Childhood imaginings

When I was a kid, like most kids, I liked to imagine things. So I'm going to remember the things I imagined when I was five and younger.

When I was a very small kid, my dad would put me in a backpack and go jogging with me. (I know, right?!) I remember hearing birds (I don't know what kind) and I imagined they were saying, "Big Bird!" (I was a Sesame Street watcher.)

I also remember sitting in my bedroom, hearing the train at the bottom of the hill, looking at my toys. I had a package of Pull-Ups in my room, and I imagined going in the picture on the package and playing with the kids. (I think I liked the idea of not wearing any pants.)

One of my bath toys was a little man who could sit in a little boat. I think this was it:For some reason, I got this image of the man with a string through him, and I imagined him going back and forth along the string. I have no idea where I got that image, but I liked to run back and forth down the hall, imagining I was the man on a string.

Our side and backyard have some interesting structures made with rocks. Our patio has seats made of rocks, and our backyard has four rock steps that lead to a higher level of the yard. I liked to pretend that the yard was my house, and my house was upside down, because you went up the steps to go to my downstairs.

We have a rowing machine that had a black rectangular pad on it. It was covered with specks of white, so I imagined the specks were stars and it was a TV screen showing The Jetsons. And then since I imagined it was showing that show, I then imagined it showing other shows too, and I imagined I had lots of tapes of different shows I could watch, including the Vicki talk show I used to watch with my sister.

I remember being in the living room and seeing the sun shine on the specks of dust in the air. I imagined they were snowflakes and I was out in the snow.

We had a large black umbrella, and I liked to get it out of the closet, open it up, place it in the sun in the window, and pretend I was at the beach. 

There is one incident of imagining that I don't really remember. I do remember sitting in the living room and seeing the pillows on our couch. But I don't remember doing what I did after that. Apparently, I was pretending I was baking cakes, and I imagined the pillows were cakes. So what do you do with cakes? You put them in the oven. So that's what I did. And then later my mom came and started the oven, not knowing that I had been "baking."

December 5, 2009

Some of my previous posts have included the first time I met two of my nephews, Preston and Nathaniel. But since my middle nephew, Franklin, is turning 7 this week, I'm going to remember the day I first met him. He was born while I was on my mission, so I didn't get to see him until I was home five days, when he was twenty-two months.

In the morning, my parents and I went to the airport to meet Ya-ping, Preston, and Franklin. My dad and I went up the escalators where new arrivals came down, while my mom waited at the bottom. We were waiting and waiting, when suddenly I saw some kids run up to my mom. I thought, "Who are those girls, and why are they going up to my mom?" Then I realized they were my long-haired nephews, so we went down and met up with them. As we were going up the elevator, I tried talking to Franklin, who was very shy and clinging to his mom. Ya-ping was saying, "You look different!" In the car on the way home, I was  turning around and tickling Franklin on his leg, which made him giggle, which made my mom laugh. He also began singing the "Elmo's World" theme song: "Ma, mawmo, maa!" We got home, and Sue had brought Peter over to see them. My parents and I went to our church for our ward Christmas breakfast. Lots of people (such as Evan Gubler) were coming up to me to welcome me home. They told me that I had gotten taller, but I think that was just an illusion because I wasn't as fat. The guests for our party were bagpipers, which I found annoying and un-Christmassy. We left early, and when we got home Peter was playing with Preston. I tried to talk to Preston, but he just responded by blowing raspberries.

That afternoon, we had a large trip with family to different stores. It included me, Mom, Susanne, Allie, Ya-ping, Franklin, Sue, Peter, and Quin, so of course we drove in the Suburban. Jesse might have been there too, I can't remember. Preston had been napping when we left, so he didn't come with us. First we went to DI, I think because Ya-ping wanted to get clothes and stuffed animals for the boys. While we were there, Allie said, referring to the Thompsons, "They like Franklin more than me!" My mom told her that I was still around her, while the others were playing with Franklin. At one point, Quin told her, "We get to see you all the time, but we don't get to see Franklin as much." Then we went to Walmart, and as we were going in, we had a conversation about elderly relatives on Facebook. At one point, my mom called my dad, who was home with Preston, and when she was done, she said that he had said that Preston was fine now that he had stopped crying. We went through the Christmas candy aisle, and I wanted to get mint miniature candy bars. But then Ya-ping said she wanted to get miniature Snickers with Christmas wrappers, and I couldn't justify getting two things of candy, and I resented her choice of generic candy over special mint varieties.

When we got home, Preston was watching Harry Potter on TV with my dad, which Ya-ping wasn't too happy about, because she thought it was violent.

February 12-15, 2014

Last year was a rather eventful Valentine's Day. In addition to the day itself, I'm going to remember the two days before it and the day after.

