A few weeks ago, I did a blog post about pets my family has had, but I forgot about one that was sort of a pet, on accident.
One rainy fall day when I was in second grade, I was home sick from school, sitting in our basement on our off-white four-cushion couch with the blue quilt my parents got for their wedding. I noticed something moving on the carpet, and when I looked at it, I was surprised.
"Dad! There's a lizard on the floor!"
I'm not sure why my dad was home that day, but he was. When he came and examined it, he explained that it was a salamander, rather than a lizard. I think it was black, and it had little white bumps on it--I don't know if that was part of it, or if it had a disease, or if things were stuck to it.
I don't remember exactly what happened, but we ended up putting it in an aquarium. I can't remember whether we had it sitting around or if we borrowed it from my aunt.
Despite our efforts to nurse it, it died on the fourth day we had it.
It seems like I might have seen another salamander in our window well years later, but I'm not sure about that. That's probably how this particular salamander ended up in our house. We've had lots of spiders and small millipedes, and occasional centipedes and Jerusalem crickets, in our house, but that's probably the largest invader we've had in our basement. It was a strange occurrence indeed.
Saturday, April 11, 2015
Saturday, April 4, 2015
Meeting Apostles
Watching general conference made me reflect about the times I've seen the Apostles and members of the First Presidency in person.
However, I'm not going to include being present at meetings, except when these meetings were more intimate. Therefore, I won't talk about a 2004 stake conference with Elder Packer or a work meeting a few months ago with Elder Bednar.
On October 17, 2009, Elder Bednar came to visit my mission. It was the last proselyting day for the missionaries who went home a transfer before I did. Our ward mission leader, Brother Presnell, drove us from Lewiston up to Spokane, to the stake center next to the temple (technically in Spokane Valley). We greeted all the missionaries we knew, and there were swarms of Spokane's blue gnats. I said they were worse in Lewiston, and my companion, Elder Tamblyn, agreed. Sister Craven, one of the office missionaries, came up to me and said she recognized my name because she had just been filling out my going-home papers--which wasn't something I liked to talk about. We all got on some bleachers that had been set up in front of the temple for a mission-wide picture. When Elder Bednar arrived, I overheard a missionary say something a little vulgar--and no one laughed, apparently realizing it wasn't appropriate to the situation. I think we sang a few songs, and my evil former companion Elder LaPratt was loudly suggesting songs to sing. As we were going in, I saw Elder Bednar in the hall, and I wondered if we were supposed to go in that way. Elder Warren, my previous companion, sat with us because he was annoyed that some Spanish elders had felt entitled to sit at the front and took his spot. Brother Presnell sat up on the stand in the choir seats--I think they asked the non-missionaries to do that because we were having a Q and A with Elder Bednar. Elder Rasband asked about a certain principle, and Elder Robinson stood up and recounted the story of Jethro and Moses. When Elder Bednar got up, he told us to not write down anything he said but to write down what the Spirit taught us. He also asked us not to go blabbing about what he said in the meeting, for fear that the "telephone" effect might happen, where his words get distorted. ("Telephone effect" is my own term, not his.) At one time my former companion Elder Betenson said something in answer to one of Elder Bednar's questions, and Elder Bednar said, "I could just kiss you!" I knew that must have made Elder Betenson happy, since he loved Elder Bednar. We then left, and apparently Elder Bednar was speaking to young adults from the area; we saw Lindsey Burrup from our Lewis-Clark YSA branch. Then Brother Presnell took us to a Chinese buffet, and some other missionaries also went there; I think they might have sat with us. When we got out of the restaurant, I remembered why I had quit wearing those shoes: it was raining, and my feet were getting wet because of the holes in the bottom of my shoes.While Brother Presnell was getting gas, I asked Elder Tamblyn what he thought of the meeting, because he was a little sullen for some reason. He said he absolutely loved it.
One evening in the late summer or early fall of 2010, my mom and I drove up to a road so I could go running and she could go walking. When we got to a four-way stop, I told her, "Don't run over those pedestrians," and my mom said, "Especially since he's in the First Presidency!" It was President and Sister Uchtdorf. Sister Uchtdorf waved at us and we waved back. We wondered why she waved, but my mom pointed out it was probably because she was thanking us for stopping for them. We saw them many times walking along there. Once as I ran by, I said, "Hello, President and Sister Uchtdorf," which is a mouthful to say while running by. He said, "Hello there."
A year later, in August 2011, while my family was on vacation and I was wearing brand-new light blue shorts, I had intended to go running, but I wasn't feeling up to it, so I was walking back towards my car. I saw the Uchtdorfs approaching, and I felt bad approaching them on the narrow sidewalk, so I walked in the gutter. I didn't plan on saying hi this time, because I realized they surely got greetings all the time and maybe got tired of them. But even though I wasn't going to say hi, he said hi to me, even though I was walking in the curb and there were trees between us.
My mom also used to talk to them sometimes, and that same 2011 August I saw them talking with a man in his yard. We also saw them at Costco.
In December 2014, I was asked to give the opening prayer in sacrament meeting on December 21 for the Christmas program. I got an email beforehand announcing the program--and the speaker was President Henry B. Eyring! That, of course, made me very nervous. I was also supposed to bless the sacrament, but when I got to the chapel, others were blessing it, so I passed instead. I was sitting next to Keith Savage, and he was saying he was nervous "because of you-know-who." I said I was nervous because I was saying the prayer, and he said, "Don't mess up!" I was so nervous I didn't even bother to bring the microphone down to my mouth and instead stood on my tiptoes. It certainly wasn't a prayer I usually say. During the meeting, I was sitting on the first or second row by myself, and President Eyring kept staring at me while he was speaking. It got a little uncomfortable at times, although it wasn't scary because he always had a smile on his face. I can't quite remember what he said, but I think he talked about listening to the Spirit to know how we can help people. (I know, it's horrible that I got to hear him and I don't remember what he said!)
A week later, he visited our ward again, and since there was extra time, he spoke again. He talked about his unusual proposal, how he married late, and how his wife's parents didn't think he was good enough.
These are the only intimate encounters I can remember having with those Church officials. But I can say that with all three of these men, even though my encounters were brief and not very personal, I felt nothing but love from them. And I feel like they honestly believe and strive to practice what they preach.
However, I'm not going to include being present at meetings, except when these meetings were more intimate. Therefore, I won't talk about a 2004 stake conference with Elder Packer or a work meeting a few months ago with Elder Bednar.
On October 17, 2009, Elder Bednar came to visit my mission. It was the last proselyting day for the missionaries who went home a transfer before I did. Our ward mission leader, Brother Presnell, drove us from Lewiston up to Spokane, to the stake center next to the temple (technically in Spokane Valley). We greeted all the missionaries we knew, and there were swarms of Spokane's blue gnats. I said they were worse in Lewiston, and my companion, Elder Tamblyn, agreed. Sister Craven, one of the office missionaries, came up to me and said she recognized my name because she had just been filling out my going-home papers--which wasn't something I liked to talk about. We all got on some bleachers that had been set up in front of the temple for a mission-wide picture. When Elder Bednar arrived, I overheard a missionary say something a little vulgar--and no one laughed, apparently realizing it wasn't appropriate to the situation. I think we sang a few songs, and my evil former companion Elder LaPratt was loudly suggesting songs to sing. As we were going in, I saw Elder Bednar in the hall, and I wondered if we were supposed to go in that way. Elder Warren, my previous companion, sat with us because he was annoyed that some Spanish elders had felt entitled to sit at the front and took his spot. Brother Presnell sat up on the stand in the choir seats--I think they asked the non-missionaries to do that because we were having a Q and A with Elder Bednar. Elder Rasband asked about a certain principle, and Elder Robinson stood up and recounted the story of Jethro and Moses. When Elder Bednar got up, he told us to not write down anything he said but to write down what the Spirit taught us. He also asked us not to go blabbing about what he said in the meeting, for fear that the "telephone" effect might happen, where his words get distorted. ("Telephone effect" is my own term, not his.) At one time my former companion Elder Betenson said something in answer to one of Elder Bednar's questions, and Elder Bednar said, "I could just kiss you!" I knew that must have made Elder Betenson happy, since he loved Elder Bednar. We then left, and apparently Elder Bednar was speaking to young adults from the area; we saw Lindsey Burrup from our Lewis-Clark YSA branch. Then Brother Presnell took us to a Chinese buffet, and some other missionaries also went there; I think they might have sat with us. When we got out of the restaurant, I remembered why I had quit wearing those shoes: it was raining, and my feet were getting wet because of the holes in the bottom of my shoes.While Brother Presnell was getting gas, I asked Elder Tamblyn what he thought of the meeting, because he was a little sullen for some reason. He said he absolutely loved it.
One evening in the late summer or early fall of 2010, my mom and I drove up to a road so I could go running and she could go walking. When we got to a four-way stop, I told her, "Don't run over those pedestrians," and my mom said, "Especially since he's in the First Presidency!" It was President and Sister Uchtdorf. Sister Uchtdorf waved at us and we waved back. We wondered why she waved, but my mom pointed out it was probably because she was thanking us for stopping for them. We saw them many times walking along there. Once as I ran by, I said, "Hello, President and Sister Uchtdorf," which is a mouthful to say while running by. He said, "Hello there."
A year later, in August 2011, while my family was on vacation and I was wearing brand-new light blue shorts, I had intended to go running, but I wasn't feeling up to it, so I was walking back towards my car. I saw the Uchtdorfs approaching, and I felt bad approaching them on the narrow sidewalk, so I walked in the gutter. I didn't plan on saying hi this time, because I realized they surely got greetings all the time and maybe got tired of them. But even though I wasn't going to say hi, he said hi to me, even though I was walking in the curb and there were trees between us.
