Author Archives: Ms. Boice

I admit it. I shoot in Auto mode.

03 Sunday Mar 2013

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It’s a dirty little secret. I shoot in Auto mode. It’s not like I’m a great photographer. I don’t sell photos and it’s not my livelihood. I just enjoy it as a hobby. But I’ve got a bad-ass camera (Nikon D7000) and several lenses and if the dial on my camera isn’t set to the green Auto button I panic.

I'm so in love with the Auto mode.

I’m so in love with the Auto mode. (And even this picture isn’t sharp, though I took it with my phone and probably got a little too close.)

But I’ve resolved to change that this year. It’s my New Year’s Resolution to start learning how to use my camera in a manual mode. I’m determined to understand ISO, Aperture and Shutter speed even though it terrifies me like math terrifies me. Plus, I need to make sure I’m worthy enough to carry this guy around with me:

This is my D7000 bad-ass set up with the awesome AF-S TC-20E III lens.

This is my D7000 bad-ass set up with the awesome AF-S TC-20E III lens. (And I don’t even know what all that stuff means)

So, I took yet another photography class, this time at local shop, Pictureline and I think as long as I try to practice in Manual mode I think I might have a shot at this whole manual thing. (Sorry, didn’t mean for the pun.)

After class it was kind of warmish outside (it was only 48° Fahrenheit outside—it’s all relative folks) and so I thought I might try to get some shots of backyard birds and wouldn’t you know it, I think I just might be getting the hang of this.

Okay, don't count this shot. I'm just getting started.

Okay, don’t count this shot. I’m just getting started.

And this one sucks too. Ignore this.

And this one sucks too. Ignore this.

Awww, nuts!

Awww, nuts!

Hey, not so bad! Hello Scrub Jay.

Hey, not so bad! Hello Scrub Jay.

And hello to you too, Mr. Downy Woodpecker. I don't seem to suck as this so much.

And hello to you too, Mr. Downy Woodpecker. I don’t seem to suck at this so much.

So there you go. My first attempt at trying to shoot in Manual. To be honest, I think I’ve shot in Manual before, but I’m sure it was an accident. I think my finger inadvertently turned the dial to manual.

I’ll report more on my progress as time goes. I’ve got another class in a couple of weeks. We’re going to be talking histograms. Scary!

Navigating the airport in a wheelchair

01 Friday Feb 2013

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My husband and I passed by the long serpentining line of people and we were ushered through a no-waiting line, as if we were VIPs with exclusive privileges beyond the velvet rope. “Hey, this is great!” I told my husband. “It’s way faster doing it this way.”

My special situation got him rushed through as well, but in the end, it really wasn’t fast for me at all. I was navigating an airport in a wheel chair and what should have taken me only 30 minutes to get from curb to gate took me twice as long.

Airport wheel chair

My airport mode of transportation

Search and Rescue had to haul me out of Zion National Park

Search and Rescue had to haul me out of Zion National Park

Forty five days earlier I had broken my leg in Zion National Park followed by surgery (a plate, 2 pins and 5 screws). The accident put me in a wheelchair and eventually on crutches before I finally was able to walk again, yet I still had to travel for work. In fact, I had two business trips and if you think traveling through an airport is a pain, try doing it when disabled.

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Steve, my sherpa

Fortunately, Steve had the flexibility to travel with me and be my sherpa throughout the whole ordeal of travel. The poor guy had to drag both his bags and my bags around and it became no surprise to me that he suffered months of back pain after doing this for both the trips.

The consistency of inconsistency

Moving in front of the TSA line is a joy, yes, but the pat-down is excruciatingly long and arduous. Everything gets swabbed and TSA was never consistent in its procedures. Every airport seemed to do things differently. One airport let me remain sitting in my wheelchair. Another made me stand up–balancing on one leg. Another airport (Orlando) made me go into a little x-ray pod room (quite strange) where I had to sit on a table and they x-rayed my whole body and they gave me a pat down. Was this all really necessary? Another airport’s TSA even asked me to remove my boot, to which I said, “Are you kidding?” and then the agent decided not to pursue it.