Wednesday, February 12. My ward had rented out the BYU bowling alley for a dating activity. All the guys in the ward had donated ties, and the girls had randomly picked a tie, and that was how we were paired up. I had told my date, Deanna, that I was going to be late because I had a class that went late, but the class got out early. I met her at the bowling alley, and we teamed up with one of her roommates and her date. Deanna was a Latin major, so she gave me a Latin-esque name on the bowling screen. My roommate Scott had brought some cupcakes, but I didn't know if they were to share. Someone was going to have some, and I told them they should ask Scott, so I think they decided just not to have them. Since I hadn't been able to take Deanna to dinner (like we were supposed to do), I took her up to the Sugar and Spice (actually, I think it had changed its name) to get ice cream. While Deanna was picking her ice cream, another worker was wrapping the cakes, since it was almost closing time. I said, "Can I have a piece of that cake before you wrap it?" It was a festive red, pink, and white cake, which meant I could eat it. Deanna and I sat at a table and had a conversation. She told me she had worked in the Cougareat, so she knew that they were going to close Teriyaki Stix and bring back the Tomassito's which had been replaced by Chik-Fil-A. Deanna asked me if I was the one who only ate seasonal treats. She quibbled about me not eating pumpkin pie at Christmas because Christmas songs talk about it. I told her that "There's No Place Like Home for the Holidays" talked about pumpkin pie, but it didn't mention Christmas, and Wikipedia listed it as a Thanksgiving song. But then she said, "But 'Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree' talks about pumpkin pie." We talked about her plans for teaching history and Latin.

Thursday, February 13. It's possible that this was the day when I was watching A Charlie Brown Valentine, and Scott told me that he had watched part of the 1970s Charlie Brown special while making cupcakes with his date, and he was surprised to see "2002" when he looked at my Charlie Brown Valentine DVDs.

Friday, February 14. In the morning I had to take a French test. I was wearing my Valentine t-shirt and my Valentine socks and my red Vans. After the test, I went to work; and after work, I went to the French lab session; and then I went home. The One Stop office was giving out Valentine cookies near the Wilk, so of course I got one, but they said we had to post on Facebook saying we got one. Being a terrible person, I didn't, which was a little ungrateful. As I was walking home, I saw my roommate Jordan's girlfriend at the time, Laura, but I didn't say hi because she was going a different way. I needed to tie my shoe, so I put my foot up on a stair rail, and a guy told me he thought I was going to slide down the rail. I drove home, and when I got home, my mom told me my dad was home watching a movie. "It's been kind of a rough day," she said, and she told me that he had fainted at work. My sister had gone with him to the emergency room. I asked my mom if she had gotten candy that I could eat. She said I could have any of it, except there was a box of Palmer chocolates that she had given to Allie. I looked up at the candy, and I found a box of chocolates--I had one that was an orange creme, which was a little disappointing. Then I had another one, which was orange again! I later learned that that was the box my mom had given to Allie, but she was wrong about it being Palmer chocolate. Then we went to go get pizza from Papa Murphy's--we got a heart-shaped one and a stuffed one. While we were driving there, my mom asked if I wanted to go get Free Birds on DVD, but I said I wanted to wait until it got closer to Thanksgiving in case it was released in 3D. (It wasn't.) I think we had a conversation expressing our disdain at the legalization of marijuana in Colorado. I waited in the car while my mom got the pizzas, and I was disappointed when she came out with a bottle of soda. While one of the pizzas was cooking, I talked to my mom while she was cleaning the bathroom. Then we had the intention of going downstairs to eat pizza and watch Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown. When my mom was on the last step, she yelled and said "It's broken!" She sat down on the step and my dad came out of the room where he had been watching TV. "Call an ambulance!" she said. I didn't know what to do, so I said, "Should I call 911?" In all my haste, I wasn't thinking straight. I shouldn't have used my cell phone, and for some reason I stepped outside while I was making the call. The dispatcher first asked where the emergency was. When she asked how old my mom was, I said "56," even though she was 57. The dispatcher asked if she was talking, and I went back inside to make sure she was. The dispatcher asked if she was bleeding, and she was, which I hadn't realized. The dispatcher asked me to turn on lights outside, and then the call was ended. My mom asked for the phone so she could call someone in her Primary presidency, since she wouldn't be at church. I was a little surprised that with all the things going on, that's the first thing she felt she needed to do. She asked me to call Susanne and tell her what happened. I did so, and she said she would come. During all this, I tried really hard not to get near my mom's leg, and I could see that her foot was not at the correct angle. The paramedics arrived, and as they did, one Jay Ertmann came in and said, "Oh Ann, I'm so sorry." Susanne arrived soon thereafter. She wanted to take a picture of my mom's foot before the paramedics stabilized it and wrapped it all up. The medics hadn't noticed I was in the room, and Susanne said I could help when it was time to take my mom up the stairs. Once her leg was wrapped up, she could scoot around easily. The medics lifted her up and instructed me to put the seat under her. Then they were able to transfer her up the stairs. They wanted my dad and I to help with the gurney. I remember my mom apologizing to them for making them do that on Valentine's Day, and they said that it was the first day for one of them. Susanne asked me to watch over my dad and to clean up the blood, so I Googled how to do that. I picked up the pizza, but it wasn't too messy because it was stuffed and didn't really have toppings. Google told me to blot, not to rub, when cleaning the blood, and I realized I had done it wrong. I found the sock they had cut off my mom, which was full of curdling blood, so I took it outside and threw it away. It was a little hard to see all the blood, and just as I thought I had it all cleaned up, I noted another patch of blood. Just as I noticed it, my dad pointed it out. He said he felt really sad about that happening. He went to bed, and I announced the event on Facebook and wrote a blog post about it. While I was on the computer, my mom called and told me she was going into surgery and said, "I really am fine." I was a little confused at first because she sounded like Sue. I went down and watched Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown, which I had intended to watch hours earlier.