My mom also used to talk to them sometimes, and that same 2011 August I saw them talking with a man in his yard. We also saw them at Costco.
In December 2014, I was asked to give the opening prayer in sacrament meeting on December 21 for the Christmas program. I got an email beforehand announcing the program--and the speaker was President Henry B. Eyring! That, of course, made me very nervous. I was also supposed to bless the sacrament, but when I got to the chapel, others were blessing it, so I passed instead. I was sitting next to Keith Savage, and he was saying he was nervous "because of you-know-who." I said I was nervous because I was saying the prayer, and he said, "Don't mess up!" I was so nervous I didn't even bother to bring the microphone down to my mouth and instead stood on my tiptoes. It certainly wasn't a prayer I usually say. During the meeting, I was sitting on the first or second row by myself, and President Eyring kept staring at me while he was speaking. It got a little uncomfortable at times, although it wasn't scary because he always had a smile on his face. I can't quite remember what he said, but I think he talked about listening to the Spirit to know how we can help people. (I know, it's horrible that I got to hear him and I don't remember what he said!)
A week later, he visited our ward again, and since there was extra time, he spoke again. He talked about his unusual proposal, how he married late, and how his wife's parents didn't think he was good enough.
These are the only intimate encounters I can remember having with those Church officials. But I can say that with all three of these men, even though my encounters were brief and not very personal, I felt nothing but love from them. And I feel like they honestly believe and strive to practice what they preach.
Saturday, March 28, 2015
April 17-21, 2014
Time to remember last year's Easter!
Thursday, April 17. In the morning I went up to the JFSB for the French Language Fair. I went into the foreign language lounge area, and one of the French professors assigned me and two others to be in charge of Le gare, the "railroad station." We set up a table and set up some maps and signs next to it. I talked to my "coworkers"; one was a master's student in English who had studied a lot of French, while the other girl was in a lower level than I was. We sat at the table and all the kids would come up and try to talk to us in French; we were to pretend they were buying tickets, and I somewhat felt it was a little silly to write a price on a piece of paper. I would ask them "aller simple ou aller retour," and many of them would repeat, "aller recour." I would ask "fumeur ou non-fumeur," and when they didn't understand, I would imitate smoking. Some of them said fumeur, not realizing what they were saying; but one student deliberately said it, so I said, "C'est mauvais pour la sainté!" I had never heard the pronunciation of the city Reims, but the master's student helping out pronounced it, and later one of the teachers did as well. Upon finding out that one student wasn't from a high school, the master's student said, "Quel collège?" The kid thought "collège" meant college, so she had to say in English, "What middle school?" Eventually, one Drew Bringhurst came by. He recognized me as being from the same ward, but he didn't immediately say so. I asked if Mrs. Jamison still taught French, but he said she didn't, and I thought he said it was Mrs. Gregg. Eventually, it was time to clean up. I was walking around in my red-orange pants, Eddie Munster shirt, and blue Converse. I didn't have any of the French pastries they were offering us, since they weren't Eastery. I wanted to see if I could find the WXHS French teacher, so I walked around, but didn't find anyone, but some of the kids remembered me from my booth. I even walked around outside to try to find someone from Woods Cross. Then I went to my apartment to work. Later, Mom called me to meet them at the Old Spaghetti Factory, so I drove up there. In the restaurant, they talked about how Mom had forgotten her credit cards, so Susanne had to pay for everything. After dinner, I got in my car, but it didn't start, so I called Mom and asked them to return. They did, and then they came over to my car--and then it started just fine. I drove back to my apartment, listening to my new Mamas and the Papas CD, and the song "String Man" came on. Then I met my friend Megan and we walked up to the Eyring Science Center so I could show her the stream table. I even brought with me a tiny piece of the plastic sand that I had accidentally taken home on a previous occasion. On our way there, I told her about participating in the French Language Fair, and she said her sister did that once. While we were looking at the table, one of my Geology 210 comrades, Hannah Checketts, looked in the room. Then we went down to Spoon It Up, and I had a bowl of cereal while she had frozen yogurt, and we talked about me only eating seasonal things, so I could have Easter M&Ms. Then she said that her friend Natausha had texted her. I went back to my apartment and watched The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town; my roommate Jordan was in the kitchen with this then-girlfriend Laura, and they seemed slightly amused by the show; Jordan half-heartedly sang along with the song "If You Do," and Laura went "aww" when it was over. This is a portion of my journal entry for the day:
"Today I helped out at the French Language Fair. It was funner than I expected, just saying, 'Bonjour, où est-ce que vous voudriez aller? Fumeur ou non-fumeur? Première classe ou deuxième classe? Aller simple ou aller retour?' I saw Drew Bringhurst from the 11th Ward, and he said the teacher was no longer Mrs. Jamison--maybe Mrs. Gregg?
"I worked, and then Mom, Nan, and Allie took me to the Old Spaghetti Factory. My car didn't want to start, but then it did."
Friday, April 18. We went up to our final for French 322. We got the prompts we could write about, and I chose one on gun control, since I had written a blog post about that. I cited examples of the Florida theater/popcorn incident and the Sandy Hook and Aurora tragedies. I expressed disdain that Obama's neutral plan was so widely opposed. During the final, Mme Petelo's son came in. Then I went to my apartment and prepared to go home. I got my remaining Easter stuff and drove home, and on my way home I saw a billboard for Ken Garff with chocolate bunnies, and I was excited that I would be getting some (but I didn't). When I got home, I showed Mom my Easter treats. I was going to share my carrot cake M&Ms, but she thought they were jelly beans and said "I don't want that." She wanted one of the egg-shaped Reese's ice cream bars instead.
Saturday, April 19. We probably had our egg hunt that morning, but I can't quite remember. I went to Famous Footwear and got some red Sperry shoes, and I think the cashier liked my Peeps shirt. That evening we colored eggs, and I couldn't resist drawing shamrocks on one and dyeing it green. My family was surprised I would do that, but shamrocks aren't exclusively for St. Patrick's Day. My family showed me the nutcracker M&M dispensers they bought in Vegas and let me choose one, so I chose the orange one, and I put the carrot cake M&Ms in it. Susanne had some, but Matt didn't want any. That night, sister missionaries came to our house to share a lesson. We talked about how I was finishing up at BYU, and one of the sisters had been there before her mission. They asked Allie about what we celebrate at Easter, and she was very shy in responding. At one point, my dad said that I had never done anything wrong.
Sunday, April 20. After church, I wrote on my blog. We went to my grandparents' house for dinner (my grandpa really liked my blog), and I was pleased with the basket they had full of candy. I was excited to eat it, and Peter was a bit surprised, but it was Easter candy so I could. (I couldn't, however, have dessert.) I was wearing orange striped socks, and he asked if they were Easter socks or just regular socks. Then I went home and wrote on my memory blog. I got an email with a special prize for helping out at the French Language Fair, but the prize was the text of Handel's Messiah so we could look at it while listening to the MoTab's Messiah concert, which I thought was a pretty lousy prize. But while writing my blog, I did listen to the concert to see if it was better than the MoTab recording I have from the 90s. The 2014 performance wasn't really that great, because the soloists were terrible and operatic. I wouldn't say they were an improvement over the earlier counter tenors.
Monday, April 21. I worked on the couch when there was a knock at the door. It was a guy my parents hired to redo our basement walls and ceiling, and he had come much earlier than anticipated. I let him in, and he began taking down the ceiling. He opened the door to let the dust out because he didn't know how to open our downstairs windows. I showed him how to take the storm windows out to open the real windows, and he said he had never seen that. Then my parents came home and were glad I was there to let the repair guy in. Then I played some video games before I drove back to Provo. I put on my new shoes and they seemed a little big, so I was debating whether I should try to return them for a smaller size, but I decided not to. (I think they had been clearance anyway.) Then I returned to Provo. This is my journal entry:
"Today I worked at home home, being there for Easter. The folks are remodeling a lot, and the drywall guy came while I was there. It was a good thing I was home. I finished working, and he was still there, so I played a lot of video games (and finally got to World 8 on Mario 3). Then I eventually left, and tonight I went running."
