Go back where you came from, November! (11/2/09)

So I'm sorry I didn't email last week. We went to the temple last week and when we got back we didn't have time to email. If I had written a letter it wouldn't have arrived until today anyway.

I had wondered earlier this week what I would do if someone died--if I'd come home for the funeral at this point or not. I didn't know we had telepathy! I'm glad everyone's healthy.[1] I'm so glad I'm invincible and don't get sick. On Friday night we were at a restaurant and I was out of water and my mouth was dry. So I poured a shot of my companion's water into my glass and drank it. The next day he wasn't feeling well all day and was even a little feverish later on. I was worried but nothing's happened yet! The last few weeks I have been waking up with an extremely dry (and therefore sore) throat but I can handle the fact that that's as sick as I get. The H1N1 has definitely hit people around us, but not us, fortunately.[2]

We haven't had anyone nearly die (except for an elderly member who moved to Arizona to die, and she did),[3] but we have had an exciting couple of weeks.

We are pleased that the girl we have been teaching, Mallary [last name redacted] (cue Home Improvement comment),[4] is being baptized on Saturday. She bore her testimony yesterday. This is my third baptism for the singles branch here, and they've all been solid people who have just come to us--ready to be baptized but had to be taught first. The other two are still active, and Mallary has already gone to weekly Institute.[5]

On Tuesday we had my final Zone Conference in the Spokane West Stake Center, my old stake when I was in Ritzville.

The next day we went back up to Spokane to go to the temple. The missionary who arranged it told us we had to leave at 4:00, since the only ride we found was an early temple worker. But he was wrong. We were already at their house to spend the night before we learned we had to be there at 4:00. So we got up at 1:00 and left at 2:00, arriving at 4:30. If I had known it was that early I would have declined. But we were there earlier than our assigned session so we got to do two. We slept in the car before going in at 5:30. Being so tired and hungry I wasn't totally alert, especially for the second session. But it was still good. There were several members there from my first area. Wow, that was such a long time ago!

On the way back our ride stopped at his son-in-law's house. Three of us slept in the car and one went in with the member. Apparently the fridge had thawed or something so there was rotting turkey which they had to clean up. It was in a kind of resort area so the missionary held the stinky garbage bag out the window until we could drive to the Dumpsters. Because of that episode we didn't get back until 3:30 and P-day ends at 6:00, and thus we didn't have time to email.

Friday night we went to the town of Culdesac, ID, where we ate at the previously-mentioned restaurant, which was free since it's owned by a member. That's one thing I'll miss, free meals. This week we're going to Winchester, ID. I love small towns. I want to get to all the ones we cover in this month.

Halloween was quite boring. Elder T. wasn't feeling well so we stayed home, and it was temple day for both the ward and the branch, so I didn't know if I could really arrange splits. I carved a pumpkin with a tie and a tag. I tried my hand at baking the seeds. At one point Elder Tamblyn got up and got dressed, only to determine that he was too sick to leave. We didn't leave until almost 7:00 p.m., when we had a lesson with Mallary at the stake center. Then we helped blow up orange and black balloons for the branch party. It occurred to me that maybe I'm finishing my mission here so I can get used to a singles ward.[6] I wished we hadn't had to leave the party early. It was fun. 

I got very depressed, notwithstanding November is my second-favorite month and my outstanding depression usually hits hardest in March and July and August. But I was depressed two years ago at this time. It occurred to me that I must NOT be sad I only have a month left. Rather, I should be happy I still have a month. That will make it easier.

I sent home another package today. Soon I'll have to send home my bike.

I bought a temple recommend holder today (since at the temple a small library card decided to stow away in the cheap ones the temple gives you). I couldn't decide between one with the Bountiful temple or the Spokane temple, but I decided on Spokane. I also bought a CD by the LDS artist Cherie Call, because there was a must-have song on it. I was going to wait till I got home but then I realized it will be more fun for me now.[7]

My time's almost up!

Love,

Elder Melville

---

[1] My mom wrote this in her email: “You have missed a very exciting week, but not exciting in a good way.  Your sister almost died this week.  I wondered how you would feel about coming home early for her funeral.  Luckily, she is home and alive so you will not have to decide that.  She had the flu (NOT the swine flu) and apparently it went into her heart.  So last Monday night she felt wierd and got very pale.  After she threw up and didn't have the energy to get up and clean it for about 30 minutes I insisted that she go to the emergency room.  It was a darn good thing because after we were there about 30 minutes she had a seizure and had a barely discernible pulse and no blood pressure.  After about an hour they got her stable and life flighted her to IMC (the big hospital) because they had 24 hour cardiologists there.  It was pretty scary for the first 15 hours.  They ended up putting a drain in the pericardium to release some of the fluid.  They took that out a couple of days ago and she got to come home from the hospital today.  She can't do anything for another week and has to go back to the doctor twice this week.  Her heart function is all back to normal and they really expect it to stay that way.  Is that enough excitement for you?  It was WAY TOO MUCH for me!!!”

[2] Oh yes, the days of Swine Flu.

[3] We used to do laundry at a members’ home on P-day, and they had a grandma (“Grandma Bigler”) living with them. Then they went to Arizona with her and she died soon after.

[4] She had the same last name as the tools on Home Improvement, but I’m trying to keep names out of these blog posts.

[5] None of those three baptisms remained active. I think Mallary went inactive just weeks after baptism.

[6] And now my time in a singles ward is coming to an end.

[7] I got her album The Ocean in Me. I’m a big Cherie Call fan now, and The Ocean in Me remains my favorite.

November 4

Time to remember what I can about November 4. Surprisingly, I don't remember the more recent years as well.

2014. It was Election Day, and I made a Facebook post about not voting: "The most responsible thing I could do would be to be a good citizen and know the issues and go vote. The second most responsible thing would be not to vote because I'm not informed. I chose the second most responsible thing." That's all I can remember right now.

2012. It was our last day in Death Valley for my geomorphology field trip. We packed up our tents, and I was shocked that one of my classmates changed his pants out in the open with girls standing ten feet away. We loaded up in the geology vans and drove out.

 We visited a place called Devil's Golf Course, where there were basalt rocks coated with salt. One of my classmates, Michael Arnold, said, "We're so mean to the devil." I licked some of the salt on the rocks, but they had a very rough texture.

 I was pleased to see a green rock on the ground, which I assumed to be the mineral olivine.

 Then we went to Badwater Basin, the lowest point in America. Lots of tourists had their pictures taken with a sign, which I found uninteresting. We went out on the salt flats after making a stop at the restrooms. I bent down to lick the ground. Our TA, Karl Arnold, picked up a piece of salt and began licking it like a lollipop.

 I asked one of my classmates to take a picture of me.

 Then we went to an abandoned mine and ate lunch. It was very hot. One of the TAs gave a devotional, saying that it was impractical to be fasting that day, but we should still remember it was fast Sunday, and maybe to listen to something a little less raucous. The restroom there was closed.

 We found a bug on the antenna.

Our professor went off somewhere to use the "restroom," and we had to tell one of our classmates not to go there, since he didn't know that's where she'd gone, or else he'd "see something [he'd] never forget." Another classmate told how he had been on a train and had the door opened on him when he was in the bathroom. We headed out of Death Valley, and our professor was playing churchy songs from her iPod (like EFY and MoTab). I offered my Lower Lights CD (yes, CD) to listen to. Dr. Radebaugh looked at the notes and said, "There's like fifty people in this band." At the second song ("I Saw the Light"), she said, "I listen to bluegrass on Sundays!" She skipped the song "Where the Soul of Man Never Dies," but at the end of the album she said she'd have to look them up. We passed some people looking at a layer of black rock next to the road; I thought it was an igneous sill, but I later learned it was a coal seam. (Now I know that igneous sills and coal seams look pretty different.) In Vegas, we stopped at In-N-Out. We could either eat there or eat leftover food on the truck. I ate at In-N-Out because I needed to use the restroom but felt bad doing so not as a paying customer. I did find it strange that the one time we went out on this BYU field trip was on Sunday. Someone jokingly said that we might as well be drinking coffee, since we were already breaking a commandment. We were all very ready for a bathroom break in Beaver, so we stopped at the gas station. I saw some orange Hostess Sno-Balls and debated buying them but decided not to since it was Sunday. Dr. Radebaugh bought some crackers. On our way home, I was texting my roommates to see if they could help me carry my stuff home from campus. My roommate Scott agreed to. I also got a text from our ward clerk, Michael Wyatt, and he was wondering how I was because I hadn't been at church that day. When we got back to campus, they were giving out food. I took a loaf of white bread, and maybe some skim milk, I don't remember. Soon Scott and lots of people from the ward showed up; he had invited them to come help me at ward prayer. There was plenty for everyone to carry something. At the end there was only my pillow and my bread. I let a girl carry my pillow, but maybe that was creepy. I was sandy and grimy. I wrote a short blog post.