I wore this thing for 3 months. Ugh.

I wore this thing for 3 months. Ugh.

While I was being dismantled like a live bomb, my husband was meanwhile trying to collect all our carry-ons (quart-sized bags of liquids, lap top, purse, both our bags) from the conveyor belt like Lucy and Ethel when they worked the chocolate factory on I Love Lucy.

Wheeling around the terminals

When you book your travel you have the option to let the airline know that you are in need of wheelchair assistance. As a result, all airports (a total of four during both business trips) had an agent available when we got off the plane, but it was a little confusing when we first arrived to the airport. Generally, once we arrived at security the airport wheelchair agent could be called on, but there was a wait and was such a pain.

Hats off to the folks who have to wheel those of us around the airport. The only annoying thing was that nearly all of them made me wear the seat belt on their wheel chair. Oh for Pete’s sake, we weren’t going very fast. I mean, really?

Bulkhead is your best bet (Actually, First Class is)

Only on one leg did I get upgraded to First Class, which was incredibly helpful since I was wearing a boot. (I was upgraded due to my frequent flyer status and not because I was disabled.) The other legs, though, I sat in bulkhead. My Corporate travel agent made those arrangements for me on my first trip, but on my second trip she said the airline indicated that I had to wait until I got to the airport, which was a complete pain and created a little more stress as I worried about not getting bulk head. (I eventually did get it, but my husband couldn’t sit with me.) Again, inconsistencies.

A shout out to the flight attendants who were particularly helpful and sympathetic to my situation, which is always nice, especially in grabbing my crutches for me when I needed to get up and use the bathroom, although I panicked a little when one took my crutches and stowed them who knows where. I didn’t like not having them nearby.

You do get to board first (though after First Class in some instances, which is just plain weird and stupid), which if you’re looking for perks is nice but when you’re traveling by wheelchair or by crutches, who really cares in the end.

By being limited in mobility (and not used to it at all) I felt like I was moving like a sloth. You can’t easily reach for anything, you can’t properly sit to work on your laptop and the swelling from the flight doesn’t help either. Let’s face it, being injured is a complete pain and you can’t do anything normally. You rely so much on help from others. Thank you so much people who helped me along the way.

So what did this teach me?

Patience. That’s what I’ve learned. Yes, me who is not at all patient. Though I think Steve believes I could use some more training in that area. I think there are easier ways than breaking my leg in order to achieve that.

Also, how come airports are doing away with the golf cart shuttles in the terminals? That would have been a much better ride.

A last day at Antelope Island

31 Monday Dec 2012

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It’s the last day of 2012. There have been a lot of wrap up posts floating around and I kept thinking how I would wrap up this year. A year of pictures, showing one per month? A list of things I learned? A list of all the fantastic things I did? Others  have written eloquent posts going down memory lane. Me? I kept drafting one and then I felt like I was creating something akin to the ol’ Christmas Letter.

Today Steve and I visited Antelope Island. It’s the last day of the year and the last full day we have together before he heads back to Calgary tomorrow. For me, it’s the perfect wrap up of my year.

Antelope Island in Winter

Antelope Island in Winter

It was perfectly white. Perfectly peaceful and perfectly sums up how I feel about this year: A balance of harshness and beauty. Challenges and triumphs. But mostly, it’s where Steve and I go to escape the world and spend quality time together.

View the gallery by clicking on any one of the photos below.  They look yummier that way.

Winter Holiday at the Grand Canyon

27 Thursday Dec 2012

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Grand Canyon Rendezvous

I didn’t expect snow at the Grand Canyon. All I could remember from my first visit 30 years prior was the scorching Arizona heat of 103° F, and add about 10 degrees to that and you get what the temperature was in our non air conditioned family van. My brother, sister and I were passing ice cubes to each other—ice we grabbed from our Coleman water chest—and rubbing it on our faces and necks as my baby sister was bawling because she found the heat unbearable too. It was so damn hot. That’s what I remember from my first trip to the Grand Canyon.