Thursday, April 17. In the morning I went up to the JFSB for the French Language Fair. I went into the foreign language lounge area, and one of the French professors assigned me and two others to be in charge of Le gare, the "railroad station." We set up a table and set up some maps and signs next to it. I talked to my "coworkers"; one was a master's student in English who had studied a lot of French, while the other girl was in a lower level than I was. We sat at the table and all the kids would come up and try to talk to us in French; we were to pretend they were buying tickets, and I somewhat felt it was a little silly to write a price on a piece of paper. I would ask them "aller simple ou aller retour," and many of them would repeat, "aller recour." I would ask "fumeur ou non-fumeur," and when they didn't understand, I would imitate smoking. Some of them said fumeur, not realizing what they were saying; but one student deliberately said it, so I said, "C'est mauvais pour la sainté!" I had never heard the pronunciation of the city Reims, but the master's student helping out pronounced it, and later one of the teachers did as well. Upon finding out that one student wasn't from a high school, the master's student said, "Quel collège?" The kid thought "collège" meant college, so she had to say in English, "What middle school?" Eventually, one Drew Bringhurst came by. He recognized me as being from the same ward, but he didn't immediately say so. I asked if Mrs. Jamison still taught French, but he said she didn't, and I thought he said it was Mrs. Gregg. Eventually, it was time to clean up. I was walking around in my red-orange pants, Eddie Munster shirt, and blue Converse. I didn't have any of the French pastries they were offering us, since they weren't Eastery. I wanted to see if I could find the WXHS French teacher, so I walked around, but didn't find anyone, but some of the kids remembered me from my booth. I even walked around outside to try to find someone from Woods Cross. Then I went to my apartment to work. Later, Mom called me to meet them at the Old Spaghetti Factory, so I drove up there. In the restaurant, they talked about how Mom had forgotten her credit cards, so Susanne had to pay for everything. After dinner, I got in my car, but it didn't start, so I called Mom and asked them to return. They did, and then they came over to my car--and then it started just fine. I drove back to my apartment, listening to my new Mamas and the Papas CD, and the song "String Man" came on. Then I met my friend Megan and we walked up to the Eyring Science Center so I could show her the stream table. I even brought with me a tiny piece of the plastic sand that I had accidentally taken home on a previous occasion. On our way there, I told her about participating in the French Language Fair, and she said her sister did that once. While we were looking at the table, one of my Geology 210 comrades, Hannah Checketts, looked in the room. Then we went down to Spoon It Up, and I had a bowl of cereal while she had frozen yogurt, and we talked about me only eating seasonal things, so I could have Easter M&Ms. Then she said that her friend Natausha had texted her. I went back to my apartment and watched The Easter Bunny Is Comin' to Town; my roommate Jordan was in the kitchen with this then-girlfriend Laura, and they seemed slightly amused by the show; Jordan half-heartedly sang along with the song "If You Do," and Laura went "aww" when it was over. This is a portion of my journal entry for the day:
"Today I helped out at the French Language Fair. It was funner than I expected, just saying, 'Bonjour, où est-ce que vous voudriez aller? Fumeur ou non-fumeur? Première classe ou deuxième classe? Aller simple ou aller retour?' I saw Drew Bringhurst from the 11th Ward, and he said the teacher was no longer Mrs. Jamison--maybe Mrs. Gregg?
"I worked, and then Mom, Nan, and Allie took me to the Old Spaghetti Factory. My car didn't want to start, but then it did."
Friday, April 18. We went up to our final for French 322. We got the prompts we could write about, and I chose one on gun control, since I had written a blog post about that. I cited examples of the Florida theater/popcorn incident and the Sandy Hook and Aurora tragedies. I expressed disdain that Obama's neutral plan was so widely opposed. During the final, Mme Petelo's son came in. Then I went to my apartment and prepared to go home. I got my remaining Easter stuff and drove home, and on my way home I saw a billboard for Ken Garff with chocolate bunnies, and I was excited that I would be getting some (but I didn't). When I got home, I showed Mom my Easter treats. I was going to share my carrot cake M&Ms, but she thought they were jelly beans and said "I don't want that." She wanted one of the egg-shaped Reese's ice cream bars instead.
Saturday, April 19. We probably had our egg hunt that morning, but I can't quite remember. I went to Famous Footwear and got some red Sperry shoes, and I think the cashier liked my Peeps shirt. That evening we colored eggs, and I couldn't resist drawing shamrocks on one and dyeing it green. My family was surprised I would do that, but shamrocks aren't exclusively for St. Patrick's Day. My family showed me the nutcracker M&M dispensers they bought in Vegas and let me choose one, so I chose the orange one, and I put the carrot cake M&Ms in it. Susanne had some, but Matt didn't want any. That night, sister missionaries came to our house to share a lesson. We talked about how I was finishing up at BYU, and one of the sisters had been there before her mission. They asked Allie about what we celebrate at Easter, and she was very shy in responding. At one point, my dad said that I had never done anything wrong.
Sunday, April 20. After church, I wrote on my blog. We went to my grandparents' house for dinner (my grandpa really liked my blog), and I was pleased with the basket they had full of candy. I was excited to eat it, and Peter was a bit surprised, but it was Easter candy so I could. (I couldn't, however, have dessert.) I was wearing orange striped socks, and he asked if they were Easter socks or just regular socks. Then I went home and wrote on my memory blog. I got an email with a special prize for helping out at the French Language Fair, but the prize was the text of Handel's Messiah so we could look at it while listening to the MoTab's Messiah concert, which I thought was a pretty lousy prize. But while writing my blog, I did listen to the concert to see if it was better than the MoTab recording I have from the 90s. The 2014 performance wasn't really that great, because the soloists were terrible and operatic. I wouldn't say they were an improvement over the earlier counter tenors.
Monday, April 21. I worked on the couch when there was a knock at the door. It was a guy my parents hired to redo our basement walls and ceiling, and he had come much earlier than anticipated. I let him in, and he began taking down the ceiling. He opened the door to let the dust out because he didn't know how to open our downstairs windows. I showed him how to take the storm windows out to open the real windows, and he said he had never seen that. Then my parents came home and were glad I was there to let the repair guy in. Then I played some video games before I drove back to Provo. I put on my new shoes and they seemed a little big, so I was debating whether I should try to return them for a smaller size, but I decided not to. (I think they had been clearance anyway.) Then I returned to Provo. This is my journal entry:
"Today I worked at home home, being there for Easter. The folks are remodeling a lot, and the drywall guy came while I was there. It was a good thing I was home. I finished working, and he was still there, so I played a lot of video games (and finally got to World 8 on Mario 3). Then I eventually left, and tonight I went running."
Sunday, March 15, 2015
March 19
I'm going to remember what I can about March 19 from years past.
2014. I think I went home after my weight training class so I could change for the Linguistics and English Language graduation banquet. I put on a button-up shirt, a tie, tan pants, and grey and blue shoes. Then I walked up to the Hinckley Center, where I had never been. I went and got a drink before I went into the banquet room. I sat down at a table, and soon other people came in and sat at my table. One person was a master's student who had been in my corpus linguistics class; I think Olivia Corey might also have sat at my table. I didn't care for the dinner; I thought it was too fancy. There were desserts next to every plate, and they told us we could choose what one we wanted. One of them was a round thing covered in chocolate; another had little pink round things on top. Some of the people at the table knew I only eat seasonal desserts, so they asked if I could have it. I told them I was trying to decide whether the pink candies made that dessert suitable for Easter; they said it was, and they also tried to convince me the chocolate dessert was egg shaped, but that was too much. They announced different awards for people with good GPAs. The only recognition I got was when Dr. Cynthia Hallen read off my name for participating on the student journal Schwa. The entertainment for the evening was a gamelan performance, since Dr. Elzinga was part of BYU's gamelan group. After the banquet was over, I went and talked to Dr. Mel Thorne because I was running out of mandatory hours for the student journal class. He told me not to worry about it and to send him an email reminding him I had talked to him. Then I walked back to my apartment, and I seem to remember seeing my roommate Scott, but he was becoming weird at that point in time.
2013. That afternoon I had a field trip at the Museum of Paleontology, so before it happened, I walked near the museum. I sat on the lawn by the football stadium and ate my lunch, which included an Easter marshmallow 3 Musketeers mini, while reading my geology textbook. Then I went over to the museum and waited for my classmates to show up. We went inside and had the tour from Dr. Britt. He criticized the mural of the Jurassic animals. He told us what the definition of a dinosaur was; he pointed to the humerus crest that was the diagnostic feature of dinosaurs, and he told us that if you take Triceratops and birds and find their common ancestor, then that dinosaur and all its descendants are dinosaurs. We went in the back where volunteers and geology students were working with fossils. A geology major named Josie told us something about "Quarternary rocks," and I was surprised she would use the outdated "Quarternary" instead of the more modern "Neogene." The "mature student" in our class was asking a lot of questions when we were being shown a turtle fossil. The tour lasted late, so I asked my classmate, Michael Arnold, if he could drive me up to the JFSB, since I would be late to class. He agreed, so I got in his van, and a shirtless guy was running along Canyon Road. I felt bad for Michael dropping me off, because it was awkward for him to turn around. I went down in the basement to go to class, and I saw Geoffrey Palmer, the son of my second mission president. He recognized me and talked to me, and I think he asked if I was going to the upcoming reunion. When I went to the classroom, there was a sign on the door saying that class was cancelled, so I didn't need to have Michael take me after all!
2012. That evening I went to Smith's so that I could get some Easter candy to put in my Easter jar. In the parking lot, I saw a guy named Andrew who had worked at the Distribution Center where I worked. I wanted to talk to him, but I didn't get a chance and I didn't think he would really know me, since we hadn't worked together too much. I got Hershey's cookies 'n' cream eggs.
2011. I went to Famous Footwear because I needed new Sunday shoes and new running shoes. I remember running down the aisles in the store to see how the shoes felt, and I felt really foolish doing so. My shoes total cost over $100. I thought that Famous did buy one, get one half off, but now I know that's only sometimes. I got all signed up in their system. That evening, my roommate Derek saw my new green and silver K-Swiss Tubes shoes and said it was hard for him to imagine me wearing something that looked that crazy.
2010. I drove home from Provo for the weekend. I had just gotten a DVD of the Peanuts Motion Comics Collection, so we watched them that night, I think while eating pizza. Each clip was three minutes long, so by the time we had watched the twentieth, we had the theme music memorized.
