The Sunday after Thanksgiving is the first Sunday of the Christmas season. I'm going to remember what I can about the day.
2014. We were driving out of California, and my parents wanted me to turn on my Christmas playlist from my phone. We loaded up our car early in the morning while everyone was asleep. Throughout the day we munched on grapes, bagels with lunch meat, sugar cookie Pop-Tarts, chocolate candy cane granola bars, and candy cane Tootsie Pops. A lot of the music that played was remnants from my Halloween music (since it had recently been played on my phone), meaning it was Nightmare before Christmas. At one point Jan Terri's "Rock and Roll Santa" came on, but I was disappointed when it stopped streaming. My parents had had enough when Marilyn Manson's cover of "This Is Halloween" came on. Then they switched to a Beauty and the Beast tape. It was snowy as we were driving through Nevada, and I remembered that we had forgotten our Hotel Transylvania DVD and my pumpkin-shaped pie dish. After we got into Utah, they turned on FM 100.3. They played one Christmas song, noting that Christmas music wouldn't be in their Sunday lineup until the next week (even though they play Christmas music way early on weekdays). They played a song about moms praying for their missionary sons, and my mom related to it. We went home and unloaded some of the stuff from my car. Then my mom and I went to my grandparents' place, where my niece had been staying. My grandparents offered us leftover Thanksgiving dinner. My mom didn't eat much, but I had a couple of helpings. There were pieces of bone in the turkey. My grandma was telling my mom how a longtime family friend was in serious condition after a treadmill accident (and he did pass away from the injuries). When Allie came home, she had some of the sugar cookie Pop-Tarts and said, "These are good." I think she even took one into her room so she could have it the next morning. I wrote a blog.
2013. I don't really remember this day, but Facebook tells me I wrote on both of my blogs and was excited about Mideau's free download of "O Holy Night." I think I watched "The Nativity."
2012. The ward clerk, Michael Wyatt, had asked me to take his place at bishopric meeting that morning, so I did, wearing my polar bear tie. My roommate Scott later asked about my tie and said it was winter themed; I thought it was more Christmassy than wintery because of the North Pole. Again, I wrote on both blogs, and I think I watched "The Nativity."
2011. I gave a talk at my sacrament meeting, which you can read here. Paul Castleberry told me I gave an "epic talk."
2010. It was snowy, so I asked my dad to drive me up to my church (I think I had tithing settlement). He did, and then my family came to hear me talk. I had told Allie that she needed to be quiet at church, because my sacrament meeting was quieter than the family ward and she had a tendency to talk. Consequently she didn't want to go. Michelle Moosman talked to my parents after sacrament meeting, and my mom told her why Allie hadn't wanted to come, and Michelle said, "We do have a quiet sacrament meeting." I asked Peter Moosman to drive me home; he regretted having worn Toms on a snowy day. I told him he didn't need to drive down Raygene, because I could walk, but he did drive me. He was listening to the Nashville Tribute Band Joseph album, saying he didn't like country but loved that one. I told him I had bought it at an LDS bookstore in my mission boundaries, and he said that was lucky, because he didn't have one in Kentucky.
2009. I was very sad to leave my final area of Lewiston, Idaho. At church, Brother Robinson (I think?) presented me with some farewell goodies: Power Bars, because I had "the power," and a pomegranate for the seeds I planted, and a pear for the fruits of my labors. One of my converts, Katelyn Heath, told me she had been to the temple for baptisms the day before, and I was very happy for her. During sacrament meeting for the YSA branch, I leaned over to Elder Tamblyn and told him it was time for me to leave, so he came out in the foyer to wish me goodbye. Then I got in the car with the Robisons (not Robinsons), who were driving me up to Spokane. We had to stop in Pullman to pick up Elder Hansen, but he had his suitcase locked in their car, and his companion had gone across the state border to go to church in Moscow, so we had to wait for him to return. I think the Robisons gave us some food they had packed, and I also ate my goodies, including the pomegranate, which Elder Hansen called a "weird fruit." I made myself add to my pushup queue for eating Power Bars. Then the Robisons dropped us off at the mission home. I remember asking Elder Bewley about the Carter children I had taught in my first area, whom he had apparently baptized later. He said that Jonathan was twelve and got up in testimony meeting and gave a very dynamic testimony, almost comically so. I told the story of one time when we were trying to get them to guess "Holy Ghost," and they were guessing all sorts of random things ("Nephi!"), and when we told them the Holy Ghost, Alex (a girl) said, "I know a real haunted house!" President Palmer asked how old Alex had been. I went in for my interview with him, and he asked what my longterm plans were. He told me that dates didn't need to be big things; they could just be going for ice cream at the Wilkinson Center. President Palmer's son Geoffrey was telling us about the Star Trek movie. I noticed that President had a book on his shelf about Mormons and evolution, and I remembered I'd have to read it sometime (and hoped my evil companion Elder LaPratt would see it). I was very sad and cried when I went to bed. (I've moved on with my life now, but writing this does fill me with nostalgia and a little bit of sadness.)
2008. Lucrecia, an excommunicated member, came to church, and she wanted to meet with the branch president, because she was very desirous to be baptized. Since she was our only investigator, we waited to start our Sunday School class until she was there (the others were a single sister and our branch mission leader and his wife). She was very happy when she came in. She told us what the branch president had said she needed to do for baptism--no coffee, no cigarettes, no alcohol, and then she could talk to him again. Our lesson that day just happened to be chastity. It was very awkward. The lesson said, "Breaking the law of chastity can cause you to commit a greater sin, abortion," to which Lucrecia said, "I forgot to tell him about that. It wasn't my fault, the government made me do it." Sister Moffett kept pronouncing it "prah-creation." That night we visited the Johnsons, and Denise told us she wanted us to teach chastity to her daughter. I did write in my journal that night, but I think it would be inappropriate to put here.
2007. Family members were coming up for my farewell talk. Sarena was admiring our Little People nativity and Pilgrims, and I was surprised she hadn't heard of Fisher Price Little People before. A member of the stake presidency was presiding at our meeting, and he said he had been in our ward when I was a kid. One of my mission prep teachers was in the congregation, and so was Rachel Cope. During my talk, I explained that I had come to terms with going on my mission until I sprained my ankle and thought I would have to wait longer. I talked about Joseph Smith's Civil War prophecy, and I talked about some of my coworkers. I had a Muslim coworker who thought that another coworker was a Mormon, but I didn't think so--the Muslim said she could tell Mormons because they were very nice, and she turned out to be right about the other girl. I also talked about the coworker who had been on a mission but obviously wasn't active in the Church--"She had the same name as a villain in a Disney movie, and it fit her perfectly." I didn't know whether she was mean because she quit the Church or if she quit the Church because she was mean. After sacrament meeting, my bishop asked me into his office and gave me a Boy Scout coin to take with me. As I came out, Hillary Ulmer, Latecia Pope, and Rachel Cope (all of them married now) noted that I was indeed limping. They asked, "Was your coworker named Maleficent, Ursula, Cruella, or [someone else--maybe Yzma?]?" When I said Ursula, Rachel said it was no wonder she was mean, growing up with a name like that. My cousins tried to get me to go home, but I opted to stay at church. During Sunday School, the topic was being a "peculiar people," and someone cited my talk. After church, Austin Anderson asked me if my coworker's name was Cruella, and I told him Ursula.
2003. I wrote in my journal:
"I've been bad this weekend [devious face] I've had too much chocolate (hot chocolate and candy) and eggnog. I haven't written in my journal, and I didn't read much. Oh, well. This week I'm not going to watch T.V. period. As a seminary class we're going to sing "Hark the Herald Angels Sing" for the school. I've been learning the tenor part. It's too high but only one note higher than the bass, and the bass goes too low. This week I have put up Christmas Decorations."
1999-1997. We might have been decorating our Christmas tree in 1997. I can remember one Sunday when my mom was late to sit with us at church (she might have been at choir practice), and she was disappointed that the opening hymn was an ordinary hymn: "I wanted to sing a Christmas song." I pointed out that the closing hymn was "The First Noel."
Showing posts with label 1998. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 1998. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 24, 2015
Sunday, April 26, 2015
Movies I've seen in theaters
I don't see movies that often, and I tell people, "If you name a movie, I probably haven't seen it."
Therefore, I'm going to try to remember all the movies I have seen in theaters. I will undoubtedly miss some, especially those from when I was very young. (I probably saw Aladdin in theaters, but I don't remember it.) I'm only counting regular theaters. I'm not going to count documentary-type films seen at the Clark Planetarium, such as Beavers.
The Flintstones. We saw this at a drive-in, but I remember more about the second feature, which was Jurassic Park. My mom thought it would be too scary for me, so she made me go to sleep in the front seat (we had our trunk open and facing the screen). I was peeking over the seat, and I remember seeing the scene with the animated DNA. Every time my mom looked back, I would duck behind the seat. I thought she didn't know what I was doing, but she probably did.
The Lion King. It seems like we saw this movie after a day of back-to-school shopping. I remember going home that day and telling my dad we saw lions.
The Pagemaster. This was a birthday party for Jonathan Martin. We were supposed to see The Swan Princess, but when we got to the theater, we got to take a vote whether to see Swan Princess or Pagemaster. I voted Swan Princess, but I ended up loving The Pagemaster.
The Santa Clause. This was a family outing.
Pocahontas. I think we saw this at a drive-in, and I brought the McDonald's Happy Meal tie-in toy I had. However, I don't remember what the second feature was. I think this is the only time I've ever seen this movie.
Toy Story. My uncle Paul took me and my Thompson cousins to see this a few days after Christmas (I remember "Feliz Navidad" playing on the radio). When we left the theater, it was raining, and Paul said, "It's probably snowing at Strawberry." They asked what our favorite parts were, and Paul said, "Mark's was probably the Christmas part."
Nell. This was definitely not an appropriate movie for a six-year-old. Since I was so much younger than my siblings, I think my family had to take me to a lot of movies they wouldn't otherwise take me to.
The Indian in the Cupboard. We were going to this movie with Uncle Paul and his kids. Susanne left a note for our parents that we went to see the movie; she asked David, "How do you spell cupboard?" and that was the first time I learned to spell "cupboard." David got mad at me because he had to take me to the bathroom during the "best part" of the movie.
Phenomenon. This was at the drive-in with my Thompson cousins, and they had brought small plastic lawn chairs. I'm not sure why this was the first movie.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This was the second feature that night. This is the only time I've ever seen this movie.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park. My mom and my siblings and I went to see this with my grandparents.
Star Trek: Insurrection? I know I saw some Star Trek movie with my family, but I don't remember what one. I didn't know the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek. I remember telling my friend David Christensen that I had seen a Star Wars movie with a lady in a black dress, and he laughed and said, "That wasn't a lady!" because he thought I was talking about Darth Vader.
The Parent Trap. I had a broken leg, and we went in our white station wagon to the drive-in. I think my cousin Tammy was with us.
Mulan. This was the second feature that night. When we were leaving, I remember the "True to Your Heart" song playing on the radio. I was also thinking about the creepy music from The Black Cauldron, which we had recently purchased.
The Waterboy. In November 1998, we had gone to Cedar City for my cousin Kim's wedding. That night, the entire extended family went to see this. I'm not sure why they chose this movie (I know it wasn't my own family's decision), because there were lots of kids in the family. My mom told me to close my eyes in one scene, but they didn't show anything.
A Bug's Life. We stopped and saw this movie on our way to Fillmore on New Year's Eve 1998 (almost 1999).
My Favorite Martian. My aunt had some tickets to a pre-screening of the movie, so my cousins and I went, along with my aunt's friend Susan and her kids. When I think about these movies from my childhood, I see that PG-rated movies have really toned it down. I've been watching the original My Favorite Martian series on Hulu, and it's pretty bad.
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. When we were watching this, the tape melted. I remember seeing the bubbling on the screen and thought it was just part of the movie. We were all taken in to another theater that was also showing the movie but had started a little later. I remember basically nothing about this movie. I also remember nothing about episode IV, the only other Star Wars movie I've ever seen, so I can basically say I've never seen Star Wars.
The Iron Giant. I saw this for my birthday with my friends David and Brad. There is one scene that I can remember that I'm pretty sure is from this movie, but it was taken out for the home video release--unless it's from a totally different movie. Hogarth makes an ice cream sundae while his mom is on the phone telling him only to eat healthy things, and while he's eating the cherry from the top, he says, "I'm eating something healthy right now!"
Toy Story 2. My family saw this on the day after Thanksgiving in 1999. There was one little kid who kept yelling and cheering with the movie.
Chicken Run. This was another birthday movie; I saw it with my friends David and Cory.
The Grinch. My parents took me to see this movie the day after Christmas in 2000, at the no-longer-existing theater on 2600 South near Woods Cross High. Then I went home and read the book and watched the TV special to compare them all.
Shrek. I actually don't really remember seeing this, but it might have been with my cousin Jesse.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. My sister came with us and had brought her friend's six-year-old son, and he kept wanting her to offer me popcorn and other treats.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I found this movie boring.
Monsters Inc. I saw this with my parents.
Spider-Man (2002). My aunt Sarena was in town and she insisted on taking me to the movie, but I think I still had to pay for my own ticket. This is the only Spiderman movie I've ever seen.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I know I saw this, but I don't remember much about seeing it.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I think this was at a dollar theater. I was bored by the first one, so I was reluctant to see this one, but my brother told me it was better. I went with him and Ya-ping, and I still found it boring. I've haven't seen any Lord of the Rings movies since then.
Holes. A 2003 drive-in trip.
Finding Nemo. Part of the same drive-in visit. I actually saw it twice in the theater. The second time was with Paul and my cousins. Tammy thought it might be too scary for her kids because of the shark, but I found it hilarious that two-year-old Anna said "the sark" was her favorite part. There was a grown woman who kept laughing and screaming loudly.
Elf . My family saw this on Ya-ping's birthday in 2003.
Shrek 2. While we were waiting in the theater to go into our theater, we passed one-year-old Allie around. When the movie was over, my mom and sister said they didn't know Julie Andrews was in the movie, but I had seen that on the movie poster.
The Incredibles. This was the day after Thanksgiving, and I think we saw it before some of us went to Target. I was disappointed in the movie's language.
March of the Penguins. I think we saw this movie because I liked polar regions.
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I had reluctantly agreed to go to the drive-in on this October Saturday night.
Corpse Bride. This was the second movie that night, and I loved it. Our radio shut off during the climax scene, but we got it started again.
Cars. We saw this on July 3 in the Fillmore movie theater, which only has one theater. Allie was not quite three and Preston was one and a half. Allie fell asleep during the movie, but Preston didn't, and he said, "Car?" when the movie was over. When we got back to Grandma Judy's house, Preston was laughing at sleeping Allie and was trying to poke her.
Charlotte's Web. I saw this my senior year in high school.
Shrek the Third. Susanne took me and Allie to this movie, and she had smuggled in some frozen Junior Mints. This movie renewed Allie's interest in Shrek.
The Nightmare before Christmas 3D. This was released in 3D in 2006, but I didn't see it until 2007, on the day before Halloween. It was my mom, my sister, Allie, and my cousin Quin, who was thirteen. Susanne was annoyed that we made her sit by him and said that she had to watch him more than she did Allie.
Alice in Wonderland. I think this was the first movie I saw in a theater after my mission. My mom and dad met me to see it in Provo, and my dad wanted to see it in 3D.
Toy Story 3. We saw this in August 2010, just after I moved back home for the fall. My sister was wearing her "Advice from a Bat" shirt.
Tangled. We saw this in December 2010. Allie had already seen it, and when Flynn Ryder was mortally wounded, she assured us, "He's not really dead." She didn't have the concept of Spoiler Alert.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. I don't really watch PG-13 movies, but a special set of circumstances led me to see this one. I think my grandma was in the hospital for some reason at this time.
Puss in Boots. We saw this on October 29, 2011, right after my parents made their very last house payment.
Hugo. We saw this in December or November of 2011. We saw it in 3D, and I didn't think it worked very well in 3D.