But this time was different. It was my first Christmas with my boyfriend, Steve, who was visiting from Toronto. After our courtship blossomed in Scotland, then grew in England, Steve and I found ourselves in a long-distance romance that was taking us to the Grand Canyon in the winter.

We took our time driving the 500-mile journey from Salt Lake City, stopping in Las Vegas for a night and exploring sites like Utah’s Bonneville Salt Flats and Hoover Dam along the way.

We pass the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah

The Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah (or what I like to refer to as the Devil’s Ice Skating Rink)

It’s a different road trip when it’s not over 100° F. There was no crying baby sister, no suffering in a van with my brother and sisters. Just a quiet ride with a fella I met nine months earlier. This time I could really pay attention to the landscape. And it helps when you’re traveling with a geologist. I learned more from Steve than I ever did in my college geology course. (Even more helpful is an instructor makes you swoon.)

Hoover Dam on the border of Nevada and Arizona

Hoover Dam on the border of Nevada and Arizona

As we approachedt the Grand Canyon it was dark and snowy and I couldn’t see a thing. I hate driving in the snow and so I pulled over and had Steve drive into the park.

Snow in Arizona. I couldn’t quite make sense of that. Arizona is supposed to be freaking hot, not wintry.

We stayed in the park at the Yavapai Lodge, which had painted cinder blocks for walls. resembling a college dormitory and a toilet that ran all night. The accommodations weren’t lush, but they were practical and we got a good night’s sleep. After a full hot breakfast in the cafeteria we made our way to the rim of the canyon. 100_0824Tourists filled the pathways near the edge, just like they did when I was nine, except people were in parkas, scarves and wool caps, not t-shirts and shorts.

Snow was falling and my fingers could barely stand the icy chill as I snapped photos with my little Kodak camera. This is not the same Grand Canyon I saw when I was nine.

I looked over the edge to look down in the canyon–the Grand Canyon–to see that it wasn’t the hot, scorching beast I remembered, but it looked like a grand dessert with layer upon layer of oranges and browns and golds with a dusting of powdered sugar on top. A geological Mille-feuille.

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A Grand Canyon Mille-feuille

I’m not a fan of winter or snow, which I know is weird because I live in Utah where most people really like the stuff. But to see snow blanketed over the Grand Canyon is a spectacular treat, which most people never get to see. So, you think you’ve seen the Grand Canyon? Sure, maybe you’ve seen it in summer when it’s blowing its hot breath at you, but try seeing it dressed with snow. It’s a much kinder and sweeter Grand Canyon. It will blow you a snowflake kiss.

Click on any photo below and it will enlarge and take you to a slide show. Much better way to view these.

A letter to Longfellow: I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day

23 Sunday Dec 2012

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Dear Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

Henry W. Longfellow*

Henry W. Longfellow*

Sir, the pain you felt after your second wife Fanny died in that horrible fire is unimaginable. You raced to her side to help squelch the flames only to lose her later, and because you were injured yourself from the fire, you couldn’t even attend her funeral. Then add to that the pain you suffered from your son’s injury in the Civil War, it must have been unbearable. The sudden loss of family—especially when their time has not come—is the kind of grief no one should have to endure.

Since your passing, we’ve seen too many wars—two of them World Wars. We’ve had enemies attack us twice on our own soil with the last one being the destruction of two towers in New York City where nearly 3000 people died in a matter of a couple hours. And most recently there is deep heartache of parents who are laying to rest their little ones who were gunned down in their classroom. It all seems senseless to me. But I don’t know why any of it should make sense.