2011. There was a lunch at my job at the Distribution Center; I think it was tacos or burritos, because I had brought tortillas. They asked me to say the blessing on the food; as I was praying, I heard Kelly Clarkson's "Mr. Know It All" playing on one of the radios in the work area. Some people had brought bags of candy. Some of my coworkers knew about my eating habits, and they asked if I could eat that Halloween candy. I said I couldn't, because Halloween was over, and it wasn't Halloween themed anyway. I explained that I could have candy corn things, because when I was in elementary school I read a Thanksgiving book called The Candy Corn Contest. I said I couldn't have plain candy because it was available year round. They said, "But candy corn is too." I said it was more common in the fall; they said, "Candy is too." They said my eating system had problems, and I acknowledged that it wasn't perfect. The previous night I had bought a bag of bulk candy corn taffy on clearance, and then I noticed that there was a produce sticker on the bag that said "5 A Day for Better Health," and I put that on Facebook.

2009. We tracted into a man whom I had met several months earlier when we attended a Bible study at another church. He was friendly and asked us why the Book of Mormon uses language from the Bible, as he heard. I explained my theory that it was to aid in the translation process, but I made it clear it was only my theory. He told us that his neighbors belonged to the Community of Christ, formerly RLDS Church. That night we visited Dianne Scott. Technically we shouldn't have been there, since there was no man present, but sometimes circumstances made it so we did that. (That rule was made for people who shouldn't be on missions anyway. But don't think I'm trying to discredit mission rules, because you should obey them.) She told us her conversion and things. I was a little surprised with how friendly she was, since most less-active members weren't so nice. Then we went and saw our Bishop, who lived on the same street. He offered us leftover pizza, and there was a conversation about how we sometimes perceive people as believing differently than they actually do. He brought up faith and works, saying he knew his Baptist preacher neighbor believed in living good lives. I said I felt the same way about the notion of the trinity. Sister Palmer told us we were welcome to come on Thanksgiving and asked what we wanted. I said pecan pie, and she said that Bishop was going to make that anyway. That night I wrote in my journal.
"This morning we did service helping Brother Ruddell and then Sister Carter. Later we tracted some and met a guy named Jack Azbill whom I met at the Tammany View Baptist Church. Then we saw Sister Gibbins, who was out in her yard.
"We had a good lesson with Mallary, then Elijah wasn't around. We had a long visit with Dianne Scott, a less-active I'd never met before. Then we stopped at Bishop's house, and talked and ate cold pizza."

2008. We spent half of our weeks at the home of a senior couple in one of our branches, and we helped them tile their entryway and fireplace. Actually Elder Love did most of it, since he was a handyman. We spent most of this day doing that, although a couple of times we changed into our proselyting clothes and went to our branch building to meet an investigator there. She never showed up. At one point I picked up a book of Edgar Allan Poe and read "The Raven" out loud. I felt bad that we spent all day doing the tile, but in retrospect I think it was a very good thing to do. I just wish I had been more helpful. We had dinner with the Christensen family at the Mexican restaurant in town. They commented on my very short hair, since Elder Love had shaved it the previous day without a comb on the clippers (or maybe the wrong size). When I told them what happened, their adopted five-year-old granddaughter Bailey jokingly scolded Elder Love. Bailey asked what we had been for Halloween. Elder Love said, "A missionary," and then he remembered, "I was Elder Melville!" Bailey didn't understand, so Sister Christensen said, "Elder Love wears one kind of tie, and Elder Melville wears a different kind." Elder Love said we wore the same tie (we just happened to have identical ties). Then Brother Christensen came with us to help the Stackhouse family with moving things from one house to another. (He was later annoyed that able-bodied kids weren't helping us.) I wrote in my journal:
"We helped with the Herrons' tile for most of the day. Not having much experience and fearing messing it up (since I never do anything right), I didn't feel like I was doing much. The times we weren't tiling we were waiting at the church to meet with Wanda but she didn't come. We also had dinner at a Mexican restaurant with the Christensens, and then helped the Stackhouses with a little moving. It was rainy and very cold today. I like my new sweater.

2006. It was my Grandma Judy's funeral, but I don't remember as much of it as I should. At the viewing in the morning, they offered everyone one last look before they locked the casket. I didn't feel a need to get up and look, because I had already paid my respects. Uncle Mike read out loud her obituary. It said she sang with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. My mom later said that she heard someone say "Huh?" when that was read, and she thought she had simply sung in a choir that was in a concert with the MoTab. The obituary was meant to sound pretentious. My grandma was not a member of the MoTab. They had all of us grandkids get up to sing a primary song during the service. Meanwhile, my cousin Peter (from the other side of the family) was upstairs in a nursery with my nephew Preston, who was eleven days shy of two years old. I felt a little bad that he was playing with my nephew instead of me--but it was my grandma's funeral. Then we went to my grandparents' house, and I helped carry things out. I think I carried some autumnal funeral wreaths. Allie and Preston were playing in the red Jeep in the yard.

I had a few "phases" at this time. One was that when I was in church clothes, I would gradually change out of them. Different occurrences would cause me to do one step towards changing. One of these steps was going outside, and since I was going outside a lot, I had a lot of times to gradually change. That's why I'm wearing a tie in the top picture, but my shirt is untucked without a tie and I have plain shoes on in the bottom. We went home that night, and while I was putting up my Thanksgiving maize lights on our fireplace, I acted on my other "phase": There was a full moon, so I pretended that I couldn't stay too long in the moonlight from the window, or else I would turn into a wolf. My mom was on the phone, and I think she was annoyed with my growling and hunching over.

2003. I don't specifically remember the day, nor the dress rehearsal for Evil Doings at Queen Toots' Tomb, but I wrote in my journal:
"Oi! It's only November 4, and already the Reeds have their Christmas tree up. I still need to take down Halloween and put up Thanksgiving decorations. [I stylized the word "Thanksgiving" with steaming corn cobs for the i's and a turkey beak for the v.] We had a rehearsal today. Our only dress rehearsal without an audience. It wasn't very good. We have microphones and whenever we walk by a speaker if the mikes are on, it makes a big, deafening noise. They echo, too. I didn't have much homework tonight, either, which is good, because I didn't get home until shortly before eight. There was pizza after practice."

2002. We were in Taiwan. I might have recorded the day in a journal somewhere, but I don't know where it is.

1996. Again, I don't remember this, but I found a second-grade journal, wherein the entry is fairly similar to 2003, even though I was seven years younger:
"This month is November. [This time the N was a turkey beak, and the v was an upside down tepee.] we don't have all of our Thanksgiving [again with the upside down tepee] decorations up, and we don't have all all [sic] of our Halloween decorations down. We'll work on it."

A two-year-old's Halloween fears.

I only have a short time to do a Halloween-themed memory post, so I'll remember my niece's fear of Halloween when she was two years old.