Arthur Christmas. I believe it was December 27 when we saw this movie in West Valley, so Christmas was already over.
The Lorax. On May 14, 2012, my roommate Bryton invited several people to go see a late showing at the dollar theater. Our little group had the whole theater to ourselves. It wasn't a great movie.
Frankenweenie. My parents met me in Provo on October 20, 2012, to see this movie. I had to see it. Sadly, this movie was overshadowed by Hotel Transylvania, an inferior flick.
Free Birds. My parents took me to this movie on November 2, 2013. I had to see it, since Thanksgiving movies are so rare.
Frozen. We saw this with my aunt's family on the day after Thanksgiving.
The Lego Movie. Last May, many members of my ward wanted to see this at the dollar theater. I rode with one Jarom Redhair, a very rude individual. It was a hilarious movie, and I understood why it sold out that night.
How to Train Your Dragon 2. We saw this at a drive-in last summer in California with my nephews.
Maleficent. This was the second feature that night, and our car battery died, so it was very hard to hear, but we got the gist of what was going on. My nephew Franklin seemed fine with the movie, but he initially wasn't keen on seeing a princess movie.
Meet the Mormons. I saw this opening weekend last October. I didn't think it was really that great for it to be released in mainstream theaters.
I'm sure I've seen others. And as soon as I post this, I will remember more.
Therefore, I'm going to try to remember all the movies I have seen in theaters. I will undoubtedly miss some, especially those from when I was very young. (I probably saw Aladdin in theaters, but I don't remember it.) I'm only counting regular theaters. I'm not going to count documentary-type films seen at the Clark Planetarium, such as Beavers.
The Flintstones. We saw this at a drive-in, but I remember more about the second feature, which was Jurassic Park. My mom thought it would be too scary for me, so she made me go to sleep in the front seat (we had our trunk open and facing the screen). I was peeking over the seat, and I remember seeing the scene with the animated DNA. Every time my mom looked back, I would duck behind the seat. I thought she didn't know what I was doing, but she probably did.
The Lion King. It seems like we saw this movie after a day of back-to-school shopping. I remember going home that day and telling my dad we saw lions.
The Pagemaster. This was a birthday party for Jonathan Martin. We were supposed to see The Swan Princess, but when we got to the theater, we got to take a vote whether to see Swan Princess or Pagemaster. I voted Swan Princess, but I ended up loving The Pagemaster.
The Santa Clause. This was a family outing.
Pocahontas. I think we saw this at a drive-in, and I brought the McDonald's Happy Meal tie-in toy I had. However, I don't remember what the second feature was. I think this is the only time I've ever seen this movie.
Toy Story. My uncle Paul took me and my Thompson cousins to see this a few days after Christmas (I remember "Feliz Navidad" playing on the radio). When we left the theater, it was raining, and Paul said, "It's probably snowing at Strawberry." They asked what our favorite parts were, and Paul said, "Mark's was probably the Christmas part."
Nell. This was definitely not an appropriate movie for a six-year-old. Since I was so much younger than my siblings, I think my family had to take me to a lot of movies they wouldn't otherwise take me to.
The Indian in the Cupboard. We were going to this movie with Uncle Paul and his kids. Susanne left a note for our parents that we went to see the movie; she asked David, "How do you spell cupboard?" and that was the first time I learned to spell "cupboard." David got mad at me because he had to take me to the bathroom during the "best part" of the movie.
Phenomenon. This was at the drive-in with my Thompson cousins, and they had brought small plastic lawn chairs. I'm not sure why this was the first movie.
The Hunchback of Notre Dame. This was the second feature that night. This is the only time I've ever seen this movie.
The Lost World: Jurassic Park. My mom and my siblings and I went to see this with my grandparents.
Star Trek: Insurrection? I know I saw some Star Trek movie with my family, but I don't remember what one. I didn't know the difference between Star Wars and Star Trek. I remember telling my friend David Christensen that I had seen a Star Wars movie with a lady in a black dress, and he laughed and said, "That wasn't a lady!" because he thought I was talking about Darth Vader.
The Parent Trap. I had a broken leg, and we went in our white station wagon to the drive-in. I think my cousin Tammy was with us.
Mulan. This was the second feature that night. When we were leaving, I remember the "True to Your Heart" song playing on the radio. I was also thinking about the creepy music from The Black Cauldron, which we had recently purchased.
The Waterboy. In November 1998, we had gone to Cedar City for my cousin Kim's wedding. That night, the entire extended family went to see this. I'm not sure why they chose this movie (I know it wasn't my own family's decision), because there were lots of kids in the family. My mom told me to close my eyes in one scene, but they didn't show anything.
A Bug's Life. We stopped and saw this movie on our way to Fillmore on New Year's Eve 1998 (almost 1999).
My Favorite Martian. My aunt had some tickets to a pre-screening of the movie, so my cousins and I went, along with my aunt's friend Susan and her kids. When I think about these movies from my childhood, I see that PG-rated movies have really toned it down. I've been watching the original My Favorite Martian series on Hulu, and it's pretty bad.
Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. When we were watching this, the tape melted. I remember seeing the bubbling on the screen and thought it was just part of the movie. We were all taken in to another theater that was also showing the movie but had started a little later. I remember basically nothing about this movie. I also remember nothing about episode IV, the only other Star Wars movie I've ever seen, so I can basically say I've never seen Star Wars.
The Iron Giant. I saw this for my birthday with my friends David and Brad. There is one scene that I can remember that I'm pretty sure is from this movie, but it was taken out for the home video release--unless it's from a totally different movie. Hogarth makes an ice cream sundae while his mom is on the phone telling him only to eat healthy things, and while he's eating the cherry from the top, he says, "I'm eating something healthy right now!"
Toy Story 2. My family saw this on the day after Thanksgiving in 1999. There was one little kid who kept yelling and cheering with the movie.
Chicken Run. This was another birthday movie; I saw it with my friends David and Cory.
The Grinch. My parents took me to see this movie the day after Christmas in 2000, at the no-longer-existing theater on 2600 South near Woods Cross High. Then I went home and read the book and watched the TV special to compare them all.
Shrek. I actually don't really remember seeing this, but it might have been with my cousin Jesse.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. My sister came with us and had brought her friend's six-year-old son, and he kept wanting her to offer me popcorn and other treats.
The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. I found this movie boring.
Monsters Inc. I saw this with my parents.
Spider-Man (2002). My aunt Sarena was in town and she insisted on taking me to the movie, but I think I still had to pay for my own ticket. This is the only Spiderman movie I've ever seen.
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I know I saw this, but I don't remember much about seeing it.
The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I think this was at a dollar theater. I was bored by the first one, so I was reluctant to see this one, but my brother told me it was better. I went with him and Ya-ping, and I still found it boring. I've haven't seen any Lord of the Rings movies since then.
Holes. A 2003 drive-in trip.
Finding Nemo. Part of the same drive-in visit. I actually saw it twice in the theater. The second time was with Paul and my cousins. Tammy thought it might be too scary for her kids because of the shark, but I found it hilarious that two-year-old Anna said "the sark" was her favorite part. There was a grown woman who kept laughing and screaming loudly.
Elf . My family saw this on Ya-ping's birthday in 2003.
Shrek 2. While we were waiting in the theater to go into our theater, we passed one-year-old Allie around. When the movie was over, my mom and sister said they didn't know Julie Andrews was in the movie, but I had seen that on the movie poster.
The Incredibles. This was the day after Thanksgiving, and I think we saw it before some of us went to Target. I was disappointed in the movie's language.
March of the Penguins. I think we saw this movie because I liked polar regions.
Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I had reluctantly agreed to go to the drive-in on this October Saturday night.
Corpse Bride. This was the second movie that night, and I loved it. Our radio shut off during the climax scene, but we got it started again.
Cars. We saw this on July 3 in the Fillmore movie theater, which only has one theater. Allie was not quite three and Preston was one and a half. Allie fell asleep during the movie, but Preston didn't, and he said, "Car?" when the movie was over. When we got back to Grandma Judy's house, Preston was laughing at sleeping Allie and was trying to poke her.
Charlotte's Web. I saw this my senior year in high school.
Shrek the Third. Susanne took me and Allie to this movie, and she had smuggled in some frozen Junior Mints. This movie renewed Allie's interest in Shrek.
The Nightmare before Christmas 3D. This was released in 3D in 2006, but I didn't see it until 2007, on the day before Halloween. It was my mom, my sister, Allie, and my cousin Quin, who was thirteen. Susanne was annoyed that we made her sit by him and said that she had to watch him more than she did Allie.
Alice in Wonderland. I think this was the first movie I saw in a theater after my mission. My mom and dad met me to see it in Provo, and my dad wanted to see it in 3D.
Toy Story 3. We saw this in August 2010, just after I moved back home for the fall. My sister was wearing her "Advice from a Bat" shirt.
Tangled. We saw this in December 2010. Allie had already seen it, and when Flynn Ryder was mortally wounded, she assured us, "He's not really dead." She didn't have the concept of Spoiler Alert.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. I don't really watch PG-13 movies, but a special set of circumstances led me to see this one. I think my grandma was in the hospital for some reason at this time.
Puss in Boots. We saw this on October 29, 2011, right after my parents made their very last house payment.
Hugo. We saw this in December or November of 2011. We saw it in 3D, and I didn't think it worked very well in 3D.
Arthur Christmas. I believe it was December 27 when we saw this movie in West Valley, so Christmas was already over.
The Lorax. On May 14, 2012, my roommate Bryton invited several people to go see a late showing at the dollar theater. Our little group had the whole theater to ourselves. It wasn't a great movie.
Frankenweenie. My parents met me in Provo on October 20, 2012, to see this movie. I had to see it. Sadly, this movie was overshadowed by Hotel Transylvania, an inferior flick.
Free Birds. My parents took me to this movie on November 2, 2013. I had to see it, since Thanksgiving movies are so rare.
Frozen. We saw this with my aunt's family on the day after Thanksgiving.
The Lego Movie. Last May, many members of my ward wanted to see this at the dollar theater. I rode with one Jarom Redhair, a very rude individual. It was a hilarious movie, and I understood why it sold out that night.
How to Train Your Dragon 2. We saw this at a drive-in last summer in California with my nephews.
Maleficent. This was the second feature that night, and our car battery died, so it was very hard to hear, but we got the gist of what was going on. My nephew Franklin seemed fine with the movie, but he initially wasn't keen on seeing a princess movie.
Meet the Mormons. I saw this opening weekend last October. I didn't think it was really that great for it to be released in mainstream theaters.
I'm sure I've seen others. And as soon as I post this, I will remember more.
Sunday, February 1, 2015
Conversation hearts
You know those chalky little hearts we always get in February? Love 'em or hate 'em, they are a ubiquitous part of Valentine's Day. (I'm actually surprised there aren't things flavored like them, like there are lots of candy corn-flavored things.) With it being nearly Valentine's Day, I'm going to remember incidents connected with them.
In preschool, one day we were in the upstairs dance hall, playing around, and when we were done playing, our teacher gave us some with faces on them. (I noticed that was different, so I obviously had had them before that.)
When I was in kindergarten, I decided I wanted to do a Valentine's adaptation of Santa Claus, so when we were at Kmart one night, I wanted to get a bag of the hearts. I made stockings out of paper and drew hearts on them and stapled the front and back pieces together. I was going to wait until Valentine's Day, but I couldn't wait, so I got up really early one morning, when it was still dark and my siblings were getting ready for their school, and I put the hearts in the stockings I had made. I remembered seeing pictures of Santa with his finger over his mouth, so I did that, and then I asked Susanne if she knew why I did that. She said she thought it was because I was telling her to be quiet, but I said that wasn't why. I remember her saying the yellow ones were her favorite.
One January in 1998 or so, I was at Food 4 Less in Bountiful, the one by the no-longer-existing Five Points Mall. I begged my parents to get me a box of them, and they did. There was another girl who got her mom to get a whole bunch of them for a party.
In third grade, my friend David Christensen gave me his valentine at recess, and it had a few "lacy" conversation hearts in it.
Another time, perhaps around 2000, our home teacher's wife, Ivy Petersen, was visiting us and said she loved conversation hearts and got them right after Christmas. But she didn't like the purple ones, saying they "taste like perfume."
On Valentine's Day 2001, I was at mutual, and I remember someone in another ward saying some girls had helped her decorate sugar cookies, and some of them had conversation hearts. I thought that was a horrible topping for a cookie.
In junior high, I remember talking with my friend Houston about how the white ones were our favorites. Around that time, my family bought a bag that was all white, but they were a strong peppermint instead of the mellow wintergreen in the regular mix. My dad loved them.
On Valentine's Day in eighth grade, I awkwardly gave handfuls of the hearts to girls from my ward as they walked past me on the bus.
One year, perhaps in 2005, I was dismayed that I hadn't had any conversation hearts, and my mom had only a few that she got from her class, and they were weird ones.
In 2006, I put a bunch of conversation hearts in a dish downstairs. Months later, they still weren't gone, and my nephew Preston (between 19 and 21 months) knew they were up on the shelf. He had his own language, with some words in English, some in Chinese, and some that he had invented himself. His word for candy was "ba." (My guess is that it was the way he tried to say "pop," as in "Otter Pop.") He would beg for "ba," so I would get one for him.
A few days after Christmas in 2007, on my mission, we had visited our investigator Cindy, and she gave us boxes of conversation hearts. I think they were of the "smoothie" variety. Perhaps that day, or at least very soon after that, we were out shoveling the driveway where we lived, and I slipped a little bit. I didn't fall, but somehow my slip hurt my ankle, and I felt like I had sprained it again. So I went inside and read on my bed while eating the conversation hearts.
I got some in a package from my mom in 2009, but I got transferred right before Valentine's Day, so I didn't eat many of them before I went to my new area. (I didn't want to take them with me.)
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2010, I was at Walmart with my family, and I got a bag. They were different from the ones I was used to, and they even had a blue one. That night I went to my dinner group in Provo, and the host had bought some cookies that were heart-shaped with messages on them. That led to a conversation about the candies, and someone said how bad they were, and I told them they had changed them and they were better.
In 2013, I put some ice cream-flavored ones in a jar in my apartment for a decoration. My roommate Cameron loved them, and one day I discovered one on the stairs outside our apartment, I think because our friend Carissa had taken some with her and dropped one. That heart was on the step for months. After he had eaten some, he bought two new bags--one was the ice cream kind like I had, and one was the large version of the fruit variety. He asked me which I would prefer him to put in (he correctly guessed that the ones I had were the ice cream ones); I can't remember what I said. Once Valentine's Day was over, I transferred them to a bowl, but then I quit eating them, and apparently Cameron quit eating them, because they sat in the bowl for months until I decided they were too dusty to be good for anything. (Come to think of it, it was around that time Cameron decided he was too good for us. So apparently he was too good for the hearts, too.)
In preschool, one day we were in the upstairs dance hall, playing around, and when we were done playing, our teacher gave us some with faces on them. (I noticed that was different, so I obviously had had them before that.)
When I was in kindergarten, I decided I wanted to do a Valentine's adaptation of Santa Claus, so when we were at Kmart one night, I wanted to get a bag of the hearts. I made stockings out of paper and drew hearts on them and stapled the front and back pieces together. I was going to wait until Valentine's Day, but I couldn't wait, so I got up really early one morning, when it was still dark and my siblings were getting ready for their school, and I put the hearts in the stockings I had made. I remembered seeing pictures of Santa with his finger over his mouth, so I did that, and then I asked Susanne if she knew why I did that. She said she thought it was because I was telling her to be quiet, but I said that wasn't why. I remember her saying the yellow ones were her favorite.
One January in 1998 or so, I was at Food 4 Less in Bountiful, the one by the no-longer-existing Five Points Mall. I begged my parents to get me a box of them, and they did. There was another girl who got her mom to get a whole bunch of them for a party.
In third grade, my friend David Christensen gave me his valentine at recess, and it had a few "lacy" conversation hearts in it.
Another time, perhaps around 2000, our home teacher's wife, Ivy Petersen, was visiting us and said she loved conversation hearts and got them right after Christmas. But she didn't like the purple ones, saying they "taste like perfume."
