Holi

Mom, Matt and I drove down to Spanish Fork this Saturday for Holi ... the Festival of Colors!

Oh, wow ... we were stuck in traffic and didn't make it down there it time for throwing colors. People were parking 2.5 miles away from the temple and walking to attend. In the past they've had about 2,000-3,000 attendees. There were 10's of thousands there on Saturday. People were FLOCKING to the temple and there was a huge plume of colored air all around that area. Traffic on I-15 was backed up 7-miles before the exit. We sat in traffic for over an hour.

I did take a few pictures of people and the temple as we drove by. Not as many as I wanted to because I was driving, but I got a few.

Matt was glad to stay safely in the car. My mom is excited for next year, and says she wants to go down really early in the day so we can see/experience everything! It was a lesson learned. Totally different than Diwali, which is LOW KEY, and which I really loved! So, I guess I have them both to look forward to in the next year, and maybe in 2010 I will get painted!

Elephants

In conversation during the last few months, I have brought up the idiom of an "elephant in the room" a couple of times. I am constantly surprised that no one has heard this saying! People look at me with blank eyes searching for some meaning in my comment, and then I try to explain - unsuccessfully I'm sure.

Here's the wikipedia explanation: "The elephant in the room (also elephant in the living room, elephant in the parlor, elephant in the corner, elephant on the dinner table, elephant in the kitchen, elephant on the coffee table, and horse in the corner) is an English idiom for an obvious truth that is being ignored or goes unaddressed. It is based on the idea that an elephant in a room would be impossible to overlook; thus, people in the room who pretend the elephant is not there might be concerning themselves with relatively small and even irrelevant matters, compared to the looming big one."

For example: A relative has received bad news, which has trickled through the grapevine to the entire family. At a gathering, everyone is chatting about all sorts of subjects, specifically avoiding that one topic, although everyone in the room is aware and likely thinking about that information at one point or another during the gathering.

Ta-da!

Now you know ... and you can use it ... just make sure you don't say "white elephant in the room", because that has an entirely different meaning!