Things Preston used to say

Last week's memory post was about things my niece, Allie, used to say. This time I'm going to remember the language of my oldest nephew, Preston Xiang-an, who is eight (he'll turn nine in November).

Preston has had unique language environments. He grew up in a bilingual house, with English and Chinese. He did spend a lot of time in Taiwan, although most of his time has been in the USA.

Preston lived with us from the time he was a baby. One of the earliest language things I can remember is when he was one. He randomly stopped one day, bowed his head, crossed his arms, and said some gibberish words. It was his imitation of praying.

At sixteen months, he and his parents went to Taiwan for a few months. When they came back three months later, in June 2006, he had inherited some Chinese. Although I wasn't there, apparently one of those early days when they had come back my mom went to a store and brought him. He kept asking for something, but it was Chinese and they didn't understand. Then he saw some drinks and reacted to them. He was really thirsty and was asking for water in Chinese.

However, most of the time he spoke his own language. His gestures and intonations indicated that he knew exactly what he was saying--but it wasn't English or Chinese. He would even make sounds that I cannot imitate. It was really funny.

The only word I could decipher from his language was "ba." That referred to candy or other sweet things. We had a dish of leftover Valentine candy (and I mean really leftover, like four or more months) sitting on top of a shelf. He knew it was there, and he would sometimes point to it and say "ba! ba!" I think he also called Otter Pops "ba," so I wondered if it came from "pop" and he overextended it to everything sweet. But I really don't know.

He did know some words, like ball. I think that at that point he actually knew more Chinese words than English words.

One interesting phrase he inherited was "I'm done," which he said as "I duh," with the vowel nasalized. He used this not to mean "I'm done" but rather to mean "that's enough" or "I'm unhappy." So if, for example, I were spinning him and it got too fast, he would say, "I duh!" It was an interesting phrase in itself, but it was especially interesting because he actually inherited it from Allie. I think those are the only two kids who would ever use "I'm done" to mean what they meant.

He also liked Baby Einstein videos, which he called "Baby dah," with the vowel nasalized. (He said it the way you would pronounce din in French.) He also inherited this from Allie, who called them "Baby Stein." "Baby dah" was his attempt at saying "Baby Stein." 

Ya-ping was teaching him to say please in Chinese, which sounds something like "bye toe" if you were to terribly anglicize it. He would say "bye boe." Whenever he saw an airplane in the sky, he would wave and say, "bye bye!" in a cute high-pitched voice.

They moved to Nashville in August 2006, and Ya-ping and Preston came and visited the following November. At that time he called me "Marsh."

In April 2007, we went to Nashville. One day we went to a park that had a big train sitting in it. If we touched it, he would get really mad and yell "Nooo!" at us.

Ya-ping said that it was because she told him it was dangerous to play by train tracks, so he associated trains with naughtiness. (I'm not sure why he changed his mind to touch the train in this picture.)

Here is a video from that summer. I wasn't there for this, but it's a good illustration of his very own language. You can understand him say "Hello" and "yeah," and there may be some Chinese in there, but most of it is his own language.
In August 2007, they came out to visit, but since I was working swing shift at Walmart, I didn't get to spend much time with him. We went camping one day, and he was standing on the edge of a firepit (with no fire in it) and going, "Whoa, whoa!" as if he were falling in--but he wasn't. It was really funny. On that same trip, he got annoyed with me protecting him from doing "fun" things, so he would blow raspberries at me.

He would keep saying, "I want to go home." Ya-ping told me he would say that even when he was at home.

Since I barely got to see him on that visit, I went out to Nashville in November 2007, right before I left on my mission and right when he was turning three. When I walked into the house, the first thing he said was, "Grandma?" Not because he thought I was Grandma, but because he knew that I was always with her.

He was really funny that trip. He used the phrase "talk to me" to mean chastise or reprove. Once in the car I told him he needed to do something, and he said sadly to his parents, "Shu-shu talk to me!" (Shu-shu was Chinese for "uncle.") When Ya-ping would chastise David, he would say, "Mommy! Don't talk to Ba-ba!" (I know that Mommy" is not the proper spelling for the Chinese term, but it's close enough for my purposes.) On another occasion I was playing with him and I put a coin on my forehead. He thought that was funny, so he started putting it all over his face. When he put it in his mouth, I got serious and told him he couldn't put it in his mouth. He stormed out and apparently told Ya-ping that I had talked to him.

He had watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, in which Mike Teavee says "Die! Die! Die!" when playing video games. He inherited this "Die!" from the movie. Once he was watching a Land Before Time movie, and the mean dinosaurs came on. He said, "Die!" to them. Once we went to a playground in the mall. There was another kid playing where he wanted to play, and he didn't want to share the area, so he kept saying "Die!" but I don't think the other kid could hear. One day Ya-ping went to a Relief Society activity and I went with Preston into the nursery. A little girl, probably three or so, came up and said, "It's Preston!" He turned around and said "Die!" to her. She seemed quite taken aback. (I still feel bad I didn't reprove him for that and apologize to the girl.)

He liked to sing "Happy Birthday." On his birthday, we sang it to him, but he wanted to sing it as well, and sang it with his mom's name.

He liked to say nightly prayers, sometimes multiple times. His prayers went something like, "Ba-ba, Mommy, Shu-shu, go home, Ba-ba, Amen!" The "Amen" was especially dramatic, adorable, and hilarious.

Once he was shuffling around the kitchen and Ya-ping asked him, "Are you a penguin?" (She asked in Chinese, and I was pleased I could understand it.) He responded quite seriously, and almost defensively, "No, I'm Xiang-an." Once he took a flying bellyflop onto my air mattress, and David said, "Are you Superman?" Again, he seriously said, "No, I'm Xiang-an." I think he said, "No, I'm Xiang-an" a few other times as well.

My last night there, I sprained my ankle. While I was waiting in a waiting room, Preston saw a comics page with Peanuts on it. He said, "Is that Charlie Brown?" None of us knew that he knew Charlie Brown's name, and none of us knew where he learned it. I had to get a splint and bandages around my ankle, and in the car Preston became quite concerned that I didn't have my shoe. He kept saying, "Shu-shu shoe!" He kept asking, even though we explained that we had it. At one point Ya-ping made an exasperated sound because he kept asking, and he started crying. I left on my mission, but I heard that shortly after that they were in the hospital parking lot and he mentioned me hurting my leg.

I came home from my mission, and they came to visit for a long time that December 2009. He was no longer a three-year-old, so his speech had shifted to that of a five-year-old.