On Valentine's Day 2001, I was at mutual, and I remember someone in another ward saying some girls had helped her decorate sugar cookies, and some of them had conversation hearts. I thought that was a horrible topping for a cookie.
In junior high, I remember talking with my friend Houston about how the white ones were our favorites. Around that time, my family bought a bag that was all white, but they were a strong peppermint instead of the mellow wintergreen in the regular mix. My dad loved them.
On Valentine's Day in eighth grade, I awkwardly gave handfuls of the hearts to girls from my ward as they walked past me on the bus.
One year, perhaps in 2005, I was dismayed that I hadn't had any conversation hearts, and my mom had only a few that she got from her class, and they were weird ones.
In 2006, I put a bunch of conversation hearts in a dish downstairs. Months later, they still weren't gone, and my nephew Preston (between 19 and 21 months) knew they were up on the shelf. He had his own language, with some words in English, some in Chinese, and some that he had invented himself. His word for candy was "ba." (My guess is that it was the way he tried to say "pop," as in "Otter Pop.") He would beg for "ba," so I would get one for him.
A few days after Christmas in 2007, on my mission, we had visited our investigator Cindy, and she gave us boxes of conversation hearts. I think they were of the "smoothie" variety. Perhaps that day, or at least very soon after that, we were out shoveling the driveway where we lived, and I slipped a little bit. I didn't fall, but somehow my slip hurt my ankle, and I felt like I had sprained it again. So I went inside and read on my bed while eating the conversation hearts.
I got some in a package from my mom in 2009, but I got transferred right before Valentine's Day, so I didn't eat many of them before I went to my new area. (I didn't want to take them with me.)
On Martin Luther King Jr. Day in 2010, I was at Walmart with my family, and I got a bag. They were different from the ones I was used to, and they even had a blue one. That night I went to my dinner group in Provo, and the host had bought some cookies that were heart-shaped with messages on them. That led to a conversation about the candies, and someone said how bad they were, and I told them they had changed them and they were better.
In 2013, I put some ice cream-flavored ones in a jar in my apartment for a decoration. My roommate Cameron loved them, and one day I discovered one on the stairs outside our apartment, I think because our friend Carissa had taken some with her and dropped one. That heart was on the step for months. After he had eaten some, he bought two new bags--one was the ice cream kind like I had, and one was the large version of the fruit variety. He asked me which I would prefer him to put in (he correctly guessed that the ones I had were the ice cream ones); I can't remember what I said. Once Valentine's Day was over, I transferred them to a bowl, but then I quit eating them, and apparently Cameron quit eating them, because they sat in the bowl for months until I decided they were too dusty to be good for anything. (Come to think of it, it was around that time Cameron decided he was too good for us. So apparently he was too good for the hearts, too.)
Sunday, October 26, 2014
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.
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.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
The day after Easter
Well, the trio of Valentine's Day/St. Patrick's Day/Easter is coming to an end, so I'm going to remember what I can about the day after Easter.
2013. We were having FHE at our bishop's house, so I rode with Joel DeVore up to Bishop's. On the way there, one of the passengers was playing solitaire on his laptop. They were talking about The Onion, and I said that on April Fool's Day the Onion should run real news. When we got there, I admired Bishop's granite boulder, like I usually do. (It's inside his house.) When we left, I remember there was a discussion about dubstep. I was impressed with Google's treasure map theme, and I appreciated the Delicate Arch and Salt Lake Temple pictures they put on the map.
2012. I needed to do some grocery shopping, since I hadn't done it over the weekend. For some reason I went to Shopko, and I was surprised to see they already had patriotic Tootsie Roll Pops and Tootsie Rolls. I went over to Buy Low Market, where I had never been before. I could see why, because their oranges, while very cheap, were moldy. I remember seeing a lady buy a bunch of clearance Easter M&Ms, but I didn't because they were out of season.
2011. I would have driven back to Provo. I remember lying on my bed, looking at things and listening to music. My new roommate Nate Gardner came in and said hi to me--it seemed like he knew who I was from high school, but I didn't know him. I was doing situps and watching some Peanuts specials, when both my new roommate Chase Elwood and, at another time, my roommate Zach Zimmerman came in. Zach came in right at the scene in It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown about which I had shown him a YouTube video that showed that the audio was backwards.
2010. I went to my math class, and another student asked what conference talk was my favorite. I said I liked Elder Holland's; he said it wasn't his favorite, as it was another pornography talk.
2009. I'm not sure, but it's possible this was the day we called a member of the ward to give us a ride, since the other elders for some reason couldn't give us one, and the member came in his pickup truck, and he had expected us not to be dressed up, since it was P-day (even though we were required to wear our proselyting clothes when we were in public). He thought that if we weren't dressed up, we could ride in the back of the truck--which was also against the rules. I moved some papers over on the seat to make room in the cab, and he said the papers were very important to him. I assured him I would be careful. I don't think we called him again.
2008. I remember eating most or all of the fake chocolate ("mockolate") bunny that Sister Welsh gave me.
2006. I remember coming home from school and seeing that my family had gone shopping at Kmart. They got clearance Easter toys, little eggs that would spin around after you pulled the cord out. They also bought the movie A Boy Named Charlie Brown. I watched it, and I remember thinking that maybe it had a message for me, since I would be in the French spelling bee the next day.
2004. I had to turn in the Isaiah assignment that my terrible seminary teacher made us do. (Seriously. That guy should have been fired.)
2001. There had been a teacher strike earlier in the year, so we had to go to school on this day, even though normally it would have been a day off. There weren't many students there; I remember Mr. Unger (who I think was acting as a secretary at that time) was saying he could only remember one other day in all his teaching with such low attendance. My mom wasn't happy that I went to school that day.
2000, or 1999. It was on one of these years when I was in the kitchen trying to make a deviled egg (or maybe egg salad) and somehow I made it awful. While I was eating it, my mom's friend Jackie came over.
1998. My mom picked me up from my cousins' house. We went to Sam's Club, and I was talking about how early I wanted to go to bed that week, because I was super tired; I said I wanted to go to bed early on Friday, but she told me Sabrina the Teenage Witch would be on. We saw my teacher, Mrs. Fisher, at the checkout, and I was so tired I could hardly talk to her.
2013. We were having FHE at our bishop's house, so I rode with Joel DeVore up to Bishop's. On the way there, one of the passengers was playing solitaire on his laptop. They were talking about The Onion, and I said that on April Fool's Day the Onion should run real news. When we got there, I admired Bishop's granite boulder, like I usually do. (It's inside his house.) When we left, I remember there was a discussion about dubstep. I was impressed with Google's treasure map theme, and I appreciated the Delicate Arch and Salt Lake Temple pictures they put on the map.
2012. I needed to do some grocery shopping, since I hadn't done it over the weekend. For some reason I went to Shopko, and I was surprised to see they already had patriotic Tootsie Roll Pops and Tootsie Rolls. I went over to Buy Low Market, where I had never been before. I could see why, because their oranges, while very cheap, were moldy. I remember seeing a lady buy a bunch of clearance Easter M&Ms, but I didn't because they were out of season.
2011. I would have driven back to Provo. I remember lying on my bed, looking at things and listening to music. My new roommate Nate Gardner came in and said hi to me--it seemed like he knew who I was from high school, but I didn't know him. I was doing situps and watching some Peanuts specials, when both my new roommate Chase Elwood and, at another time, my roommate Zach Zimmerman came in. Zach came in right at the scene in It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown about which I had shown him a YouTube video that showed that the audio was backwards.
2010. I went to my math class, and another student asked what conference talk was my favorite. I said I liked Elder Holland's; he said it wasn't his favorite, as it was another pornography talk.
2009. I'm not sure, but it's possible this was the day we called a member of the ward to give us a ride, since the other elders for some reason couldn't give us one, and the member came in his pickup truck, and he had expected us not to be dressed up, since it was P-day (even though we were required to wear our proselyting clothes when we were in public). He thought that if we weren't dressed up, we could ride in the back of the truck--which was also against the rules. I moved some papers over on the seat to make room in the cab, and he said the papers were very important to him. I assured him I would be careful. I don't think we called him again.
2008. I remember eating most or all of the fake chocolate ("mockolate") bunny that Sister Welsh gave me.
2006. I remember coming home from school and seeing that my family had gone shopping at Kmart. They got clearance Easter toys, little eggs that would spin around after you pulled the cord out. They also bought the movie A Boy Named Charlie Brown. I watched it, and I remember thinking that maybe it had a message for me, since I would be in the French spelling bee the next day.
2004. I had to turn in the Isaiah assignment that my terrible seminary teacher made us do. (Seriously. That guy should have been fired.)
2001. There had been a teacher strike earlier in the year, so we had to go to school on this day, even though normally it would have been a day off. There weren't many students there; I remember Mr. Unger (who I think was acting as a secretary at that time) was saying he could only remember one other day in all his teaching with such low attendance. My mom wasn't happy that I went to school that day.
2000, or 1999. It was on one of these years when I was in the kitchen trying to make a deviled egg (or maybe egg salad) and somehow I made it awful. While I was eating it, my mom's friend Jackie came over.
1998. My mom picked me up from my cousins' house. We went to Sam's Club, and I was talking about how early I wanted to go to bed that week, because I was super tired; I said I wanted to go to bed early on Friday, but she told me Sabrina the Teenage Witch would be on. We saw my teacher, Mrs. Fisher, at the checkout, and I was so tired I could hardly talk to her.
Monday, April 14, 2014
Good Friday
Easter is this week, so I will remember the things that happened two days before the holiday.
2013. I was taking a girl in my ward whom I home taught, Kayla, to the airport, so I parked over by her place and helped her load her suitcase in my car. We took off, and I was at a stop sign, waiting to turn left. Eventually I turned, and Kayla screamed. Another car was coming and honked--I hadn't seen them. I felt dumb the whole way for having done that. At one point I asked where Kayla got her mission call to--she said she hadn't even finished her papers. I felt dumb because I should have known that; I just got confused because so many girls were going on missions. We talked about the band fun. and I said I didn't like them; Kayla said she didn't like the lyrics of "We Are Young" but it was so catchy. We talked about little kids (since she was an el-ed major) and she told a story of a little kid saying there were bugs in raindrops (because he learned water could condense around bacteria in the atmosphere). My GPS confused me and I got off at the wrong exit, but it got me back where I needed to be and I was able to take off my sunglasses, since it was then dark. I went home and my mom had put a new Easter DVD on my bed. I asked if there was any candy I could have, but there wasn't. I went in her room while she cleaned and watched The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town, and then I went downstairs and watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail. I stayed up late writing a memory post, and my dad came home.
2012. I went to the library, and the computer I was working on on the second floor had all the settings really big. I bought a package of lavender-colored Hostess Sno-Balls. In my editing class, our teacher brought us Irish cheese that she loved and gave us apples. I tried a bit of the cheese, but I hated it, so I stuck to the packaged apples. I remember watching It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown while eating my second purple Sno-Ball. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today it was snowing! But it was gone by the afternoon. I got my semantics collection back and got good comments. In editing today none of the members of my group were there, so I got a bag of apples to myself. I got 88% on my geology test. I had a successful run, and tonight I made dinner, watched "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown," and finished my logical fallacies assignment."
2011. We left Las Vegas and drove home. This might have been the day we were listening to my Owl City and Coldplay CDs. My mom looked in her CD case and said, "This one is for Pops"--it was a CD, "Funny Favorites," that she had bought for me for Valentine's Day in 2006, but I didn't like it so I gave it to her. It was a CD of annoying old songs. When "Purple People Eater" was playing, Matt said his mom always used to play it. During the song "Tiptoe through the Tulips," the CD began skipping a lot, and I was relieved for an excuse to say "Time for a new CD!" We stopped at Burger King in Fillmore, and Taylor Swift's "Mine" was playing over their sound system. That led Susanne to talk about how T-Swift had an apartment in Nashville, and Matt said she was stalking her for knowing that.
2010. I baked Easter M&M cookies to take to my mission reunion. I left some of them in the oven a little too long, so I didn't take the burned ones to the reunion. I listened to Handel's Messiah in the car. I showed up at the stake center by the Draper Temple, where the reunion was being held. My companion Elder Chun was visiting from California; he was surprised to see me, and he came over and picked me up. I was wearing brown corduroy pants and an orange hoodie. I was talking to President Clark, and he was impressed that I had make cookies if I was living in an apartment, which didn't seem unusual to me. He had bought a cake from Costco with a bunny on it, and he was dismayed when he realized it said "Happy Birthday"--he thought it had said "Happy Easter." But it was still Eastery enough for me to eat it. Before I left, someone dumped all the cookies (since lots of people brought cookies) into one bag, so I couldn't take mine home. I left, and it was snowing and really windy. I called my mom to see what the weather was like at our house, but she said it was fine. I got lost trying to get to the freeway, and I couldn't see the lines on the road because it was dark and wet. When I got home, I went downstairs to watch It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, and while I was putting in the DVD, I was singing "All We like Sheep."
2009. We were teaching two boys, ages 8 and 9, and we were often impressed by their profound questions. Michael, the 9-year-old, asked this day why we celebrate Easter with eggs and bunnies. I told him it was a very good question. I can't remember what I told him. This is my journal entry:
"Today we actually were able to teach both the Youngs and the Williamses. The lessons went all right. We're hoping they will all show up for the Easter activity tomorrow so we will have a valid reason to attend. Michael Williams asked good questions, like why do we have Easter for Christ's resurrection with eggs. We've also been running into all sorts of crazy people while tracting, so it's good when we find some normal ones."
2008. We left early in the morning to drive up to our zone conference. It was snowy, and I remember pulling out my camera and narrating our drive. There had been a running gag that our zone leader, Elder Gammon, had cottage cheese skin, so I brought a cottage cheese container for him, but he was distracted looking for something. One of the new missionaries was Elder Wilson (who would later be my companion), and when we left, Elder Condie said bye to him, even though he didn't know him. I think this was the time that the Relief Society ran out of food for us, so President Clark didn't get any. Elder Condie got some packages from someone in a previous area. One of them was a St. Patrick's Day package that had been delivered to the wrong Elder Condie, so it was late. After conference, we went to the church, because Elder Condie was lazy and ruined those three months of my mission. That night we visited the Vaughans, and they had a two-year-old granddaughter visiting, who was saying funny things like "pretty sure" and "keep your hands to yourself."
2007. We went to a park in Nashville, and there was a train in the park. Preston would get mad at us and yell "No!" when we got near to it; apparently he had been trained not to go near trains. But that didn't stop him from touching it himself.
2013. I was taking a girl in my ward whom I home taught, Kayla, to the airport, so I parked over by her place and helped her load her suitcase in my car. We took off, and I was at a stop sign, waiting to turn left. Eventually I turned, and Kayla screamed. Another car was coming and honked--I hadn't seen them. I felt dumb the whole way for having done that. At one point I asked where Kayla got her mission call to--she said she hadn't even finished her papers. I felt dumb because I should have known that; I just got confused because so many girls were going on missions. We talked about the band fun. and I said I didn't like them; Kayla said she didn't like the lyrics of "We Are Young" but it was so catchy. We talked about little kids (since she was an el-ed major) and she told a story of a little kid saying there were bugs in raindrops (because he learned water could condense around bacteria in the atmosphere). My GPS confused me and I got off at the wrong exit, but it got me back where I needed to be and I was able to take off my sunglasses, since it was then dark. I went home and my mom had put a new Easter DVD on my bed. I asked if there was any candy I could have, but there wasn't. I went in her room while she cleaned and watched The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town, and then I went downstairs and watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail. I stayed up late writing a memory post, and my dad came home.
2012. I went to the library, and the computer I was working on on the second floor had all the settings really big. I bought a package of lavender-colored Hostess Sno-Balls. In my editing class, our teacher brought us Irish cheese that she loved and gave us apples. I tried a bit of the cheese, but I hated it, so I stuck to the packaged apples. I remember watching It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown while eating my second purple Sno-Ball. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today it was snowing! But it was gone by the afternoon. I got my semantics collection back and got good comments. In editing today none of the members of my group were there, so I got a bag of apples to myself. I got 88% on my geology test. I had a successful run, and tonight I made dinner, watched "It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown," and finished my logical fallacies assignment."