2009. I'm pretty sure this was the day when in the morning I got a package from my mom. It had mint Oreos, which I could no longer eat because St. Patrick's Day was over. It had Noah's Ark Easter eggs, each egg looking like an animal with cheap candy inside. It had two CDs, the MoTab's Consider the Lilies (since my mom had an extra copy) and Cherie Call's He Gives Flowers to Everyone. Thus it was this day that began my continual adoration of Cherie Call. I looked at the lyric booklet and really liked how "When I Sang" incorporated lyrics from hymns. During our lunch break, Elder Betenson turned on the Cherie Call CD in the Dans' stereo upstairs (the Dans were the members we lived with). He turned it up really loud, and Sister Dan asked if he could turn it down. He was embarrassed because he didn't know she was home. That afternoon we went to a members' home, the Jameses', to help them with a service project, and then they were going to feed us dinner. When we were done with the service project, there was still a long time before dinner, so I think we biked home and changed out of our service clothes. Then we went back to the Jameses'. Their sixteen-year-old daughter was pregnant, and the nonmember "F.O.B.," as Sister James said, "father of baby," was coming over. While we were waiting, we played Farkle with the teenage kids, including the F.O.B. Dinner took a very long time. Finally the corned beef and cabbage was done, and Sister James explained to her kids that corned beef and cabbage was a traditional Irish dish, so it went on sale at St. Patrick's Day. I had never had it before, but Elder Betenson was really excited to have it. At some point we had a conversation about scriptures and Elder Betenson shared one from the Law of Moses that had to do with bodily functions. We were there a long time, and we felt bad that we didn't do anything else that night. Looking back, however, I think our time there was very well spent, because that was a very difficult area to work in, and we helped forge a good relationship with the F.O.B. (he later gave us a ride one rainy evening). Then we had to go back to our house, where Elders Nixon and Bobo met us for an exchange.
2014. I think I went home after my weight training class so I could change for the Linguistics and English Language graduation banquet. I put on a button-up shirt, a tie, tan pants, and grey and blue shoes. Then I walked up to the Hinckley Center, where I had never been. I went and got a drink before I went into the banquet room. I sat down at a table, and soon other people came in and sat at my table. One person was a master's student who had been in my corpus linguistics class; I think Olivia Corey might also have sat at my table. I didn't care for the dinner; I thought it was too fancy. There were desserts next to every plate, and they told us we could choose what one we wanted. One of them was a round thing covered in chocolate; another had little pink round things on top. Some of the people at the table knew I only eat seasonal desserts, so they asked if I could have it. I told them I was trying to decide whether the pink candies made that dessert suitable for Easter; they said it was, and they also tried to convince me the chocolate dessert was egg shaped, but that was too much. They announced different awards for people with good GPAs. The only recognition I got was when Dr. Cynthia Hallen read off my name for participating on the student journal Schwa. The entertainment for the evening was a gamelan performance, since Dr. Elzinga was part of BYU's gamelan group. After the banquet was over, I went and talked to Dr. Mel Thorne because I was running out of mandatory hours for the student journal class. He told me not to worry about it and to send him an email reminding him I had talked to him. Then I walked back to my apartment, and I seem to remember seeing my roommate Scott, but he was becoming weird at that point in time.
2013. That afternoon I had a field trip at the Museum of Paleontology, so before it happened, I walked near the museum. I sat on the lawn by the football stadium and ate my lunch, which included an Easter marshmallow 3 Musketeers mini, while reading my geology textbook. Then I went over to the museum and waited for my classmates to show up. We went inside and had the tour from Dr. Britt. He criticized the mural of the Jurassic animals. He told us what the definition of a dinosaur was; he pointed to the humerus crest that was the diagnostic feature of dinosaurs, and he told us that if you take Triceratops and birds and find their common ancestor, then that dinosaur and all its descendants are dinosaurs. We went in the back where volunteers and geology students were working with fossils. A geology major named Josie told us something about "Quarternary rocks," and I was surprised she would use the outdated "Quarternary" instead of the more modern "Neogene." The "mature student" in our class was asking a lot of questions when we were being shown a turtle fossil. The tour lasted late, so I asked my classmate, Michael Arnold, if he could drive me up to the JFSB, since I would be late to class. He agreed, so I got in his van, and a shirtless guy was running along Canyon Road. I felt bad for Michael dropping me off, because it was awkward for him to turn around. I went down in the basement to go to class, and I saw Geoffrey Palmer, the son of my second mission president. He recognized me and talked to me, and I think he asked if I was going to the upcoming reunion. When I went to the classroom, there was a sign on the door saying that class was cancelled, so I didn't need to have Michael take me after all!
2012. That evening I went to Smith's so that I could get some Easter candy to put in my Easter jar. In the parking lot, I saw a guy named Andrew who had worked at the Distribution Center where I worked. I wanted to talk to him, but I didn't get a chance and I didn't think he would really know me, since we hadn't worked together too much. I got Hershey's cookies 'n' cream eggs.
2011. I went to Famous Footwear because I needed new Sunday shoes and new running shoes. I remember running down the aisles in the store to see how the shoes felt, and I felt really foolish doing so. My shoes total cost over $100. I thought that Famous did buy one, get one half off, but now I know that's only sometimes. I got all signed up in their system. That evening, my roommate Derek saw my new green and silver K-Swiss Tubes shoes and said it was hard for him to imagine me wearing something that looked that crazy.
2010. I drove home from Provo for the weekend. I had just gotten a DVD of the Peanuts Motion Comics Collection, so we watched them that night, I think while eating pizza. Each clip was three minutes long, so by the time we had watched the twentieth, we had the theme music memorized.
2009. I'm pretty sure this was the day when in the morning I got a package from my mom. It had mint Oreos, which I could no longer eat because St. Patrick's Day was over. It had Noah's Ark Easter eggs, each egg looking like an animal with cheap candy inside. It had two CDs, the MoTab's Consider the Lilies (since my mom had an extra copy) and Cherie Call's He Gives Flowers to Everyone. Thus it was this day that began my continual adoration of Cherie Call. I looked at the lyric booklet and really liked how "When I Sang" incorporated lyrics from hymns. During our lunch break, Elder Betenson turned on the Cherie Call CD in the Dans' stereo upstairs (the Dans were the members we lived with). He turned it up really loud, and Sister Dan asked if he could turn it down. He was embarrassed because he didn't know she was home. That afternoon we went to a members' home, the Jameses', to help them with a service project, and then they were going to feed us dinner. When we were done with the service project, there was still a long time before dinner, so I think we biked home and changed out of our service clothes. Then we went back to the Jameses'. Their sixteen-year-old daughter was pregnant, and the nonmember "F.O.B.," as Sister James said, "father of baby," was coming over. While we were waiting, we played Farkle with the teenage kids, including the F.O.B. Dinner took a very long time. Finally the corned beef and cabbage was done, and Sister James explained to her kids that corned beef and cabbage was a traditional Irish dish, so it went on sale at St. Patrick's Day. I had never had it before, but Elder Betenson was really excited to have it. At some point we had a conversation about scriptures and Elder Betenson shared one from the Law of Moses that had to do with bodily functions. We were there a long time, and we felt bad that we didn't do anything else that night. Looking back, however, I think our time there was very well spent, because that was a very difficult area to work in, and we helped forge a good relationship with the F.O.B. (he later gave us a ride one rainy evening). Then we had to go back to our house, where Elders Nixon and Bobo met us for an exchange.
Friday, March 13, 2015
Leprechaun stories
When I was a little kid, I believed that all holidays are created equal, and subsequently I didn't realize that St. Patrick's Day is the most pointless of all popular holidays. Come March, my mind was turned to leprechauns, and I would invent stories.
In kindergarten, I decided to create a play that I would perform for my family. My mom had bought me a plastic leprechaun hat (and my aunt rescued it from blowing away outside the store on a windy day), so I would don it for my plays. My friend Hillary Ulmer had a gold-colored shiny cheerleader pom-pom, and I asked her if I could have it. I put it in a glass jar and that was my pot of gold, the stringy gold parts hanging over the jar. (I actually can't remember if I had that in time for the leprechaun plays, but I know I used that as a decoration for years. Sometimes I put the plastic hat on top of it, and one time our home teacher asked if it was Cousin Itt!)
Anyway, one day after school, I was planning on my leprechaun play, and my brother David, who was thirteen, wanted to help me out, and he wore the hat he got for Christmas. We went around improvising this play, but after a while it was too violent (with shooting) and un-leprechauny that I didn't want his help anymore. In the evening I gathered my family around while I performed my leprechaun play in front of our fireplace. It was kind of a day in the life of a leprechaun, and I would narrate things like "Now I'm asleep. Now I'm eating breakfast." And so on. When I was "sleeping," I would use a yellow crocheted blanket we had. I think I performed the play several times, and I tried to make sure I was wearing green every time, but soon I realized that if I did that, I wouldn't have any green to wear for St. Patrick's Day.
In first grade, we got some leprechaun window clings that really piqued my interest, and I even made a song based on them. One day in class, I raised my hand and mentioned that I had a song about leprechauns, so I sang my hokey little song. I think I mostly made it up as I went along, but I know the first line was, "I'm a little leprechaun a-sitting on a clover." I think I meant "toadstool," but for some reason it came out clover.
We also needed to write a leprechaun story for class. My copy of this story might be floating around the house somewhere. The only thing I remember is that it started out with a leprechaun going around collecting "horseshoes and brimstones." And by "brimstones" I meant "Blarney stones," not realizing there's only one Blarney Stone.
In second grade we were instructed to write a leprechaun story. Fortunately, I know where that is, so here is my transcription (there are some capitalization marks in it, but I don't know whether they were put there by me or someone else. I'm going to incorporate those edits):
My Leprechaun
One day I went outside to get the mail. When I looked down, there was a leprechaun on our door step. His back Was to my feet. I Caught it by the stomach. "Let Me go! Let me go! Me have to go to Ireland in 10 years! let me go! Let me go!"
I brought the leprechaun in. "I'm hungry," said the leprechaun. "So let me go and get food! let me go!"