He would ask lots of questions, especially when watching movies: "What's happening? Is that the bad guy?" When you would answer him, he would say, "Why?" He still asks questions like that, but not as much.

When he didn't get what he wanted, he would say an overly dramatic and angry "Uh uh!" Both Franklin and Allie inherited this.

I also learned that although he used the pronoun "her," he didn't understand the use of "she." I first learned this one Sunday that December. Allie had gotten some clay at church, and suddenly she realized that she had left it out upstairs, so she needed to go up and put it away. At the same time, Preston headed upstairs, and for some reason she thought that since she was thinking about her clay, he must have been too. She called out "Don't you dare touch my clay, Preston!" and they both raced upstairs. Preston came down later and said, "He hit me, and I didn't do anything." I didn't know what male person would hit him, so I asked "Who?" When they told me Allie, I got confused. I didn't know he had pronoun problems.

I encountered this same confusion nearly two years later, in August 2011. I was cleaning up my apartment in Provo before moving out when Ya-ping called. I couldn't answer the phone, so I called her back. Preston answered, so I asked him about school. I asked him if he liked his teacher. He said, "He is so nice!" and told me some things about his teacher. I said to him, "Oh, so you have a boy teacher?" He said, "Umm...nope." Once again I was really confused, until I remembered his pronoun problems.

In December 2010, we visited Nashville for Christmas. I taught Preston the card game of War, which he called "Army."

Today he will ask "What is it?" when other people are laughing and he wants to know why they are laughing.

And a development he just barely started is overuse of the word "awkward." Yesterday I was at my house looking at the Cake Wrecks website, and Preston was looking over my shoulder. He kept saying, "Who are these awkward people making these cakes?"

And just as with Allie, I know I will remember more stuff after I post this.

Things my niece used to say

Since I have a long stretch now without any holidays, I thought I would post about the linguistic development of my niece and nephews. Since my niece Allie is the oldest, turning ten this month, I will start with her. I'm sure that I will remember more things later on.

I can remember one day in the fall of 2004 when Allie was one. My mom told her to go put her diaper in the garbage, so she did. I was amazed, because that was the first time I knew she could understand English.

In November of 2004, when she was sixteen months, there were only a few words she could say. I think she attempted to say "Xiang-an," the Chinese name of my nephew Preston, but she later only would say "Baby." She could say "turkey" because she loved the inflatable turkey in our yard. Shrek 2 came out that month, and she grew to really like the movie, calling it "Shh."

The following March, I remember her coming into my room on Good Friday, after we had just gotten Easter gifts. She brought Preston's new toy, which had a picture of a dog on it, and said, "Woof!" That was the first time we knew she knew what a dog said.

She learned that our cat's name was Jenny, so she learned that word, only she pronounced it "Genn," with the g hard as in get and girl. My mom thought she was actually saying "kitten," but I'm not sure. She was good at the linguistic principle of overextension, which is using one word to refer to more things than it means. "Genn" was her word for any cat or cat-like animal. Shrek 2 became known as Genn, because of the Puss in Boots character. (She called Monsters Inc. "Boo" and The Incredibles "Bob" and sometimes "Bob, Dash, Baby.") I remember a trip from Yellowstone when Allie was about two in which we stopped  at a rest stop for lunch. There was a squirrel by our table, and when we left, Allie said, "Bye Genn!" On that same trip, she wanted to watch The Incredibles and said, "I miss Bob." That was only the second time we had heard her say "I miss [something]"; the previous time had been one Sunday when she said, "I miss Mom."

For her birthday when she turned two, she got some fake food. She called a fake cookie "cake." But that overextension didn't last long; her go-to dessert word became "pie." At that same time she called all fruits "apples," and she often would request a tomato, calling it an apple. (She requested tomatoes because they look much sweeter than they are.) She later added "bunny" to her vocabulary, which replaced "Genn" as the go-to word for small mammals. She called squirrels bunnies, and she had some Minnie Mouse sandals that she would refer to as bunnies.

One day that same summer (2005), we were looking at pictures and she started calling everyone by name. At that point she had learned to call my dad Pop; I'm not sure why. She kept calling Ya-ping "Gawgo." It was  really funny. We don't know where that came from, but the name stuck. After that, my mom and I were the only ones who didn't have a name from her. She finally started saying Mark, so Grams was the last name she had to learn. Of course, she didn't say her r's, so "Mark" was more like "Mawk." Once I walked into a room and my sister said, "It's Mawk," and Allie said, "No, it's Mawk." She knew my name wasn't Mawk, even if she couldn't say it right. On my birthday in 2005, someone said, "It's the birthday boy!" and she said, "No, it's Mawk."

She used to talk about all of our cars, but she would say it as "ky" (rhymes with "guy"). She would say, "Pop's ky, Mommy ky," and so on.

At the Halloween season in 2005, she became terrified by many Halloween things, even simple things like jack-o-lanterns. As the season progressed, she became a little more tolerant. She would say, "I not scary," meaning she wasn't scared. Once she said, "Pumpkins aren't scary."

In introduced her to Charlie Brown, which she called "Sally and Brown"--although looking back I'm not sure if she was actually saying "Sally and" or if that was her attempt at saying "Charlie."

My sister for some reason introduced Allie to Disney Princesses, and she grew to love them. In October 2005, Cinderella was released on DVD. We put the DVD in and watched the trailers. Allie identified Cinderella as "Wa-wee." Our best guess was that was an attempt to say "Relly," as in "Cinderelly."

At some point that year, my sister began buying bags of cheese sticks that had two flavors, a white one that was Monterey jack, and a yellow one that was cheddar. We would refer to these as white cheese and yellow cheese. Then Allie converted white cheese to Snow White cheese. And then since she had Snow White cheese, the yellow cheese became Belle cheese. I didn't like those cheese sticks; I preferred mozzarella string cheese, so whenever we got regular string cheese, those were called Mark cheese. These cheese names stuck for a really long time. Eventually my sister quit buying the yellow and white cheese sticks and just bought regular string cheese. That was still called Mark cheese, even though there was no other cheese to distinguish it from.

In November 2005, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory came out. That was another movie Allie liked, but it led her to pick up the word "stupid," as Mike Teavee would say, "It's stupid!" In that movie, Willy Wonka once said, "Scaredy cat," and Allie would combine two words she learned in the movie and say "Stupid cat!" She would call Willy Wonka a girl.