One day in September 2005, I pulled out a cheap plastic inflatable ghost to put up for Halloween. Allie saw it and became scared and snuggled close to my mom. I was surprised she was scared, so I moved it closer, and my mom said, "Mark, don't scare her." I didn't get why she would know it was scary--she was only two years old, and it was just a white squiggle with a happy face on it. Why should that be scary? It kind of freaked me out--like did she know something about ghosts that we adults didn't?

I hung that ghost up, and it would lose air, so I would have to periodically re-inflate it. Every time I got close to it, she would worry for my welfare.

She became scared of everything to do with Halloween, although I don't remember a lot of specifics. We had a large jack-o-lantern decoration in our yard, and she was scared of it. I think my sister told us that they had been at a house with lots of witch decorations and she was freaked out.

After some time, however, she became less scared, and once she said, "Pumpkins aren't scary!" And once she need "I not scary [scared]!"

By the time she was three, however, she was no longer scared of Halloween.

Happy Halloween!

October 25

As I continue to remember days surrounding Halloween, I get further and further from the day itself. This time I'm remembering what I can about October 25.

2014. In the evening I went to stake conference at our stake center; my friend Emily texted me and asked me if I could save her a seat for her because she was running late. One of the stake presidency made some comment about being old (I don't remember what it was), and then another of the presidency later made allusion to the comment, so I had to explain to Emily what was going on because she had missed that part. After the meeting I went to the overflow to help put up chairs; I saw Crystal and David Hawks talking to each other. I had never met David, so I introduced myself and told him we were home teaching companions. This might have been the night when I watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown at home and Allie said, "It's trick or treat, not tricks and treats." I journalized as follows:
"This morning I went running. It seemed unusually hard. This afternoon, I picked an apple from our own tree and threw another dead rat away. Then we went to Winegar's, and I made dinner. I went to stake conference, and Emily sat by me. Then I got gas and washed my windows, and then we watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown."

2013. Hmm...I think that Friday night I watched It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and my roommate Scott came in toward the end, and I think he was mildly disappointed he had missed it.

2012. I looked at my class notes, so this might have been the time our geomorphology professor, Jani Radebaugh, told us about climbing a mountain in Africa to see a lava lake. She said that most lava lakes were hard to access; this one was hard and it was one of the more accessible ones. She showed us the fascinating footage she took and said they could feel the heat every time the lava churned. That night I was watching the sixth-season Halloween episode of Bewitched, and my roommates Bryton and Cameron joined me. Cameron and I sat on the couch facing the TV, while Bryton reclined on the love seat that was sideways. He said, "I'm sorry I'm taking up the whole couch," and Cameron said, "It's OK--fatty." We laughed, and Cameron said, "Sorry, I grew up with brothers," and Bryton said he only grew up with sisters. After the show, Bryton said he liked that episode less than some of the others we had watched, because it seemed like a UNICEF commercial, and Cameron agreed. Cameron said, "Wasn't her husband in the military?" I said no; then I realized he was thinking of I Dream of Jeannie, where Tony was an astronaut. Bryton said Bewitched was a better premise than Jeannie because they were married, rather than her being a "wench" in the house.

2010. I went to my first working day at my new job at the Distribution Center. We all sat at the tables that were in the break area just off of the work area. Most of the other workers had gone home, so they put us to work filling garment orders on station 6. Maybe it was station 5, I can't remember.

2009. After Sunday School, a less-active member we were teaching told us that he wasn't married to his girlfriend. They had a three-year-old kid together, so I assumed they were, as they were a very close family. That night, we went to our bishop's house because we wanted to tell him, but he told us--the man had told him as well. I think we had a discussion about beliefs sometimes getting misconstrued. For example, he had a Protestant preacher who lived next door, and he was sure that he believed in doing good things and living good lives, but the "faith vs. works" things sometimes got in the way. I said sometimes the same thing happened with the view of the Trinity. This is my journal entry: "Today was a fairly routine Sunday. Shaun texted us to tell us he couldn't make it, but Michael and Nash and Barbie came. We had to teach Gospel Essentials, and we learned that [name] and [name] are not married.
"Elder Tamblyn did a good job speaking in the branch. Then we had dinner with the Dukes, and visited the Palmers. Elder Tamblyn wasn't feeling well again so we came home."

2008. We tracted a little street in Ritzville and a lady had her door open. She invited us in and talked to us forever; I think we finally left without discussing anything with her because she talked the whole time. I think we borrowed some members' bike pumps to fill up the tires for our investigator's kids. We left Ritzville and went to Davenport, where we tracted again. An elderly couple let us talk to them, and they were folding their white laundry (including whity-tighties) in the living room. They invited us back. Then we went to the Mondovi grange, which was a ways out. They had hay bales and other fall decorations, and they had paper on the tables with crayons on them, so we could draw on the tablecloth. We sat with some members, and we were supposed to draw something on the tables about something from our past or childhood. The member drew some incident about a bear when she was a baby. I wanted to draw my broken bones, so the only thing I could think to do was to draw my skeleton with broken bones. The member guessed, "You're a skeleton? Or you were a skeleton." They had a talent show. The first part was playing "The Monster Mash" and having the branch president's son walk around in a costume; the member we were sitting with "sang" along with the spoken lyric "Boris sent you." They had the bishopric doing some poem or song from Hee-Haw while their wives were dressed up in costumes. One of the lyrics was "the way she's built" and Sister Kieffer was stuffed with padding in her overalls. Elder Love was laughing his head off. We took pictures with a pitchfork and the hay bales. Then we drove out into the countryside, down a little ravine where there was an unexpected neighborhood. We were looking for a potential investigator we found in our area book, but it was dark and we were too nervous in the dark to knock on these rural doors. Then we went back to our "residence" with the Herron couple. I wrote a long journal entry detailing the weird dream I had had:
"Last night I left my glasses on, planning to get up again, but I unexpectedly fell asleep with them on. At 3:00 I woke up hot, with my glasses on, loud trains going, and somewhat confused.
"Then I had a very interesting, detailed dreams with a bunch of storylines. We were looking for a package Dad supposedly sent Mom--I don't know why he wouldn't have given it to her. We traipsed around Ritzville to find it, but Dad later said he hadn't sent it. I couldn't believe he went along looking for it, knowing he hadn't sent it.
"With Elder Love we were listening to my Hymns, and one had an electric guitar. It seemed a little edgy for church music, and sounded like a country or rock song.
"I had a spider made of a pom-pom and pipe cleaners and paper eyes that scared Allie. So I took it and gave it wiggle eyes and a paper smile and planned to increase the amount of legs from six to eight. But then I found I had more than eight legs, and soon I was making an old brown fridge into a spider. I put the head on the top and was gluing the legs on the side. There was a magnet for a bank, and a representative from the bank decided to capitalize on the spider. She was talking about members, as in members of the bank (not of the the church, as I was thinking), and talking about how they knew their members. To illustrate, she said the spider's legs were members of its body, and she could tell stories of each leg. I found that many of the legs had faces, but I just accepted it and went on. I had to object when she said two legs were husband and wife when I knew them to be brother and sister.
"Then I found a Christmas ornament that was a green ice skating mouse, as well as a little candy cane mouse. Then I was pulling garlands and things out of a bin while the TV played Christmas episodes.
"And we went to see some members who had a cement room with a blue wooden stand thing. When we saw them they had a crazy white animal jumping all around the room, but the room was actually meant for displaying polar bears in the clothes the members made for them.
"But in the much more important real life, we tried to see some people. One lady let us in and just chatted while she made potato salad. Funny how some people can do that. We filled up the tires on Michelle Jensen's kids' bike. Then we left Ritzville.
"Driving through Harrington I suggested seeing Michael Heit, a less-active building a plane in his garage. He also has his own radio station--100.5, I believe.
"We got to Ritzville [I meant Davenport] and tracted into people that I think will be a bash session concerning the deity of Christ. He said he will have someone over with him.
"Then we went to the branch harvest festival, out in Mondovi, a small place. It was at a grange hall. They had dinner and a few silly activities. We got to see the stars in their brilliance before we came home and made calls."
Man, that was my favorite area. I miss it.

