Best Friends

If I ever find you, we could be friends perhaps, but I already have so many best friends I don't think the circle could be widened any larger.

Thought for the Day

Things will work out if we pray and do our best.

Folding Sheets For Eternity

      I used to take a midwifery homestudy course quite a few years ago but I gave up.  Recently the Spirit whispered to me to finish the course and that Heavenly Father does not want me to be a quitter or I'll be folding sheets for eternity in Heaven!

A Poem About Losing Weight

I've changed what I eat
To lose weight.
But what I eat now
Is so gross
I don't want
To eat much of it.

A Tribute To My Mother

     My mother who listened patiently to hour after hour of faulty playing on the piano, recorder, guitar et cetera at home in my youth and in the car in certain circumstances while she was driving, has been in my thoughts lately as a very kind lady in this way.  How she could stand it must have something to do with being related to me as I find other people can't, whether or not I make mistakes, in some circumstances.

Hello Friends

     Hello Friends,

      How was your day?  Mine wasn't so-so, it was awesome.  I wrote several emails to my daughter who is on a mission for the Church and one fanmail email, I won't tell you who to.  My daughter had a baptism on Saturday, she was telling me.  Isn't that great?
     I also did laundry and research and made supper.  Tonight is Family Home Evening.  The lesson is on Love At Home and we are celebrating my son's birthday.  He just became an elder.

     Best wishes,  Joanne

The Word Of Wisdom And How It Helps

     I went to the doctor and he didn't exactly read me the riot act but he told me I needed to lower my blood sugar and my cholesterol levels.  When I got home, I decided to look at the scriptures.  In the scriptures, in a book we call the Doctrine and Covenants, is the Word of Wisdom, which is the Mormon health code.  I decided to reread it and try to live it better, in addition to losing weight, which I was already doing.  Hurray!  I found an answer.

What I think about housecleaning

     I love a clean house.  I just don't want to do it all of the time.  I love doing it for a job.  When my children were small, I put the family first and tended to their needs before anything else and did about seven years of breastfeeding, and a few years of homeschooling that way.  And yet my home was most of the time, not a wreck, but in good shape.  I just involved the children in picking up after themselves.  My daughter even had a tidy-up song she made up herself.  She sang it as she picked up her toys.  (And my husband helped too.)

Be Good

     Children, have you ever noticed how the good guys always win?  (And girls?)  Do you know why that is?  In books the plots may not be very life-like all the time but usually good wins at the end.  That is because that is the way it is in life.  So do not be alarmed if someone doesn't show off their niceness and puts you down for no reason at all, tells lies about you even.  All will come out right and you will be victorious over evil if you keep on being good.  Amen.

English Police Officers On Horseback

     In England they have police officers on horseback too in the country areas sometimes.
     Another sight in England is old Victorian letterboxes.  They are red and have the letters VR on them.

A Good Book I Read Tonight

     I was using Kapit and Elson's Anatomy Coloring Book tonight and learned much about the muscles of facial expression.  God gave me a mind and I'd better use it!

Saint Clare's Hall

     When I was a young woman, I attended a college prep school called Saint Clare's Hall.  It was owned by Oxford University.  We were allowed to attend their clubs days and join their clubs.
     I joined the Rock and Roll Club, as it was called.  We did jiving to '50s music.  I loved it.  A young man I met there became my friend.  He was kind to me and I had a good time.

Rome, Italy

     On the subject of concierges of hotels, I will never forget the hotel concierge we met in Rome, Italy. He looked just like a young Luciano Pavarotti and had a dry sense of humour when my mother and I went to stay there.
      And another man I will never forget, is the bus tour guide on the island of Capri in Italy.  He said he was of Greek descent and called the tourists on the bus names like Mr. and Mrs. Tokyo, or Mrs. Canada, depending on where they came from.

Medina Del Campo, Spain

     While I was in my early twenties, I went to Medina Del Campo, in Spain.  I went in by train, in the heat of the day and walked down a little tree-lined avenue on the parched ground, past little old people sitting on benches and silently or holding conversations, keeping each other company, to a hotel concierged by a woman who looked like my mother.
     I asked for a room for the night and she led me to a room overlooking a medieval tower, a room fit for the Queen of Sheba in my opinion, where I spent the night and then passed on to another town on the train the next day.