Once when she was two and a half, we had a rotisserie chicken, and she kept calling it a "bum."

At some point when she was two, she picked up a habit of assigning characters to a member of the family. I can remember doing this some as a kid of about 5, but only when I was watching movies. Allie took it to the extreme. Near my high school was a car lot with an inflatable witch and an inflatable gorilla. She said the witch was her (because she had been a witch for Halloween) and the gorilla was Preston. In January 2006, we went to Target and bought Corpse Bride. She looked at the DVD and said that she was the Corpse Bride and Preston was Victor, and Pops was the skeleton dog. Around that time, I got the second season of Bewitched on DVD. She did similar things on that DVD. There was a picture of Darrin and Samantha and their new baby--that was David and Gawgo and Baby. There was a picture of Darrin as a werewolf--that was me. And the little animated Samantha was Allie, since she usually made any witch her. (She also kept saying that the animated Samantha was Sleeping Beauty.)

However, the most common and consistent name assignments were with Disney Princesses. She had these down pat. She was Belle and Preston was Beast, my mom and dad were Cinderella and her prince, Gawgo and David were Ariel and Eric, Susanne and I were Sleeping Beauty and Prince Phillip, and our aunt Sue was Snow White. Our cousin Peter was the huntsman sent to kill Snow White. When she would read Princess books, she would substitute family names. All of her replacement names sometimes led to her saying some funny things. Once she was watching Beauty and the Beast and said, "Mom! It's the scary Preston!" Once she said, "Peter tried to kill Sue!"

In 2006, I wrote a blog post about her fascination with "naughty words."

In the spring of 2006, she started calling my mom "Grandmamother" (pronounced "Grammamudder").

Around the summer of 2006, she picked up a lot of words and phrases from movies. All of a sudden she began calling me "Crazy woof" (wolf), and we didn't know why. Then one day I was watching Hoodwinked! with her, and heard Red say, "You crazy wolf!" One summer morning she came into my room and said, "Get up Sully!"--quoting a line directly from Monsters Inc. Once she said something about "a smile like a sick pumpkin"--a line from A Boy Named Charlie Brown. Once I heard her say, "You mean old thing!" facetiously, a line from Cinderella.

She would also memorize words from her princess books; you could read to her and stop and she would fill in the words. Once she said to me, "Did you like looking for treasures when you were a little mermaid?" That was shortly after she said to me, "Bird seed is so gross. I tried it once when I was a little bird, and it was yucky."

Once we were driving through a cemetery, and Allie looked out the window and said, "Oh my gosh! They're darling!"

That summer Ya-ping's sister Shu-hua came for a visit, and Allie began calling her her best friend.

This summer she pronounced my cousin Jesse's name as "Jeshy."

That summer we went camping at Moosehorn lake. One day we drove to see a waterfall with my uncle John and his kids. Allie fell asleep in the car, and when we got there, everyone got out to look at the waterfall. My mom was staying in the car with Allie. After everyone had walked off, I noticed that Allie had woken up, so I looked in at her. She said to me, "Go look at that faterwall!" Another time on this trip, I was watching her walk around. She didn't like my supervision, so she kept saying to me, "No, Prince Biwip [Phillip]!"

In August or September of 2006, a Halloween costume catalog came in the mail, and Allie became obsessed with Halloween costumes. She knew all the costumes in the catalog, and she had decided what all of us were going to be for Halloween. I think I was going to be a ghost. I remember being in the backyard with her one day, discussing the costume situation. I was asking her what people should be for Halloween. I think she said my dad was going to be a turkey. After I had gone through everyone in the family, she said, "What about my best friend Shu-ha?" So I asked her what she should be. She saw the garbage can in the backyard and said, "A crash tan!"

Whereas she had been terrified of Halloween in 2005, she loved it in 2006. She would always insist on driving past houses with lots of decorations. One had a giant spider, so she called that house the spider house. The Loveridges had an inflatable Frankenstein, which she called "Stankenfrein." Once this inflatable was not properly inflated, so for a long time afterwards she would tell us about how the "Stankenfrein was on the ground." She called skeletons "skilligans," probably on analogy with Gilligan (since Quin used to watch that when he visited).

On September 17, 2006, we visited my aunt's house and she fell off the couch and hurt her arm. Then we went back on October 29, and she said that she was going to fall off the couch and hurt her arm. On our way home that day, she started calling me Piggy. She even said, "Oink oink!"

At that same time, she told me that Santa Claus was going to go to Target to get her toys.

This was around the same time she started calling Willy Wonka "Winky Wonka." 

One fall Saturday, I took her outside and played with her in the leaves. She got a leaf stuck to her hair near her eye. She said it made her a pirate. Then she said it made her look like an Indian.

A day or two after Halloween, the Thompsons were at our house, and Allie told Sue, "My mouth's having issues," referring to the rotting face of her jack-o-lantern.

At Christmastime in 2006, she became interested in nativities, which she called "antivities." She called Joseph "Jophes." She would play with nativities like action figures. Once we watched a video of the nativity, and she got the idea that they were giving a baby blessing, and would often incorporate this idea into her playing. Once when she was playing with a particular nativity, I told her, "They're not really giving a baby blessing." So she asked for the box. She said, "It says, 'They give the baby's blessing.'" (The box, in fact, said no such thing.)

Around this time we began to teach her the names of family members. She began to refer to her mom as "Susanne Arena" (her middle name is Sarena) and she would sometimes refer to my dad as Ricky or Rick. She once went to a party with family members of her mom's boyfriend. She later told us that she had told some girls there that Rick's mom had died. I remember thinking how funny it must have been to have this little three-year-old telling these girls about how someone they didn't even know had his mother die!

I remember a day in January 2007 when she named her stuffed animals Allie and Mr. Brucey (Bruce was the name of the dog of her mom's boyfriend). Another night she was watching a Princess Sing-Along and said, "Is this a Valentimes show? 'Cause it has hearts in it?"

One day in February or March the Thompsons were at our house. Quin called her a silly goose. She retorted, "Silly duck!"

My mom got a calling as Activity Days leader, and Allie loved those girls. She called them "antivity girls."

For spring break in 2007, we went to Nashville, and Susanne and Allie took a plane there. I asked Allie how she liked the plane. She said, "It was a little fast."

Then on Easter Sunday, I tended her. I tried to tell her the true meaning of Easter, but she wouldn't have any discussion of death: "I don't want you to die, because then you won't live with us anymore!"