2011. We left Las Vegas and drove home. This might have been the day we were listening to my Owl City and Coldplay CDs. My mom looked in her CD case and said, "This one is for Pops"--it was a CD, "Funny Favorites," that she had bought for me for Valentine's Day in 2006, but I didn't like it so I gave it to her. It was a CD of annoying old songs. When "Purple People Eater" was playing, Matt said his mom always used to play it. During the song "Tiptoe through the Tulips," the CD began skipping a lot, and I was relieved for an excuse to say "Time for a new CD!" We stopped at Burger King in Fillmore, and Taylor Swift's "Mine" was playing over their sound system. That led Susanne to talk about how T-Swift had an apartment in Nashville, and Matt said she was stalking her for knowing that.
2010. I baked Easter M&M cookies to take to my mission reunion. I left some of them in the oven a little too long, so I didn't take the burned ones to the reunion. I listened to Handel's Messiah in the car. I showed up at the stake center by the Draper Temple, where the reunion was being held. My companion Elder Chun was visiting from California; he was surprised to see me, and he came over and picked me up. I was wearing brown corduroy pants and an orange hoodie. I was talking to President Clark, and he was impressed that I had make cookies if I was living in an apartment, which didn't seem unusual to me. He had bought a cake from Costco with a bunny on it, and he was dismayed when he realized it said "Happy Birthday"--he thought it had said "Happy Easter." But it was still Eastery enough for me to eat it. Before I left, someone dumped all the cookies (since lots of people brought cookies) into one bag, so I couldn't take mine home. I left, and it was snowing and really windy. I called my mom to see what the weather was like at our house, but she said it was fine. I got lost trying to get to the freeway, and I couldn't see the lines on the road because it was dark and wet. When I got home, I went downstairs to watch It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown, and while I was putting in the DVD, I was singing "All We like Sheep."
2009. We were teaching two boys, ages 8 and 9, and we were often impressed by their profound questions. Michael, the 9-year-old, asked this day why we celebrate Easter with eggs and bunnies. I told him it was a very good question. I can't remember what I told him. This is my journal entry:
"Today we actually were able to teach both the Youngs and the Williamses. The lessons went all right. We're hoping they will all show up for the Easter activity tomorrow so we will have a valid reason to attend. Michael Williams asked good questions, like why do we have Easter for Christ's resurrection with eggs. We've also been running into all sorts of crazy people while tracting, so it's good when we find some normal ones."
2008. We left early in the morning to drive up to our zone conference. It was snowy, and I remember pulling out my camera and narrating our drive. There had been a running gag that our zone leader, Elder Gammon, had cottage cheese skin, so I brought a cottage cheese container for him, but he was distracted looking for something. One of the new missionaries was Elder Wilson (who would later be my companion), and when we left, Elder Condie said bye to him, even though he didn't know him. I think this was the time that the Relief Society ran out of food for us, so President Clark didn't get any. Elder Condie got some packages from someone in a previous area. One of them was a St. Patrick's Day package that had been delivered to the wrong Elder Condie, so it was late. After conference, we went to the church, because Elder Condie was lazy and ruined those three months of my mission. That night we visited the Vaughans, and they had a two-year-old granddaughter visiting, who was saying funny things like "pretty sure" and "keep your hands to yourself."
2007. We went to a park in Nashville, and there was a train in the park. Preston would get mad at us and yell "No!" when we got near to it; apparently he had been trained not to go near trains. But that didn't stop him from touching it himself.
Allie was swinging, and I would give her a few pushes on the swing, then I would run over to swing myself. We saw Nashville's Parthenon. We went back to David's apartment to color eggs; after doing eggs, the kids took baths. It was snowing outside, and we were surprised it was snowing in April in Nashville.
2006. It was our last full day in Moab, and we went to different places in national parks. When we got back to our trailer, we watched It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown on my little DVD player.
2005. I didn't have school, and we got our Easter baskets in the morning. I got the Easter Beagle DVD; my mom said my dad considered getting me Easter Parade but they didn't. I went and took a "nap" and watched It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown on my little DVD player. Allie came in with Preston's new telephone toy. It had a picture of a dog on it, so she pointed to it and said, "Woof!" It was the first time I knew she knew what a dog said. That night we colored eggs (I think Easter Beagle was on TV), and I was eating an egg-shaped Tootsie Roll Pop.
2004. We went down to Fillmore to go to the sand dunes. Ya-ping and I slept in Grandma Judy and Grandpa Boyd's camper.
2003. I probably ate a popsicle.
2001. I got the card game Blurt! in my basket, and my mom said we could take it in the car on the ride to Fillmore the next day, but she said my cousin Joey (who was going with us) might not like playing it.
2000. My mom and I went to Provo to help David move out of his apartment. We loaded up all his stuff in our car, and my mom said he would be sad because he would probably never see his roommates again. We went to Walmart and got jelly beans, and when we got home I put them in a bowl on top of our TV.
1999. My cousin April was visiting, and this might have been the time she joined me in watching The Simpsons in my parents' room--it was an episode that I don't think was appropriate for a ten-year-old. My mom came home from shopping and I wasn't allowed to look in the bags she brought.
1998. We had all the cousins over for an egg hunt (after some of them had spent the night). My mom and aunt hid the eggs all over outside, and they explained how many eggs everyone was allowed. My mom said there were Skittles, and Sue repeated her, but there were no Skittles; I think they meant Starbursts. They told us there were small, medium, and large eggs and told us how many of each we could have. Rick Gildersleeve was helping Rhys find eggs. He found a medium one, and he asked me if it was a small one; I thought, if he thinks that's a little one, how big does he think the big ones must be? After everyone left, my parents brought out our Easter baskets, and I was disappointed to have them given to us in the evening. I got a little Tweety Bird thing that you connected to the water faucet and it acted as a drinking fountain.
1995. I awoke to snow covering all the tulips outside. My cousin Tammy had spent the night at our house, and my Thompson cousins were coming over for an Easter party. Tammy played the "Fluffy Bunny" song from the Picture Book of Songs. Some of the candy we had were Sweetarts ducks and bunnies.
Sunday, April 6, 2014
Three days before Easter
Easter is in two weeks, so I'm going to remember what I can about the Thursday before Easter.
2013. I remember a few things, but my journal entry for the day sums it up just as well:
"Today I studied out in the sun and caught up on EME [Early Modern English] readings. I went to the JFSB courtyard and sat at a table, and a jumping spider was on the table. It kept staring back at me. I worked in the library on my source check; I'm almost done.
"Tonight I went to the temple. I called mom, but she couldn't talk because she was introducing Jackie to Jan Terri. Then I went running. My route got changed since there was something going on near the field house and because there was construction on 900 E. Then tonight I watched It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown."
2012. We had an upcoming test, so we went to class for a test review. Normally, when a professor doesn't show up, it's a good excuse to leave, but since it was a test review, we wanted him there. So after waiting a while, I went to go find him. I didn't know how the geology offices worked, so I went up to the secretaries and said, "Is Dr. Nelson in here?" They said, "Is he supposed to be?" They told me where his office was, so I went over and knocked on his door. He opened and I asked if we were having a review. He went "Oh no!" His alarm apparently didn't go off. I grabbed a drink at the drinking fountain before I followed him back downstairs, and he walked into the classroom with a sheepish look on his face. My journal entry basically says what I just said:
"Today I slept in until almost 10:00. I went to class. In Geology Professor Nelson didn't show up. I went to the Geology department and found out his office wasn't in there. They told me where it was, so I went and knocked on the door. Apparently he had turned his alarm off and lost track of time. If it hadn't been a review, we would have left. I made Hawaiian haystacks for dinner."
2011. It was spring break with my family, and we drove to the LaBrea tar pits. We looked at all the stuff in the park, and then we went in the museum. When we were walking in, a hobo was outside, singing some song about Minnie and Mickey (since Allie was wearing a Minnie Mouse hat) and said "hice" as plural of "house" to rhyme with "mice." Then he said, "Do you know that if something has less than four legs, you add s to make it plural, but if there's four or more, you make it -ice? That's why you have lice and mice but spouses and houses. It's the most obscure rule in the English language." (Today I would have said to him, "No, that's not the rule, it has to do with their etymology, because in Old English they had different inflections.") I was disappointed that despite the museum's insistence that there were no dinosaurs in the tar, they had lots of dinosaur things in the gift shop, likely reinforcing misconceptions. I liked looking at all the fossils, and Matt, Nan, and Allie all seemed anxious to leave. I was amused by the warning sign on the door of their courtyard.
We left, and when we got back to our car, someone had put their bumper up directly touching ours, since we had a big car and were slightly sticking out. We laughed that they had a ticket. Matt said we should take it and make them get a bigger fine, but we didn't. While driving through cities, Nan pointed out a rainbow store, and I saw a sign that said "Facebook cigarettes"; Matt said it was probably because Facebook is addicting. We drove out of California and stopped at McDonald's for lunch. Our destination was Las Vegas, for some reason. When we got there, we checked in at our hotel and went out to the strip, for some reason. We had dinner at Rainforest Cafe. Our waitress asked where we were from, and when we explained, she asked Allie, "You know that big castle-y building,"--my mom prompted, "the temple"--and the waitress said she was married there. My mom said they were married there too. Then that led to a conversation in which Allie said to Matt "You're not Mormon," and my mom said, "We'll get him one day," to which Matt said, "Ignoring." After dinner, we went to the gift shop, and I wanted a walrus bouncy ball, but then realized that it cost $4, an outlandish price for a small bouncy ball. We went to the Coke and M&M stores. I was disappointed with the lack of holiday stuff at the M&M store. We left, and there was a girl sitting on a corner, playing an accordion and singing with an operatic voice. I think a black guy representing a church did some street performance. I remember crossing the street and hearing M.I.A.'s "Paper Planes," a song I had never heard other than on Pandora.
2010. I showed up to my math class, and one girl said to another classmate that they had seen Elder Holland walking past the JFSB. He believed it, but then she told him it was just an April Fools' joke. Our internet was down, so I called to get it fixed, and I had my planner there to write down anything I might need to know. When I told my phone number to the guy who answered, I wrote my own number in my planner. (I only remember this happened this day because I put it on Facebook.)
2009. We tracted the street behind the house where we lived, one that I think only had a dirt road. We stopped at one house where I noticed a JW flyer--their typical "Come celebrate the death of Jesus," the only thing they celebrate--and I always felt a little uncomfortable seeing JW flyers, because it meant people would probably be even less inclined to talk to us, having recently been visited by a religion. There were some frisky horses at this house. Across the street, a 20-something girl answered and we set up a return appointment. We went to one house where the lady answered and said rudely, "Yes?" I said, "We're the..." and she said, "I know who you are. Get off my property, all of you!" So we left, and Elder Kitchen waved back as we left and she yelled again, "Stay away, all of you!" Elder Kitchen said, "That's the rudest person I've ever met!" At the house across the street, the wife was nice but not interested, and she seemed sympathetic toward us when we told her what had happened at the previous house. I remember when Elder Kitchen called our district leader that night, he told him how I wanted the rude lady's house to burn down. This is my journal entry for the day:
"Today we walked around which wasn't my favorite. We visited the Nelsons, in addition to some others. After dinner we tracted. Most of the people were nice, except for one lady, who demanded us to get off her property and never to come back. But before her we talked to a young woman who wants to ask us questions so we're going back on Saturday. We also met Dave Smith, a less-active member whose records are not on the list."
2008. What I remember about the details in the journal entry below are that Brother Coats lived in a house next to the Little Spokane River, and I gave an Easter spiritual thought, and that Sister Berger said she had done alterations for missionaries before.
"The first day of spring was a cold one, with snow and hail ruining our car cleaning. We met with Duane and Vickie who are still excited. Then we met with Richard Swinkels, who might come to church, then Brother Smith took us to Subway, then to see Brother Coats, a less-active widower, then the Bergers, but only Sister Berger was there.
2007. We were in Tennessee, and this might have been the day we went to some kind of museum during the day. We had some Reese's Pieces eggs, which Ya-ping wanted to keep hidden from Preston.
2006. We were in southern Utah for spring break, and this may have been the day we were driving around in Canyonlands.
2005. This might have been the day when in my math class, one of my classmates shared some of the chocolate bunny her grandma had given her. Ms. Jordan said, "This is good chocolate!" Although I liked it, I could tell it wasn't really quality chocolate.
2004. It was spring break, and I'm sure I would have read some of Farewell to Manzanar, and it might have been the day I might Easter sugar cookies.
2003. I probably ate a popsicle.
1999. This was probably the day we were supposed to write about our best Easter ever. I explained that the Easters I remembered weren't very good, so I wanted to write a story instead. I wanted to write a story in which I got a basket full of multicolored chicks and bunnies, but that seemed too cheesy, so instead I said I got "just what I wanted--pets," and I knew it was a terrible story.
1998. Our class went to see a play adaptation of James and the Giant Peach at a children's theater. For the peach, they had an orange balloon grow on a tree, and then they had a giant cloth-covered thing that was meant to be the giant peach. I thought it looked really bad. For the cloud men, they had weird jugglers who looked nothing like clouds. Then we got back to school and ate our lunches in the classroom; Mrs. Slagowski had a sandwich with sprouts on it. We watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail and we had promises of Easter candy. Logan Smith kept saying the Easter Bunny was coming, and Mrs. Fisher said there was no such thing. I think Logan knew that, but I was still surprised at her directness. When we got our candy-filled eggs, there were weird candies that were like Fruity Pebbles but they were hard candies. Mrs. Fisher brought some chicks, and I remember watching the chicks after school on the porch in front of the school, a porch that is no longer there. A high-functioning special needs girl, Heidi, was sitting on a bench, eating a hard-boiled egg she had gotten in her class. I think my cousins came over that night for a sleepover, and we slept in my tepee.
1997. This might have been the first day I returned to school after breaking my arm, and Tally Prosence was the first to see me, but maybe that was a different day. Our teacher, Miss Slater, brought her pet bunny to class. It had a name from its previous owner, but she just called it Bunny. We had made little baskets out of strawberry cartons, and during lunch she hid them all over the room. She had a few people search at a time, and I was in the first group (maybe because of my broken arm). I was the first one to find my basket. I took it back to my desk, but I didn't start eating my candy until I saw Nicole Nutter start eating hers.
1995. We got bunny-shaped marshmallows, and we watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail, but we had to stop it at the Christmas scene.
2013. I remember a few things, but my journal entry for the day sums it up just as well:
"Today I studied out in the sun and caught up on EME [Early Modern English] readings. I went to the JFSB courtyard and sat at a table, and a jumping spider was on the table. It kept staring back at me. I worked in the library on my source check; I'm almost done.
"Tonight I went to the temple. I called mom, but she couldn't talk because she was introducing Jackie to Jan Terri. Then I went running. My route got changed since there was something going on near the field house and because there was construction on 900 E. Then tonight I watched It's the Easter Beagle, Charlie Brown."
2012. We had an upcoming test, so we went to class for a test review. Normally, when a professor doesn't show up, it's a good excuse to leave, but since it was a test review, we wanted him there. So after waiting a while, I went to go find him. I didn't know how the geology offices worked, so I went up to the secretaries and said, "Is Dr. Nelson in here?" They said, "Is he supposed to be?" They told me where his office was, so I went over and knocked on his door. He opened and I asked if we were having a review. He went "Oh no!" His alarm apparently didn't go off. I grabbed a drink at the drinking fountain before I followed him back downstairs, and he walked into the classroom with a sheepish look on his face. My journal entry basically says what I just said:
"Today I slept in until almost 10:00. I went to class. In Geology Professor Nelson didn't show up. I went to the Geology department and found out his office wasn't in there. They told me where it was, so I went and knocked on the door. Apparently he had turned his alarm off and lost track of time. If it hadn't been a review, we would have left. I made Hawaiian haystacks for dinner."