Saved By Ravioli

      I was on a ferry crossing the Channel between England and France, the boat tipping from stem to stern, and everybody running for the side, when an idea occurred to me.
      "Ravioli," I thought.  "That would do it."
      I had the comforting taste of ravioli in my mouth before I knew it and was over the biliousness of the day.  Saved by ravioli!

God's Joke

     Last night as I was lying awake, I was wondering what to do to get back to sleep.  I got up and read Robinson Crusoe for a few pages, then dipped into my favourite book The Observer's Book of British Grasses and of course the Bible.  Then I wondered what should I do next when a voice in my head, God I thought, said, "What about a little dancing?"  He knows I love to dance, but three o'clock in the morning is not the time.

I Love Lucy

     One day while driving through Beverly Hills on a bus tour, we saw the famous lady Lucille Ball of comedy fame picking up her mail from her mailbox outside her house.  She gave us a wave and a smile and I have never forgotten her.
      Years later in Hollywood again, my husband and I were sitting outside at a restaurant when a Lucille Ball look-a-like came outdoors and threw up her hands in horror and dismay that I was wearing a similar outfit to her.

Last Night I Watched The Show "Doc Martin" on PBS

      "Doc Martin" is a British medical series on t.v. which I find usually good.  Most of the time, it is the only show I watch on t.v. all week.  The plot was so intriguing of last night's show,  I told it to my children today.

My Day At Hampton Court

     When I was a big girl, my school, Baston School, took us all on a field trip to Hampton Court Palace for the day, where King Henry VIII lived.  I got stuck in the maze of course and had to be fished out by a police officer.  The maze is taller than a human being and made out of hedges.  I had been lost in it for about an hour and it was time to go home, when a friendly face and a copper badge appeared over the top of the maze climbing on a ladder and asked if I was Joanne Verwest.  I said yes and was rescued.

The People - Part Eleven - The Conclusion

     The characters found Mabel and told her of their desire to star in a tale.  Can you guess what she did?  She wrote notes for the tale on her napkin (the usual place).  The conference resumed and she attended a class on the motif of tragedy in Irish literature and Spanish literature (and wrote an essay on it in Spanish).
    After the conference the writers Andy and Mabel bussed home and sat next to each other on the bus (and nearly held hands on the bus).
     Years later, they dated.  Mabel published a children's tale about five bears in a canoe and married her next door neighbour.  Can you guess who that was?

The End

 

The People - Part Ten

     The police came and managed to cajole the raging river back into its cupboard.  With a little coaxing, it gushed obediently back in.

      Mabel and Andy sat and ate their bagel.  The five restless characters looked around sheepishly at the mayhem they had caused and giggled to themselves.  Everyone went outside to dry off in the sun.

That's all for today, folks

The People - Part Nine

     Andy and Mabel, later, in dry clothes, headed for the writer's conference and sat down, after registering.
     The conference facilitators were just introducing the speaker when a curious sound was emitted from Mabel's stomach and out of her ear shot the five restless characters in their canoe on the raging river.  The river soon filled the hall and the conference attendees clung to their chairs as they bobbed up and down in the water.
     Mabel had fortunately bought a bagel for her lunch  before sitting down at the conference so she had something to eat, but Andy had nothing.
     "Here, have some of mine," she cried out to him over the din of the river as he floated by her.  She passed him a half of her bagel.
     "Thank you," he shouted back.

To Be Continued

Kindness Begins With Me

     If others are not kind to you, be kind to them and maybe they'll follow along.  If they do not, try praying for them and maybe that will help.

The People - Part Eight

     Well, children, by the time you read this I will be visiting the doctor, so please wish me hope.  I have been rehearsing what I will say to him so that I do not become hysterical.  

     It was time for the passengers to alight from the bus at Montreal.  Can you guess where Handy Andy was going?  As it turns out, he was a writer in his spare time, like his neighbour Mabel, and was also attending the conference.  They crossed a bridge when Mabel's prize possession blew over the edge, her essay in Spanish on the symbolic meaning of the labyrinth motif in Hispanic literature.  She (unwisely) climbed down to get it and had to be rescued by Andy.  She lost her essay.
     "Never mind," he said, "You can write another one."