That spring she saw a picture of a city and called it New York. (It was actually either Las Vegas or Salt Lake.) (Maybe this actually happened the year before--I can't remember.)

One day in May, my cousin Jesse came for a visit. She said to him, "You table! You chair!" Jesse found that really funny.

She had a phase where she began words with "bee." Banana was "beenana," pajamas was "beejamas," and Fiona on Shrek was "Beefonia." (Her interest in Shrek was rekindled when Shrek the Third came out.) She also called marshmallows "smarshmallows."

 Memorial Day weekend 2007, we went and saw the new baby of my cousin-in-law Kalia. The baby was wearing a bow, and Allie said, "Just like Baby Shrek!" Allie also said, "Our baby walks." The "our baby" she was referring to was Preston, who was two and a half. I found it funny she called him "our baby," especially since she herself wasn't even four yet.

Then came the summer of 2007, when I was working at Walmart, working in the nursery, and getting ready for a mission. Allie became really funny that summer as she was turning four.

I was once filling out a job application. I asked my mom and sister what I should put on a certain line, and they said, "None." Allie said, "The Flying Nun?" In August that summer, she was playing with her mom, and randomly blurted out "Flying Nun" and "Surfer Buddy!"

There was once a sign on a fence that said "Welcome Home Elder D!" My mom told her what it said, and said that they could make one for me when I got home that said "Welcome Home Elder Mark." Allie had not heard the word "Elder," so she understood "Elder D" as "Letter D," which really does make sense. For the next few years she kept saying that she was going to make a sign that said "Welcome Home Letter Mark." I was quite sad when I got home and the sign said "Elder Mark"--apparently the six-year-old Allie insisted on "elder," even though my mom and sister wanted it to say "letter."

In 2007 she would sometimes call me a name: "You ball-head baby!" We didn't know where that came from. Once when she called me that, my mom reproved her, and she seemed kind of taken aback that she had been reproved: "I just called him a ball-head baby." Then one day she was watching some pre-teen movie, and I found out that's where she got the insult, although I think the movie actually said "bottle-head baby."

That summer, my aunt started the divorce process and kicked her husband out of the house. That apparently inspired Allie to tell me I needed to move out if she didn't like something I did. The first time she did this, she said to me, "Your mom will kick you out, and you'll have to go live by Uncle Wayne!" She did this often, and would sometimes say, "Pack up your stuff and go!" Once she said, "Remember when you broke your leg when you were a little boy? That's why you're moving out!" I wasn't sure why that merited moving out. Once she said "You'll have to come live by us!" since she and her mom had just moved out. Then came the Sunday that fall when she told me to move out, so I began walking out. She said to me, "Don't forget your stuff!" I said, "I have everything I need," and I walked out. Apparently she said to my mom, "He didn't have to leave." She looked out the window and saw me standing in the driveway, so she invited me back in. For weeks she would randomly apologize: "I'm sorry I made you move out, Mark."

But although she no longer told me to move out, she continued to do other threats. On General Conference Sunday, she said to me, "You can't go to nursery anymore! You have to go to Sunday School with your mom and dad!" One day we went to the new Walmart in Centerville. On our way in, she told me about a Spongebob episode she had watched, and said, "Patrick said to Spongebob, 'We're gonna go in a can!'" She didn't want to ride in the cart, so we told her that she could walk around, but if she walked away, she would have to go in the cart again. Well, at one point I found she had wandered off into another aisle, so I picked her up and put her back in the cart. She didn't like that, so she said, "You're gonna go in a can, just like Spongebob and Patrick!"

One Sunday, my mom told her that her mom had packed two dresses. Allie said, "Why did she do that? She's such a retarded sauce!" I figured out that was a misunderstanding of Spongebob's interjection "Tartar sauce!"

Once she was at our house, and she said to her mom, "Your belly's getting big. I think you're going to have a girl!" Susanne said, "Nope, no baby. I'm just fat." At which point Allie pointed to my mom and me and said, "Oh, just like her and him?" My sister took her up to leave. My dad hadn't been in the room (and therefore hadn't heard the conversation), but she called out to him, "Your belly's sure getting big, Pops!" Another time that fall we were at their apartment and a weight-loss commercial came on. Allie said, "Look, Grandma, her belly's as big as yours!" Susanne said, "Allie, that's really not nice." To which Allie said, quite innocently, "I didn't say fat."

Then I left on my mission. I didn't get to talk to Allie during those two years, of course. But I do remember one email she dictated to me in which she said, "I promise," but it didn't make any sense. I talked to her on Christmas 2008. I told her she sounded so big, and she said, "I know, because I'm five." She also told me that she had seen a thing on the news about a Santa Claus tracker, and said, "It kind of freaked me out." On Mother's Day 2009, I talked to her and said, "I can't believe you are five!" She corrected me: "Five and a half."

Then I came home from my mission. On the car ride home, she told me that Preston would wake up with a frowny face. One day that month she said, "I aren't." Then she corrected herself, "I amn't." One day we talked about having family home evening, and she said "hamly foam evening." On December 29, my sister was trying to get her to eat a pork sandwich leftover from my homecoming. Allie refused and said, "My belly doesn't like meat on Tuesdays!"

On Groundhog Day in 2010, my family came down because my car needed to be towed. I was in my Intro to English Language class, and I needed to observe Allie linguistically. I heard her say, "Do you renember that?" She said her favorite February holidays were "Valentimes and Groundog Day."

The Saturday before Memorial Day that year, my parents picked me up in Provo and we drove down to Fillmore. Allie had a stack of movies she was watching, one of which was Mamma Mia! I told Allie I didn't want to watch it, since I don't know of any PG-13 movies that fit my standards. After agreeing to watch something else, Allie told me that I could watch it because it had boys in it. She also told me I could watch her Barbie Princess and the Pauper movie because it had boys in it too.

Fall 2010 I lived at home. She would say "gooder" instead of "better." She would also say "care" instead of "matter." Once I challenged her on this, and she got quite defensive: "It doesn't care what you say!" She would even say "news" instead of "use," a relic from her toddler days.

In June 2011, we were meeting my uncle John and his family (who live in Delta) at the aquarium. Allie asked, "Will their license plate say Utah or Delta?"

On New Year's Eve that year, she was playing with Preston with some sticky dart things that stick to the wall. She caught one as it fell off the wall and said, "Caught red handed!"

She went through a time where she would use "awkward" to mean "weird," and she would use "creepy" all over the place. It usually meant "weird" as well, but it was different than "awkward."