2011. It was spring break with my family, and we drove to the LaBrea tar pits. We looked at all the stuff in the park, and then we went in the museum. When we were walking in, a hobo was outside, singing some song about Minnie and Mickey (since Allie was wearing a Minnie Mouse hat) and said "hice" as plural of "house" to rhyme with "mice." Then he said, "Do you know that if something has less than four legs, you add s to make it plural, but if there's four or more, you make it -ice? That's why you have lice and mice but spouses and houses. It's the most obscure rule in the English language." (Today I would have said to him, "No, that's not the rule, it has to do with their etymology, because in Old English they had different inflections.") I was disappointed that despite the museum's insistence that there were no dinosaurs in the tar, they had lots of dinosaur things in the gift shop, likely reinforcing misconceptions. I liked looking at all the fossils, and Matt, Nan, and Allie all seemed anxious to leave. I was amused by the warning sign on the door of their courtyard.
2010. I showed up to my math class, and one girl said to another classmate that they had seen Elder Holland walking past the JFSB. He believed it, but then she told him it was just an April Fools' joke. Our internet was down, so I called to get it fixed, and I had my planner there to write down anything I might need to know. When I told my phone number to the guy who answered, I wrote my own number in my planner. (I only remember this happened this day because I put it on Facebook.)
2009. We tracted the street behind the house where we lived, one that I think only had a dirt road. We stopped at one house where I noticed a JW flyer--their typical "Come celebrate the death of Jesus," the only thing they celebrate--and I always felt a little uncomfortable seeing JW flyers, because it meant people would probably be even less inclined to talk to us, having recently been visited by a religion. There were some frisky horses at this house. Across the street, a 20-something girl answered and we set up a return appointment. We went to one house where the lady answered and said rudely, "Yes?" I said, "We're the..." and she said, "I know who you are. Get off my property, all of you!" So we left, and Elder Kitchen waved back as we left and she yelled again, "Stay away, all of you!" Elder Kitchen said, "That's the rudest person I've ever met!" At the house across the street, the wife was nice but not interested, and she seemed sympathetic toward us when we told her what had happened at the previous house. I remember when Elder Kitchen called our district leader that night, he told him how I wanted the rude lady's house to burn down. This is my journal entry for the day:
"Today we walked around which wasn't my favorite. We visited the Nelsons, in addition to some others. After dinner we tracted. Most of the people were nice, except for one lady, who demanded us to get off her property and never to come back. But before her we talked to a young woman who wants to ask us questions so we're going back on Saturday. We also met Dave Smith, a less-active member whose records are not on the list."
2008. What I remember about the details in the journal entry below are that Brother Coats lived in a house next to the Little Spokane River, and I gave an Easter spiritual thought, and that Sister Berger said she had done alterations for missionaries before.
"The first day of spring was a cold one, with snow and hail ruining our car cleaning. We met with Duane and Vickie who are still excited. Then we met with Richard Swinkels, who might come to church, then Brother Smith took us to Subway, then to see Brother Coats, a less-active widower, then the Bergers, but only Sister Berger was there.
2007. We were in Tennessee, and this might have been the day we went to some kind of museum during the day. We had some Reese's Pieces eggs, which Ya-ping wanted to keep hidden from Preston.
2006. We were in southern Utah for spring break, and this may have been the day we were driving around in Canyonlands.
2005. This might have been the day when in my math class, one of my classmates shared some of the chocolate bunny her grandma had given her. Ms. Jordan said, "This is good chocolate!" Although I liked it, I could tell it wasn't really quality chocolate.
2004. It was spring break, and I'm sure I would have read some of Farewell to Manzanar, and it might have been the day I might Easter sugar cookies.
2003. I probably ate a popsicle.
1999. This was probably the day we were supposed to write about our best Easter ever. I explained that the Easters I remembered weren't very good, so I wanted to write a story instead. I wanted to write a story in which I got a basket full of multicolored chicks and bunnies, but that seemed too cheesy, so instead I said I got "just what I wanted--pets," and I knew it was a terrible story.
1998. Our class went to see a play adaptation of James and the Giant Peach at a children's theater. For the peach, they had an orange balloon grow on a tree, and then they had a giant cloth-covered thing that was meant to be the giant peach. I thought it looked really bad. For the cloud men, they had weird jugglers who looked nothing like clouds. Then we got back to school and ate our lunches in the classroom; Mrs. Slagowski had a sandwich with sprouts on it. We watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail and we had promises of Easter candy. Logan Smith kept saying the Easter Bunny was coming, and Mrs. Fisher said there was no such thing. I think Logan knew that, but I was still surprised at her directness. When we got our candy-filled eggs, there were weird candies that were like Fruity Pebbles but they were hard candies. Mrs. Fisher brought some chicks, and I remember watching the chicks after school on the porch in front of the school, a porch that is no longer there. A high-functioning special needs girl, Heidi, was sitting on a bench, eating a hard-boiled egg she had gotten in her class. I think my cousins came over that night for a sleepover, and we slept in my tepee.
1997. This might have been the first day I returned to school after breaking my arm, and Tally Prosence was the first to see me, but maybe that was a different day. Our teacher, Miss Slater, brought her pet bunny to class. It had a name from its previous owner, but she just called it Bunny. We had made little baskets out of strawberry cartons, and during lunch she hid them all over the room. She had a few people search at a time, and I was in the first group (maybe because of my broken arm). I was the first one to find my basket. I took it back to my desk, but I didn't start eating my candy until I saw Nicole Nutter start eating hers.
1995. We got bunny-shaped marshmallows, and we watched Here Comes Peter Cottontail, but we had to stop it at the Christmas scene.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
April Fools' Day
April Fools' Day isn't really a day I care about, but I will remember what I can about it anyways.
2013. We were having FHE at our bishop's house, so I rode with Joel DeVore up to Bishop's. On the way there, one of the passengers was playing solitaire on his laptop. They were talking about The Onion, and I said that on April Fool's Day the Onion should run real news. When we got there, I admired Bishop's granite boulder, like I usually do. (It's inside his house.) When we left, I remember there was a discussion about dubstep. I was impressed with Google's treasure map theme, and I appreciated the Delicate Arch and Salt Lake Temple pictures they put on the map.
2012. I watched general conference, and I remember seeing someone outside running, something that surprised me in Provo, since it was Sunday. I made a blog post, and I think my roommate Bryton came back from visiting home.
2011. I was walking on campus when I overheard a middle-aged lady reporting on a conversation she had previously heard: "'Let's not jump off the building. Let's go actually study instead.' She's like, 'Oh, all right...'" I was going to a mission reunion that night. I had parked far away, and I was carrying a jug of Gatorade to take to the reunion. I was walking past an apartment complex when I heard them playing Rebecca Black's "Friday," so I sang along as I walked by. Traffic was horrendous. I have never seen it that bad in Provo/Utah County before. I was listening to Owl City that day. At the reunion, there was a little program in the chapel, and my companion Elder Kitchen said he and a sister there were engaged--but it was an April Fool's joke. Elder Kitchen and his friends were staying at my parents' house (they were visiting for general conference), so he wanted my mom's number.
2010. Our internet was down, so I called to get it fixed, and I had my planner there to write down anything I might need to know. When I told my phone number to the guy who answered, I wrote my own number in my planner. (I only remember this happened this day because I put it on Facebook.)
2009. We did service by helping a family set up their trampoline. It was really cold. In their house, the members had the radio tuned to a Christian rock station, and I recognized the songs from my first area, when my companion wasn't overly obedient. We got picked up for interviews, and there were six of us missionaries crammed in one car. Elder Kitchen wanted to sing "Oh Holy Words of Truth and Love" for the opening hymn (since conference was coming up), and I was glad to sing a lesser-sung song, and Elder Nixon had never heard it. This is my journal entry for the day:
"I suppose the only April Fool's joke was the weather. My fingers were numb today when we helped the Formans with their trampoline. The wind was cold and biting, but it later yielded to snow. We talked with a man--a PI--who said he can't be baptized because he's living in sin.
"We had interviews--my interview wasn't too significant--and then we went back to work. We saw the Williams family, knowing it wasn't a PMF, but they have four kids, and only two of them are on the directory. The others are 8 & 9, which bodes well for us."
2008. We went to the temple, and on the way, Elder Johnson was complaining about people driving "slow" in the fast lane. We took pictures, and Sister Gillins took a picture with my camera. She saw some of the other pictures, and she was perplexed at a picture of a toilet (since I had taken a picture of a tiny nursery toilet, which I had never seen before).
2007. We were on the road on the way to Nashville. My mom looked for conference on the radio; we heard some religious choir on a station, so my mom stopped there. But then she changed the station when a narrator said, "Friends in Christ." I wondered why that was so bad--certainly not LDS parlance, but not something bad. So we listened to weird CDs. We listened to this one called Songs for a Mormon Child; I wondered why my mom liked it so much (even she commented about the girl who tried too hard), especially since there were no kids in the car. Then we listened to all five discs of the Children's Songbook CDs, which I thought were awful. (I actually grew to like them on my mission, but now I think they're terrible again.) Then we stopped at my cousin Tammy's in Iowa. I think we had missed all of conference. They told us about how they had set up a blanket fort tabernacle for the kids to watch conference in. When they began putting the kids to bed, I remember Tammy telling her oldest son, Adam, that two-year-old Ben, when saying prayers, had repeated "Uncle Ricky" as "Uncle Ribby." That night we talked with Tammy. We talked about the synesthesia blog post I had made before leaving. She talked about how she wanted to line me up with a girl from her ward who wanted to be an editor, "this girl Candice." I told Tammy I had actually met her. She said, surprised, "Candice Bellows?" I told her that I had met her at Y-Weekend the previous fall. She told me how she had called her mom, distraught, that she was at a play at BYU that seemed to laugh about a girl being pregnant and not married. I said I was a little surprised at some of the content in the play.
2006. I remember that my two-year-old niece Allie was playing with my mom's friend's niece Austin (what a weird name for a girl!), who was a little older. We were trying to concentrate on conference, but the girls were playing. Allie was getting annoyed with Austin, and Austin kept saying, "She's yelling at me!"
2001. We were watching conference and I said to my mom, "There's a spider on you!" My dad actually seemed more surprised, maybe because he was sleeping. Then I told them, "April Fool's!"
2000. I remember using the Health Rider during one of the Saturday conference sessions. My brother told me it wasn't good to do a cardio workout during conference, but my mom reproved him and told him it was impressive that I was watching Saturday sessions. I think it was that day I put plastic Easter eggs on pieces of yarn and draped them around the rearview mirrors of all three of our cars. (These last four memories were lifted from a previous blog post.)
1999. I was wearing the arm cast that had been pulled off of my arm in one piece two years earlier. I was trying to pass it off as a new break. Some people noticed the name "Reiko" signed on the cast, and said it must be fake, if it was the Reiko (RAY-ko) in our grade. I told them it was my cousin "REE-ko," but that was not true.
1998. Our teachers told us we needed to run laps or else we wouldn't be able to make it to fourth grade. Being a fat little kid, I really struggled, and after running, I asked if I had made it. Mrs. Slagowski said I had. But then when we learned it was a joke, I was really annoyed. One of my classmates, Skyler, told me that I needed it.
1997. Our teacher, Miss Slater, had a card-pulling system in which yellow was default, red was a warning, green was timeout, and it escalated from there. On this day, she told us she was starting a new system, where everyone started on red, and you had to be extra good in order to get up to yellow. Erica Lovell did something she shouldn't have, so she had to pull her card, which meant she had to go in timeout. Later in the day, Miss Slater told us it was a joke, and we were surprised that we had believed her, and that Erica had to go in timeout on this "new" system.
2013. We were having FHE at our bishop's house, so I rode with Joel DeVore up to Bishop's. On the way there, one of the passengers was playing solitaire on his laptop. They were talking about The Onion, and I said that on April Fool's Day the Onion should run real news. When we got there, I admired Bishop's granite boulder, like I usually do. (It's inside his house.) When we left, I remember there was a discussion about dubstep. I was impressed with Google's treasure map theme, and I appreciated the Delicate Arch and Salt Lake Temple pictures they put on the map.
2012. I watched general conference, and I remember seeing someone outside running, something that surprised me in Provo, since it was Sunday. I made a blog post, and I think my roommate Bryton came back from visiting home.
2011. I was walking on campus when I overheard a middle-aged lady reporting on a conversation she had previously heard: "'Let's not jump off the building. Let's go actually study instead.' She's like, 'Oh, all right...'" I was going to a mission reunion that night. I had parked far away, and I was carrying a jug of Gatorade to take to the reunion. I was walking past an apartment complex when I heard them playing Rebecca Black's "Friday," so I sang along as I walked by. Traffic was horrendous. I have never seen it that bad in Provo/Utah County before. I was listening to Owl City that day. At the reunion, there was a little program in the chapel, and my companion Elder Kitchen said he and a sister there were engaged--but it was an April Fool's joke. Elder Kitchen and his friends were staying at my parents' house (they were visiting for general conference), so he wanted my mom's number.
2010. Our internet was down, so I called to get it fixed, and I had my planner there to write down anything I might need to know. When I told my phone number to the guy who answered, I wrote my own number in my planner. (I only remember this happened this day because I put it on Facebook.)
2009. We did service by helping a family set up their trampoline. It was really cold. In their house, the members had the radio tuned to a Christian rock station, and I recognized the songs from my first area, when my companion wasn't overly obedient. We got picked up for interviews, and there were six of us missionaries crammed in one car. Elder Kitchen wanted to sing "Oh Holy Words of Truth and Love" for the opening hymn (since conference was coming up), and I was glad to sing a lesser-sung song, and Elder Nixon had never heard it. This is my journal entry for the day:
"I suppose the only April Fool's joke was the weather. My fingers were numb today when we helped the Formans with their trampoline. The wind was cold and biting, but it later yielded to snow. We talked with a man--a PI--who said he can't be baptized because he's living in sin.
"We had interviews--my interview wasn't too significant--and then we went back to work. We saw the Williams family, knowing it wasn't a PMF, but they have four kids, and only two of them are on the directory. The others are 8 & 9, which bodes well for us."
2008. We went to the temple, and on the way, Elder Johnson was complaining about people driving "slow" in the fast lane. We took pictures, and Sister Gillins took a picture with my camera. She saw some of the other pictures, and she was perplexed at a picture of a toilet (since I had taken a picture of a tiny nursery toilet, which I had never seen before).
2007. We were on the road on the way to Nashville. My mom looked for conference on the radio; we heard some religious choir on a station, so my mom stopped there. But then she changed the station when a narrator said, "Friends in Christ." I wondered why that was so bad--certainly not LDS parlance, but not something bad. So we listened to weird CDs. We listened to this one called Songs for a Mormon Child; I wondered why my mom liked it so much (even she commented about the girl who tried too hard), especially since there were no kids in the car. Then we listened to all five discs of the Children's Songbook CDs, which I thought were awful. (I actually grew to like them on my mission, but now I think they're terrible again.) Then we stopped at my cousin Tammy's in Iowa. I think we had missed all of conference. They told us about how they had set up a blanket fort tabernacle for the kids to watch conference in. When they began putting the kids to bed, I remember Tammy telling her oldest son, Adam, that two-year-old Ben, when saying prayers, had repeated "Uncle Ricky" as "Uncle Ribby." That night we talked with Tammy. We talked about the synesthesia blog post I had made before leaving. She talked about how she wanted to line me up with a girl from her ward who wanted to be an editor, "this girl Candice." I told Tammy I had actually met her. She said, surprised, "Candice Bellows?" I told her that I had met her at Y-Weekend the previous fall. She told me how she had called her mom, distraught, that she was at a play at BYU that seemed to laugh about a girl being pregnant and not married. I said I was a little surprised at some of the content in the play.
2006. I remember that my two-year-old niece Allie was playing with my mom's friend's niece Austin (what a weird name for a girl!), who was a little older. We were trying to concentrate on conference, but the girls were playing. Allie was getting annoyed with Austin, and Austin kept saying, "She's yelling at me!"