To Be Continued

The People - Part Seven

     The fish was dead and the five restless characters ate it for supper.  The fish hadn't done anything wrong, but God gave us fish to eat and when a fish is dead, you can eat it.
      The twins opened the fourth door and found a cookery course is fifteen volumes, a set of golf clubs, an Italian garden, a television set which turned into a bed when you jumped upon it (the twins tried), and a raging river.
     Mamquiso cooked them a meal the next day while the others played golf and wandered through the Italian garden and then the twins slept in the bed, while the others slept on the floor.
      The raging river was very small, and looked the right size to fit into Mags' box, if he packed it intelligently.  The twins were just about to open the fifth door, but before they did, the raging river started to grow and was soon up to the characters' knees and gushed down the hall, through the room with the filing cabinets and all the way to the bleachers.  The twins struggled over to the fifth door and opened it and out fell a canoe.  They all jumped in, just as the river rose to waist level, and swept them through a door, down a flight of stairs, and along a corridor.  Otters were swimming alongside them.

To Be Continued

The People - Part Six

     By this time, the pizza man arrived at the front door, rang the door bell and said,
     "Ma'am, Are you in labour?  The neighbour said you sound as if you're having a baby."
     To which Able Mable replied,
     "Dear, this is a bee sting, not a baby!"  paid for the pizza, thanked him and shut the door.

     "Can we take the day off, please, to lay in the sun and read a book?"  said Mags to the other restless characters.
     "No way!  You want to do that too?"  said Vigor.  "Let's build the university and make our way to the university library for a good read."
     After a lot of hard work and sweating, the university was ready.  They read on the lawn.  Catalan poetry.

     Able Mabel threw out the trash, while looking in the paper at the want ads.

WANTED

Writers for writers' conference.

July 4th, Montreal 

     Following were the details of time and address for the conference.   Able Mabel's eyes lit up.  She ran downstairs to her room, threw all her favourite clothes into a suitcase, ran back up the stairs and out the door, locking it behind her.  She hurtled along the sidewalk, eight blocks along the street to the bus station, arriving just in time to catch a bus to Montreal.

     She was just launching into a conversation with a Scandinavian backpacker on the price of figs, when unbeknowns to her, Handy Andy boarded the same bus and sat two rows back of her next to a model who looked like Jesus but made no claims to be able to walk on water.  The model did however share his lunch with the passengers, and there was enough for everyone.

To Be Continued

The People - Part Five

     The five restless characters swung along the pipes a ways until they came to a room with filing cabinets in it.  They looked inside the filing cabinets until one of the twins found a sheaf of papers referring to the five of them.
    
     "It says we like canoes and we're good at exploring," she said.
     "No wonder we were so restless," marvelled the other.

     They set out to look for a canoe.  After making their way down a series of hallways, they entered a brightly lit gymnasium with a stage at one end.  Under the stage were five cupboard doors, which they began opening to look for a canoe.

     Out of the first cupboard fell lots of things - including directions in Latin for founding a medieval university, and a leather box with precious stones in the top.  Magilllaquiso liked the box so he took it to keep the sheaf of papers in.  Out of the second cupboard door fell a violin, a costume wardrobe and house plans for building a castle.  Mamquiso took the violin and they all put on bear costumes.  Mags as we shall call him for brevity, took the castle plans and placed them in his box.  When they opened the third cupboard, only a laugh came out of the darkness.  Mamquiso decided that whatever was making the laugh was friendly and crawled inside and found a laughing fish.  Mags put it in the box with the papers.

To Be Continued

The People - Part Four

     Able Mabel was out in the sun, hoeing in her garden in a straw hat with a wide brim and pink ribbons and a long floral dress and boots.  Her new neighbour whom she hadn't met yet, whose name was Andy or Handy Andy as people called him because he could swim like the dickens and rescue you if you were drowning, looked over the fence and saw her.  He liked her, but he'd had enough diving into the water to rescue people for one day, so he went inside and had a nap.

     The five restless characters had been waiting for six years for the writer to put them into a story or a poem and give them something to do, but every time they tried to attract her attention she would get a headache and go into the kitchen and make cinnamon toast, or order a pizza, or go on holiday.  (She sold watches to toddlers so she could afford to go on holiday.)

     A bee stung Able Mabel.
     "Ouch!"  she screamed and went inside.  "I feel a headache coming on.  I must be allergic to bee stings."