She has often had a habit of saying "Yeah" or "I know" when you tell her something--even if you're answering a question she asked.

Well, that's all I can think of at the moment, but I know there have been lots of other funny things she's said!

July 5

Last year I didn't get around to writing about the day after the Fourth of July, so here it is.

2012. I think I had to go do a source check in the library for work, and it was raining quite a bit. It made me really happy. It felt like September. I remember the cool weather made me think of "The Great Pumpkin Waltz," but then I had to remind myself that it was still more than two months until the beginning of the Halloween season, let alone the holiday itself. Then that day some of my "horse" friends wanted to go to a production of Cyrano de Bergerac in the HFAC. I was going to go meet Carissa, the one who had suggested it. While I was on my way to her apartment, I met my former roommate Jeff Anderson. I talked briefly to him. Then I went to Queen's Arms apartments, but I didn't remember which was Carissa's. So then I went to my apartment to find her apartment or phone number on lds.org, but the ward directory was down. So then I just went up to the HFAC. I went into the play, and I saw my roommate Cameron sitting there. I went and sat down. Then Hanna and Kristen (and maybe someone else) came in. They told Cameron that Carissa was outside the theater waiting for him, so he went out and met her. We moved seats just before the play started. It was an abbreviated, happier story than the original Cyrano. After the play, we walked home, and I talked to Hanna about how it felt like September. She was from Rexburg, so she didn't know what Utah Julys were usually like.

2011. I woke up in the morning in the apartment below me. I didn't make my bed, but I took my Fourth of July pillowcase up to my apartment. When I went back to that apartment to sleep that night, Jimmy (my temporary roommate) had made my bed.

2010. We didn't have school, so I slept in. I think my roommates bought some maple bars and made bacon to put on top of them--but I was still sleeping when that happened.

2009. Our investigator Nick Montez was supposed to come to church, since he was getting baptized that week. He showed up during the gospel principles class--he was late because his truck had broken down. He met with President Landeen, the branch president of the Lewis-Clark YSA branch, and President Landeen gave him a serviceman's scripture set. President Landeen approved it, so then we went to the stake center so that Elder Hinebaugh, the district leader, could interview him. He passed!

2008. Elder Bramall and I had to get up early. Elder Bramall was the district leader, so we had to go meet with a member of the stake presidency, along with the district leader of the Spanish area. When we showed up, we saw the Spanish elders about to knock on a door on the other side of the street. Elder Bramall called out to them and asked what they were doing. They said that the stake presidency member had given them the wrong address, so it was a good thing we got there just in time to prevent them from knocking on the wrong door--it would have been like tracting at 7 or 8 in the morning (I can't remember what time it was). I think we had some kind of breakfast. Then we were singing a hymn to start off our meeting. Elder Bramall said that President Clark liked "Saints Behold How Great Jehovah," but the stake presidency member didn't want to sing that. After our meeting, we went home and took naps, since we had gotten up so early. Then we had a service project because a less-active part-member family was moving into our ward boundaries. The Wenatchee 3rd elders, Elder Bates and Elder Major, helped them move, too (that was the ward the PMF was moving from). The family provided us Costco pizza. It came up that I didn't like mushrooms, and Elder Bates said that he thought that I would like them. He knew I wanted to be a vampire, so he thought that I would like something that grew in dark, damp environments.

2007. I had to have my pre-mission physical. There was someone being trained, so Dr. Cope asked if that trainee could observe. They gave me an extra sheet for modesty.

2006. I think I was casually eating the crumbs leftover from the Fourth of July cake we had bought.

2000. Since the next holiday was Halloween, I took out my small Halloween decorations, including my school art projects, and put them up in my room. (I don't do that anymore, although I still get a little sad at the holiday drought that starts in July.)

1996. I seem to remember throwing snaps outside the backdoor of my paternal grandparents' house. There was a puddle from a sprinkler, so the snap didn't work. I purposely tried to do that because I heard that it made a cool sound in water, but it didn't work. My dad told me about the time he ended up at the hospital the day after the Fourth of July because he was trying to light leftover fireworks.

July 2

I've already remembered July 3 and 4, so the next thing to remember is July 2.

2012. I woke up with "Merry Christmas Darling" stuck in my head for some reason, so I told my roommate Bryton about it. I put on my t-shirt that has an American flag with all the states written on it. I went to my French class, where a girl was wearing a turkey (as in bowling) t-shirt. Our professor talked about how she had a dindon t-shirt, then he looked over at mine, and once he figured it out, he said, "Les états en drapeau." I said it was "pour le quatre juillet." Then that night I went to Dairy Queen for dinner and got a red, white, and blue Starkiss popsicle. I was driving to our ward FHE at Kiwanis park when I saw my roommate Bryton walking over. I stopped and picked him up and drove us over.

2011. I was at home. We went to Smith's Marketplace to buy goodies for North Salt Lake's fireworks. We bought some patriotic brownies and patriotic animal cookies. My overly indulgent parents bought my niece Allie a container of mini Oreos, which she started eating in the car. We went to Village Inn for dinner. Then my grandparents and aunt Sue came up to go to the fireworks. It was a lot busier than I had remembered (since I hadn't been for seven years), and Sue said it had definitely gotten busier. Allie went and sat by Cindy Knuth and talked to her. We heard a distant singer singing "Firework," and I said it was appropriate for the night. After the fireworks, we walked down the gravel path to get home. Sue was saying that the city should keep it up, but my mom pointed out that it wasn't an official path. Then my parents needed to go to the airport. I wasn't comfortable driving there, so my mom drove. I had to quiet down the radio for Bruno Mars's inappropriate "Lazy Song." I needed gas, so she stopped and filled up the tank herself because they were in a hurry. After they were dropped off, I drove home. A Kelly Clarkson song came on (probably "Since U Been Gone"), so when I got home, I looked up the lyrics. I was intrigued that she had a song called "Thankful," so I wondered if it was a Thanksgiving song, but I looked at the lyrics and it wasn't. (My mom thought along the same lines just a few months later when she got me the Thankful album for my birthday, thinking it might have Thanksgiving songs.)

2010. I don't particularly remember this day, but I might have eaten some of the Cool Whip/pudding mixture I had made for a cake the day before.

2009. We went over the baptismal questions with Nick Montez, who was baptized a week later, but some of the details are a little personal, so I won't share them here. We were at the Wynns' house, but Brother Keane was there. I think he offered us breath mints, acting as though they were chewing tobacco (the container was shaped the same). This is my journal entry for the day: "So we've been getting in a little later since we've been teaching Nick Montez and getting him ready for baptism. I've also been really tired, as I am tonight."