Grief often feels like the enemy. It comes in to attack us and take us hostage, and though I didn’t bury a child last week or lose a spouse or child at war, I have been walking around with a heart full of sadness and despair, wondering how I can exist in this world that is full of darkness. I felt much like you wrote in your poem Christmas Bells:

“And in despair I bowed my head;
‘There is no peace on earth,’ I said
‘For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men

So dear Sir, I was at church today. There were no bells—we don’t have bells at my church—but I did feel something from the Christmas music and the spirit of peace and love that was there. So even though there weren’t any bells, I could hear them in my mind. It was this:

“Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
‘God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!’ “

I really don’t know how the Right will prevail and I really don’t know how the Wrong shall fail. It seems like every day the Wrong prevails more and more. These moments that overwhelm us in the media try to crowd out any sliver of joy we might seek. Lives are destroyed, families are shattered, but I do have hope that misery and grief don’t have to paralyze us.

So this little note is just a thank you for writing your poem about hope. Because without hope, despair wins and so does Wrong. I am grateful for the bells of Christmas Day to help remind me that we can have peace on earth and good-will to men. My prayer is that those who are directly impacted personally by recent tragedies will find the bells comforting as well.

Kind regards,

Lisa

*The photo of Henry W. Longfellow is in the public domain. (The copyright has expired.)

The fear of scuba diving and why I do it

09 Sunday Dec 2012

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As I breathe through the regulator, I can’t help but think that if my line gets tangled or caught somehow, or even ruptures I will lose all oxygen and drown.  I will sink to the bottom of the ocean and die.  Maybe Steve will be able to rescue me, but what if he can’t? These are my thoughts, yet the bigger question is, “Why am I even doing this?”

scuba diving in Hawaii

scuba diving in Hawaii

Scuba diving. I never had an interest in it until I was dating Steve, and then, it wasn’t because I was interested in the sport as much as I wanted to impress Steve with my willingness to try something new.  For about a year here’s how the conversations would go:

Steve: “So, do you Scuba dive?”  Me: “Uh, no.”

That little exchange was repeated about four or five times until finally I answered, “No, but I could maybe look into taking lessons or getting certified or whatever.”

“You would?” he asked with excitement in his voice.

And I did. Turns out that even in Utah there was a dive shop three blocks from my home. So, twice a week for a few weeks I took the class, did the drills in the pool and then over a weekend I certified in Open Water Scuba Diving through PADI in a geothermal spring at a crater in Heber, Utah.

All that for love, my dear.

So, let’s make a list to see why I do this

For me, diving is one of the most paradoxical activities I enjoy, endure, do. It’s so conflicting for me that I found myself on dives wondering if I really want to be doing this. So I’ve made a list to figure out where I stand on this whole scuba diving thing.

  • It’s something my husband enjoys so I do it too. His immense curiosity about the world—both above water and below—has opened up my world in discovering and learning so much.
  • I love looking at the earth’s phenomenal underwater world. Did you realize there are really cool things down there in the ocean? Like freaking huge sea turtles, big ass groupers, schools of wildly colorful fish, sea horses, which always seemed mythical to me before I saw one for the first time, eels of all types and even iridescent squid.

    Giant Sea Turtle on the wreck dive we did in Maui

    Giant Sea Turtle on the wreck dive we did in Maui

  • Cool storytelling: We saw a 14 foot Tiger shark TWICE on our dive in Kona, Hawaii (cool story, but a little too terrifying for me. I sucked through my air pretty fast). We also did an amazing night dive with manta rays, which I count as one of the top five things I’ve ever done.
  • I love being on a boat. I don’t get sea sick and I love sitting in the sun with the wind blowing all that hair I have out of my face. Look how happy I am on this boat!

    On our dive boat in Belize

    On our dive boat in Belize

  • I’m still not very good at diving. My buoyancy sucks, I can never remember how to clear my mask and I’m always worried my regulator’s line will have a pin prick in it and I’ll drown.
  • Diving has taken us to some truly wonderful places. Since we’re also birders, we often combine diving trips with jungle birding adventures.
  • It is kind of cool to be able to tell people, “Yeah, I’m a diver.” But the wet suit and neoprene hat, I realize, don’t really make me look cool.  Or do they? Let’s say they do.

    On the dive boat in Kona, Hawaii

    On the dive boat in Kona, Hawaii

  • Diving constantly challenges my fears. Steve is more fearless than I. If I didn’t dive I’m actually convinced I would just stick to routine and become boring in my middle years.