2006. I believe this was the day Woods Cross had the trunk or treat. On my way home from school, I stopped at Kmart to buy some candy to take; I found some chocolates that had M&Ms embedded in them. I went home, listening to the Corpse Bride soundtrack, to change into my vampire costume. Then I went back to the school and met up with the other Spanish Club people in the lunchroom; they had a bowl for the candy. Then we went out to the front parking lot for the trunk or treat. I talked a lot with Mrs. Jamison, who had been my French teacher. Many people admired my costume; someone said I couldn't be wearing the pendant I was wearing, since it was an X. A girl--Analia?--was saying how cold it was, and I was thinking it wasn't that cold, but then I remembered I was in a suit. There were some of the less virtuous girls wearing scanty costumes; an overweight one was wearing a short-skirted nurse costume, and we were sure they were cold.

October 26-November 3, 2014

I'm going to try to remember more than an entire week from last year--the five days before Halloween, the day itself, and three days after.

Sunday, October 26. I went to stake conference wearing clothes I usually wore to work, in addition to my jack-o-lantern tie, orange belt, and orange socks. I sat near some people in my ward, and they liked my tie and my belt, so I had to point out my socks as well. Our bishop's family was sitting a few rows ahead of us, and the girls I was sitting by convinced some of Bishop's daughters to come by us before the meeting--I think candy helped with that. During the meeting, Kelli and Katie were making the toddler daughter giggle, and Sister Eyring didn't seem to know why she kept laughing, although she later did look back at us, but it was at a time when the girls weren't looking. Sister Eyring gave candy to the little girl, and we were all amused as we watched her spit the candy out onto the floor. I wrote on my main blog, and I remember my mom freaking out by the thumbnail picture of the mouse and then asking her parents if they'd seen the picture. That night I went to an indexing night at the home of our second counselor; I was indexing on my laptop on the couch and a deaf girl named Shantel was talking to me. I also wrote on this blog at some point.

Monday, October 27. During my lunch break I went over to Kneaders and got a candy apple with my lunch. I think I asked for cinnamon, but I think I ended up with a Butterfinger because they were out of cinnamon, and the person who brought it out to me seemed to think the cashier had done something wrong. That evening I attended a four-ward Halloween party at our church building. I pulled out our old Fred Flintstone costume and our toy woolly mammoth. I showed up and walked past my bishop, who was wearing a skeleton morph suit and black shorts. There was a table set up with a bunch of goodies on it. There was a bowl of generic candy, which I wouldn't eat; a bowl of popcorn; and apple cider with dry ice in it, which I thought was a brilliant idea, incorporating two Halloween traditions together (cider and dry ice). They had a station where you eat the donut from the string. Less popular was the apple bobbing station, which I had never done before. They were keeping track of record-breaking times on a chalkboard. I went to get my apple, and decided I was determined to get one particular apple, so then I remembered my swimming training and breathed out under the water so that I could immerse myself and get the apple. When I came out with a yellow apple in my mouth, the guy writing down times was impressed, because I was the new record. I had done it in about thirty seconds, beating the previous record by Kit. Kit told me he was going to beat my time. He did, and lots of people beat us, having times of about a second. I didn't care about the time, though; I was just happy I got an apple. I talked with various people, including a Chelsey whom I had never met and some people from the Deer Hollow Ward, a Lindsey dressed as a hillbilly and one Shay. I also saw Shaelene Christensen dressed abstractly as a candy corn but I didn't get to talk to her. Several people commented on my costume; one guy said the mammoth was his favorite part, and someone told me it should have been purple. There was a table with candy apples as costume prizes, and you could nominate a costume, but I thought it would be in poor taste to nominate myself. They started a dance party. I didn't care to participate. My friend Emily came dressed as Cruella DeVil. We went out into the hall to look for alternate activities. In one room they were playing Werewolf (a game like Mafia), which I don't care for; we tried to photobomb some people but they saw us. Our bishop was doing a lot of dancing, and his son won a costume as a "skeleton hunter." Rachel and Madi were trying to get me to dance, and Rachel told me, "Put the elephant down." There was a lull in the songs, so the DJ (David Orton) put on the "Monster Mash," and I could tell it was a cheap knock-off of the original. Then I went home and got ready for bed before watching my Halloween show for the day. The Shay I had met at the party texted me, saying, "A friend gave me your number." My mom came home from swimming and I told her I was going to watch Frankenweenie (the original), and she was glad I hadn't watched it without her. Either that day or the next, she said she had been talking with Laura Anderson, who had been talking with Madi about me, including about girls who were interested in me. This is my journal entry for the day:
"Today I listened to Dracula while working. What a good read! I went to Kneaders and got a candy apple. Tonight I went to the combined ward Halloween party with my Fred Flintstone costume and stuffed woolly mammoth. I bobbed for apples and was the best time up to that point. Girls tried to get me to dance."

Tuesday, October 28. I went to institute that night, wearing a Peanuts Halloween shirt, and people told me they liked it. Then I went home and watched The Nightmare Before Christmas.

Wednesday, October 29. I had a phone interview scheduled with Western Governors University, so I walked over by the Church Office Building and sat on a bench until they called me. They asked me what I knew about WGU (I told them my sister was taking classes through them), and they told me they would let me know in the next week or so. (They never did.) While I was out, I went to the temple to print off same family name cards. I didn't know where to enter, so I walked around Temple Square to see if I could see people entering or exiting, and eventually I found it. I had to ask the brother at the recommend desk where to go to print names. I went to get lunch at Nauvoo Cafe. They were advertising turkey pot pies, so I thought I'd get one, but I was requesting one in the wrong place. It didn't taste very good, and I felt disgusting after eating one. I went back to work and put in a breath mint when my boss, Reid, called me up to his office. There was a box of donuts outside his office, and he said, "Would you like a donut? Elder Snow brought them." I had a breath mint in my mouth, so I said I might when we were done. He had a huge map in his office; I said, "Have you always had that?" and he said he just got it the previous day. A girl named Sherilyn who "worked" at my work came and talked to me because she had seen my last name and knew she had Melville ancestors; she was descended from Daniel Dutson Melville (who I later learned was the son of my direct ancestor Alexander Melville). That night my family was carving pumpkins. My mom and sister and niece brought home food from Atlantis Burger. The gyros were leaking juice out of the box and all over Allie, and I said I was disappointed they didn't get me a pumpkin eggnog shake. I asked if I could turn on my Halloween music, and they said yes, but the TV might have been on too, I can't remember. I was talking with them about the amusing story I heard on the news about an old man driving on stairs at the U, and I told them that my favorite comment was when someone said "He makes one little mistake and you want to take away his license," and someone responded "I would hardly call driving up and down stairs a little mistake." Allie hadn't been paying attention but she wanted to know what we were talking about when we were laughing. Susanne was really laughing and saying she hoped they never publicized who the guy was. I wanted to make my jack-o-lantern to have spiral eyes. It was harder than I thought, and one eye broke. Then we found various candles to light them and take pictures. Susanne remarked about how happy my mom's was.

Then we watched the 2012 Frankenweenie in 3D. That night I wrote in my journal:
"Today I stepped out for a phone interview with Western Governors University. Then I found my way into the Salt Lake Temple to print names, then I went to the Nauvoo Cafe and got a gross turkey pot pie. I went to Reid's office, where he has a huge map. I had a hard time focusing today, since I woke up from a dream where I feared being punched in the nose because I wouldn't let a guy hurt his girlfriend. I learned someone at work is descended from Alexander Melville.
"Tonight we carved pumpkins. Mom's is the best, Pops's is the worst. I wanted to do spiral eyes, but they didn't really work. Then Mom and I watched Frankenweenie in 3D, and we ate a quality apple from our own tree."