Saturday, February 15. My dad didn't seem overly anxious to go to the hospital, so in the morning I lifted weights downstairs while listening to Cherie Call's inferior Taken album. I also put out some pot of gold decorations, and I put some leftover Valentine chocolates in gold wrappers in the biggest pot. I also had to send some emails to make sure other people would take over for me at church. We drove out to the hospital, and my dad said he felt bad because he didn't realize Susanne had been there all day. Mom was on oxygen and sounded like a smoker. Eventually, she was ready to go to sleep, so we went home. I had to deliver something to one of her Primary counselors, and then I went to Arby's because I wanted to get their mint shake. I got something for my dad as well. I was listening to Imagine Dragons in the car. I brought the food home, and we ate it while watching the Olympics.

Misused words

I think every kid has moments where they learn new words and want to put these new words into use, but they don't get the nuances of the word quite right. So, I'm going to remember some of the times I got words wrong. Undoubtedly, there were more times than are included here.

Once when I was in kindergarten, I was at my friend David Christensen's house. We were getting out of his van and he was talking to me, but for some reason I wasn't responding. His mom said to me, "Don't ignore him." Well, I had heard the word annoy, and here I heard ignore, so I might have thought that I had simply misheard annoy and it was actually ignore. Not long after that, my brother David was teasing me, as he usually did, and I said, "Quit ignoring me!" To which, of course, he said, "I'm not ignoring you!"

Another time, probably in first grade, I was on the playground, hanging on a bar. Another kid was also hanging and we were approaching each other. I said, "Caution," and he said, "My name's not Austin!"

One night at dinner, my dad asked me if I wanted more soup, and I said, "In fact I do!" That's not entirely misusing that expression, but it made David laugh.

For a time, I confused the words deaf and death. After I broke my arm, it was a rule that there were no more than two people on the trampoline at a time. One time, I remember reading the warning label on the tramp out loud as explanation to a younger cousin why he couldn't be on the tramp. (My gut tells me it was Peter, but he might have been too young.) In addition to things like "broken bones," the last item was "death." Jesse said, "That means you die." I said, "No, it means you can't hear." We had a little argument about what death meant.

On another occasion, when I was six or seven, we were at my paternal grandparents' house. My cousin Krishelle wanted us to draw pictures to give to Grandma Judy. She was drawing a picture of some fruit (one of her older siblings, I think Lacey, said that the bottom of her apple looked like the bottom of a 2-liter bottle). I was using my imagination and drawing some picture with a backstory to it. I was drawing a girl protagonist in her garden, and I also drew the dreary garden of a wicked person and labeled it "Garden of Death." I don't think I fully understood the negative connotations of the word. Well, we gave the pictures to Grandma Judy, and after that, my mom and my cousin Kadee asked me why I drew a garden of death. I began crying, because I hadn't meant anything bad by drawing it, but it seemed I was in trouble.

When I was seven, my dad said something was "gruesome." I asked him what gruesome meant, and he said, "It kind of means, just awful." Well, I don't think that's a very satisfactory definition. Then on Labor Day weekend in 1996, we were camping in Fillmore Canyon, and I was walking in the creek, and I slipped somewhere and landed on my shin, bruising it. It was very painful, and I think I had a bit of an overreaction to it, and I began hating the creek. (I created a jingle, "Chalk Creek, you're a geek," because geek was the only word I could think of that rhymed with creek.) I told my cousin Terrill that the creek was gruesome, remembering my dad's definition: "awful." However, it seems that I understood it better less than two months later. In my second grade class, for Halloween, we created paper candy corns, and we had to put a Halloween word on it, going down, and then each letter in that word would begin another word. My Halloween word was "Gruesome." I think I used ghost for g and I used eerie for one of the e's.