February 16

I've already considered the other days around Valentine's Day, so now I'm going to remember what happened two days after it.

2014. In the morning, I called my mom at her hospital room to see if she wanted us to come or if we should go to church. She told us she was feeling fine, so we didn't need to see her immediately. So my dad and I went to sacrament meeting together. I didn't want to talk to many people so that we could get to the hospital sooner and so that people wouldn't think we were jerks for going to church without Mom. I drove to the hospital because my car is lower to the ground and would be easier for my mom to get into. I tried to listen to my Lower Lights Hymn Revival Volume 1 CD, but the CD player kept spitting that finicky CD out, so I asked my dad to put in Volume 2 (it was in the little compartment between the front seats). He found Imagine Dragons first, but then he found Lower Lights. We went up to her room, and my mom was told she could leave soon. But it took four or five more hours. My mom said that some other family had visited and had brought a sick two-year-old, and she found it inappropriate to bring a sick kid into a hospital. The nurses seemed a bit incompetent, as they kept coming in with conflicting reports. Sometimes she was informed she could take home a knee scooter but not crutches. Sometimes it was the other way around. But she had originally been told she could have both. While we were waiting, my mom watched the Olympics while I looked up St. Patrick's Day topics on Wikipedia on my phone. At one point, my dad and I went down to the cafeteria and got food. We didn't know what was going on, but we figured it out eventually. I wanted to see if there were any green desserts I could have, but there weren't at the à la carte. There was some green ice cream at an ice cream stand, but I couldn't justify that. Susanne texted me at one point and asked me to take a picture of the head nurse's office near the elevator, since she wanted to report the incompetence of the nurses. Eventually my mom was allowed to leave, so I went out in the parking lot and drove my car up to the door of the hospital. My mom got into the seat, not without some difficulty, and I think my dad rode with Susanne, who had come a little later. I think we were driving up Marialana Way when mom asked if Cherie Call was one of the people singing. When we got home, I think we helped my mom go down the garage stairs backwards and then into the family room. Right as we got her home, Laura Anderson came by, and I think she had cards from the primary kids. I may have asked my mom if she wanted to get revenge on the pizza by eating it, as we still had some.

2013. I remember going to Smith Marketplace with my family, and I got some Werther's candies to put in little pots of gold. Then I drove back to Provo and put out my St. Patrick's Day things. My roommate Cameron made a Facebook status about it.

2009. [Copied and pasted from a Presidents' Day post:] Our district went to Kohl's for P-day because there were supposed to be some good sales. I bought a white-and-green-striped tie for St. Patrick's Day. I looked at the St. Patrick's Day t-shirts but I didn't care to pay the price to buy them. Elder Canova admired the Snoopy "Party Like a Rockstar" shirt. We looked at a shelf with clearance stuff on it; the perverted Elder Stafford talked about the "man thong." I found an orange beanie. I thought it would be good to have, since we frequently had to walk along unlit roads with no sidewalks at night. Then we did our grocery shopping. That year, M&Ms made green candies for Valentine's Day (stupid idea), but since no one liked that idea, there was plenty of clearance candy, so I bought a bag. Then we went to the Days', where Elder Lestarge and Elder Kitchen lived, and played the typical missionary game Bang! Elder Dunn liked the M&Ms. While we were waiting for a ride back to our house, I put on my new hat, and Elder Stafford commented on it. When we got home, I looked in the mirror, and realized how ridiculous my orange hat looked. It looked like a bathing cap. Elder Betenson said that he wasn't going to say anything, but that he agreed it looked terrible. He said that his previous companion, Elder Torrance, had cut up a hat and used it as a neck warmer. I mostly cared about the orange for the visibility, so I cut it up. But he said it still looked dumb, so I threw it away. Then we went and tried to visit a Sister Locarni, who lived close to us. We found out she was an active member, but her husband wasn't a member. We learned that Brother Wilhelm, the ward mission leader, visited them, which was a scary thought, since he was notorious for teaching false doctrine. After 9:00, Elder Wilson called me and said, "I have sad news," and told me that Brother Martin from the Davenport Branch had died unexpectedly. They announced it at stake conference. I think I might have called Elder Love and relayed the info. This is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was my first P-day in the district. It was a hassle with all the people; we had Elder Stafford in the trunk. I bought an orange hat to be more visible at night, but it looked ridiculous, so I threw it away. I also bought a green tie (and green M&Ms) for St. Patrick's Day. We also played Bang.

"Then this evening we met Sister Locarni, who is active, but her husband is not a member. We tried to see others, but they weren't home, and we came back.

"Elder Wilson called me and told me Brother Martin from the Davenport branch died unexpectedly."

2008. This is my journal entry for the day, which I don't really remember. For some reason, I decorated the date with spiders and spiderwebs:
"So since the last time I wrote in here I had sacrament meeting, P-day, a reunion with Elder Chun, Zone conference on Valentine's Day, and the exciting news of a family to teach. The reason for the lull in writing is due to the long exchange [my companion had been sick for a week] and trying to read sixteen Psalms a day.
"Today Elder Chun slept in and then had a three-hour nap after comp study. We tried to contact some people before we came home because Elder Chun was still tired and he slept at his desk for about an hour, while I read and practiced the piano.
"Then we went with Brother Palmer to try to contact some people. It was quite an uneventful evening."

2004. We went down to Provo and saw Dave and Ya-ping. My family was seeing a movie that I didn't want to see, so I was going to watch my new Gilligan's Island DVD at their apartment. As David was going through channels to get the right one, I discovered that Hallmark Channel was having a Gilligan's Island marathon, so I watched that instead of my DVDs. I was working on a seminary assignment where we had to make valentines for our parents. The holiday was over, of course, but it was still an assignment I needed to do. (I had a horrible seminary teacher that year.) My family came back from the movie and had bought lunch at Beto's. Then we went to Old Navy, and I remember seeing they had a lot of St. Patrick's Day clothing, including board shorts. My intuition tells me this was a day we went to the Target in American Fork where I got a Snoopy St. Patrick's Day shirt, and my sister wanted to get Toffifay, and we got some Easter candy--but I can't make sense of why we would have had Dave and Ya-ping with us, because I know we were coming back from Provo, so it wouldn't make sense for us to take them home with us. It could have been a different weekend. This is my journal entry for the day:
"This weekend was Valentine's Day. I got the entire first season of Gilligan's Island on DVD. But it has a scratch on it that causes it to skip, so we need to exchange it. The Hallmark Channel is having a Gilligan's Island marathon today. My family went to Provo, got David and Ya-Ping and went to Big Fish, but I didn't want to see it because it is PG-13 and has sexuality and nudity in it. I stayed at the apartment and watched Gilligan's Island."