Thursday, October 30. At work, I had a personal bio published on the employee intranet page. After work, I went down to my car, and it wouldn't start. It had done that in April earlier in the year, but then it started after waiting a bit. I looked at websites, including Awkward Family Photos, on my phone while I waited. Then I tried again, and it didn't start, so I had to call my parents and ask them to pick me up. My friend Emily had invited me to a Halloween party at her school, so I had to text her to let her know I didn't think I'd be able to make it, and she sounded a bit concerned. My parents came and we tried to jump the car, but it didn't work. They drove me to the parking attendant; I told him I had to keep my car parked overnight and had put my parking permit in the window. He asked if I needed a jump, but I told him we already did; I just wanted to make sure my car didn't get towed. Then they drove me home, and I texted Emily to see if it was worth going to her thing, and she said it wasn't. I was looking for my keys, because my dad had had them, and after he looked around for them, I realized I had them in my room. I apologized that I had wasted his evening. My mom commented that we weren't very considerate, because my dad didn't say "It's OK" when I said I wasted his time, and that I apologized to him but not to her about wasting the evening. I explained that I apologized for wasting his time because I had him looking for the keys he had already given me, which she didn't have to do. Then I watched Mad Monster Party? I wrote in my journal:
"My bio was published on the Intranet at work today, and lots of people asked about Thanksgiving music [because my bio said I listened to Thanksgiving music]. I was easily distracted today and felt like I was spinning my wheels. When I got to my car, the engine wouldn't turn over. Mom and Dad came to give it a jump, but it didn't work. We had to leave it.
"I was going to go to Emily's school carnival, but I didn't because of the car thing. Then I came home and watched Mad Monster Party?.
"I was also amused by the story of an old man getting lost at the U and driving up and down stairs." 

Friday, October 31. In the morning I sat in the living room, looking on my computer, and posting the video of Thriller cat; Emily later texted me telling me how great it was. I drove my mom's car to work, and she drove my dad's, and my dad drove our Pathfinder. I listened to the radio, hoping they would play a Halloween song, but they didn't. I remember they played Taylor Swift's "Shake It Off" as I was in the parking garage. As I had been doing earlier that week, I was laying out The Autobiography of Andrew Jenson while listening to Dracula. At one point I had to return something to the return room. I was wearing an orange belt and my jack-o-lantern tie, and as I walked into the return room, the missionary complimented my tie, even though her back was turned to me, and it was then that I realized they had a mirror so they could see when someone came in. My mom called me in the afternoon, because she was ready to come get my car towed if necessary. I met her in the parking garage, and while I walked over I was eating a Halloween fruit snack. She tried starting my car, and it immediately worked! Not wanting to turn it off in case it wouldn't start again, she decided to drive my car home, leaving my dad's behind. Eventually I left work, and as I walked out into the partly cloudy evening, having just listened to Dracula, there was an awesome feeling of Halloween in the air. I drove home and said I wanted to go running; I was going to drive to Tunnel Springs Park. My dad said I should test drive my car somewhere close, but my mom didn't want me to drive it running, because I wouldn't have my phone and it would be dark. I assured her that I wouldn't run for long, and I wouldn't be too far from home. As I drove up to the park, I passed lots of trick-or-treaters, even though it was still light outside. I was running on the trail in my pumpkin shirt, and the only other person I saw was a cyclist. I ran up to an overlook where I'd never been before, and as I looked out over the valley in the autumn breeze, thinking that the next day was November, it was a very pleasant experience. I drove home with the windows down, while the setting sun reflected from house windows, and I sang along with the Mad Monster Party? theme song. I saw lots of trick-or-treaters on Liberty Road, just by our house. I knew we didn't have a lot of candy, so if that group came over, our supply would be decimated. When I got home, I told my mom that my car worked just fine, and she thought I would have been running for longer. I went out to buy more candy (and make sure my car still worked). I went to Winegar's and bought some fall-themed Hershey's Miniatures, but I didn't know that it was sufficient, so then I went to Dick's. On the way over on Orchard Drive, I had to stop behind some other cars in the middle of the road for some jay-walking trick-or-treating families. After they had all passed, one of the drivers honked indignantly at them. At Dick's I got fall-themed mini Kit-Kats, some caramel apples (cinnamon and regular), and maybe some pumpkin English muffins. I also bought a Halloween-themed Lunchables nachos. I took all the stuff home and ate my Lunchables, which was gross, and a pumpkin-faced microwave quesadilla my mom had made for me. While I was gone, three trick-or-treaters had come, the only ones the entire night. Then my dad and I went to get his car. When we got to the bottom of the hill, I realized that I needed to get gas in my mom's car, so I stopped and my dad filled it up; he told me he usually fills up sooner, but it wasn't my car. When we were getting on Highway 89 from the roundabout, Maroon 5's "Animals" was playing, which I thought was a dumb song but semi-appropriate for Halloween, due to the howling. We got his car and drove home. Then we learned we were going to pick up Susanne and Allie to go get frozen yogurt. As we got in the car, my mom was talking to our neighbor, and I felt bad I didn't introduce myself. I played my Halloween playlist from my phone in the car, and when a song from Mad Monster Party? was playing, my mom said she listened to it on her way home, since the CD was in my car and she drove it home. We picked up the girls, and then we went to Orange Leaf, but it was closed. So then we went over to my grandparents' in Centerville and visited. On the way there, we watched some women with a very small girl, who was walking up to a house while the women watched; Mom and Nan said it was probably the parents who wanted to keep going, not the kid. At G'ma and G'pa's, Allie asked why I was wearing green shoes instead of orange or black; I didn't have orange shoes, and black isn't too Halloweeny by itself, and the green matched the green on my Peanuts "Happy Halloween" shirt. I had declined the candy my grandparents had for trick-or-treaters, but when we were leaving I decided it was appropriate. After we left, my mom said she thought her parents were glad we came, because her dad had a big smile on his face as we were leaving. I said, "Or was he happy we were leaving?" We went to Arctic Circle for pumpkin shakes since Allie hadn't gone trick-or-treating because she was giving out candy. I got a pumpkin cheesecake shake; my mom got pumpkin caramel. While we were waiting, they were a little slow, and Allie yelled something rude, and we had to shush her. Then we dropped them off and went home. My dad went to bed while my mom and I went downstairs to watch The Munsters' Revenge. I put my shake in the freezer and ate the cinnamon caramel apple. My mom remarked that it was a decent movie. Then I went to bed and stayed up reading an article about Halloween movies in a Halloween anthology I had. I wrote in my journal:
"I worked today and got back to Andrew Jenson's Autobiography....I had to drive Mom's car because mine didn't start yesterday, but when she came today and tried it, it worked. I listened to Dracula at work, and when I came out, it was a warm, cloudy evening. It felt like Halloween.
"I came home and drove to the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. It was awesome running in my pumpkin shirt. I had the trail to myself. As I was coming back, I saw lots of trick-or-treaters, but we only had one group. I went to Dick's and Winegar's for trick-or-treat/Thanksgiving candy, then we had to go get Pops's car from the Conference Center, since Mom had driven my car home.
"Then we went to Nan's, then Grandma and Grandpa's, then Arctic Circle for pumpkin shakes. The pumpkin cheesecake's not the best. Then I came home to watch The Munsters' Revenge."

Saturday, November 1. My dad ate the other caramel apple that I had purchased the day before. I went running up to the Wild Rose Trail; I passed a smashed pumpkin on the road, and since Halloween was just barely over, I saw the house that still had its vampiric plastic flamingos in the yard. Then I went home and lifted weights while watching episodes from my first-season DVD set of Hazel--first I watched the Thanksgiving episode and then I watched the Christmas episode, so that I would know where it fit in with my other Christmas shows before the Christmas season arrived. I got a pumpkin Hershey's Kiss from a small pumpkin basket downstairs, and I was glad that I still had plenty of them to last the Thanksgiving season. But later that evening, Allie came in the room downstairs with the pumpkin, eating the Kisses and sharing with us.