Bottom line, I still like it

I do really like diving. I like that I learned how to do this in my forties and even though it took falling in love with a guy to nudge me to do this, it is one of those things in which I surprise myself. My first real dive (after certifying at the crater) was in Cozumel, Mexico on our honeymoon. Since then we’ve been diving in Belize, Honduras, Costa Maya (Mexico), Cozumel again, Panama and Hawaii (Kona and most recently Maui). The dive companies we go with are as varied as the people we meet on the boat. Some dive companies I like better than others, but overall, I’m glad I’m a diver and I’m motivated to get better at it so I’m not so scared.

But really, it’s not a bad thing to do something that scares you.

Scuba diving on our honeymoon in Cozumel

Scuba diving on our honeymoon in Cozumel

Tales from Oahu: Follow that van!

22 Thursday Nov 2012

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While driving around the North Shore of Oahu we were making our way back to Laie when all of a sudden this guy merges in front of us:

Did you read that? Yes, on the back of that van it says, Coconut Peanut Butter! To my mom who was driving, I hollered, “Follow that van!”

There are two things I love in this world: Peanut butter and coconut and at this moment I thought either the Rapture occurred and I was swept up into heaven or the tropical trade winds were messing with my head and I was hallucinating. The really good kind of hallucinating. Either way, I didn’t care. Follow that van!

Well, we lost track of the van. He turned right and we went straight because we were in search of a bathroom. Seems I have to pee a lot in Hawaii. Not sure why. So the bladder took precedence. (If we had followed the van, wetting my pants would have certainly taken the joy out of the whole thing. Maybe it was a dream, so bathroom won out.)

Mom took us to a little shopping strip mall kind of thing in Haleiewa. Bladder relief, check! And then my mom in all her brilliance asked a kind lady in a Hawaiian tchotchke shop (Hawaiin and Yiddish–I just cracked myself up writing that) if she knew where we could find this mysterious Coconut Peanut Butter.

Please, oh, please let it not be part of my imagination.

It wasn’t! The lady said, “They have it next door, but it’s a little expensive.” I didn’t care if I had to take out a small loan for it. She started to explain how it’s even good just eating it out of the jar with a spoon.

“You think I haven’t already plotted that out?” I thought.

I don’t even think I let her finish talking about it. I was already out her door and into the shop next door. Here’s what the most heavenly thing on earth looks like:

Oh, and by the way, only TWO ingredients: Peanuts and coconuts. No sugar added! I also discovered that if you slather it on a banana it’s really crazy awesome.

Think I’m gonna share? Nope. Go find your own.

Eggnog French Toast

14 Wednesday Nov 2012

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When Steve and I were dating I made Eggnog French Toast and a frittata on Christmas morning. No, I wasn’t feeding an army. I was just dying to seduce impress Steve with my culinary prowess. Never mind that we ate this and the frittata for an entire week, and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was so bummed that we eventually ate it all. Here’s how you do it:

1-lb loaf French bread
3 oz. cream cheese, softened
2 1/2 cups eggnog
6 Tablespoons butter, melted
8 eggs
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Grease a 9 x 13-inch baking dish. Cut the French bread into 1/2 inch thick slices and spread cream cheese on 1/2 of the slices and place a sliced bread on top of each (like you’re making sandwiches). Place the “sandwiches” in the baking dish, arranging them so you can fit in as many as possible into the baking dish. Combine eggnog and eggs in bowl and beat until well blended.  Make sure the melted butter has been cooled enough and add to the eggnog/egg mixture (if you add the melted butter while still hot it will start to “scramble” your eggs).  Pour mixture over the bread in the baking dish. Take a spatula and gently press the bread into the dish so that the mixture can cover the top of all of the bread. Sprinkle nutmeg on top.

Cover with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight or for 8 hours. Bake at 325° for 35 minutes or until center is set and edges are lightly browned.

Cut into squares and serve with maple syrup.

