Presidents' Day 2013 and 2014

Two years ago, I remembered all the Presidents' Days of the past, so now I'm going to remember the two Presidents' Days that happened since then.

2013. In the morning, I went over to Cougar Dental for my root canal. They numbed my mouth up, and they asked if I wanted laughing gas. I asked what they recommended and asked if the operation would be painful. They said the operation wasn't painful; the laughing gas would just be to calm me, and I would have to pay extra, but they could let me try it and see if I liked it. They also let me watch a movie on the screen above me, so I selected Hugo. I realized that I didn't like the laughing gas, so I asked them to turn it off. They drilled a hole into the back of my dead tooth and were doing their thing, but I was numb so it really wasn't a big deal to me. At one point, the dentist looked up and asked what I was watching; but since I was numb and had equipment in my mouth, all I could say was "Ew-oh." He said "What?" and I was worried how I was going to explain, but then he realized what I said. Then I went home, but I don't remember what I did that day. That evening, though, my roommate Scott wanted to host a dance party at our apartment, and I wanted to get some homework done, so I planned to go to campus to study so I wouldn't be distracted. Our friend Michelle came over, and she saw my St. Patrick's Day decorations. She also noticed I was wearing a St. Patrick's Day shirt and asked if I was going to wear a St. Patrick's Day shirt for the next month. I explained no, and I told her I had bleached the shirt; then I turned around so she could see the bleach.

2014. My mom was down in the family room with her broken leg. At one point, we got a delivery of crutches, and Buddy the dog went out and barked at the delivery man. When I came in and told my family that, Susanne said, "He's a jerk." The crutches weren't normal crutches, so we didn't know what was going on. I remembered there was an Irish-themed episode of The Flying Nun that originally aired in March, so I wanted to watch it and get feedback from my mom and sister to see if they thought it was a St. Patrick's Day episode. When Sister Bertrille took off flying in the episode, Allie said, "What the heck?!" When the episode was over, I said, "The show is weirder than I remembered it," and Allie said, "Yeah!" Susanne didn't think it was a St. Patrick's Day episode because that wasn't what it was about. My mom agreed, but she was sure they included all the Irish stuff for St. Patrick's Day. I said that was enough for me to know it was suitable for the holiday. The DVD menu was on the TV screen, and my mom said, "Was that 'May the Wind Be Always at Your Back'?" I said yes, and I wondered why she needed to ask that, since it couldn't be any other episode. Then I asked my folks if it was OK if I listened to a YouTube video for class. They said it was. It was about whether Amazon was good or bad (for the book industry), and Susanne said, "I love Amazon!" I told her she was paying more attention to the video than I was, because I couldn't bear the thought of watching an hour-long video of a seminar, so I was just looking at pictures of weird-looking bats. I might have also showed them a GIF of a peacock spider.

Then it was late enough that I needed to go back to Provo. I think someone had brought dinner, and my family was watching the Olympics.

February 16

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.)

Childhood imaginings

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

December 5, 2009

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

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

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

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

February 12-15, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

Misused words

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

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

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

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

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

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

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