Sunday, November 2. I wore my roast turkey socks. That evening, I picked up my home teaching companion, David, to go home teaching. I think we saw Bob, who lived very close to David but we didn't realize that. I noticed lots of goatheads in his yard; David walked across the yard and consequently tracked goatheads into my car. Then we drove up to the place of Lant and Nik; I can't remember whether Donald was there. We took off our shoes as we went in, since they had a sign requesting it (which David found amusing), and it was a rainy day. There was a CES devotional, and I decided I was going to watch it from home, but Lant said that he thought the stake presidency wanted us to watch it at the regional center. There was some discussion about how we interpreted his words differently. I felt a little bad that we made them late. I noticed that a house on Eagleridge Drive had turkey lights in the window. I watched the CES devo after I went home. That night Susanne came over, and I found the little pumpkin basket upstairs. I was stunned to see that Allie had eaten all of the Kisses, since there had been a large amount of them just the day before. When we asked her about it, she gave a weird laugh. I wrote on both of my blogs.

Monday, November 3. I wanted to buy clearance Halloween candy that could double as Thanksgiving candy. I think I went to Winegar's first, but a lot of their fall candies weren't on clearance and were placed with the Christmas candy. I might have gone to Dick's. I know I went to Smith's Marketplace, and I was cutting it close to making it to FHE. I checked to see if they had Free Birds on Blu-Ray, but they only had it on DVD. Then I went over to FHE--we were having a food scavenger hunt to donate to a pantry. I joined a group, and Chelsey was going to drive us; but when I saw that we were going to cram into her two-door coupe, I offered to drive. I moved my candy to the trunk as everyone got in (and I think my ice scraper as well). We were trying to find the road we were assigned to do, but I noticed it before my navigator did, so I made a quick lane change, and we went about knocking doors. Most people were pretty generous. One old man asked us if it was mutual night; he invited us in and offered us trick-or-treat candy; he gave us a whole six-can package of Costco chicken (I think). One lady in a culdesac asked us to come back in a minute so she could gather food; I was assigned to knock at that house. At one house, there was a YSA in another ward in our building (Deer Hollow Ward?) but she hadn't gone to her FHE that night. Then we drove back and tallied our finds. Our team didn't win. There were lots of goodies in the Relief Society room, but none that I could eat. I think there was hot chocolate (which it was too early for me to have), as it was a chilly evening; I was wearing my striped hoodie. Then I drove out to Shopko and looked through their clearance Halloween stuff. They had both pumpkin pie and Halloween Pop-Tarts. I was disappointed, because all through the Halloween season I had looked for the Halloween ones and couldn't find them (even though I found lots of pumpkin pie ones), but it wasn't until Halloween was over that I found the Halloween ones. I looked for Free Birds there but didn't find it. I think I got s'mores candy corn, and the cashier remarked to her coworker that they sounded good. I made a mental note that I would have to go to Shopko next Halloween season to find the Halloween Pop-Tarts, not knowing that that store would close five months later.

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.

Halloween costumes

I'm going to remember all the Halloween costumes I've worn through the years. Usually I start from most recent and work back to the oldest, but this time I will do the opposite.

1989. Family pictures indicate that I was a panda bear. But obviously I don't remember that, since I was only one.

1990. Again, family pictures indicate that I was a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle, but I don't remember what one. Just today, I was thinking how TMNT was a sizeable part of my childhood, even though I remember hardly anything about it now.

1991. My mom insists that I was a green butterfly, but I don't remember it.

1992 or 1993. One of these years, I was a ladybug. I remember one kid saying, "A little ladybug!" and I was offended because I thought he was making fun of me. My mom told me he wasn't.

1994. I was Santa Claus, but my beard didn't look good. I had pillows to make me fat. I had a purple arm cast, so some kids told me I should say that I fell out of my sleigh and broke my arm. I loved to wear that costume again at Christmas.

1995. I was a mummy, so when we went to Boo at the Zoo, I wanted my face painted with a mummy on it. During my school's costume parade, I held my arms out in front of me the whole time, so when we went outside and no one was watching us, I was relieved to put my arms down.

1996. I was a grim reaper in a felt costume my mom had made. I think my face was painted white; my robe was black with red trim. I carried around a little plastic scythe. I don't know how I managed that in elementary school; they probably wouldn't allow that today.

1997.  I was a jack-o-lantern, with leaves on my shoulders and orange and black curly vine things. I put pillows in the orange shirt to round it out. I remember my cousin Peter walking around in it, and the pillows dragged the shirt down and stretched it out.

1998. I was obsessed with the Wallace and Gromit shows, so I was Wallace, with a bald cap, a green sweater vest and red tie, and a stuffed dog that I carried around with me. Seeing the bald and the dog, someone thought I was Charlie Brown, but Ann Palmer, who was standing next to her, recognized me as Wallace. A few people knew who I was.

1999. Oh boy. I've always been a nerd, and in fifth grade I was especially nerdy, having a fascination with chess, even though I was horrible at it. I decided I wanted to be a chess piece, so I decided on a white king--a white robe, white face paint, and a white cross on my head. I doubt anyone knew I was a chess piece. They either thought I was a religious nut or a member of the KKK. I'm glad I didn't get arrested.

2000.  Taking the idea from someone mistaking my costume two years earlier, and with my fairly new-found interest in Peanuts, it was only natural that I be Charlie Brown. I wore a baseball cap (because I didn't want a bald cap) and his shirt (which my mom had made), and carried around Snoopy, who had been Gromit two years earlier. (He really looked more like Snoopy than like Gromit.)

2001.  Since I no longer went trick-or-treating, and my school had uniforms, there was no point in dressing up.

2002. Since my family was going to be out of the country on Halloween night, I decided not to celebrate Halloween that year, which was probably a bit silly.

2003. I didn't have much opportunity to wear it, but I wore a Charlie Brown ghost costume. You know, with all the holes in it.

2004. During the spring, during South Davis Junior High's spirit week, my mom had constructed a Fred Flintstone costume for decade day, so I wore that for Halloween.

2005. I think I wore the Flintstone costume to the mutual party, but when I took Allie trick-or-treating, I was a traditional ghost (with only two eyeholes).

2006.  I was a vampire, with a suit, a medallion, and a beautiful cape.

2007. I was a vampire again, but I think I had some enhancements. I painted my nails black, and I had a red and black bowtie.

2008. Elder Love and I wore identical ties, and I switched our name tags, so we were each other for Halloween. Only at district meeting, though.

2009. Nothing.

2010.  I was a vampire yet again--but this time, I had teeth to go with the costume.

2011.  A vampire again, but this time I was younger. I first wore my costume to a Halloween 5k, with red athletic shorts and a scary red-and-black skull shirt, with a cheaper red and black cape. I wore red shoes on Halloween.

2012. I only dressed up one day, and I wore the same simple vampire costume, but with red regular shorts instead of athletic shorts.

2013. You guessed it. A vampire, but with no cape. At a Halloween party, I got my face painted rather scarily.

I like my vampire costume, but it's time to move on.

Elementary school Halloween projects

As Halloween creeps ever nearer, I think back on some of the memories of the holiday from my childhood. So, in remembrance, I will think of some of the projects we did in elementary school, as well as some other similar memories.

One of my earliest Halloween memories is getting a bunch of Halloween stuff from our basement. We had some plastic Halloween leaf bags and a plastic decoration you put over doors. I was super excited about them, and I put them on top of me. My aunt Sue and cousins were visiting, and Sue took the plastic off of me because she didn't want me to suffocate. I cried, because I wanted to lie underneath them and I could breathe just fine.

In kindergarten, we were given paper skeletons to cut out and assemble. Some kids colored theirs, but I thought that was dumb, because skeletons are white. I started mine, but then it got lost. Mrs. Christensen gave me the last one she had, where someone had started coloring one of the bones (a vertebra, or maybe the pelvis). It was red and blue, and I thought that was fitting, as they were colors of blood (I had heard about blood sometimes being blue). On Halloween, we made brown pom-pom spiders.

