November 4

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 We found a bug on the antenna.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A two-year-old's Halloween fears.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Halloween!

October 24

Now it's time to remember what happened on October 24.

2014. My family was having a movie night at my sister's house, so we went to Little Caesar's and got pizza. We also went to Rite-Aid to get candy. I wanted to get orange Kit-Kats because I could have them, and my dad got candy to give to trick-or-treaters, but it didn't make it to Halloween. We watched Munster, Go Home!, and at the end, Susanne remarked about the snow accumulating rapidly in the movie. Then we went upstairs because she had to practice nursing on me and record it for a class. She started out, "Hi, I'm Susanne," and had to ask me questions as if I were a patient. She asked if my native language was English and I said "Sí." There wasn't enough memory on the phone that was used at first, so we had to start over again. During the second take, Buddy the dog got on top of me while I was lying on the couch, and she remarked about the puppy. She looked at my belly and said "I'll keep you modest." When we got done, we went home, and I watched Garfield's Halloween Adventure by myself. Then I wrote in my journal:
"After work, we went to Nan's house, where we ate pizza and watched Munster, Go Home! Then Nan had to do a physical assessment, which took a while.

2013. I commented on my roommate Jordan's Facebook post, telling him that grape jelly is bland, that he should use raspberry or blackberry instead. That night I watched the Garfield special; Jordan kept laughing at the song that kept saying "The one thing he's not is a scaredy cat!" When the ghost pirate ship showed up, Scott said, "Oh, this is a scary one. Everything we've watched so far have been comedies." I don't know for sure, but it's possible this was the night when I was waiting for Scott to quit watching the World Series before I watched my show, and a commercial was playing Lady Gaga's newly released "Do What U Want," and I said that it seemed like she was going downhill, which made Scott laugh.

2012. I was watching the "Safe and Sane Halloween" episode of Bewitched with my roommate Bryton. He remarked how cute Tabatha was, and he was laughing at all the things I found unfunny (such as characters getting confused for seeing strange things).

2010. I don't remember the day, but I did write in my journal, which I didn't do often at that time.
"Tomorrow I start my first day of real work, not counting Friday's orientation meeting. I still need to hear back from the post office. Part of me hopes I don't get that one because the schedule would be unpleasant, but it would make quitting the Church job more legit. I'm mainly excited to get a more impressive resume.  

2009. We finally got in with some people we had been trying to see for months. They were very friendly (and the wife was talking about Rocky Mountain oysters), but they definitely weren't receptive to our message, as they were strong Christians. They said no one could see God, since even Moses had to cover his face when he came down from the mountain. They asked almost condescendingly about baptisms for the dead. I tried to defend modern-day prophets, and the husband said he could believe in modern-day prophets, but he didn't think Joseph Smith was one. Then we went to Lapwai, the reservation outside of Lewiston. I drove up highway 95 to try to find a trailer park where a less-active member lived; I got a little lost on the way. I don't think we found who we were looking for, but other people confirmed they lived there. Then we went back to Lapwai proper and parked in the grocery store parking lot, and a man came up and talked to us. It was pretty obvious he was drunk; he kept telling Elder Tamblyn he shouldn't have "black eyes" (sunglasses) as a "Christian man." We wanted to get away but it was a little difficult. I told the man we would talk to him when he was sober, but he kept insisting that he wasn't drunk.
"Elder Tamblyn woke up again not feeling well. Then while he had personal study I slept because I didn't sleep the best last night. We visited a PI who were anti but nice. They claimed that no one can see God and thus Joseph Smith is not a prophet.
"We had lunch with the Bickerdykes, and then we went to Lapwai. We tried to see a LA and I got us going toward Orofino. When we were where we were meant to be, we tracted and dogs followed us completely around.
"Before leaving Lapwai a drunk Indian came up to us and told us he put his son before God so God took him away, so now he can't love anyone, and told Elder Tamblyn it wasn't good to have 'black eyes' (sunglasses).
"We had dinner with the Andersons and came home since Elder Tamblyn didn't feel well." 