2008. In the morning, Elder Bramall and I boarded a bus to go up to Chelan, where we were meeting the Omak elders to go on exchanges. Elder Brimhall came back with me to East Wenatchee, and on the bus I was reading Daniel in the Old Testament; Elder Brimhall later commented on that. We went out and did work. We tracted a complex where an old lady told us not to come back. We stopped at the Adamses' apartment, since Elder Brimhall needed some more water. Then we went home for dinner, but we didn't eat anything. I was too hot to care. I looked at some PIs (potential investigators) we could go see. We stopped at one who wasn't interested and had Fourth of July lights set up. We walked by a house where a mean dog was chained up; it almost got Elder Brimhall. We went to another house to check on a name, but that person had moved, but we talked to the woman there, and she said we could come back. Her name was Glenda, and Elder Brimhall said, "Oh, like The Wizard of Oz." He took down her number. Then we were walking by a house and there was a woman working in her garden. I was really bad at talking to people outside, so Elder Brimhall started talking to her. She was a member (Sister Krueger), and she invited us in, where she was canning peaches. Elder Brimhall learned that she was related to someone he had baptized when he served in Wenatchee, so he called that person up. Then I wanted to go check up on a house we had tracted into a week or so earlier. We had talked to the husband, who said his wife's family were all Mormons, and he said they might have to have us over for dinner sometime. Since they seemed friendly, I went back with Elder Brimhall. This time the wife answered. She let us in and we talked with her. She had gone inactive after a divorce, but her kids in Bremerton, WA, were still active. Her present husband (whom we had met) wasn't a member. She was making dinner and asked if we wanted some, and we declined. But then her husband came home, and they offered again, so we accepted. They gave us spaghetti with sausage. They were very kind, and after dinner they let Elder Brimhall share a spiritual thought. I thought it was miraculous that we had decided not to eat dinner, not knowing that we would get to eat it with them and thus have a good conversation. Then we went home, and Jess, who was the grandson of Sister Knighten (the woman we lived with) and whom we were preparing for baptism, was in and out. He came in and said something terrible happened, that Sister Knighten's cousin had fallen down the stairs in the other part of the duplex (where Jess's dad and uncle lived). We went over, but the man was fine. Then that night Sister Knighten came into our study area to return a chair she had borrowed. I was in the bedroom, the next room over. The door was open, and I was changing my pants. Sister Knighten left rather hastily, so I worried she had seen me with my pants off. Here is my journal entry for the day, which mostly reiterates everything I just said:
"Today I once again had the task of taking over the area. Today was sort of an anecdotal day. We rode the bus to Chelan so I could bring Elder Brimhall home here. We tried to see some potentials. We were able to drop a few, but most weren't home. We came home for dinner, but Sister Knighten's relatives were upstairs, so we got water and went downstairs. I was looking at the potentials sheets, enjoying the cool and resting, so I didn't eat dinner.

"Then we walked to see some more PIs. At one was a vicious dog that almost got Elder Brimhall, but it was tied up. The next PI had moved, but the current resident is now a PI. Then walking back[,] Sister Krueger was working in her yard [Editor's note: dangling participle], so Elder Brimhall said hi to her, both of us not knowing her. She gave us water, and then learned Elder Brimhall had met her and worked with her relatives in Wenatchee. 

"Then we saw Dan and Shawna, a PMF we tracted into, and they fed us dinner. She doesn't want her records here. We'll probably ask the members at the end of the street to work casually with them.

"Then we came home and Jess popped in and out, then came back in and told us Sister Knighten's cousin had fallen down her sons' stairs. He was fine, though. Then tonight Sister Knighten borrowed a chair, and when she came back down I wasn't wearing pants. I hope she didn't notice."

 2007. This might have been the day I wore my blue glasses to work, but I don't know.

2002. I'm not sure, but this might have been the time that my mom and I and my grandparents came home from Iowa. While we had been gone, my Fourth of July window clings had arrived in the mail, so I put them up in the windows.

Related Posts:
The Ghost of Independence Days Past
Independence Eve
A year of holiday memories

July 3-4, 2012

Since it will soon be the Fourth of July, I am going to remember what I can about last year's July 3 and July 4.

On July 3, I went to work, and I was excited that after work I would be able to head home to see North Salt Lake's fireworks. I drove home and decided to stop at Smith's to get some Fourth of July cookies. Gotye's "Somebody I Used to Know" was on the radio. Susanne texted me about treats, and I told her I was getting some right then. I got patriotic Oreos and patriotic Keebler rainbow cookies--they don't have either of those this year, sadly. I looked at the drinks and was intrigued by a cucumber/lime Gatorade, so I got it. I paid for my stuff using the Smith's gift card my mom had given me. Then I drove home. I went inside the house (which was empty, since my parents were on vacation) and I found my Andy Griffith Show DVDs to take back to Provo, in case I wanted to watch them since Andy Griffith had just died. Susanne, Matt, and Allie arrived, and we got some blankets and walked up to the Eaglewood golf course to see the fireworks. We passed the Andersons, who said hi to us. It was really busy, and the fireworks were closer to us than usual. We munched on both my cookies and the ones that Susanne had brought (those soft sugar cookies). I told them how I used to eat those cookies a lot when I worked at Walmart, and I kind of got sick of them. Matt said he used to get the big pink ones out of the vending machine all the time, so he got sick of them. Nan tried my cucumber Gatorade. I think I talked about how I was going to drive back to Provo that night, and that I had my Jan Terri CDs to listen to. Susanne said that Jan Terri was similar to someone we knew, and I talked about some of their parallels, how I wondered if Jan Terri was for real, but then I remembered this individual, and I realized that Jan Terri very likely could be for real, since the individual we know is very much for real. Nan had glowsticks for us to put on. A distant singer started singing Katy Perry's "Firework," and I said that the previous year they had played that right before they started the fireworks. Allie said that she might see a movie with that song--the new Katy Perry movie. I said I didn't think that was a good movie for a little girl. I then asked everyone who they thought was more talented, Katy Perry or Lady Gaga, because I think Gaga is much more talented. Susanne brought up the issue of "Born This Way" copying that Madonna song, and Matt said the songs weren't very similar. After the fireworks, we walked back to the house. We passed the Andersons, who said that Susanne should move into the Christensens' house behind them, but they would see their autistic son Ty with no clothes on. I was worried about our cat Jenny, since I hadn't seen her at all while I was home. I took my Gatorade and cookies in the car and put in Jan Terri's Baby Blues CD. I was still wearing my glowstick. After Jan Terri was done, I listened to the radio. It was an enjoyable drive. When I walked into my apartment, my roommate Bryton had a Hispanic friend over. I finished up my Gatorade and went to bed.