In first grade, we made jack-o-lantern construction paper "lanterns." I thought Dennis Jones's looked funny, so I laughed, and he told the teacher, who made me apologize. We also assembled skeletons on construction paper and gave them clothes--I gave mine a yellow baseball shirt.

In second grade, we put glue on strings and put them on tissue paper to make ghosts. I added a bat to my ghost. Another time, we drew a picture and then painted black/gray over it with watercolors. I drew a ghost with orange eyes. Of course, drawing with white crayon was difficult, but I was glad to see when I painted that I had colored the ghost pretty well. I had this picture until I cleaned things out in 2005.

On October 1, 1997, in third grade, we all got different Halloween art projects, depending on the table we were sitting at. One of the tables got to make haunted houses with math problems. Hillary Ulmer had a fit because she wanted to do one of those. One night during cub scouts at the Brenay house, we made Halloween treats with other treats. I used a Hostess Sno-Ball to make a spider, with licorice as the legs. After we made things, I asked if I could eat a Sno-Ball, and the other scouts seemed to judge me for it. Then we went downstairs and Sister Brenay played Halloween songs from the Picture Book of Songs while we went around in the dark making Halloween noises. We were recording a Halloween tape. My screams were audible on the tape, but my ghost sounds weren't. Mark Millard and Mark Brenay made more violent noises, and Mark Brenay made his mom stop playing and said, "I think I killed the piano teacher." When we played the tape at a monthly scout meeting, Mark Brenay liked rewinding the tape, as it sounded like rats.

In the summer between third and fourth grade, I learned that a primary or scout requirement had an option to make Halloween decorations. Since the Fourth of July was over, I wanted to make Halloween decorations. I made a small black pom-pom spider with only six pipe-cleaner legs. I took orange and black pom-poms and put eyes on them, calling them critters. My mom made a jack-o-lantern thing with plastic canvas in which you can put Hershey's Kisses.

In fourth grade, we were making pumpkins with orange construction paper. We had to use multiple colors to make patterns, and I wondered how others' pumpkins were more orange than mine. We made 3D bats out of one piece of paper. I remember having scouts at my house after I made mine, and Mark Millard and Mark Brenay told me that we would make similar bunnies at Easter. We had Halloween activity books. One of the activities was to write a limerick epitaph; this was mine:
"Here lies Castleberry, Paul,
Who walked down the hall,
 When down came a knife to take away his life
And this is where he happened to fall."
We also had one that required us to think of ingredients for a witches' brew, one from each letter. "X-ray soup" was all I could think of for x. I remember this song from fourth grade:


In fifth grade, we had to tear paper to make pictures. I made a hearse for my picture, but it was ugly.

In sixth grade, Mr. Williams had us make bats again. It became a bit of a fad--lots of us made more bats and other things with the same idea, such as owls and ghosts. Someone made one with a witch-face, which I thought was dumb, as witches aren't shaped like that.

I'm sure there were other things as well, but I can't think of them right now.

October 26

I have now remembered the last five days of October--so now it's time for October 26.

2013. My roommate Jordan had a girl over to watch a movie. He asked if I was going to watch a Halloween movie, and indeed I was watching the original Frankenweenie. After Sparky got run over, the girl said, "That's terrible!"

2012. This might have been the time I went running and ended up getting caught in post-game pedestrian traffic, but it might have been a different day. I was in my apartment that night when my friends Alex, Kristen, and someone else (maybe Carissa) stopped by. They wanted to see if I wanted to go get ice cream with them (someplace was giving it for free). I didn't. I asked them if they wanted to watch It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, but they didn't. I showed them my new copy of Mapping Mormonism, which had my name in it.

2010. I'm sure I would have been working, and at the end of our shift we would have swept the floor.

2008. I don't really remember the day, except that I liked the Zellers' Halloween decorations, but here is my journal entry:
"Think of me, thou ransomed one,
Think what I for thee havedone.
"I like sacrament songs.
"At branch council they gave us the home teaching list, and want us to see a lot of them, so that may increase our work in this branch. At church Bailey Christensen talked to me, glad that I didn't tease her, saying other missionaries tease her because she's cute.
"After church we met with Donna Tysz, a less-active who wants to do right. Before her we met Jeanne Saunders, who is married to a Baptist, and has a very anti daughter. We're doing service for her this week.
"We had dinner with the Zellers, an active PMF, and talked to the Divineys."

 2007. This was my last day working at Walmart. At one point in the day, I prepared rotisserie chickens (by smearing spices all over the raw chickens), and when I wrote the date on the plastic covering over the chicken cart, I think I wrote something like "goodbye," since I wouldn't be there anymore. My coworkers bought me a cake and wrote on it with frosting. I found some plastic silverware and cut the cake with a plastic knife, making a very messy cut. They also got me a very nice farewell card. After I was done with work, I was doing shopping. I got a pumpkin and some mint Oreos. I walked near the bakery to get the rest of my cake, and my coworker Alice saw my cart and said, "Are you having a party?" While I was out shopping, my coworker Ursula came up to me because she hadn't gotten any cake. I wanted to tell that Sea Witch she couldn't have any because she was mean, but I let her have some. When I was checking out, I told the cashier that the cake was already paid for (it had the receipt on it), and she asked if it was my birthday. I told her it was my last day working there. When I got home, my family had rented The Blob and High School Musical by Top Hat Video.

2005. This might have been the day I went to our school's Trunk-or-Treat, but I didn't dress up. I sat with my French classmates. Nate Dopp had his old VW beetle, and we gave the candy out of the "trunk," and one girl was kind of freaked out: "What happened to the car's engine?!"

2004. I know this was a Trunk-or-Treat day. I was wearing my Fred Flintstone costume with a flesh-colored shirt underneath. I was wearing shorts underneath as well, and Susanne said David wouldn't have worn shorts underneath.

1996. I would have been at Boo at the Zoo in my Grim Reaper costume. I think we saw a woman with a barn owl--I recognized it as such before she told us. We kids got most of the candy, but David got a chocolate licorice rope that he started eating immediately. Then I realized that I didn't have to wait to eat my candy, since he wasn't waiting. This was probably the day where we went to my grandparents' house afterwards. It was a little cold--there had been snow at the zoo--so they had a fire going, and we talked about how the balloon couldn't get near the fire, or it would pop.

1993. I think this was the time David was getting his birthday presents, and he got one of those hanging ghosts that wails and shakes when it is touched or hears noise.

October 27-November 2, 2013

I'm going to remember what I can of the days surrounding last year's Halloween--an entire week, Sunday through Saturday.

October 27. I wrote a blog post about overrated hymns, and as I was doing so, I was sitting in our living room. I asked my roommate Scott what hymns he thought were overrated. He felt bad saying so, but he got sick of singing "I Am a Child of God" at FHE-type settings. I think Scott was watching the World Series when my home teachers, Zach and Scott, came over. I told them the list I had made of overrated hymns, and Zach said he only disagreed with "Come Thou Fount." He said it's not in the hymnbook because Catholics forbade it, but I don't believe that. I showed my home teacher Scott the pictures on Facebook of my nephews in their improvised Halloween costumes; he was impressed with the "Santa." I think I told Zach that I was going to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas and Frankenweenie that week, and he seemed interested in watching them.

October 28. I went to my FHE, and our "dad," Eric, said we were going to have a pumpkin-carving contest, but we needed to go to a store to get pumpkins. I said that I had a pumpkin that I wanted to carve, which meant they would only need to buy one pumpkin. We drove to Smith's, and as we were walking in, I saw a lady at the RedBox, on the phone asking if Oz the Great and Powerful was good. (I wanted to tell her it wasn't.) I went and picked out a carving kit, but the only one I found had some extra things with it. As we were walking out, Eric was loudly playing Stevie Wonder's "Superstition." I was a little embarrassed. One of the group remembered that I had previously mentioned I had a Halloween playlist, so I went and got my laptop to play it on Eric's fancy sound system. There was a little problem at first with the volume. Of course, I started off with "Get Down Goblin." I wanted to do a Jack Skellington pumpkin, so I had my group members clean out the pumpkin for me to carve it. When "My Mechanical Friend" came on my playlist, my roommate Chad (who had come later, along with my other roommate, Jordan) asked, "Is this song about Frankenstein?" When Frankenweenie music was playing, they asked where it was from. As the incredibly annoying "Jack's Obsession" cover was playing, Eric said it seemed too laid back for Halloween. It was around then that the pumpkin contest ended, so Eric posted a picture on our ward Facebook page for people to vote for the better one.