"Wait a minute," I said. I will get you some food." I made him some Soup. He duck his head in the soup. His hat plopped up.
"Ow," complained the leprechaun. "Me face Is burning!"
"You were'nt supposed to do that," I said. "You were supposed to do that when It cooled. And stop saying me instead of My. It's not proper english."
"But it is proper Irish," said the leprechaun. "Where's your pot of gold? Give me your pot of gold! And stay with me when you give it to me!"
"Okay," said the leprechaun. He didn't eat his soup, he Just went outside. Then there was a knock at the door. I opened it. There Was the leprechaun.
"Hi," he said. "Here's a pot of gold and a pot of silver. Bye." And as quick as a wink, he ran off. "That foolish leprechaun," I said "He's mean too, but I do have gold and silver." The end.
(I must say that I'm impressed that at eight years old, my only misspelling was the placement of the apostrophe in "weren't.")
Then in fourth grade, I didn't really have a story per se, but I took on a leprechaun persona. I was tired of Easter stuff before St. Patrick's Day, so as a leprechaun I said I hated Easter. On St. Patrick's Day, my friend Cody Zesiger and I played some game where I think he was trying to catch me. Before he went home, I gave him some mashed up shiny pipecleaners--gold, silver, and blue and silver (which I said was a mushed-up mushroom).
In kindergarten, I decided to create a play that I would perform for my family. My mom had bought me a plastic leprechaun hat (and my aunt rescued it from blowing away outside the store on a windy day), so I would don it for my plays. My friend Hillary Ulmer had a gold-colored shiny cheerleader pom-pom, and I asked her if I could have it. I put it in a glass jar and that was my pot of gold, the stringy gold parts hanging over the jar. (I actually can't remember if I had that in time for the leprechaun plays, but I know I used that as a decoration for years. Sometimes I put the plastic hat on top of it, and one time our home teacher asked if it was Cousin Itt!)
Anyway, one day after school, I was planning on my leprechaun play, and my brother David, who was thirteen, wanted to help me out, and he wore the hat he got for Christmas. We went around improvising this play, but after a while it was too violent (with shooting) and un-leprechauny that I didn't want his help anymore. In the evening I gathered my family around while I performed my leprechaun play in front of our fireplace. It was kind of a day in the life of a leprechaun, and I would narrate things like "Now I'm asleep. Now I'm eating breakfast." And so on. When I was "sleeping," I would use a yellow crocheted blanket we had. I think I performed the play several times, and I tried to make sure I was wearing green every time, but soon I realized that if I did that, I wouldn't have any green to wear for St. Patrick's Day.
In first grade, we got some leprechaun window clings that really piqued my interest, and I even made a song based on them. One day in class, I raised my hand and mentioned that I had a song about leprechauns, so I sang my hokey little song. I think I mostly made it up as I went along, but I know the first line was, "I'm a little leprechaun a-sitting on a clover." I think I meant "toadstool," but for some reason it came out clover.
We also needed to write a leprechaun story for class. My copy of this story might be floating around the house somewhere. The only thing I remember is that it started out with a leprechaun going around collecting "horseshoes and brimstones." And by "brimstones" I meant "Blarney stones," not realizing there's only one Blarney Stone.
In second grade we were instructed to write a leprechaun story. Fortunately, I know where that is, so here is my transcription (there are some capitalization marks in it, but I don't know whether they were put there by me or someone else. I'm going to incorporate those edits):
My Leprechaun
One day I went outside to get the mail. When I looked down, there was a leprechaun on our door step. His back Was to my feet. I Caught it by the stomach. "Let Me go! Let me go! Me have to go to Ireland in 10 years! let me go! Let me go!"
I brought the leprechaun in. "I'm hungry," said the leprechaun. "So let me go and get food! let me go!"
"Wait a minute," I said. I will get you some food." I made him some Soup. He duck his head in the soup. His hat plopped up.
"Ow," complained the leprechaun. "Me face Is burning!"
"You were'nt supposed to do that," I said. "You were supposed to do that when It cooled. And stop saying me instead of My. It's not proper english."
"But it is proper Irish," said the leprechaun. "Where's your pot of gold? Give me your pot of gold! And stay with me when you give it to me!"
"Okay," said the leprechaun. He didn't eat his soup, he Just went outside. Then there was a knock at the door. I opened it. There Was the leprechaun.
"Hi," he said. "Here's a pot of gold and a pot of silver. Bye." And as quick as a wink, he ran off. "That foolish leprechaun," I said "He's mean too, but I do have gold and silver." The end.
(I must say that I'm impressed that at eight years old, my only misspelling was the placement of the apostrophe in "weren't.")
Then in fourth grade, I didn't really have a story per se, but I took on a leprechaun persona. I was tired of Easter stuff before St. Patrick's Day, so as a leprechaun I said I hated Easter. On St. Patrick's Day, my friend Cody Zesiger and I played some game where I think he was trying to catch me. Before he went home, I gave him some mashed up shiny pipecleaners--gold, silver, and blue and silver (which I said was a mushed-up mushroom).
Saturday, March 7, 2015
March 14-18
It's time for me to remember the days surrounding St. Patrick's Day last year.
March 14. In the morning, I went over to Cougar Dental to get my wisdom teeth out. They gave me laughing gas, and it was a very uneventful operation. The dentist gave me a little bag of gauze and some fluid I was told to rinse with. He told me not to eat chips or other things that might get caught in my gums. I remember being confused because the instructions said to rinse with a capful of the liquid, but the cap was tiny. I was also instructed that I no longer needed to bite on gauze when it was white. I went up to my French lab. I was the only one in the room, so the TA was talking exclusively to me, and then when he asked me to speak, I said, "Je préfère ne pas parler," at which point he kind of gasped when he saw the gauze, "car le dentiste a enlevé mes dents de sagesse." He seemed sorry for me. Other people in the class later showed up, and as I was leaving, I think I was explaining why I hadn't had them removed before my mission. I think I changed out my gauze, and it was still pink, and I was running low on gauze, so I went into the Twilight Zone (like a convenience store on campus) to try to find some gauze. My friend Carrie saw me there and said hi; I pointed to my mouth and said "wisdom teeth" to let her know why I couldn't talk. There wasn't any gauze in that store, so I walked down to South End Market right by my apartment to look for gauze there. They didn't have any either, so it was back across the street to Cougar Dental to ask for more gauze. The hygienists took me back and bundled up some gauze for me, and the dentist came and asked to see in my mouth. I let him look, and he told me I didn't need to bite the gauze anymore, even as he gave me the gauze the nurses prepared. I felt confused and a little bad for taking it. What was I going to do with gauze if I wasn't supposed to bite on it? I went back in my apartment and had lunch. It seems that sometime in the ensuing days, my roommate Chad and his fiancée Sierra were surprised I was up and about after the operation, since she had recently had hers taken out and it was very painful for her. After napping and eating, I went back up to campus to work, since my computer didn't have Microsoft Word yet. I called my boss, Reid, and when he answered, he said, "I'm just getting in my car." It was a little later than usual. I just had a quick question for him. Then I worked in the library. Then I went to South End Market again and got some mint chocolate chip ice cream and went to my apartment and watched the "May the Wind Be Always at Your Back" episode of The Flying Nun. I journalized as follows:
"This morning I talked to Reid before I went to get my wisdom teeth out. It was a very simple procedure--they numbed me up, and gave me laughing gas, and I didn't even know when the teeth came out. I had to have gauze in my mouth, so I went to French lab with it being hard to speak. I was going to work, but I needed more gauze and lunch, so I came back home. I asked the dentist for more gauze, but he said I didn't need it, even though they gave me some. I made lunch and took a nap, and then I went back to campus for hours to work. I came home and ate mint ice cream while watching the St. Patrick's Day-ish Flying Nun episode."
March 15. In the morning, Carrie texted me and invited me to go on a hike with some friends. I thanked her for the offer but thought it might be best if I not exert myself because of my gums. I went and did some errands. First I got lunch at Kneaders because I wanted to get a key lime tart with my meal. They had Easter cupcakes, and I made a mental note that I would have to return to get one when it was Easter time. Then I went up to Eliane French Bakery, where I awkwardly tried to speak French with the owner. I asked for a macaron à pistachio, and he corrected me pistache. I also got a green shamrock-shaped meringue. Then I went to Lolo's grocery store, where I got a small package of Rolos to put in my little pots of gold for the next few days. I was feeling a little bad about all the sugar I was eating. Then that evening, my roommate Jordan and I went up to the evening session of our stake conference. I think I had been asked to make sure people sat in the middle of rows so that people wouldn't have to climb over them. I don't like talking to people, but I was glad to have an excuse to make people sit in the middle, since that's one of my pet peeves. But there was only one person I had to tell to sit in the middle. After the conference, they had brownies, so I had my share of mint ones. My former home teachee Autumn was there with her fiancé, Scott, and she knew about my rules and noted that I got the green ones. Then we went back to our apartment. and I watched the "Leprechaun" episode of Bewitched. Jordan watched it too, at least part of it, and later his girlfriend Laura came over and Jordan said, "You missed Bewitched."