2008. We visited our "eternal investigator" Christol (yes, that was how her name was spelled), who had a three-year-old, Edward, who was out of control. We were sitting on a bed in the living room, and Edward was attacking a little puppy, so I was trying to protect the dog. Suddenly there was a yellow liquid on the bed and Elder Love got up fast. He didn't know what to do, since Ritzville didn't have a dry cleaner. We went to our apartment and a Jon McPherson came over, since he was coming with us to a lesson. Elder Love changed his pants, and I told Jon why. Jon was a convert and just returned from his mission. We told him we had met some Catholic people who knew him and spoke disparagingly of our religion. He said they were very disappointed when he was baptized because they wanted him for their daughter. We visited our investigator Adriana, and a girl from the branch who was her daughter's friend was there too. I thought the member was the investigator's daughter. It was an awkward situation. We visited a less-active but very friendly part-member family, the Hunts, and I told them I had been in his parents' ward but never met them, and then they offered us Peanuts Halloween fruit snacks. That night we visited the recent converts the Johnsons. We told them about the dog incident earlier in the day, and Elder Love said, "I was p--I was mad," and Jason Johnson said, "You were going to say you were peeved."
"This morning we did our planning session. Then we had a lesson with Crystal. Their little puppy was behind Elder Love, while Edward was hitting it, and it peed and got Elder Love's suit.
"Then we met with Adriana. Briana, Maira's friend, was there, and for the longest time I thought she was Maira. I was embarrassed, because I kept asking her questions.
"Later we met the Hunts, a very friendly PMF. His parents were in the Greenbluff ward, but I don't remember them. Then we had a spontaneous lesson with the Johnsons. Denise wasn't too happy.
"We made a McDonald's run, and came back. For once we had no zeros in our daily actuals." 

2006. I was really excited to go to Shopko with my family and buy two newly released TV show DVD sets, the fourth season of Bewitched and the first volume of The Addams Family. Both of these had Halloween episodes, so I watched them when I went home. I told my dad I had bought an Addams Family DVD, but he was disappointed when he learned it wasn't the movies. 

October 25

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October 26-November 3, 2014

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

October conference 2012-2014

Three years ago, I made a post about the October general conference weekends. Now I'm going to blog about those that have occurred since then.

2014. After the Saturday morning session, I took some glass cleaner and wiped off my headlights and washed the inside of my car windows, all done while listening to my Halloween music on my phone. I also picked an apple off of our own apple tree--the first edible fruit I'd seen on that tree in my entire life. My mom and niece had gone to a birthday party for my cousin's kid. That night I texted a friend named Emily, and she invited me to go to conference with her because she had an extra ticket. The next morning, I went to her apartment complex, after some confusion. I knocked on her door and told her I liked her cats; she said they were her roommates' cats and she didn't care too much for them. We got in her car, and her CD player was playing Cherie Call. I told her how much I loved Cherie Call, that I had all of her albums, and that I had seen her many times. She was a little jealous. I told her how to get to the conference center and told her she needed to slow down at the curve on Beck Street; she said, "You could drive this with your eyes closed!" We walked over from a parking lot downtown, and a street preacher was telling us we believed Christ and Satan were brothers. Emily told me it was sad (that he was telling us what we believe and being so anti). We tried to figure out where to go, and Emily remarked about the "dirty" spots on the Conference Center granite; I explained to her what they were. We got in our seats, and a girl name Ruth whom I knew from Provo was a few rows ahead of me. She looked back and said hi; there had been a problem with an old tithing donation I had discovered as ward clerk, so I asked her about it. During a talk, they showed a picture of President Hinckley, and I told Emily that he was being photobombed by Brigham Young. I think I changed out of my suit once I got home into an orange shirt. My mom had made pancakes with pumpkin spice chips (like chocolate chips) in them, and I ate one and got some grease on my shorts. That afternoon I purchased a cheesy album of hymns from Your LDS Music Store because it had three Thanksgiving hymns and several other hymns that I didn't already have. I also updated my Thanksgiving playlist in Google Play, using my new hymns. Grandma and Grandpa came over and showed us pictures of their recent New York trip on our big TV; my mom got on Google Maps and explored Street View of her grandma's old neighborhood. I blogged. That night I wrote in my journal:
"This morning I went with Emily Edwards to conference. She likes Cherie Call and has a bright green car. There were protesters--one saying we think Christ and Satan are brothers, one saying 'Homo Churches Are Devilish.' [I remember that that was on a sign, and they had someone in a devil costume.]
"Tonight, Grandma and Grandpa came over, and we looked at pictures of New York. Then I blogged."

