet Peeve Number 2. Each morning I am reminded anew of my Number One Pet Peeve, which is chin hairs.

No matter how often you pluck them, you can count on new ones to take the place of those which have been yanked mercilessly the day before. The Chin Hair Fairy must sprinkle Chin Hair Fertilizer on me each night to assure a healthy new crop in the morning. Just this morning I plucked one that was 1 1/8 inch long, Well it wasn't a chin hair exactly; it was on my neck. Really!! An inch and an eighth! I measured it in disbelief. Had there been two more, I could have braided them! I had just plucked every visible chin and neck hair yesterday morning, same time, same place, as has become part of my morning grooming ritual. How in the world can a single hair grow that fast?

As we were growing up, Mom warned Kathie and me not to shave or pluck any hair on our body that we did not want to return with a vengeance. Now, some fifty years later, I find she was right (once again), and wish I had taken her advice. Kathie told me recently that Mom tried to convince us not to shave our legs at the onset of puberty. Well, part of the fun (there is so little of it) of being pubescent is to be able to take razor in hand, and slide it up an down one's legs, even if there is nothing to remove except skin. Never mind. The bristly stub of leg hair would come. And, of course, it did. But we were sure it was inevitable. Which presents another question for you "Chicken or the Egg" philosophers: Which came first, the leg hair or the razor? Leg hair is to be expected. Mom forgot to warn me about chin hairs.

My mother had a faint, light peach fuzz on her face, which I seem to have inherited. In my youth, my fuzz was not a concern to me. But I fear that now, given the diminishing feminine hormones, and aggressive male hormones which we're left with as soon-to-be dowagers, that the hithertofore harmless fuzz could burst forth as a man's beard with the Chin Hair Fairy's overzealous help. Had I been born a boy, and not heeded my mother's warnings about the effects of shaving upon body hair, I'm certain I would have grown into a man with an obvious five o'clock shadow. As a woman entering those twilight years, my "five o'clock shadow" manifests itself as chin hairs.

Do chin hairs come because we harmlessly plucked "just one" that seemed a little longer and darker amongst its peach fuzz sisters? Or would those that we plucked have gotten bolder and continued to grow until they reached waist length and invited their friends to join them? I don't know the answer to that. I just know I'm not willing to find out.

Tender Mercies

I recently read a definition of "tender mercies" of the Lord, but can't remember the exact wording. I think of them as those subtle miracles that happen to us, often daily, when the Lord reaches out his hand to bless us in some special way.

Yesterday, I witnessed what I'm sure was the Lord's hand in blessing my grandson, Carter, and blessing me to witness it. Bob and I took the kids, Brody, Kennedy and Carter, camping at Snow Canyon near St. George this weekend. We had arrived just before dark on Friday and got the last available site with hookups. In the morning I noticed two plants that were growing right next to the drive we were parked in, and cautioned the children strongly that coming in contact with either would cause them great pain and possibly serious injury. They had to walk between the car and these two plants each time they left the camper and came back to it. You can imagine how many times that was in two days. One was a Joshua tree -- I think -- and one branch of the spiny leaves reached out like thin daggers at face height for all three of the kids. The other plant was a large prickly pear cactus possibly two or two and a half feet in diameter and about two feet high, and covered with thousands of large needles sticking every which way. Just to be there for two days with the kids walking/running/skipping/tripping by there many times without incident is in itself a tender mercy, but the one that I speak of was even more specific.

After our last hike on Sunday before we returned home, the kids ran back to the camper -- Brody... Kennedy... and little Carter tagging behind trying to keep up. Brody and Kennedy passed these monster plants without incident. Carter tripped immediately in front of, and was headed into the cactus. He fell on his knees and, had his trajectory continued, he'd have landed face-first in that cactus. What happened was that for some unseen reason, his upper body swerved suddenly to the right and he missed the cactus completely. I'm certain there was an angel there, or the hand of God reached out to protect His little one. There's simply no other explanation.