2001. We were watching conference and I said to my mom, "There's a spider on you!" My dad actually seemed more surprised, maybe because he was sleeping. Then I told them, "April Fool's!"
2000. I remember using the Health Rider during one of the Saturday conference sessions. My brother told me it wasn't good to do a cardio workout during conference, but my mom reproved him and told him it was impressive that I was watching Saturday sessions. I think it was that day I put plastic Easter eggs on pieces of yarn and draped them around the rearview mirrors of all three of our cars. (These last four memories were lifted from a previous blog post.)
1999. I was wearing the arm cast that had been pulled off of my arm in one piece two years earlier. I was trying to pass it off as a new break. Some people noticed the name "Reiko" signed on the cast, and said it must be fake, if it was the Reiko (RAY-ko) in our grade. I told them it was my cousin "REE-ko," but that was not true.
1998. Our teachers told us we needed to run laps or else we wouldn't be able to make it to fourth grade. Being a fat little kid, I really struggled, and after running, I asked if I had made it. Mrs. Slagowski said I had. But then when we learned it was a joke, I was really annoyed. One of my classmates, Skyler, told me that I needed it.
1997. Our teacher, Miss Slater, had a card-pulling system in which yellow was default, red was a warning, green was timeout, and it escalated from there. On this day, she told us she was starting a new system, where everyone started on red, and you had to be extra good in order to get up to yellow. Erica Lovell did something she shouldn't have, so she had to pull her card, which meant she had to go in timeout. Later in the day, Miss Slater told us it was a joke, and we were surprised that we had believed her, and that Erica had to go in timeout on this "new" system.
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Primary talks
I was thinking about some of the Primary talks I gave as a kid.
What started me thinking about this is that in first grade, I wanted to give a St. Patrick's Day talk. I had seen Kenny Christiansen give a Thanksgiving talk, so I wanted to do a relevant holiday talk myself. I talked to my mom about it, and she told me the story of St. Patrick teaching the Godhead with a shamrock. Although he was actually teaching the Trinity, which we profess not to believe in. Before the day, we went to Kmart and bought me a tie that had some green in it; it was my first non-clip-on tie. I think it was a bit of an ugly tie--maybe brighter tie colors weren't popular then. I kind of cringe at the idea of giving that talk in church, for a few reasons.
(However, as an aside, I think we Mormons believe in the Trinity more than we think we do, because I've talked to many people of other faiths who tend to believe what we do. We DO believe that Christ is God, we DO believe he is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. He's just not the Father. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus is inferior to Jehovah, so they don't believe in the Trinity, but we believe he IS Jehovah. It's more of a semantic issue.)
One Sunday when I was seven, I gave a talk about Alma and the four sons of Mosiah. After I gave it, I was asked to give it in sacrament meeting. I didn't practice before sacrament meeting, which was a bad idea. I remember standing there and not saying anything, so one of my parents came up and reminded me what I was saying. I remember crying afterwards because I was so embarrassed. My mom tells me that I had forgotten one of the names, but when I was reminded of it, I finished the talk. I don't remember than part.
I remember one Sunday morning writing up the story of the First Vision on our old computer, the one where the printer paper was all connected and you had to tear off the hole-punched sides. I wrote the story down from memory.
Once I gave a talk about singing. During the opening song, I watched how many people sang. I wasn't surprised that Jaydon Bean didn't sing, but I was surprised that David Christensen didn't. When I gave my talk, I said that I had watched during opening exercises and noticed that most of the people singing were the teachers. Afterwards, my mom said that was a mature thing to do.
After my aunt Darleen died, I gave a talk about springtime and the Resurrection. I remember one teacher (Sue Palmer?) asking us later how my aunt was related to us.
I had a preoccupation with the Second Coming, so I wanted to give a talk about it. My mom had looked up some signs of the Second Coming. I remember talking about "baby flies, called maggots." I'm not sure where my mom got her information, whether it was doctrinal and whether it was meant to be taken literally.
I gave a talk that had been a family staple about an unusual animal at the zoo. One of the Primary leaders held up the flannel board while I put up the pieces.
Once I gave a talk about Saul's conversion to become Paul.
After a trip to Kirtland when I was eleven, I gave a talk about Section 110 of the Doctrine and Covenants. I was reading what I wrote down and I pronounced "Elias" as "ELL-ee-us" instead of "ee-LY-us." I felt really dumb about that, and I remember talking to my grandparents on the phone about it. They told me I shouldn't worry and cited an example of a General Authority messing up, but it didn't comfort me.
Those are all the talks I can think of at the moment.
What started me thinking about this is that in first grade, I wanted to give a St. Patrick's Day talk. I had seen Kenny Christiansen give a Thanksgiving talk, so I wanted to do a relevant holiday talk myself. I talked to my mom about it, and she told me the story of St. Patrick teaching the Godhead with a shamrock. Although he was actually teaching the Trinity, which we profess not to believe in. Before the day, we went to Kmart and bought me a tie that had some green in it; it was my first non-clip-on tie. I think it was a bit of an ugly tie--maybe brighter tie colors weren't popular then. I kind of cringe at the idea of giving that talk in church, for a few reasons.
(However, as an aside, I think we Mormons believe in the Trinity more than we think we do, because I've talked to many people of other faiths who tend to believe what we do. We DO believe that Christ is God, we DO believe he is the Jehovah of the Old Testament. He's just not the Father. The Jehovah's Witnesses believe Jesus is inferior to Jehovah, so they don't believe in the Trinity, but we believe he IS Jehovah. It's more of a semantic issue.)
One Sunday when I was seven, I gave a talk about Alma and the four sons of Mosiah. After I gave it, I was asked to give it in sacrament meeting. I didn't practice before sacrament meeting, which was a bad idea. I remember standing there and not saying anything, so one of my parents came up and reminded me what I was saying. I remember crying afterwards because I was so embarrassed. My mom tells me that I had forgotten one of the names, but when I was reminded of it, I finished the talk. I don't remember than part.
I remember one Sunday morning writing up the story of the First Vision on our old computer, the one where the printer paper was all connected and you had to tear off the hole-punched sides. I wrote the story down from memory.
Once I gave a talk about singing. During the opening song, I watched how many people sang. I wasn't surprised that Jaydon Bean didn't sing, but I was surprised that David Christensen didn't. When I gave my talk, I said that I had watched during opening exercises and noticed that most of the people singing were the teachers. Afterwards, my mom said that was a mature thing to do.
After my aunt Darleen died, I gave a talk about springtime and the Resurrection. I remember one teacher (Sue Palmer?) asking us later how my aunt was related to us.
I had a preoccupation with the Second Coming, so I wanted to give a talk about it. My mom had looked up some signs of the Second Coming. I remember talking about "baby flies, called maggots." I'm not sure where my mom got her information, whether it was doctrinal and whether it was meant to be taken literally.
I gave a talk that had been a family staple about an unusual animal at the zoo. One of the Primary leaders held up the flannel board while I put up the pieces.
Once I gave a talk about Saul's conversion to become Paul.
After a trip to Kirtland when I was eleven, I gave a talk about Section 110 of the Doctrine and Covenants. I was reading what I wrote down and I pronounced "Elias" as "ELL-ee-us" instead of "ee-LY-us." I felt really dumb about that, and I remember talking to my grandparents on the phone about it. They told me I shouldn't worry and cited an example of a General Authority messing up, but it didn't comfort me.
Those are all the talks I can think of at the moment.
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Two days after Thanksgiving
Last week I wrote about two days before Thanksgiving, so this week I'm writing about two days after the holiday.
2012. I watched the holiday episode of The Munsters at home. I think I was listening to my music, and "Alejandro" finally played itself. I think I added a bunch of Christmas music to my computer. I switched to the green Taurus to take back to Provo, and I listened to the all-Christmas 98.7 radio station on the way. I was pleased with their selection of Christmas music, not all the same old stuff. They played Lady Antebellum and even Cherie Call. When I got into Provo, I stopped at Fresh Market to go grocery shopping. I saw that they had dragon fruit, so I bought one. (It wasn't very good.) I think I bought snowflake Ritz crackers (and later realized the "snowflakes" have eight points instead of six--I don't plan on buying those again). I pulled into my parking lot to unload my car, but then I had to go park on the street because the green car didn't have a parking permit. When I got back in the car, the radio was playing a Michael Bublé interview.
2011. We had to work early that morning. That might have been the day we expected there to be treats, but there weren't any. My blog tells me that I had an unsuccessful run that afternoon. That night I had to write my talk for the next day.
2010. That morning I went with my parents to the temple. As we went there, we listened to my new Wonder of Christmas MoTab CD. Later, I picked up my friend David Christensen to go running up on Bountiful Boulevard. I was wearing blue pants, and David came out in red pants, which he had borrowed from his brother, since it was the day of the BYU/Utah football game, back when it was still in November. I ran farther than he did, and when I turned around I caught up with him. He pointed out the Charlie Brown nativity scene at one house, which I thought was ugly. Later, I went with my parents out to Centerville. We had to pick up missionary plaques. My parents were listening to the game and were quite displeased with it, while I was just sitting in the back eating sugar-coated almonds from my brother-in-law Matt. We went to Walmart, and I wanted to get the special edition of the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, so I got a tin that had three Peanuts-themed CDs in it. On the way home, I put in the 40 Years: A Charlie Brown Christmas CD, and I loved David Benoit's version of "Christmas Is Coming," but I was unimpressed with the rest.
2009. It was my last full day of proselyting. We did a lot of tracting. At one house, the people's last name was Cook, and Elder Tamblyn asked if they were related to Cooks in Moses Lake. I thought it was a stretch, since it was a common name. One guy later in the afternoon was nice and knew some members, the Biglers. Elder Tamblyn periodically needed to rest. At one point we stopped the car so he could make some calls. We were listening to the new Ring Christmas Bells MoTab CD, and he changed the CD because he thought it was ridiculous they were making animal noises. We had dinner with the Christensens, and they had invited a nonmember friend. I can't remember what kind of lesson we gave, but Brother Christensen began talking about Adam and Eve. After dinner, I wanted to stop by an apartment where a less-active named Rebecca Dyer had lived. We knocked on the door, and someone called out asking who it was. We told her, and she said, "No thanks." But I was wanting to ask about someone, so I yelled through the door, asking about the girl who had lived there previously. There was no answer. I was so annoyed that they would ignore our questions and judge our intentions, so I pulled out a pass-along card and wrote a note on it, saying we weren't trying to bother them but were wondering about the Rebecca Dyer. Then we went home.
2008. I believe that we had lunch at the home of some friendly Baptists (maybe they were Pentecostals or non-denominationals).
2007. I would have worked on my farewell talk, although I don't specifically remember doing so. I think I decorated a tree downstairs while watching Christmas episodes of my old TV shows, since I wouldn't be able to watch them for two years.
2005. We went to Target, and I got a dollar DVD of The Beverly Hillbillies that had a Thanksgiving episode on it. That night we watched The Polar Express, since my mom's friend had lent it to us, and we all thought it was dumb.
2002. My sister was listening to the radio, and they played a silly turkey song. The DJ said they'd never play it again that year. I remember turning on my Charlie Brown Christmas CD while putting up decorations.
1998. My friend David called me to see if I could help him work on his Reflections submission. When they picked me up, David said to his mom, "Mark's good and has all his Christmas decorations up." For the contest, they were photographing kids doing adult jobs. We went to the library, and they had me stand behind the counter and pretend to scan books (the librarian had given us permission to do so). We saw a float from the Bountiful Light Parade.
2012. I watched the holiday episode of The Munsters at home. I think I was listening to my music, and "Alejandro" finally played itself. I think I added a bunch of Christmas music to my computer. I switched to the green Taurus to take back to Provo, and I listened to the all-Christmas 98.7 radio station on the way. I was pleased with their selection of Christmas music, not all the same old stuff. They played Lady Antebellum and even Cherie Call. When I got into Provo, I stopped at Fresh Market to go grocery shopping. I saw that they had dragon fruit, so I bought one. (It wasn't very good.) I think I bought snowflake Ritz crackers (and later realized the "snowflakes" have eight points instead of six--I don't plan on buying those again). I pulled into my parking lot to unload my car, but then I had to go park on the street because the green car didn't have a parking permit. When I got back in the car, the radio was playing a Michael Bublé interview.
2011. We had to work early that morning. That might have been the day we expected there to be treats, but there weren't any. My blog tells me that I had an unsuccessful run that afternoon. That night I had to write my talk for the next day.
2010. That morning I went with my parents to the temple. As we went there, we listened to my new Wonder of Christmas MoTab CD. Later, I picked up my friend David Christensen to go running up on Bountiful Boulevard. I was wearing blue pants, and David came out in red pants, which he had borrowed from his brother, since it was the day of the BYU/Utah football game, back when it was still in November. I ran farther than he did, and when I turned around I caught up with him. He pointed out the Charlie Brown nativity scene at one house, which I thought was ugly. Later, I went with my parents out to Centerville. We had to pick up missionary plaques. My parents were listening to the game and were quite displeased with it, while I was just sitting in the back eating sugar-coated almonds from my brother-in-law Matt. We went to Walmart, and I wanted to get the special edition of the Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack, so I got a tin that had three Peanuts-themed CDs in it. On the way home, I put in the 40 Years: A Charlie Brown Christmas CD, and I loved David Benoit's version of "Christmas Is Coming," but I was unimpressed with the rest.
2009. It was my last full day of proselyting. We did a lot of tracting. At one house, the people's last name was Cook, and Elder Tamblyn asked if they were related to Cooks in Moses Lake. I thought it was a stretch, since it was a common name. One guy later in the afternoon was nice and knew some members, the Biglers. Elder Tamblyn periodically needed to rest. At one point we stopped the car so he could make some calls. We were listening to the new Ring Christmas Bells MoTab CD, and he changed the CD because he thought it was ridiculous they were making animal noises. We had dinner with the Christensens, and they had invited a nonmember friend. I can't remember what kind of lesson we gave, but Brother Christensen began talking about Adam and Eve. After dinner, I wanted to stop by an apartment where a less-active named Rebecca Dyer had lived. We knocked on the door, and someone called out asking who it was. We told her, and she said, "No thanks." But I was wanting to ask about someone, so I yelled through the door, asking about the girl who had lived there previously. There was no answer. I was so annoyed that they would ignore our questions and judge our intentions, so I pulled out a pass-along card and wrote a note on it, saying we weren't trying to bother them but were wondering about the Rebecca Dyer. Then we went home.
2008. I believe that we had lunch at the home of some friendly Baptists (maybe they were Pentecostals or non-denominationals).
2007. I would have worked on my farewell talk, although I don't specifically remember doing so. I think I decorated a tree downstairs while watching Christmas episodes of my old TV shows, since I wouldn't be able to watch them for two years.
2005. We went to Target, and I got a dollar DVD of The Beverly Hillbillies that had a Thanksgiving episode on it. That night we watched The Polar Express, since my mom's friend had lent it to us, and we all thought it was dumb.
2002. My sister was listening to the radio, and they played a silly turkey song. The DJ said they'd never play it again that year. I remember turning on my Charlie Brown Christmas CD while putting up decorations.
1998. My friend David called me to see if I could help him work on his Reflections submission. When they picked me up, David said to his mom, "Mark's good and has all his Christmas decorations up." For the contest, they were photographing kids doing adult jobs. We went to the library, and they had me stand behind the counter and pretend to scan books (the librarian had given us permission to do so). We saw a float from the Bountiful Light Parade.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
September 30
With it almost being my birthday, I found it fitting to remember the various things that have happened on the day after my birthday.
2012. At church, Michael Wyatt was talking to me about something after sacrament meeting. While he was talking to me, Shayli Simmons came up to me and wished me happy birthday. So then when Michael was done talking to me, he also told me happy birthday. After church, I made a blog post.