The next morning I was awakened by the sounds of the Freedom Festival. I couldn't fall asleep again, so I got up and got ready and put on my red patriotic Snoopy and Woodstock shirt. Our roommate Cameron left to go with some of our horse friends to the parade. Bryton and I walked over later, having heard where to meet those friends. As we were walking down the street, a man with no shirt and short shorts was running by, and Bryton asked, "Is that a Speedo?" I said they were just short shorts, and he said it was ugly. For some reason we were talking about the hymn "The Wintry Day, Descending to Its Close"; Bryton said the BYU Singers had a beautiful version. We walked along a side road and I was surprised at an abandoned house. We went to 960 N and University, where our friends were supposed to be, but we didn't see them (they were on the other side of the street). Bryton was more patriotic and less cynical than I, so he did a lot more clapping and saluting. He was going home to Farmington, so he wanted to leave, so I left with him. We walked near the Smith Fieldhouse and hopped over a little fence. We were impressed with the serenity and grounds behind the Fieldhouse, where we had never been before. We walked along the trail along the campus stream. For some reason I was talking about the movie Beetlejuice; I said it was a movie that I wouldn't watch anymore. Then we went back to our apartment, and I turned on my Fourth of July playlist. Somehow I got on YouTube. I found a video by these people who claimed to have patriotic alligators that really liked the song "I'm Proud to Be an American"; it was funny only because of how seriously the gator owners took it.

I saw a Brad Paisley video with Andy Griffith and I found a Fourth of July country music playlist, so I watched a Lady Antebellum video. Then I wanted to go out and find something fun to do, since I didn't want to be alone in my apartment all day. I walked around and saw Cameron and Carissa sitting underneath a tree across the street from Regency apartments. I sat by them, but they mostly ignored me (Carissa was psychoanalyzing Cameron), so I pulled out my planner and filled in the calendar in the back and doodled month images. Some other friends, including Hanna, came by and said they had gone to get Slurpees, but they didn't know where Carissa had gone. They said they were going to get in the pool and invited me. So I went home and got in my swimsuit and went back over to Regency. I hung out with Kristen and Hanna in the deep end; I held on to the edge. I told them about how I had two songs in my head, "Leanne" by Jan Terri and "Tik Tok" by Ke$ha, since I remembered the previous year when that song was playing when I crossed the finish line at the Freedom Run. Hanna talked about how I called them horses (Kristen had not yet read that blog post). We talked about how Carissa was interested in Cameron. Some more people came to the pool, and Kristen wanted to get more people to come play a toothpick game in the pool. I went to my apartment to get some toothpicks, even though I wasn't going to play. Kristen came with me and invited Alex across the hall to go to the pool as well. A bunch of people came for the toothpick game; they were a little annoyed that I had brought colored toothpicks. I didn't play because I can't swim and I can't see without my glasses. Michelle Sutterfield came over to the pool, but she didn't get in. She was wearing blue jeans, a white shirt with dogs on it, and a red bow in her hair. Another ward came to the Regency pool, so I left. Carissa came over to our apartment before Cameron had to leave for work. I offered them my cookies. I had a glass of milk while finishing off my Oreos and watching the "Independence Day" clip of the Peanuts Motion Comics Collection. I might have done some homework, but I can't remember. I was Facebook fasting that day, but I did keep checking our ward's Facebook page (looking only at that one page) to see if the ward was doing anything fun. They said they were going to have a bring-your-own-meat barbecue, but I didn't feel like buying any meat. I boiled some corn on the cob that I had grabbed from home and ate it for dinner. Then I went over to Pickup Place (the house across the street from my complex, named after the owners, the Pickups). Francisco had made some artichoke. Russell Ochoa had never heard of artichoke before, and asked what it was in Spanish. I was glad that I knew it was alcachofa, but it was Francisco who answered him. Someone told Nestor Romero that he was mean for making people work in his store on the Fourth of July. I grabbed my water bottle from my apartment, and then eventually we all left to go up to see the Stadium of Fire fireworks. We encountered a fruit tree and ate some of the fruits from it. Kara Mangum said they were cherries, but we recognized that they were small plums. We picked a bunch of them and ate them on our way I ended up walking with Michelle, Ellie, and Francisco. At one point I saw some goathead plants growing, so I stopped to try to pull them up. Michelle asked what I was doing. Then I educated them about goatheads, how evil they are. Francisco said they must serve some purpose, and I said they are used as aphrodisiacs, which Ellie found funny. There were some spraypainted letters on the ground (the kind that water people use) that said "ELI"; Michelle said they almost said "Ellie." We passed the Deseret Towers field, where a bunch of EFY kids were doing some kind of activity. We made it up to the MTC field. We sat with our ward and watched some unattended little Asian kids ride a skateboard down the sidewalk in the field. Some of us played some kind of game, but I can't remember what it was. We took ward pictures, and it just so happened that all of us in the back row were wearing red shirts. A woman came around selling cupcakes. I regretted not buying one, since it was my last opportunity to eat baked goods until Halloween. I asked Michelle whether she was wearing her dog shirt because of the dogs or because it was white; she said it was because it was white. Then we decided to move to a different spot on the fields. I remember telling Chris that his Facebook profile picture made him look like Gilligan. I think Scott Boyce talked about how much he liked the Fourth of July. I remember talking about how the Beach Boys were performing, and someone said they would have to sing "Salt Lake City." Someone who wasn't from Utah thought she meant just changing the words to "California Girls," not realizing that "Salt Lake City" was actually a song. After the fireworks were over, we walked back home. I told Michelle about the patriotic gator video. We met at Pickup Place to watch fireworks some people had brought. I stood on two posts in the parking lot. Some out-of-towners came to watch. They had a tiny baby, and I was surprised they were watching more fireworks with such a little baby. Their car was packed with stuff, not only in the car but also on top. Someone took a picture because it was so ridiculous. Then I went to my apartment and Cameron came home from work. It was after midnight, and I was sad that the Fourth of July was over. I turned off my flag neon light and went to bed in a Peanuts Fourth of July shirt.

I know I will remember more things after I post this.