March 16. In the morning I had to go to a priesthood leadership meeting. They had a panel of Relief Society presidents from the various wards so we could ask them about home teaching. One of the RS presidents was Leanna from our ward; another was on the staff of Schwa, the student journal I was working on. Someone asked about whether it was acceptable to date those you home teach; they said you could but you would need to deal with the consequences if it didn't work out. The overall answer for the various questions seemed to be "It depends." Leanna said that guys should be nice to their girlfriends' roommates, because they might end up home teaching them--she said that experience had happened to her. After that meeting, I walked to stake conference on 900 East. I was wearing my shamrock tie, and when Megan Ward saw me in the halls, she complimented me for my tie. One of the speakers was a bishop who told a story of a guy who got married fast and was expecting a kid. Then he said, "Go, and do thou likewise." Then he sat down. Everyone was in an uproar (mostly laughing) that he had done that. There was debate as to whether he had sat down without closing ("In the name...") or if he had closed his talk but no one could hear him. I wrote my two blogs. I journalized as follows:
"This morning I had to go to a Priesthood leadership meeting. They had a panel of RS presidents answering questions about home teaching. I think President Stratton is out of touch with us college kids--who can go on two dates a week?
"In the later session, one speaker told about someone who got married and was expecting a kid in six months time, and said "Go, do thou likewise." Then he sat down. It was really weird.
"Then we went home teaching. That's always a little awkward. Then I've been blogging and such."
March 17. I think I finished up my Lucky Charms for breakfast; and they were special Lucky Charms that only had clover marshmallows. I was super excited to be able to wear my brand-new neon green Vans, my green pants, my St. Patrick's Day Snoopy shirt, my green socks, and my old green glasses. I went up to campus to work, and I tried to find some St. Patrick's Day music on my free trial of Google Play. During my break my phone informed me that Nate Garlock sent me a Facebook friend request. (Then he unfriended me at Christmas.) When I was done with working, I went to the BYU Bookstore to pick up my order of Microsoft Word, which work had paid for. There were also booths for the Choose 2 Give campaign, where you donate money that goes into scholarships and stuff. They were giving out yellow-green cotton candy, but I didn't get any, because they were having it outside and it was extremely windy, so they stopped. I donated some money, so I should have gotten a free t-shirt, but they only had kid sizes available at the time. Then I braved the wind to go over to BYU Studies, the job I had left three weeks earlier, to pick up the latest issue of the journal. Everyone in the office asked me what I was working on, and they were impressed with my outfit, that I was literally head to toe in green. The web developer lady Eden had apparently given people a hard time for not wearing green. She wasn't in, but Rosalyn, her assistant, took a picture of me to show her. After that, I went down to my weightlifting class. I had brought a green shirt to work out in, and as I looked out the window before class, I saw a guy also all in green, including light green slim-fit pants and green running shoes. I of course was wearing my green shirt and green socks (I can't remember whether I had kept on my green glasses). When I was doing some ab workouts, my spotting partner, Ryan, said something like, "You're the Hulk, since it's St. Patrick's Day and you're wearing green!" as a motivation. I didn't go running because it was so windy, and I also didn't know if I would have time. I went home, and for my "scripture" study, I watched a seminary video about an Irish convert. Then I went out and did some shopping. I went to Shopko and got some St. Patrick's Day pajamas, which of course I could only wear that night, and I got some Trix Easter fruit snacks which I could start eating the next day. I saw some mint chocolate cookies, which I couldn't justify buying because I couldn't eat them all in a day. Then I went over to Lolo's, where I bought a potato for dinner and an Idaho Spud candy. (Since potatoes are stereotypically Irish, I could eat it, especially since some potato candies are made specifically for St. Patrick's Day.) Then I went home and baked my potato in the microwave. That evening I went over to FHE, where they had asked me to share the spiritual thought. I printed off copies of the hymn I wrote based on Psalm 119. I explained to everyone that I had written it for my Early Modern English class, and they all seemed impressed with it, even saying we should sing it at church. Jared in my group even looked at the verses in Psalm 119 that it was based on. We sang the hymn, and people seemed a little unfamiliar with the tune, "Come O Thou King of Kings," which surprised me. Our activity that night was indexing, and some people hadn't done it before. One such person was Dani Robinson, who was sitting next to me. She didn't know her record number and didn't know if she had an LDS account; I pulled her number up but then she found her login information. Then she said to me, "Wait, why do you have my record number?" I said it was only because I was ward clerk. There were green cookies, which I could eat. The indexing batches we were working on were Philippine census records from the 1800s, so they were in cursive, and they were Spanish names, so they were murder to fill out. While we were indexing, everyone was playing music; when someone played Pharrell's "Happy," Jessica Andelin said, "I love this song!" I asked everyone if they wanted to hear the one St. Patrick's Day song I had, so I played Jan Terri's "Luck of the Irish," but my speakers aren't very good. Someone's playlist started playing Michael Bublé's "Cold December Night," and I said, "Wrong holiday." Eventually I went home and finished up the indexing batches I had downloaded, and since they were so hard, I vowed not to index for a while. Then I watched the "If the Shoe Pinches" episode of Bewitched, and then before I went to bed I had to look up what a shillelagh was.
March 18. At French class in the morning, Mme Petelo asked if we had done anything fun on the weekend. I said that I had had my wisdom teeth taken out and that it wasn't painful. She said, "Est-ce que vos dents sont déjà sortis?" "Oui." That evening, I picked up my friend Natausha because I had invited her to go to Cherie Call's CD release concert. As we walked to my parking lot, I told her about the experience I had recently had where a girl refused to get in the car until I opened her door. I asked Natausha whether she liked guys opening doors or whether she found it demeaning. She said it was nice but not necessary. In light of that conversation, I opened her door, but I don't think I did the rest of the night. On the way to the venue, I missed the turn, and I ended up having to turn around at the Trax station. Then I went back and parked. We went in and my name was on a list because I had already ordered the CD; Natausha turned in her ticket and got the CD. I told her we could get some lime popcorn, but she didn't want any, and I didn't feel like making my way over there. We talked about her shoes, because she had drawn on them. I talked about my sock collection and how I had socks for every holiday except for New Year's and Easter. I told her how much I liked Cherie Call (she seemed impressed when she learned that the cardstock sleeve she just received was a CD) and I said that I had been listening to her in the car on the way; she said she reminded her of our mutual friend Sariah's music. Cherie Call sang most of the songs from her new Homeless Songs album and some of her other standbys. One of the backup singers was Debra Fotheringham, and I was sad to see she had a wedding ring on. Before Cherie sang "Sweet Sweet Dreams," she said that she had songs about her daughters but wanted one about her little boy. I heard a mom behind me say to her little boy, "This is a little boy song!" I think her encore song was "It Passes All My Understanding." As we left, we talked about how it was hard to hear her voice above all the music. Natausha said she loved the songs that were from previous albums, saying she adored "Love makes me invisible." I told her "Memphis" was one of my absolute favorites. Then we talked about where she was living in the future. I mentioned something about both of the "Ward sisters," and she thought I was talking about sister missionaries, but I was talking about Cami and Megan Ward. When that was cleared up, she said, "It amazes me how different they are."
March 14. In the morning, I went over to Cougar Dental to get my wisdom teeth out. They gave me laughing gas, and it was a very uneventful operation. The dentist gave me a little bag of gauze and some fluid I was told to rinse with. He told me not to eat chips or other things that might get caught in my gums. I remember being confused because the instructions said to rinse with a capful of the liquid, but the cap was tiny. I was also instructed that I no longer needed to bite on gauze when it was white. I went up to my French lab. I was the only one in the room, so the TA was talking exclusively to me, and then when he asked me to speak, I said, "Je préfère ne pas parler," at which point he kind of gasped when he saw the gauze, "car le dentiste a enlevé mes dents de sagesse." He seemed sorry for me. Other people in the class later showed up, and as I was leaving, I think I was explaining why I hadn't had them removed before my mission. I think I changed out my gauze, and it was still pink, and I was running low on gauze, so I went into the Twilight Zone (like a convenience store on campus) to try to find some gauze. My friend Carrie saw me there and said hi; I pointed to my mouth and said "wisdom teeth" to let her know why I couldn't talk. There wasn't any gauze in that store, so I walked down to South End Market right by my apartment to look for gauze there. They didn't have any either, so it was back across the street to Cougar Dental to ask for more gauze. The hygienists took me back and bundled up some gauze for me, and the dentist came and asked to see in my mouth. I let him look, and he told me I didn't need to bite the gauze anymore, even as he gave me the gauze the nurses prepared. I felt confused and a little bad for taking it. What was I going to do with gauze if I wasn't supposed to bite on it? I went back in my apartment and had lunch. It seems that sometime in the ensuing days, my roommate Chad and his fiancée Sierra were surprised I was up and about after the operation, since she had recently had hers taken out and it was very painful for her. After napping and eating, I went back up to campus to work, since my computer didn't have Microsoft Word yet. I called my boss, Reid, and when he answered, he said, "I'm just getting in my car." It was a little later than usual. I just had a quick question for him. Then I worked in the library. Then I went to South End Market again and got some mint chocolate chip ice cream and went to my apartment and watched the "May the Wind Be Always at Your Back" episode of The Flying Nun. I journalized as follows:
"This morning I talked to Reid before I went to get my wisdom teeth out. It was a very simple procedure--they numbed me up, and gave me laughing gas, and I didn't even know when the teeth came out. I had to have gauze in my mouth, so I went to French lab with it being hard to speak. I was going to work, but I needed more gauze and lunch, so I came back home. I asked the dentist for more gauze, but he said I didn't need it, even though they gave me some. I made lunch and took a nap, and then I went back to campus for hours to work. I came home and ate mint ice cream while watching the St. Patrick's Day-ish Flying Nun episode."