2011. That night we went to El Matador for my birthday dinner. When we got at the restaurant, I noticed a terrible goathead patch, and Allie was standing in it. I said, "Don't stand on those plants." She said, "Sorry." She probably thought it was because she wasn't supposed to step on them, but I just didn't want her to get them stuck to her shoes. While we were waiting for food, I mentioned that I had the stupid "I Wanna Go" Britney Spears song stuck in my head. Then my mom told Susanne that they had got me Lady Antebellum and Kelly "Clarkston" for my birthday. I said to my mom, "What did you call her?" since she had inserted a t.
2010. I think this was the time my mom and I went down to the Legacy Parkway trail so I could use my new bicycle. I was wearing my Snoopy "Party like a Rockstar" shirt. I think I brought a Gatorade in the car. My mom just walked on the trail while I biked. I was annoyed when I came across some bikers stopped and having a conversation in both lanes of traffic. Another woman alerted me when she was passing me, but I stayed in my lane, although I might have slightly swerved and made it look like I was switching lanes. Then I came home and ate some Jelly Bellys and I think I turned on the TV for some reason. I think I started making pillowcases from the holiday material my mom had bought me.
2008. Elder Duncan and I waited to get the car from the other elders. We were dressed in our suits to go to district meeting, but when the other elders arrived, they asked why we were wearing our suit coats. They told us that district meeting had been moved to Wednesday, but we had missed the memo. Those elders informed us that we still had more than a hundred miles we could use and it was the last day of the month. We worried that if we didn't use our monthly allotment of miles, they would take miles away from us, so we considered going to Waterville, a small town twenty-five miles north. Elder Duncan and I went home and changed our plans for the day. We went through the area book and looked up people we could see in Waterville. Elder Duncan started having second thoughts, but I persuaded him that it was a good idea, since we had never worked in Waterville. Before we left, we fueled up at 7-11 and bought candy for the ride. I got peach rings. It was a nice drive, but I think I was driving slow. We were at a place where the road was curving, and I began singing "The Long and Winding Road." When we got to Waterville, we stopped at a Shell station to see if they had maps of the town. They didn't have any for sale, but they gave us a paper one that wasn't very good. We parked in front of the house of a part-member family. Apparently the wife was semi-active, but I didn't know her. We walked around to try to find people, but we had a hard time figuring out where we were. We wanted to see one less-active who was a mortician, but we could only find the funeral home, and we didn't know how appropriate it was to knock on a funeral home. We looked for one former investigator, but we couldn't find the house. (I later realized what we did wrong.) Later we got back in the car. We went to one house to try to see if they were the right people, but the guy either slammed his door shut when we got out of our car or else was very short when we knocked on the door. That surprised me, since I had this perception that small towns would be more receptive since they didn't have missionaries there as often. (Odessa, WA, and Winchester, ID, later proved to me that that wasn't true.) We stopped at the house of Billy Byington's father, and there were lots of little annoying dogs, but no one was home. Like all small towns, Waterville had its abandoned buildings.
Eventually we left, not having had a terribly productive time in Waterville. But I figured that it would be a good way for us to be familiar with the town for the next time we went up there (but I was transferred the next week and never went back until I drove through the town after my mission). I was driving when I realized I hadn't put on my prescription sunglasses, so Elder Duncan opened them for me so I could trade glasses while I was driving. While we were driving back, Elder Bates, the district leader, called us. He told us that district meeting the next day was cancelled because President Clark wanted to have a special meeting with us on Friday. We didn't know why he would be visiting us, since it was the week that he would be planning transfers, so it would be really busy for him, and we had already had interviews. We began speculating about what crazy things could be happening for this meeting to happen. When we got back to East Wenatchee, we had fried chicken from the elderly Schoenmakers, and we got a call from a less-active, Brian Latimer, who wanted us to help him move across the river to Wenatchee. We were glad he called us, and we were more than happy to help him move, since it would help us ratchet up miles on the car. We were only sad that he was moving out of our area. When we got to his new house, they had problems getting the couch through the door and didn't think it would work. But Elder Duncan had served in the college town of Pullman, so he was used to moving things, and he was able to get it through the door. I think we drove over to Wenatchee twice that night. When we did our miles that night, our daily miles turned out to be 77.7. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was a very weird day. Firstly we thought we had district meeting so we were surprised when we didn't. So we did our mission survey. Then we mowed the Schonemakers' lawn. We had over 100 miles to use, so we went up to Waterville. We couldn't find many addresses, and the few we found weren't home. One address was a 210, but it wasn't there, so we knocked on 201, but we don't know if it was right because he just closed the door on us. On our way back we received a call that President is unexpectedly meeting with the mission.
"We had dinner with the Schoenmakers--Bill is sadly almost gone--and helped Brian Latimer move. We went over to Wenatchee twice, and in total we went 77.7 miles.
2006. I think this was the evening that I watched The Munsters' Revenge with my dad. While we were watching, there was a knock on the door, and my dad and sister made me get it. It was an old guy telling us about something, but I don't remember what. He was there a long time.
2005. It was the night before I was singing in general conference. I believe this was the time I went to Great Clips to get a haircut, thus beginning a pattern of getting professional cuts instead of having my mom cut it. I went home and tried to catch what I could of the I Dream of Jeannie mini-marathon, and for some reason my aunt was there. The only thing that makes me unsure about this is that I don't know why I would have gotten a haircut the night before singing in conference, but I think this is what happened.
2004. I remember going to my theater class in the morning and burping up the flavor of Mexican chocolate cake. It made me remember the weird Munsters pilot I had watched the previous night while eating cake.
2003. When I showed up to gym class, Coach Hyde showed me that my binder that had gone missing the day before was in the garbage can. I was relieved to have it back, but I wondered what kind of evil person would do that.
2000. I think we went to my sister's house and she gave me a birthday present of the soundtrack to Chicken Run, which I had seen the night before for my birthday. I thought it was a strange present, but I went home and listened to the Flip, Flop, and Fly song. (I think I still have that CD, but I never listen to it.)
1998. I think David took me to Winegar's to get my birthday present of a Veggie Friend Seedie. He gave me exact change to get it, and he sent me inside to get it myself. I got "Ima Farmer Corn," the one that had overalls. I went to pay for it, but David had miscalculated the tax, and I was a few cents too short. I informed the cashier that I had to go get some more money. She seemed both amused and annoyed. I ran to the car and got some more coins from David, then went back in and bought it (the cashier had kept it at her register).
1994. It was my birthday party. I (more likely my mom) had invited a bunch of my kindergarten friends over. We took my friend Wesley (I think that was his name) home with us. I really liked Wesley, but I think I just liked him for his mullet. While we were waiting for more kids to show up, I got on the fireplace and put one of the pumpkin lights in my hand and said, "I, Jack, the pumpkin king." Hillary Ulmer was there, and she really liked The Lion King, which came out that year. She imitated me, but said, "I, Nala, the pumpkin queen," which didn't make sense. After the kids all got there, I got my various presents. I think I got a Lion King puzzle. I got a candy bar with a gold wrapper, so I started singing, "I got a golden ticket!" We had lots of Halloween party favors. Then it was time for Pin the Tail on the Donkey. I went first, and everyone laughed when I got the tail far from the donkey. That didn't bother me--but it bothered me that they didn't laugh as much at the other kids, even when they got the tail even further than I did. Looking back, I realize that they thought mine was funny, since I was the first one, but as more kids did it, they realized it wasn't really funny. But I took it as a personal offense, and I had a fit and went and hid under my bed. The kids kept coming to my room to try to get me to come out, but I would just yell at them. Except when Wesley, came, I nicely asked him to leave. Eventually I was coaxed out, but I don't remember what happened. We had to take Wesley home, and there was a broken sprinkler shooting water everywhere on the apartment complex lawn. This might have been the night that the Thompsons stayed longer to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas. In the "What's This?" sequence, when Jack runs into the Christmas Town sign, Wayne said to two-year-old Peter, "Did Jack fall down?"
2012. At church, Michael Wyatt was talking to me about something after sacrament meeting. While he was talking to me, Shayli Simmons came up to me and wished me happy birthday. So then when Michael was done talking to me, he also told me happy birthday. After church, I made a blog post.
2011. That night we went to El Matador for my birthday dinner. When we got at the restaurant, I noticed a terrible goathead patch, and Allie was standing in it. I said, "Don't stand on those plants." She said, "Sorry." She probably thought it was because she wasn't supposed to step on them, but I just didn't want her to get them stuck to her shoes. While we were waiting for food, I mentioned that I had the stupid "I Wanna Go" Britney Spears song stuck in my head. Then my mom told Susanne that they had got me Lady Antebellum and Kelly "Clarkston" for my birthday. I said to my mom, "What did you call her?" since she had inserted a t.
2010. I think this was the time my mom and I went down to the Legacy Parkway trail so I could use my new bicycle. I was wearing my Snoopy "Party like a Rockstar" shirt. I think I brought a Gatorade in the car. My mom just walked on the trail while I biked. I was annoyed when I came across some bikers stopped and having a conversation in both lanes of traffic. Another woman alerted me when she was passing me, but I stayed in my lane, although I might have slightly swerved and made it look like I was switching lanes. Then I came home and ate some Jelly Bellys and I think I turned on the TV for some reason. I think I started making pillowcases from the holiday material my mom had bought me.
2008. Elder Duncan and I waited to get the car from the other elders. We were dressed in our suits to go to district meeting, but when the other elders arrived, they asked why we were wearing our suit coats. They told us that district meeting had been moved to Wednesday, but we had missed the memo. Those elders informed us that we still had more than a hundred miles we could use and it was the last day of the month. We worried that if we didn't use our monthly allotment of miles, they would take miles away from us, so we considered going to Waterville, a small town twenty-five miles north. Elder Duncan and I went home and changed our plans for the day. We went through the area book and looked up people we could see in Waterville. Elder Duncan started having second thoughts, but I persuaded him that it was a good idea, since we had never worked in Waterville. Before we left, we fueled up at 7-11 and bought candy for the ride. I got peach rings. It was a nice drive, but I think I was driving slow. We were at a place where the road was curving, and I began singing "The Long and Winding Road." When we got to Waterville, we stopped at a Shell station to see if they had maps of the town. They didn't have any for sale, but they gave us a paper one that wasn't very good. We parked in front of the house of a part-member family. Apparently the wife was semi-active, but I didn't know her. We walked around to try to find people, but we had a hard time figuring out where we were. We wanted to see one less-active who was a mortician, but we could only find the funeral home, and we didn't know how appropriate it was to knock on a funeral home. We looked for one former investigator, but we couldn't find the house. (I later realized what we did wrong.) Later we got back in the car. We went to one house to try to see if they were the right people, but the guy either slammed his door shut when we got out of our car or else was very short when we knocked on the door. That surprised me, since I had this perception that small towns would be more receptive since they didn't have missionaries there as often. (Odessa, WA, and Winchester, ID, later proved to me that that wasn't true.) We stopped at the house of Billy Byington's father, and there were lots of little annoying dogs, but no one was home. Like all small towns, Waterville had its abandoned buildings.
"Today was a very weird day. Firstly we thought we had district meeting so we were surprised when we didn't. So we did our mission survey. Then we mowed the Schonemakers' lawn. We had over 100 miles to use, so we went up to Waterville. We couldn't find many addresses, and the few we found weren't home. One address was a 210, but it wasn't there, so we knocked on 201, but we don't know if it was right because he just closed the door on us. On our way back we received a call that President is unexpectedly meeting with the mission.
"We had dinner with the Schoenmakers--Bill is sadly almost gone--and helped Brian Latimer move. We went over to Wenatchee twice, and in total we went 77.7 miles.
2006. I think this was the evening that I watched The Munsters' Revenge with my dad. While we were watching, there was a knock on the door, and my dad and sister made me get it. It was an old guy telling us about something, but I don't remember what. He was there a long time.
2005. It was the night before I was singing in general conference. I believe this was the time I went to Great Clips to get a haircut, thus beginning a pattern of getting professional cuts instead of having my mom cut it. I went home and tried to catch what I could of the I Dream of Jeannie mini-marathon, and for some reason my aunt was there. The only thing that makes me unsure about this is that I don't know why I would have gotten a haircut the night before singing in conference, but I think this is what happened.
2004. I remember going to my theater class in the morning and burping up the flavor of Mexican chocolate cake. It made me remember the weird Munsters pilot I had watched the previous night while eating cake.
2003. When I showed up to gym class, Coach Hyde showed me that my binder that had gone missing the day before was in the garbage can. I was relieved to have it back, but I wondered what kind of evil person would do that.
2000. I think we went to my sister's house and she gave me a birthday present of the soundtrack to Chicken Run, which I had seen the night before for my birthday. I thought it was a strange present, but I went home and listened to the Flip, Flop, and Fly song. (I think I still have that CD, but I never listen to it.)
1998. I think David took me to Winegar's to get my birthday present of a Veggie Friend Seedie. He gave me exact change to get it, and he sent me inside to get it myself. I got "Ima Farmer Corn," the one that had overalls. I went to pay for it, but David had miscalculated the tax, and I was a few cents too short. I informed the cashier that I had to go get some more money. She seemed both amused and annoyed. I ran to the car and got some more coins from David, then went back in and bought it (the cashier had kept it at her register).
1994. It was my birthday party. I (more likely my mom) had invited a bunch of my kindergarten friends over. We took my friend Wesley (I think that was his name) home with us. I really liked Wesley, but I think I just liked him for his mullet. While we were waiting for more kids to show up, I got on the fireplace and put one of the pumpkin lights in my hand and said, "I, Jack, the pumpkin king." Hillary Ulmer was there, and she really liked The Lion King, which came out that year. She imitated me, but said, "I, Nala, the pumpkin queen," which didn't make sense. After the kids all got there, I got my various presents. I think I got a Lion King puzzle. I got a candy bar with a gold wrapper, so I started singing, "I got a golden ticket!" We had lots of Halloween party favors. Then it was time for Pin the Tail on the Donkey. I went first, and everyone laughed when I got the tail far from the donkey. That didn't bother me--but it bothered me that they didn't laugh as much at the other kids, even when they got the tail even further than I did. Looking back, I realize that they thought mine was funny, since I was the first one, but as more kids did it, they realized it wasn't really funny. But I took it as a personal offense, and I had a fit and went and hid under my bed. The kids kept coming to my room to try to get me to come out, but I would just yell at them. Except when Wesley, came, I nicely asked him to leave. Eventually I was coaxed out, but I don't remember what happened. We had to take Wesley home, and there was a broken sprinkler shooting water everywhere on the apartment complex lawn. This might have been the night that the Thompsons stayed longer to watch The Nightmare Before Christmas. In the "What's This?" sequence, when Jack runs into the Christmas Town sign, Wayne said to two-year-old Peter, "Did Jack fall down?"
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Last day of school
Public schools either just got out for the summer or are about to get out. That doesn't apply to me anymore. But I'm going to remember when it did--that precious last day of school. Now, I would be able to remember more if I had my yearbooks with me, but I don't, so I will have to go on what I can remember. I know I will remember more things after I post this.