Related posts:
The Ghost of Independence Days Past
Independence Eve
A Year of Holiday Memories

The Day before Father's Day

 It's almost Father's Day, so I'm going to remember what I can about the day before this paternal holiday.

2012. In the morning I went to Winegar's grocery store and bought a box of Whoppers, one of my dad's favorite candies, and some tortilla chips for my mission reunion. I went home and wrote a note and wrapped up the Whoppers. My sister and I had bought my dad something online, but it hadn't come yet, and I was going back to Provo that day, since I had a mission reunion in Draper. I went to the Draper Temple, where we did a session. Afterward, we went to President Clark's house. I can't remember too much about what distinguished this reunion from others, but I do remember some things. I took a picture of my transfer board picture:

I was in the Clarks' backyard. They had bear decorations, and I noticed some mushrooms growing in their garden, so I facetiously asked if the mushrooms were decorations too. I remember talking to Elder Ellsworth about his companion Elder Draney, who became a transvestite. I talked to one Elder Harris, who had served in Lewiston before I was there. I asked him about his experiences in Lewiston; he didn't remember much, but he did remember an old man named Joe; he actually meant George. Someone had bought a box of Krispy Kremes; I was able to eat parts of the one with red, white, and blue sprinkles. Then it was time for me to return to Provo. President Clark noted how everyone had gathered there because of me, since I had made the Facebook event page. When I got back in Provo, I stopped at Smith's to go grocery shopping, since my mom had given me a Smith's gift card. As I was going in, Michael Barlow and Tek Fish (and maybe Jimmy Murphy) saw me and said hi. They asked why I was dressed up, and they wondered why I had a mission reunion in June. Then I went back to my apartment. I brought in my stuff, and my roommate Cameron had some friends over. I went downstairs and got the mail. I was so excited to find a giant envelope addressed from J. Terri. I excitedly came in and showed Cameron. He got excited too, so I opened it up and pulled out three burned CDs and an autographed picture of Jan Terri. Cameron looked at the stuff and said, "This is her handwriting!" Then he had to explain to his friends what this was all about. He showed her the "Losing You" and "Get Down Goblin" music videos.

Cameron's friend said, "I'm really excited for you." But she said it rather unenthusiastically.

2011. My cousin Jesse was having his birthday celebration at Hogle Zoo, so I had invited a friend from a previous ward, Lori, to go. My mom suggested going with so that she could get us in for free. I met up with Lori and she liked my Eddie Munster t-shirt. I introduced her to my mom and Allie. Lori asked Allie how old she was, and then told her that she would soon be baptized. My mom insisted on going on the train. So we did. Then my mom left and Lori and I sat in some shade and we talked about various things. Eventually Jesse and Lisa came, and so did one of their friends. I borrowed some sunscreen from their friend. Then we proceeded to look at the animals. But Lori didn't care to stay with Jesse and co., and we went ahead. She had never been to Hogle Zoo before. We went to the exhibit that was a remnant of Nature's Nightmares, and she couldn't stand to look at the mouse, and she told me she was glad I hadn't taken her to see the bats. When we were at the ostriches and giraffes, she talked about people from our ward. Then she told me she needed to leave because she needed to go babysitting. I walked her to the entrance. At one place Taylor Swift's "You Belong with Me" was playing, and Lori said she wondered if she would ever sing about anything different. As she left, I said, "We should do this again," and she said, "Yeah," but it sounded insincere, and I haven't talked to her since then. Then I went and found Jesse and Lisa. Lisa asked me where my friend was. We almost got some Slurpees or something at the zoo, but they were expensive, so we left. I rode with Jesse and Lisa so they could take me to my mom at their mom's house. As we were approaching their car, I saw a bumper sticker that was horribly faded that said "These colors don't run." I found it ironic. Lisa wanted to get Slurpees, but then she wanted shaved ice, and then we didn't get anything. Both my grandma and my mom were at Sue's house, and we visited. We talked about when Peter hacked Jesse's Facebook, saying he was gay. Grandma said she was sick because she thought it was real. Lisa was mad that people had believed it. We had a conversation about our cousin Tammy's blog post about their kid Jacob, who claimed he had once been an adult. In another conversation, my mom said to the Thompsons, "There was a time when we even liked your dad," and they didn't believe that.

2010. My mom was on vacation, so it was just me and my dad at home. I gave my dad  the present I got him, the new Alice in Wonderland movie. We went out to dinner at Chuck-A-Rama. It was a very quiet dinner. I remember getting their Slurpee-like drink. Then we went home. I think we might have watched the end of Munster, Go Home! which we had started watching the night before. We also watched Alice in Wonderland. I was on the elliptical machine for the movies. After Alice in Wonderland we watched the special features. Then he went to bed, and I went on Facebook and "liked" the Munster, Go Home! page.

2009. I think this was the day that we went to the Lewiston stake center to meet our mission president, President Clark, who was leaving. He shined our shoes for us. When he shined mine (which were quite ugly, by the way), he said, "These shoes have tracted many a street," since I was the oldest there (I think for some reason the Clarkston elders weren't there). Sister Clark was giving us M&Ms because we were "Missionaries with a Message." There were some that were mini M&Ms, and he said they should give them to Elder Hightower (who was quite short) and I said "and Sister Bruner."

2008. This is my journal entry for the day:
"This morning we fixed my bike and made a lot of good contacts with less-actives. In one complex there must be one righteous person, otherwise fire and brimstone would have rained on it. We saw three potentials and one less-active, all of whom were the spawn of Satan. We did tract a mostly nice street, but the people weren't interested. We had dinner with the Sanchezes as well."
The less-active man in the apartment complex was quite rude to us, even though he said he believed. I can only really remember one other person there. Elder Bramall told me that he had previously talked to a man there, who seemed deeply touched by our message, but when he went back, the man's girlfriend or wife was really rude. So we went back this day and she answered the door again. She was quite rude. Elder Bramall said something about how he hoped she wasn't angry, and she said, "I am angry." I don't mind so much if people aren't interested; they just shouldn't be rude about it. At the Sanchezes' that night, we had fried chicken and fried fish, but there wasn't much chicken, and I felt guilty eating chicken if there wasn't much of it. So I ate the fish, and I didn't really care for it.

2007. I know we were at the Music to the Maxx store in Bountiful so I could get something for my dad. I know I bought him a double feature of The Addams Family/Addams Family Values, but I can't remember if I got it there or at Smith's Marketplace, where we went next. I know that at Smith's Marketplace I got the second season of The Flying Nun.

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...).