Did my plot to impress work? Does eggnog have a gazillion calories and fat in it? You betcha.

And it has been all worth it!

The disappearance and reappearance of Bryce Canyon

11 Sunday Nov 2012

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Bryce Canyon National Park Rendezvous

“It’s here, I’m sure it is,” I said. “I mean, it’s a big ass canyon. Where could it have gone?” It was an October morning and we had just walked on the paved trail from our cabin, following the signs to view Bryce Canyon. The fog was so dense I couldn’t see more than five feet in front of me and the colors that would have been there—the red rocks, the green sage—had been washed away as if we were catapulted into a black and white movie from the forties. And the canyon. It was gone.

It’s as if it were Brigadoon.

That’s me in front of Bryce Canyon. Yes, really.

And this is Steve in front of Bryce Canyon

This was our third rendezvous. We were now on the same continent, which was progress, I thought. It had been two and a half months since our rendezvous in England and six months since we first met in Scotland where Steve had been living. I was so excited to take Steve to see Bryce Canyon. I actually hadn’t been since I was a kid on a family vacation but I remembered the orangey red clayish rock and the hoodoos that pointed up to the sky like a million little fingers. This time was different. I had a geologist with me (Steve) and he narrated our five hour drive from Salt Lake City to Bryce Canyon with explanations about the different color of rock, the strata and iron.

Alas, my excitement and anticipation of experiencing Bryce Canyon with Steve unravelled like an old sweater. I was bummed. I really wanted Steve to see this beautiful part of Utah and the weather ruined it. It’s like traveling a long distance and finding that the museum you wanted to visit is closed. Or that all the tickets to a tour are sold out. Just as we were beginning to turn around on the path back to our cabin a couple emerged out of the fog. Really. Like right out of the fog. They could tell that we were a bit disappointed as we were snapping pictures of each other in front of a backdrop of white and as they approached us one of them said, “You have to take the trail down. It’s beautiful down there and the fog is beginning to lift. You see more at the bottom.”

No convincing needed. Off we went down the trail.

We walked down, down, down and we began to see the red rock. Fog curled around the hoodoos and the more we walked down the less fog we saw. It was quiet—there weren’t very many people around, but what I thought at first to be a disappointment ended up being an extraordinarily unique experience in one of the most popular National Parks in the U.S.

Bryce Canyon, alone, is a spectacle to behold, but without all the summer tourists and with curling, swirling fog, it’s a whole different experience. Not many people get to experience Bryce Canyon this way:

I imagined that maybe I was on another planet. Is this what people mean when they say,”Out of this world?” If so, I totally get it now.

Four years later we visited Bryce Canyon National Park and as we walked down the same path on a warm September day we saw the hoodoos standing upright without the curtain of fog, and in unison we said, “So this is what it looks like!”

A picture perfect Bryce Canyon (sans fog)

For more pictures of Bryce Canyon National Park check out the photos in the slide show.

01 Thursday Nov 2012

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Today I learned that I didn’t “win” tickets in the Mormon Tabernacle Choir Christmas Concert “lottery.” Ugh. So in sadness I’m re-posting my blog about all their Christmas concerts since 2001. I’m now at the mercy of friends, strangers, or whoever who might have a ticket to spare. (sigh)

Ms. Boice's avatarThe baby aspirin years

I admit it. I’m shamelessly in love with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. So much that I’m this close (I’m holding my thumb and index finger together with only a cm of space in between) to having a restraining order slapped on me.

MoTab. Growing up my mom had the whole catalog of the choir’s LPs and cassettes and she played them all the time. So when I hear the choir sing, Climb Every Mountain or The Impossible Dream, I’m walking down memory lane and feeling the warmth pumpkin pie and mac and cheese give me. And though they’ve had a following for decades, it wasn’t until the turn of this last century that the choir raised to new heights of talent and repertoire thanks to conductors Craig Jessop and the world-renowned composer and arranger Mack Wilberg. (See Betelehemu) Total stalk-worthy, in my opinion.

When I moved to…

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