2007. Both of my parents were gone that morning, and we had recently sold our "pink" car, so both the Subaru and the Taurus were gone, which meant I had to drive the Suburban to school. I was a little nervous to drive it to school, and I think I even had Susanne back it out of the garage for me. Then I drove to school and parked in the back parking lot. I got signatures from various people. I remember a discussion about how impersonal the "Hags" acronym was. I got a signing from Mrs. Jamison, who had been my French teacher. After she signed mine, she told me that she almost said she hoped I would get called to a French-speaking mission, but then she realized that she wished I would learn a harder language than French. (And then I got English.) She said that she wanted to know where I got called, so I should make sure it was announced in the Clipper. (That never happened either, neither when I left nor when I came home.) Eventually it was time for me to go home to get ready for graduation. I got in my grad garb and we took pictures of me in front of the fireplace. Then we went over to the "Turtle Building" for commencement exercises. People seemed impressed by all my honor cords. I had a light green one for science, a gold one for High Honors, and two light yellow ones for foreign language (one for Spanish and one for French). While we were standing waiting to go in, I remember someone saying they had asked Brian Mann if he was gay, and he had said, "No, but I support my brother," and they said that thought Brian just wasn't brave enough to admit it. Then we went in and sat down. We all had to fill out little cards with our names on them that the senior officers would read as we pretended to get our diplomas. I filled mine out as "R. Mark Melville" because I was in the habit of doing so (now I usually leave the R. off). They announced that there was going to be an opening remark by Jenelyn Perry, and when she got up she announced that it was a prayer for anyone who wanted to participate. I took off my graduation cap with others, hoping that I would put it on right again. When it was time to go up, I was surprised at all the cheers I got when they announced my name. But my cheers were nothing compared to Jacob Merrill's, the special needs kid who was after me. Then we had to wait in long lines to get our real diplomas. Then afterward I talked with my friend Houston Rowe. My family took pictures with me:
Then we went home and had pizza. The Thompsons also came over. Everyone had fun looking at my yearbook. Jesse read my emo poem, "I Am a Corpse," which was published in the back. He was surprised at how depressing it was and said, "It gets better." Allie looked at my picture. Of course, I was wearing that little fake tux in my picture, and there was a girl's photo next to mine. Allie pointed to her picture and said, "Who's that lady? Did you marry her?" Chancey, Jesse, and I all thought that was quite funny, so we laughed, and we were reproved by our parents, because apparently our laughter had interrupted Grandpa. After Grandpa told his story, we told them why we had been laughing. Since I was completely friendless, my graduation celebration consisted of watching episodes of The Flying Nun. One of the episodes made Sue tear up. After everyone left, I went online and wrote a blog post on my TV.com profile. (Apparently TV.com doesn't have blogs anymore, so I have to link to it on my Gamespot account, which you get automatically with a TV.com account.) I chatted with Jesse on Messenger. The title of my blog, "The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things," was a line from Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter." I couldn't get quotation marks in the title, but Jesse told me that it was fine. He told me that the poem was about religions leading people astray before eating them up, with the carpenter being Jesus and the walrus being Buddha (because he's fat), but I didn't buy it.
2006. I wore my "Woods Cross Juniors" shirt, since it was the last time I would be a junior. I remember seeing seniors at school and thinking it must be sad for them, and I knew I would be in the same position the following year. At the moment I can't remember what else happened that day.
2005. The administration for some reason thought it would be funny to turn on the fire alarms that day, but it was mostly just annoying. (We had had real arson fires in February of that year.) I remember Natalie Cook was videoing people and videoed me and asked me to share something. So I shared words of "advice" from all the old TV shows I watched, such as "You cannot judge a doctor by the way he carves a turkey" and "Every silver lining has its cloud." (Yeah. I was really weird.)
2004. I remember encouraging my friend Houston to come up to the seminary building to get signatures. He did, but he left shortly after. I signed weird things in yearbooks--of all my school years, I think I was weirdest in ninth grade. Special-needs kids Jacob Merrill and Andrew Church had stickers they put in yearbooks. Brad Byington signed my yearbook saying he hoped I would go on the scout trip that summer. (I didn't.) Houston and Josh Ferrer wanted to go to Mrs. Birdsall's classroom to play Scrabble. I told Mrs. Birdsall that I was going to take French the next year. There were some former students visiting her.
2003. The administration had had the brilliant idea that we should still report to all our classes that day, but there would be fifteen minutes between classes for yearbook signing. It only took a few periods for them to realize that was a terrible idea. During the science class, we got our cement boats we had made back (mine didn't float). During the choir class, Dennis Jones was really amused at what I wrote in his yearbook: "Witches--or is that Hags?" I rode the bus home, but when I got to the church/bus stop, no one was there, so I had to walk home. I remember my brother saying, "Well, that was anticlimactic."
2002. This was the only year that school ever got out in May for me (it was May 31). I can't seem to recall what happened at school, but I think that night Jesse had a sleepover at our house, although maybe he only came over but didn't spend the night. There was a Powerpuff Girls marathon in which they counted down the best episodes. I was disappointed in their choice of the best one (the one where all the characters switched bodies).
2001. I brought my Niagara Falls four-color pen to sign yearbooks with. There was a fifth-grader who would talk to me because he liked my Charlie Brown shirt. He asked me to sign his yearbook, so I signed it with my attempt at a Charlie Brown drawing. Kari Fox had brought some Otter Pops, so she took them to the cafeteria freezer so they would freeze. We all signed yearbooks, and I lent my pen to someone, and it ended up missing. I was really sad. Montess Vilchez was crying, and someone said to her, "Don't cry!" But I was sad too, although I didn't cry. When it was time to leave for the day, the Otter Pops still weren't frozen. I had mine open in Laura Ulmer's car on the way home, and right by Walker's gas station, Shantel Cornejo and another girl jumped out into traffic, and Laura slammed on the brakes, making my liquid Otter Pop splash all over me and my yearbook. Laura apologized, and I wondered what made Shantel think she could dart into traffic like that. When they dropped me off, I dowsed myself with the hose, since I was sticky and I thought it was a good way to start off summer.
2000. We had to do a quiz on the states, and I was pretty annoyed. We also had to write a letter to ourselves. I can't remember what else happened.
1999. I remember Mr. Williams showing us a Looney Tunes summer vacation TV special. Then my mom and I went to the building where our eye doctor was; it was very rainy. Then it was time for David's graduation. When everyone was graduated, people threw their caps up, and one cap got stuck on a ledge. After his graduation, David had pictures taken with his friends Michael, Preston, and Heather. They were silly and moved their tassels back as though they hadn't graduated, and my mom had to tell them to put them back. Then we went to China Platter with Preston's family. Sara Hawkes (Preston's younger sister) asked David if he still had his Mad Hatter hat. Preston had a brother with blond splotches dyed in his hair.
1998. I think this was the day my dad had packed my lunch with cookies in it, even though I was going without sugar for a month to earn $20. I ate the cookies, but my mom later told me that I didn't get the $20 because I had cheated too much that month. It was raining while it was sunny, and Jacob Duggar said he didn't like that because it bugged him. Our teacher Mrs. Slagowski gave us some nuts in their shells. We had no way of cracking them. My friend Brian tried to break one open with a spade, but when he struck it, it just shot it across the room and didn't open it. I thought they would be good to use as Thanksgiving decorations, and when I got home I even glued strings to two of them (and put glitter on one) to use as Christmas ornaments. That night I had a sleepover at my house with David Christensen. I asked my mom to buy some peanuts, because I thought that would be a good snack, but then I learned David didn't like them. My brother David was watching The Simpsons; he said it was one of his favorite episodes (the one with all the short stories about Springfield). So I tried to come up with an activity to do with my friend David, so I came up with sledding down the stairs on pillows. But the bottom set of stars had the carpet pulled up, with tacks sticking out, so we could only sled down the top set. We watched The Pagemaster that night. David thought that the name of a literary figure in the movie was a swear word (I won't repeat it here because it will put bad thoughts in your head, since I just said he thought it was bad--even though on its own it isn't bad).
1997. Miss Slater cried when she read the poem she wrote about our class. My grandparents gave my sister a stereo for her graduation. (I don't think they ever got me anything, not that I really wanted anything at the time.)
1996. We signed yearbooks, and I think I might have been annoyed when administrative people signed near their pictures instead of in the autographs section.
1995. All of us clueless kindergarteners thought it was so cool to get a book that had our pictures in it! We didn't know why we got them. I got a slip of paper that said my teacher for the next year was Miss Penman (who would marry over the summer and become Mrs. Taylor). I remember Hillary Ulmer telling her mom excitedly that she got a book with her William Boy in it (oh, kindergarten crushes, if you can call them that...).
2007. Both of my parents were gone that morning, and we had recently sold our "pink" car, so both the Subaru and the Taurus were gone, which meant I had to drive the Suburban to school. I was a little nervous to drive it to school, and I think I even had Susanne back it out of the garage for me. Then I drove to school and parked in the back parking lot. I got signatures from various people. I remember a discussion about how impersonal the "Hags" acronym was. I got a signing from Mrs. Jamison, who had been my French teacher. After she signed mine, she told me that she almost said she hoped I would get called to a French-speaking mission, but then she realized that she wished I would learn a harder language than French. (And then I got English.) She said that she wanted to know where I got called, so I should make sure it was announced in the Clipper. (That never happened either, neither when I left nor when I came home.) Eventually it was time for me to go home to get ready for graduation. I got in my grad garb and we took pictures of me in front of the fireplace. Then we went over to the "Turtle Building" for commencement exercises. People seemed impressed by all my honor cords. I had a light green one for science, a gold one for High Honors, and two light yellow ones for foreign language (one for Spanish and one for French). While we were standing waiting to go in, I remember someone saying they had asked Brian Mann if he was gay, and he had said, "No, but I support my brother," and they said that thought Brian just wasn't brave enough to admit it. Then we went in and sat down. We all had to fill out little cards with our names on them that the senior officers would read as we pretended to get our diplomas. I filled mine out as "R. Mark Melville" because I was in the habit of doing so (now I usually leave the R. off). They announced that there was going to be an opening remark by Jenelyn Perry, and when she got up she announced that it was a prayer for anyone who wanted to participate. I took off my graduation cap with others, hoping that I would put it on right again. When it was time to go up, I was surprised at all the cheers I got when they announced my name. But my cheers were nothing compared to Jacob Merrill's, the special needs kid who was after me. Then we had to wait in long lines to get our real diplomas. Then afterward I talked with my friend Houston Rowe. My family took pictures with me:
Then we went home and had pizza. The Thompsons also came over. Everyone had fun looking at my yearbook. Jesse read my emo poem, "I Am a Corpse," which was published in the back. He was surprised at how depressing it was and said, "It gets better." Allie looked at my picture. Of course, I was wearing that little fake tux in my picture, and there was a girl's photo next to mine. Allie pointed to her picture and said, "Who's that lady? Did you marry her?" Chancey, Jesse, and I all thought that was quite funny, so we laughed, and we were reproved by our parents, because apparently our laughter had interrupted Grandpa. After Grandpa told his story, we told them why we had been laughing. Since I was completely friendless, my graduation celebration consisted of watching episodes of The Flying Nun. One of the episodes made Sue tear up. After everyone left, I went online and wrote a blog post on my TV.com profile. (Apparently TV.com doesn't have blogs anymore, so I have to link to it on my Gamespot account, which you get automatically with a TV.com account.) I chatted with Jesse on Messenger. The title of my blog, "The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things," was a line from Lewis Carroll's "The Walrus and the Carpenter." I couldn't get quotation marks in the title, but Jesse told me that it was fine. He told me that the poem was about religions leading people astray before eating them up, with the carpenter being Jesus and the walrus being Buddha (because he's fat), but I didn't buy it.
2006. I wore my "Woods Cross Juniors" shirt, since it was the last time I would be a junior. I remember seeing seniors at school and thinking it must be sad for them, and I knew I would be in the same position the following year. At the moment I can't remember what else happened that day.
2005. The administration for some reason thought it would be funny to turn on the fire alarms that day, but it was mostly just annoying. (We had had real arson fires in February of that year.) I remember Natalie Cook was videoing people and videoed me and asked me to share something. So I shared words of "advice" from all the old TV shows I watched, such as "You cannot judge a doctor by the way he carves a turkey" and "Every silver lining has its cloud." (Yeah. I was really weird.)
2004. I remember encouraging my friend Houston to come up to the seminary building to get signatures. He did, but he left shortly after. I signed weird things in yearbooks--of all my school years, I think I was weirdest in ninth grade. Special-needs kids Jacob Merrill and Andrew Church had stickers they put in yearbooks. Brad Byington signed my yearbook saying he hoped I would go on the scout trip that summer. (I didn't.) Houston and Josh Ferrer wanted to go to Mrs. Birdsall's classroom to play Scrabble. I told Mrs. Birdsall that I was going to take French the next year. There were some former students visiting her.
2003. The administration had had the brilliant idea that we should still report to all our classes that day, but there would be fifteen minutes between classes for yearbook signing. It only took a few periods for them to realize that was a terrible idea. During the science class, we got our cement boats we had made back (mine didn't float). During the choir class, Dennis Jones was really amused at what I wrote in his yearbook: "Witches--or is that Hags?" I rode the bus home, but when I got to the church/bus stop, no one was there, so I had to walk home. I remember my brother saying, "Well, that was anticlimactic."
2002. This was the only year that school ever got out in May for me (it was May 31). I can't seem to recall what happened at school, but I think that night Jesse had a sleepover at our house, although maybe he only came over but didn't spend the night. There was a Powerpuff Girls marathon in which they counted down the best episodes. I was disappointed in their choice of the best one (the one where all the characters switched bodies).
2001. I brought my Niagara Falls four-color pen to sign yearbooks with. There was a fifth-grader who would talk to me because he liked my Charlie Brown shirt. He asked me to sign his yearbook, so I signed it with my attempt at a Charlie Brown drawing. Kari Fox had brought some Otter Pops, so she took them to the cafeteria freezer so they would freeze. We all signed yearbooks, and I lent my pen to someone, and it ended up missing. I was really sad. Montess Vilchez was crying, and someone said to her, "Don't cry!" But I was sad too, although I didn't cry. When it was time to leave for the day, the Otter Pops still weren't frozen. I had mine open in Laura Ulmer's car on the way home, and right by Walker's gas station, Shantel Cornejo and another girl jumped out into traffic, and Laura slammed on the brakes, making my liquid Otter Pop splash all over me and my yearbook. Laura apologized, and I wondered what made Shantel think she could dart into traffic like that. When they dropped me off, I dowsed myself with the hose, since I was sticky and I thought it was a good way to start off summer.
2000. We had to do a quiz on the states, and I was pretty annoyed. We also had to write a letter to ourselves. I can't remember what else happened.
1999. I remember Mr. Williams showing us a Looney Tunes summer vacation TV special. Then my mom and I went to the building where our eye doctor was; it was very rainy. Then it was time for David's graduation. When everyone was graduated, people threw their caps up, and one cap got stuck on a ledge. After his graduation, David had pictures taken with his friends Michael, Preston, and Heather. They were silly and moved their tassels back as though they hadn't graduated, and my mom had to tell them to put them back. Then we went to China Platter with Preston's family. Sara Hawkes (Preston's younger sister) asked David if he still had his Mad Hatter hat. Preston had a brother with blond splotches dyed in his hair.
1998. I think this was the day my dad had packed my lunch with cookies in it, even though I was going without sugar for a month to earn $20. I ate the cookies, but my mom later told me that I didn't get the $20 because I had cheated too much that month. It was raining while it was sunny, and Jacob Duggar said he didn't like that because it bugged him. Our teacher Mrs. Slagowski gave us some nuts in their shells. We had no way of cracking them. My friend Brian tried to break one open with a spade, but when he struck it, it just shot it across the room and didn't open it. I thought they would be good to use as Thanksgiving decorations, and when I got home I even glued strings to two of them (and put glitter on one) to use as Christmas ornaments. That night I had a sleepover at my house with David Christensen. I asked my mom to buy some peanuts, because I thought that would be a good snack, but then I learned David didn't like them. My brother David was watching The Simpsons; he said it was one of his favorite episodes (the one with all the short stories about Springfield). So I tried to come up with an activity to do with my friend David, so I came up with sledding down the stairs on pillows. But the bottom set of stars had the carpet pulled up, with tacks sticking out, so we could only sled down the top set. We watched The Pagemaster that night. David thought that the name of a literary figure in the movie was a swear word (I won't repeat it here because it will put bad thoughts in your head, since I just said he thought it was bad--even though on its own it isn't bad).
1997. Miss Slater cried when she read the poem she wrote about our class. My grandparents gave my sister a stereo for her graduation. (I don't think they ever got me anything, not that I really wanted anything at the time.)
1996. We signed yearbooks, and I think I might have been annoyed when administrative people signed near their pictures instead of in the autographs section.
1995. All of us clueless kindergarteners thought it was so cool to get a book that had our pictures in it! We didn't know why we got them. I got a slip of paper that said my teacher for the next year was Miss Penman (who would marry over the summer and become Mrs. Taylor). I remember Hillary Ulmer telling her mom excitedly that she got a book with her William Boy in it (oh, kindergarten crushes, if you can call them that...).
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