2013. I remember watching the priesthood session at home for the first time with my dad. My mom was making the dessert Fat Man's Misery the next day, so we went to buy ingredients. We went to Winegar's, and since it was the end of the week when I could eat anything, I wanted an Almond Joy at the checkout, and Allie got a Kit-Kat. She was very anxious to get a hold of it after we purchased it; my mom said something to that effect, and she said, "I just don't want it to melt." Both the cashier and my mom told her it was more likely to melt in her hand than in the bag. We went to Target because we couldn't find pumpkin ice cream for the dessert, and I went in by myself. I can't remember whether that was before or after Walmart, and where I ended up getting the ice cream. We went to Walmart, and on the way there we were discussing the Mamas and the Papas. A car was driving recklessly in the parking lot, apparently not caring about pedestrians, so impulsively I said, "I hope they crash and die!" and my mom reproved me. Allie was talking about coming home and eating something. My mom said she should just drink a lot of water and not eat so much because she might end up like her grandmother; I chimed in, "Or Mama Cass." During the Sunday morning session Allie was trying to help my mom crush Oreos for the dessert crust; I asked her if she had washed her hands, and my mom made her do so.

2012. I was by myself for a lot of Saturday conference. In the afternoon, my roommate Scott came home from having run the St. George Marathon. I told him about the mission age change. He asked where I was watching the priesthood session; I told him I planned to walk to the Marriott Center. He asked if I could drive instead, since he had just run a marathon, so I did. I was wearing my jack-o-lantern tie. I don't recall anything. The next day (Sunday) I wrote in my journal:
"I had weird dreams this morning that made me cut it close to getting up on time for conference. I ate grapes and Dots [they were Bat Dots, which were black and flavored like blood orange, but they don't make them anymore] during both sessions. Scott and Mary were around for most of the second session, which was kind of awkward. Then I wrote one blog post, made dinner, and then did another blog post. Back to the grind tomorrow."

Erroneous childhood notions

When I was a kid, I had some misconceptions about how things worked. I'm sure there are lots I'll remember at another time, but here are some.

When I was very young, I thought that when you ate food, it went all the way down to your toes and would gradually pile up.

When I was six, I would see jets' vapor trails, and I believed that they were real clouds. That led me to believe that clouds came from jets, and that the sole purpose of jets was to put clouds in the sky. I never understood how they went from being straight lines to lumpy things, though. One day the radio announced that that day there was "not a cloud in the sky," and I remarked, "We'll be seeing a lot of jets today!"

When I was seven, I believed that lava was so hot that if one drop of it touched your pinkie nail you would die.

And then there's one that is the most implausible to me, and I was probably nine or so before I learned it wasn't true. I learned that in cel animation they had to draw every frame. But I didn't understand that they used cels and that they placed them in front of backgrounds. I thought that the entire screen had to be redrawn every time. And here's where it gets progressively more implausible. I thought that if they did that for movies, they did it for video games too. So every possible position that Mario could be, with any combination of enemies, had been individually drawn, including the backgrounds. And I liked the Mario Paint Super Nintendo game, so I believed that everything I ever possibly drew on Mario Paint had already been drawn before--also with every combination of cursor location. And then since they did that with video games, they did it with computers too. This means that everything you ever drew in Microsoft Paint had been drawn before--not just in Paint, but the whole screen, with every possible cursor, cursor location, window size, background image, icon combinations, etc. It hurts my head to think of all the combinations that would have to exist if that were true!