March 15. In the morning, Carrie texted me and invited me to go on a hike with some friends. I thanked her for the offer but thought it might be best if I not exert myself because of my gums. I went and did some errands. First I got lunch at Kneaders because I wanted to get a key lime tart with my meal. They had Easter cupcakes, and I made a mental note that I would have to return to get one when it was Easter time. Then I went up to Eliane French Bakery, where I awkwardly tried to speak French with the owner. I asked for a macaron à pistachio, and he corrected me pistache. I also got a green shamrock-shaped meringue. Then I went to Lolo's grocery store, where I got a small package of Rolos to put in my little pots of gold for the next few days. I was feeling a little bad about all the sugar I was eating. Then that evening, my roommate Jordan and I went up to the evening session of our stake conference. I think I had been asked to make sure people sat in the middle of rows so that people wouldn't have to climb over them. I don't like talking to people, but I was glad to have an excuse to make people sit in the middle, since that's one of my pet peeves. But there was only one person I had to tell to sit in the middle. After the conference, they had brownies, so I had my share of mint ones. My former home teachee Autumn was there with her fiancé, Scott, and she knew about my rules and noted that I got the green ones. Then we went back to our apartment. and I watched the "Leprechaun" episode of Bewitched. Jordan watched it too, at least part of it, and later his girlfriend Laura came over and Jordan said, "You missed Bewitched."
March 16. In the morning I had to go to a priesthood leadership meeting. They had a panel of Relief Society presidents from the various wards so we could ask them about home teaching. One of the RS presidents was Leanna from our ward; another was on the staff of Schwa, the student journal I was working on. Someone asked about whether it was acceptable to date those you home teach; they said you could but you would need to deal with the consequences if it didn't work out. The overall answer for the various questions seemed to be "It depends." Leanna said that guys should be nice to their girlfriends' roommates, because they might end up home teaching them--she said that experience had happened to her. After that meeting, I walked to stake conference on 900 East. I was wearing my shamrock tie, and when Megan Ward saw me in the halls, she complimented me for my tie. One of the speakers was a bishop who told a story of a guy who got married fast and was expecting a kid. Then he said, "Go, and do thou likewise." Then he sat down. Everyone was in an uproar (mostly laughing) that he had done that. There was debate as to whether he had sat down without closing ("In the name...") or if he had closed his talk but no one could hear him. I wrote my two blogs. I journalized as follows:
"This morning I had to go to a Priesthood leadership meeting. They had a panel of RS presidents answering questions about home teaching. I think President Stratton is out of touch with us college kids--who can go on two dates a week?
"In the later session, one speaker told about someone who got married and was expecting a kid in six months time, and said "Go, do thou likewise." Then he sat down. It was really weird.
"Then we went home teaching. That's always a little awkward. Then I've been blogging and such."
March 17. I think I finished up my Lucky Charms for breakfast; and they were special Lucky Charms that only had clover marshmallows. I was super excited to be able to wear my brand-new neon green Vans, my green pants, my St. Patrick's Day Snoopy shirt, my green socks, and my old green glasses. I went up to campus to work, and I tried to find some St. Patrick's Day music on my free trial of Google Play. During my break my phone informed me that Nate Garlock sent me a Facebook friend request. (Then he unfriended me at Christmas.) When I was done with working, I went to the BYU Bookstore to pick up my order of Microsoft Word, which work had paid for. There were also booths for the Choose 2 Give campaign, where you donate money that goes into scholarships and stuff. They were giving out yellow-green cotton candy, but I didn't get any, because they were having it outside and it was extremely windy, so they stopped. I donated some money, so I should have gotten a free t-shirt, but they only had kid sizes available at the time. Then I braved the wind to go over to BYU Studies, the job I had left three weeks earlier, to pick up the latest issue of the journal. Everyone in the office asked me what I was working on, and they were impressed with my outfit, that I was literally head to toe in green. The web developer lady Eden had apparently given people a hard time for not wearing green. She wasn't in, but Rosalyn, her assistant, took a picture of me to show her. After that, I went down to my weightlifting class. I had brought a green shirt to work out in, and as I looked out the window before class, I saw a guy also all in green, including light green slim-fit pants and green running shoes. I of course was wearing my green shirt and green socks (I can't remember whether I had kept on my green glasses). When I was doing some ab workouts, my spotting partner, Ryan, said something like, "You're the Hulk, since it's St. Patrick's Day and you're wearing green!" as a motivation. I didn't go running because it was so windy, and I also didn't know if I would have time. I went home, and for my "scripture" study, I watched a seminary video about an Irish convert. Then I went out and did some shopping. I went to Shopko and got some St. Patrick's Day pajamas, which of course I could only wear that night, and I got some Trix Easter fruit snacks which I could start eating the next day. I saw some mint chocolate cookies, which I couldn't justify buying because I couldn't eat them all in a day. Then I went over to Lolo's, where I bought a potato for dinner and an Idaho Spud candy. (Since potatoes are stereotypically Irish, I could eat it, especially since some potato candies are made specifically for St. Patrick's Day.) Then I went home and baked my potato in the microwave. That evening I went over to FHE, where they had asked me to share the spiritual thought. I printed off copies of the hymn I wrote based on Psalm 119. I explained to everyone that I had written it for my Early Modern English class, and they all seemed impressed with it, even saying we should sing it at church. Jared in my group even looked at the verses in Psalm 119 that it was based on. We sang the hymn, and people seemed a little unfamiliar with the tune, "Come O Thou King of Kings," which surprised me. Our activity that night was indexing, and some people hadn't done it before. One such person was Dani Robinson, who was sitting next to me. She didn't know her record number and didn't know if she had an LDS account; I pulled her number up but then she found her login information. Then she said to me, "Wait, why do you have my record number?" I said it was only because I was ward clerk. There were green cookies, which I could eat. The indexing batches we were working on were Philippine census records from the 1800s, so they were in cursive, and they were Spanish names, so they were murder to fill out. While we were indexing, everyone was playing music; when someone played Pharrell's "Happy," Jessica Andelin said, "I love this song!" I asked everyone if they wanted to hear the one St. Patrick's Day song I had, so I played Jan Terri's "Luck of the Irish," but my speakers aren't very good. Someone's playlist started playing Michael Bublé's "Cold December Night," and I said, "Wrong holiday." Eventually I went home and finished up the indexing batches I had downloaded, and since they were so hard, I vowed not to index for a while. Then I watched the "If the Shoe Pinches" episode of Bewitched, and then before I went to bed I had to look up what a shillelagh was.
March 18. At French class in the morning, Mme Petelo asked if we had done anything fun on the weekend. I said that I had had my wisdom teeth taken out and that it wasn't painful. She said, "Est-ce que vos dents sont déjà sortis?" "Oui." That evening, I picked up my friend Natausha because I had invited her to go to Cherie Call's CD release concert. As we walked to my parking lot, I told her about the experience I had recently had where a girl refused to get in the car until I opened her door. I asked Natausha whether she liked guys opening doors or whether she found it demeaning. She said it was nice but not necessary. In light of that conversation, I opened her door, but I don't think I did the rest of the night. On the way to the venue, I missed the turn, and I ended up having to turn around at the Trax station. Then I went back and parked. We went in and my name was on a list because I had already ordered the CD; Natausha turned in her ticket and got the CD. I told her we could get some lime popcorn, but she didn't want any, and I didn't feel like making my way over there. We talked about her shoes, because she had drawn on them. I talked about my sock collection and how I had socks for every holiday except for New Year's and Easter. I told her how much I liked Cherie Call (she seemed impressed when she learned that the cardstock sleeve she just received was a CD) and I said that I had been listening to her in the car on the way; she said she reminded her of our mutual friend Sariah's music. Cherie Call sang most of the songs from her new Homeless Songs album and some of her other standbys. One of the backup singers was Debra Fotheringham, and I was sad to see she had a wedding ring on. Before Cherie sang "Sweet Sweet Dreams," she said that she had songs about her daughters but wanted one about her little boy. I heard a mom behind me say to her little boy, "This is a little boy song!" I think her encore song was "It Passes All My Understanding." As we left, we talked about how it was hard to hear her voice above all the music. Natausha said she loved the songs that were from previous albums, saying she adored "Love makes me invisible." I told her "Memphis" was one of my absolute favorites. Then we talked about where she was living in the future. I mentioned something about both of the "Ward sisters," and she thought I was talking about sister missionaries, but I was talking about Cami and Megan Ward. When that was cleared up, she said, "It amazes me how different they are."
Friday, February 27, 2015
Melville family pets
In this post, I'm not going to try to remember everything, but I will try to remember all the pets my family has had while I've been alive.
We had some guinea pigs, but family lore tells me one died because I dropped it. It seems that one was white and brown. I remember my dad burying some brown ones and him insinuating my cousin Jesse had contributed to their deaths. But I can't have been older than four, so who knows if that really happened.
We had a fishtank and we had plecostomuses, sucker fish. Because they are ugly, my family named them Homer, after Homer Simpson, and I think we had several Homers: Homer 1, Homer 2, etc. But then one day that fishtank cracked, so we had to transport the fish to bowls and my aunt came and took them.
One Christmas, probably in 1993 but maybe 1992, my brother got an iguana for Christmas and named it Lizzie. But a few days later it died. That was one of the rare times I saw my brother cry.
Soon after that, however, my parents got him a snake. It was an albino corn snake, so David named it Al. He used to play with Al all the time, and he even measured its length on the closet door where my family measured our growth. (My family got rid of that door. :( ) After a while, though, he quit playing with it as much, and it became less tame. That made it a problem when it would sometimes escape and he had to catch it. We used to go to the pet store to buy pinkie mice to feed it. We eventually gave it to my uncle's wife.
Around this same time, circa 1993, my aunt got a blue budgie bird that she intended to give to my cousins for Christmas, and we kept it at our house, but my family became attached to it and kept it. We named it Tweeters, Tweets for short.