     The five restless characters felt so restless that they stood up on the bleachers and began swinging from the pipes along the ceiling.  The writer went for the kitchen in a hurry and made a whole loaf of bread into cinnamon toast.  This didn't seem to help, in fact the headache was getting worse, so Able Mabel phoned and ordered a pizza with irregular toppings because she was feeling muddled.

      "Chocolate and tofu toppings please," she quipped on the phone.
     "I beg your pardon, Ma'am?"  said the puzzled fellow at the call centre.  "Uh, I'll see what I can do...".
       She plumped herself down on a chair, put her head on the table, and waited for the pizza man, moaning as if she were in labour.

To Be Continued

The People - Part Three

     Three of the restless characters had names - Princess Mamquiso, Prince Magilllaquiso, and Prince Vigor - which they wore as hats.  Prince Magilllaquiso wore three tall black plumes in his hat, for the three 'l's.  The other two, who were twin sisters, had not yet reached their eighteenth birthday so they had no names and, therefore, no hats.

To Be Continued Tomorrow

I Enjoy Giving Talks

     I am normally a shy person but I enjoy giving talks because the words are written in front of me and I don't have to remember what to say.  I have given a few talks in church.

The People - Part Two

     I wondered if you would like to hear a recent addition to the story, so I put it in...

     Now when I was a little girl, I had a Great Aunt Mabel, Able Mabel they called her, who hailed from Yorkshire.  Now the writer featured in this story was a girl, so I've decided to name her Able Mabel.  Our Able Mabel in this story could always come up with some story to tell her younger siblings so they wouldn't fight, or so they'd go to sleep, or so they'd sit quietly and wait for their Father to come and check under their beds for boogeymen.

To Be Continued Tomorrow

The People Who Wore Their Names As Hats

     Here is a story I wrote in the days when typewriters were the in thing...

      Once upon a time, there were five restless characters sitting (among thousands of patient characters) on the bleachers in a writer's imagination.

To be continued tomorrow

Plans for Heaven with Oma

     Did you ever plan to do some enjoyable thing, but mislay your plans?  When I was a teen I went on a bus trip to Cambridge with my school, Saint Clare's Hall, and we stopped at a trout fishery.  There they sold trout recipes at a bargain price.  I bought two sets and gave one to my Dutch grandmother, Oma as I called her, and kept the other in my journal.  One day I'll make those, I said to myself.  But I have moved and lost them.  Oma passed on to the next world, but I hope that if I make it to Heaven that she and I will have happy times preparing trout recipes together.  She learned to speak English by studying in the King James Version of the Bible from the 1600s, so she is lots of fun to talk to.  She is lots of fun because she is my grandma, but she also uses some quaint expressions from the Bible.  If you want to know how to get to Heaven, ask the missionaries, they will help you!  They can also get you your own Bible free.

After the chocolate binge, I listened to Classical music and felt much better

     I did chores this morning, did some background preparation for writing, and ate chocolate.  I did some walking too.  After the chocolate binge (I tried to share the gospel with somebody yesterday and it didn't turn out and I felt down, that's why I had the chocolate binge), I listened to Classical music and felt much better.  I got some indexing done, learned about the bones and ligaments of the foot, found out that the composer's name which eluded me was, not Clarence Eldridge but Percy Grainger, of In An English Country Garden.  I had clams for supper and phoned my boys to see how they were doing and invite them for a birthday party for my second son Paul.  What a funny day!

My wish for you

May your day be off the Richter Scale with joy

The Update On My Children Sister Okano, Brigham, Paul and Somerset

Dear Readers,

     My daughter Sister Okano is serving a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  She is at the MTC (Missionary Training Centre).
     Brigham is landscaping and taking pizza orders to earn money for his future mission he hopes to serve.
      Paul is playing drums and saxophone and trumpet at school, taking pizza orders to save up for his mission, and taking his IB (International Baccalaureate).
      Somerset, otherwise known as Nick, is at high school and is bursting out dancing every now and then for joy, as well as playing trumpet in the school Jazz Band.
      They are wonderful children and I love them very much.

      Joanne Okano

My motto

Every day has something new to look forward to

We went to a market

     One of my favourite childhood memories was when I was about eleven years of age.  My mother and father had a great idea of taking my sister and me to a street market which sold antiques.  The market was in London, England near where we lived and started early in the morning.  We drove into town in the wee hours in the winter, just before Christmas, and sat down to a delicious fried breakfast in a restaurant.  It was the most fantastic visit to a market I've ever had!