Mike has a picture somewhere of himself standing with his sister, mom, and dad next to a sign shaped like Idaho. He is five years old and wearing the same wide grin we get from Colin when he poses for a picture. His sister is wearing short shorts and his dad has the most awesome moustache ever. His brother isn’t in the shot. He was holding the camera.

It is unofficial documentation of their emigration, forty years ago, to the place most of them have continued to live since.  Not long after, Mike’s two oldest brothers and their wives came out to join them.

Later this month I have a retreat with a group of ladies who serve on a board with me. We’re supposed to take a personality quiz beforehand and bring the results with us.

I love these things. I don’t know why. I take them and then read over the results and think “yup, that about sums it up,” and then I wonder if other results might also sound exactly like me, depending upon my mood, and if I’ve skewed the test by just answering stuff the way I want to be rather than the way I am. Then I forget what I was doing and go do something else. Eventually I forget what the results were altogether.

Never mind using these test results to make me a better person. I can never remember if I’m an ENTP, or Vermillion/Periwinkle, or an aspen versus a douglas fir, Yoda or Princes Leah, or what any of it means.

I do know I’m a Virgo, but I think I’m supposed to be a Leo who was too lazy to be born on time. Leo’s horoscopes are always the most interesting. Virgo is supposed to be systematically checking stuff off her list, earthy and patient.