In 1994 (I think), David got another bird, I think for his birthday. This bird was a cockatiel, named Spike for the stick-up feathers on its head. David often called her Spoy or Shpoy. David really wanted a dog, so Spike became his pseudo-dog. At one time we got bird food that looked like dog food. David taught it to bark, wolf whistle, and say "Pretty bird." It would often look in its mirror and go, "Pretty bird. Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty bird." We tried to teach it to whistle the Andy Griffith Show theme--it got the first notes right, but then it did its own thing. One peculiar trait it had was to put its head in its toy bell, grab the dinger with its beak, and shriek as loud as it could. This was loud to us, so we can only imagine what it was like for her! (Sorry I keep switching pronouns for the bird.) If she would see someone nodding, she would nod too. I used to run around the living room and spin my arms in circles, and that would make her nod too. Sometimes Spike would have night terrors and would thrash around in the cage, leaving bird blood splattered on the cage and walls.
When we would get the two birds out, Tweeters was a little more defensive and aggressive, even though she was the smaller bird. David cut out pieces of cloth to put on his shoulders to keep his clothes clean. Sometimes he would take the birds (at least Spike) into the shower with him, although I don't think they sat on his shoulder but on his finger. David left on his mission and later moved away again, and since birds are messy, we didn't get them out often, and they got less tame. Tweets died just before Thanksgiving in 2003. In 2007, my sister was diagnosed with some disease that was aggravated by birds, so we had to give Spike away.
In 1995 or so, our neighbors across the street, the Reeds, gave us a hamster. I think one morning David found it in a plant holder. Shortly after that, we found it had escaped again and died, probably from eating mouse poison.
For my birthday in 1994, we got a new fishtank, and over the years, we had lots and lots of fish. I was particularly fond of the see-through glass fish, and I liked the crabs we had that used to escape. (I once wrote a post all about the crabs.)
We had a few notable fish. When I was in first grade, we had orange fish in which the males had sword tails, and on one occasion we bought both a male and a female, and soon the female was pregnant, and shortly thereafter there were lots of tiny orange dots in the fishtank. The other fish, including the parents, tried to eat the babies, but one hid in our decorative rocks. We captured it and took it to my aunt's house so it could be safe until it was fully grown. I named it Pumpkin and it lived to adulthood.
In college, David became a biologist and worked with zebrafish. In one lab in 2000 (I think), he injected chemicals into sets of 100 zebrafish, and in one of those sets, two fish survived while all others died. I don't know if they survived because they were superfish, or if they were superfish because of the chemicals, but these were super hardy fish. David named them Ishmael and Queequeg, characters in Moby Dick. They lived for more than four years, maybe even as long as six years. Not only did they live a long time, they lived in harsh environments. My mom took the aquarium to school, and the kids accidentally turned up the heat, killing all the fish except for the zebrafish. We weren't the most responsible at cleaning the tank, and sometimes it became super gross and all the fish died except the zebrafish.
And then there are our cats. In 2001, my sister and her roommates got a cat, Cleo, and we watched it for a few weeks. After that, I really wanted a cat. My mom's friend's cat had kittens on July 16, 2001, so we got one, a black and white cat with a black "mustache." I named it Dinah, after Alice (in Wonderland)'s cat. Dinah was hilarious but mean. She would sometimes bite me and even drew blood. She liked to attack my feet. As she got older, she got tamer.
Unfortunately, after we had had her for just over a year, in September or October 2002, she disappeared. We don't know what happened to her, although my dad saw a raccoon in our yard the night she disappeared. We went to the pound, but she wasn't there.
But I wanted to get a replacement cat. We were going to Taiwan in November 2002, so I asked my maternal grandparents if they would watch a new cat while we were gone. They agreed, so in October we went to the pound and got a grey kitten, which we named Jenny. More than twelve years later, Jenny is still alive and well. And what a strange cat she is. Soon after we got her, my paternal grandparents came for a visit, and Jenny loved rubbing against Grandma Judy's white leather shoes. To this day, she likes to rub against feet, more than she likes to be petted by hands. My dad won't let her be fed inside the house because she tends to throw up. She's picky about her litter box. She isn't particularly loving, hisses at kids, and likes to spill her water bowl. But she's a good mouser, and I like having her.
We had some guinea pigs, but family lore tells me one died because I dropped it. It seems that one was white and brown. I remember my dad burying some brown ones and him insinuating my cousin Jesse had contributed to their deaths. But I can't have been older than four, so who knows if that really happened.
We had a fishtank and we had plecostomuses, sucker fish. Because they are ugly, my family named them Homer, after Homer Simpson, and I think we had several Homers: Homer 1, Homer 2, etc. But then one day that fishtank cracked, so we had to transport the fish to bowls and my aunt came and took them.
One Christmas, probably in 1993 but maybe 1992, my brother got an iguana for Christmas and named it Lizzie. But a few days later it died. That was one of the rare times I saw my brother cry.
Soon after that, however, my parents got him a snake. It was an albino corn snake, so David named it Al. He used to play with Al all the time, and he even measured its length on the closet door where my family measured our growth. (My family got rid of that door. :( ) After a while, though, he quit playing with it as much, and it became less tame. That made it a problem when it would sometimes escape and he had to catch it. We used to go to the pet store to buy pinkie mice to feed it. We eventually gave it to my uncle's wife.
Around this same time, circa 1993, my aunt got a blue budgie bird that she intended to give to my cousins for Christmas, and we kept it at our house, but my family became attached to it and kept it. We named it Tweeters, Tweets for short.
In 1994 (I think), David got another bird, I think for his birthday. This bird was a cockatiel, named Spike for the stick-up feathers on its head. David often called her Spoy or Shpoy. David really wanted a dog, so Spike became his pseudo-dog. At one time we got bird food that looked like dog food. David taught it to bark, wolf whistle, and say "Pretty bird." It would often look in its mirror and go, "Pretty bird. Pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty bird." We tried to teach it to whistle the Andy Griffith Show theme--it got the first notes right, but then it did its own thing. One peculiar trait it had was to put its head in its toy bell, grab the dinger with its beak, and shriek as loud as it could. This was loud to us, so we can only imagine what it was like for her! (Sorry I keep switching pronouns for the bird.) If she would see someone nodding, she would nod too. I used to run around the living room and spin my arms in circles, and that would make her nod too. Sometimes Spike would have night terrors and would thrash around in the cage, leaving bird blood splattered on the cage and walls.
When we would get the two birds out, Tweeters was a little more defensive and aggressive, even though she was the smaller bird. David cut out pieces of cloth to put on his shoulders to keep his clothes clean. Sometimes he would take the birds (at least Spike) into the shower with him, although I don't think they sat on his shoulder but on his finger. David left on his mission and later moved away again, and since birds are messy, we didn't get them out often, and they got less tame. Tweets died just before Thanksgiving in 2003. In 2007, my sister was diagnosed with some disease that was aggravated by birds, so we had to give Spike away.
In 1995 or so, our neighbors across the street, the Reeds, gave us a hamster. I think one morning David found it in a plant holder. Shortly after that, we found it had escaped again and died, probably from eating mouse poison.
For my birthday in 1994, we got a new fishtank, and over the years, we had lots and lots of fish. I was particularly fond of the see-through glass fish, and I liked the crabs we had that used to escape. (I once wrote a post all about the crabs.)
We had a few notable fish. When I was in first grade, we had orange fish in which the males had sword tails, and on one occasion we bought both a male and a female, and soon the female was pregnant, and shortly thereafter there were lots of tiny orange dots in the fishtank. The other fish, including the parents, tried to eat the babies, but one hid in our decorative rocks. We captured it and took it to my aunt's house so it could be safe until it was fully grown. I named it Pumpkin and it lived to adulthood.
In college, David became a biologist and worked with zebrafish. In one lab in 2000 (I think), he injected chemicals into sets of 100 zebrafish, and in one of those sets, two fish survived while all others died. I don't know if they survived because they were superfish, or if they were superfish because of the chemicals, but these were super hardy fish. David named them Ishmael and Queequeg, characters in Moby Dick. They lived for more than four years, maybe even as long as six years. Not only did they live a long time, they lived in harsh environments. My mom took the aquarium to school, and the kids accidentally turned up the heat, killing all the fish except for the zebrafish. We weren't the most responsible at cleaning the tank, and sometimes it became super gross and all the fish died except the zebrafish.
And then there are our cats. In 2001, my sister and her roommates got a cat, Cleo, and we watched it for a few weeks. After that, I really wanted a cat. My mom's friend's cat had kittens on July 16, 2001, so we got one, a black and white cat with a black "mustache." I named it Dinah, after Alice (in Wonderland)'s cat. Dinah was hilarious but mean. She would sometimes bite me and even drew blood. She liked to attack my feet. As she got older, she got tamer.
Unfortunately, after we had had her for just over a year, in September or October 2002, she disappeared. We don't know what happened to her, although my dad saw a raccoon in our yard the night she disappeared. We went to the pound, but she wasn't there.
But I wanted to get a replacement cat. We were going to Taiwan in November 2002, so I asked my maternal grandparents if they would watch a new cat while we were gone. They agreed, so in October we went to the pound and got a grey kitten, which we named Jenny. More than twelve years later, Jenny is still alive and well. And what a strange cat she is. Soon after we got her, my paternal grandparents came for a visit, and Jenny loved rubbing against Grandma Judy's white leather shoes. To this day, she likes to rub against feet, more than she likes to be petted by hands. My dad won't let her be fed inside the house because she tends to throw up. She's picky about her litter box. She isn't particularly loving, hisses at kids, and likes to spill her water bowl. But she's a good mouser, and I like having her.
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