I think the cat pumpkin was green--so there was a green pumpkin and a white one. My Halloween show for the day was The Nightmare Before Christmas, and so I went to Zach's apartment and told him I was about to watch it. He said he would come up after he was done cleaning up after his FHE, so I went up to my apartment and started watching it. My roommate Scott was watching it with me at first, but then he went to bed. Zach never came, so I assumed he decided not to--but he came up right when it was almost over. After it ended, I had to show him the "This Is Halloween" and "What's This?" songs--I think he made a remark about it being suitable for both Christmas and Halloween. Then Jordan came out and said he had a really bad headache and wanted a blessing. I asked whether he wanted the light turned on; he didn't, so we gave it by the light of the TV.

October 29. We weren't having Groundwater class this day, but I went into the classroom to work on a massive project we had--probably our flow chart. One of my classmates liked my Nightmare Before Christmas shirt. I had invited a friend, Carrie, to watch Frankenweenie that night, but she couldn't come. I went down to tell Zach that I was going to start the movie. His roommate Joel was there with his fiancée, Andee, and Andee said her nephews had watched the movie. Zach told me to start the movie and he would come up soon. Scott started watching with me and said Sparky was ugly even when he was alive. He went to the store to get some snacks, and then Zach came up. There was some commentary by Scott, but I don't want to give away any spoilers. Afterward, Zach was trying to identify the different voice actors, and Scott seemed to know a lot about actors. (All this was happening when Scott was still a decent person.)

October 30. At some point in the day, I got some pumpkin ice cream in the Cougareat and was eating it while the radio system was playing "Jack's Lament" from Nightmare Revisited. In the evening, I was in the geology computer lab working on my Groundwater project when I came across a news story about a woman fat-shaming trick-or-treaters. Someone had put posters in the room about a Geology Club Halloween party where they were showing Jurassic Park at the Museum of Paleontology. For "BYU," they used a stylized blue Y, and I thought it was a poor design, because the Y blended in and it just looked like "B U." Then I went home, and Scott was watching the last of the World Series. I remember thinking that it didn't seem right for a MLB player to win a free car. After the game, I put in Mad Monster Party?. In the opening sequence, when a crow started cawing, Jordan said his catch phrase, "Oh my word!" Jordan and Scott went home teaching, and they got back during the scene when all the monsters were arriving. I told Scott that the previous year, my roommates had gone home teaching on the same day and came back during the same scene. He was making origami Christmas ornaments while watching. After the movie, he said it was the strangest movie ever created, and he said it didn't need the musical numbers.

October 31. I went to my Groundwater class, and Dr. Carling was back. He went over our project with us (I think we were working on a flow chart). My classmate Chelsea was dressed in a homemade costume as Darkwing Duck. I went down to the RB for my swimming class, and there was a girl walking down the hall on a knee scooter. A guy sitting on a bench said, "I know what you're dressed as, a gimp!" After swimming, I went to work, and they were talking about all the costumes they had seen on campus. I told them about the "gimp" comment I had heard. My coworker Caitlin was leaving, so the office manager, Annette, said we should have a lunch for her. I said I would bring fruit. Annette made a vampire-themed flyer for the party, even though it was just for us in the office. I think the computer lady, Eden, said she had pumpkin bread, but I didn't have any, since she wasn't my boss. I looked at Halloween Pandora stations and settled on one called "Hipster Halloween." That afternoon, I went to LoLo's to buy a pineapple and strawberries. I also bought a donut with sprinkles on it. Then I went over to Shopko, where I got some small Jack Skellington pajama pants (there were no mediums) and some candy corn Jelly Bellys. Then I went home (listening to the Nightmare Revisited CD) and had Count Chocula in my Jack Skellington mug. While I was doing so, our neighbor Rory came by to ask how our home teaching was going. I think we had a discussion about Christmas music and Thanksgiving music. I was worried about my cereal getting soggy. I can't remember whether I cleaned the kitchen before or after I ate dinner. That evening, I went to a multi-stake Halloween party, and I got lost and had to turn around in a FrontRunner parking lot. I was wearing a simple vampire costume--sharp teeth, a black shirt with red skulls, red shorts, and red shoes, with skull socks. There weren't many people there yet, and it was too noisy, so I didn't stay long. Someone stopped me and asked if I wanted my face painted, so they did. The guy said he was a professional who had been flown in from Vegas. I was a little uncomfortable with them working around my eyes. Then I went to a party hosted by some friends, Katria and Larissa. There were several people who came that I didn't know. One of them was dressed as Adam Lambert; another was wearing a child-size Ironman costume (he had to cut it up to get it on). There was a donut-bobbing game, but I didn't eat glazed donuts, so I ate the Halloween donuts from the Krispy Kreme box. There was a game where we had to guess foods without looking, and I did worse than I expected. Then they were discussing watching a Halloween show, and I left. When I got home, Scott was watching Wait Until Dark on TV. I asked him to take a picture of my face paint:

When Scott's movie was over, I put in The Munsters' Revenge. Scott had to leave at some point, and when he came back, he asked what he missed. When I told him they had escaped from jail, he said, "Oh, they're fugitives now." When the movie was over he said, "That's the movie you save for Halloween?" The only reason is because it is the longest. Then I got in my new pajamas, washed my face off a little bit, and went to bed.

November 1. I got up early because I had some things I needed to do. I turned on my Thanksgiving playlist (which was smaller then) while I cut up the pineapple and strawberries for my work lunch. Then I needed to do some editing for my group project, but cutting fruit took longer than expected. I think I got it done, though. I was wearing my roast turkey socks and I think my yellow shoes. Then I took my bowl of fruit to work before going to class; I also threw in some leftover candy. After my Old English class, I had to meet with my group in the library. Then I went to my work lunch--I thought I would be late, but they were just starting. Caitlin had brought small apples. There was some discussion about auto-correct--Eden was laughing at some that she was reading on her phone, but she couldn't tell us because they weren't appropriate. I reminded them of the time our editor-in-chief meant to write an email that said, "How do you like our about-face?" and it came out "How do you like our snout face?" That afternoon, I drove home--but first, I stopped at a few places to find clearance Halloween/Thanksgiving candy. Allen's grocery store had lots, but it was expensive still. Then I went to Fresh Market, but I think it was all gone already. When I got to North Salt Lake, I stopped at Winegar's and got some candy corn M&Ms and Starburst candy corn. Then I went home, where my parents told me that Free Birds had bad reviews. That night, I went downstairs and watched a YouTube video of The Mouse on the Mayflower on the big TV.

November 2. My family all went out to Centerville to see Free Birds. It was better than we expected. After the movie, we went to lunch at Chuck-A-Rama, since the next day was Fast Sunday. In Centerville, we went to the Sprint store to look at a smartphone for me. They were out of stock of the free one I wanted. I had talked to David to see what he recommended, but those were too expensive. We talked about our opinions of the movie; my dad said he didn't like how our ancestor (Myles Standish) was portrayed as a villain. I ate brownies with fall sprinkles on them. Then I went back to our house and brought out Thanksgiving decorations while I listened to my regular playlist, to which I had added my Thanksgiving music. Then I drove back to Provo, and I went to Rite Aid and Macey's to look at their clearance fall candy. And then I went to Walgreen's as well for the same purpose, even though I was tired and wanted to get back to my apartment.

Related:
October 27
  October 28
October 29
All Hallows' Eve Eve
A Pillowcase Full of Trick-or-Treat Memories
All Saints' Day
Day of the Dead
October 30-November 1, 2012