Last year I did a post about the Memorial Days of my life, which meant that I've never done one about what went on last year on Memorial Day. So here it is.
I remember my parents talking about what we wanted to do for the day. My mom suggested going to Gilgal Gardens. My dad wanted to see a movie, but my mom and I didn't like that idea. So I said we could go to Gilgal Gardens, as my mom suggested.
On our way there, we listened to Adele's 21 album. My mom said that she said "risk" funny in "He Won't Go"; it sounded like "reesk." She also said that she didn't think Adele looked the way she sounded. I said she did sound black, and my mom said she sounded fat. We got to Gilgal Gardens, which is a very interesting place. It has lots of strange Mormon-themed art, such as a sphinx with Joseph Smith's face. I was mostly interested in identifying all the different rocks.
I can't remember if we went to K-Mart, or if that was closer to Father's Day. If it was Memorial Day, then we looked at their patriotic stuff and bought large "Starmallows." It could have happened before Gilgal Gardens.
Then we went home. Somehow we got Allie; I can't remember if we picked her up, or if Matt dropped her off. My mom had to go somewhere, and Allie wanted to go with her. I asked Allie if she would rather go with my mom or stay home and roast s'mores with me on our little fire pit on our patio. She opted to stay home. I took s'more stuff out (using Starmallows, but I don't know if they were the little ones we had bought two weeks before or the big ones we bought at K-Mart). I was surprised at how fast the chocolate bar melted; it was a warm day.
Then it was time for me to return to Provo. When I got back, I put up patriotic decorations in my apartment. I put my neon light flag in the living room window, the flag light sculpture in the kitchen window, and the red, white, and blue light string over the living room shelf. Later my roommate Cameron came home and said, "I like all the patriotism!"
Then that night we got a knock in the door. It was some ward members inviting us to go up to Vivian Park with them. I remember Bryan Clark saying he liked our Christmas lights, and Cameron said "No!" Bryan said, "I know they're red, white, and blue." After some deliberation, I agreed to go, and Cameron did too. Cameron said he was disappointed in me because he was hoping I would say no, and then he wouldn't feel obligated to go either.
We went with Hanna and Carissa over to Hanna's car. Hanna was listening to a mix CD someone had made for her. It included "Dog Days Are Over" by Florence + the Machine. They asked Cameron what music he liked; he said Death Cab for Cutie and Coldplay. Carissa said that everyone liked Coldplay at some point. Cameron told them I liked Katy Perry. I clarified that I only had one song ("Part of Me") but that I liked Christina Perri. We made it to Vivian Park, but we weren't sure where to meet the others. As we got there, the CD was playing "Pumped Up Kicks" by Foster the People, and I was talking about how it reminded me of driving to work in the morning during the fall. We parked near a puddle and met our ward members. We walked over to a fire pit, and our ward members started a fire.
It was said that we should tell ghost stories, so Bryan Clark started one about a girl named Janey Jane. He kept getting distracted, so I continued the story, making it up but trying to base it on the "Ghost a Go Go" episode of Gilligan's Island. Michelle said, "I think this is the most I've ever heard Mark talk!" But I don't think I got to finish my story. Then we went back home.
Sunday, May 26, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
The Friday before Memorial Day
In recent years, the Friday before Memorial Day has been kind of an exciting day because it's one of my arbitrary days when I start a holiday season. On the Friday before Memorial Day I start the patriotic season that includes Memorial Day and Flag Day but is really all about the Fourth of July. However, this hasn't always been the case. This is my attempt at remembering what I can about the Friday before Memorial Day in the past.
2012. I went to my stupid history class in the morning and doodled patriotic things in the margins of my notes. Then that afternoon my parents came to town and picked me up. They wanted to try J-Dawgs, so they pulled into the parking lot. But I didn't warn them that the parking lot was really small, so my dad had to do some difficult maneuvering to back the Suburban into a parking spot. My dad ate his before we headed out. Allie was annoyed about turning the car off because it would make her start her movie over on her portable DVD player. Allie eventually said she didn't want to finish hers, so she gave it to my mom, but all that was left was the bun. My family had gone to Cabela's before picking me up and bought some Tootsie Rolls. I said that if they had bought patriotic-wrapped candies, I could have had them. I asked them if they remembered to bring the patriotic marshmallows. Allie was watching Matilda, and I didn't care for the language contained therein. I wanted to listen to Adele, and we eventually did. We drove out to see the lava tubes near Flowell; I think we saw a dust devil in a Flowell field. There was a cinder cone volcano that was half destroyed by some business. We drove on a road surrounded by basalt. There were lots of rocks in the road and I worried we would get a flat tire, which got Allie worrying as well. Then we got to the lava tubes. I went down into one. It was really cool! There were lots of grasshoppers and even some lizards. My dad told me about how he and some friends once set a fire in the open area of the lava tube, so he may have been responsible for the relative lack of vegetation down there. Then my dad took me and Allie into another lava tube, one that went far into the earth and out of the daylight. We had to use flashlights. My dad told me how he would go camping in the dark tube. I would be a little creeped out to sleep there. Then I hiked up nearby Tabernacle Hill while my mom and Allie waited in the car. I started on one side, but the path led to a steeper path on the other side. It was extraordinarily windy and I worried my glasses would blow off. My dad also climbed up. I tried to take pictures from the top, but my camera was out of battery. I wanted to walk over to a nearby alcove down in the lava tube, but it was so windy I decided not to. When we were driving back, my parents took a wrong turn (even though I told them it was wrong). We saw a sand dune with some cows on it; I said, "Look at that barchan sand dune!" My mom asked what barchan meant; she thought it was some slang expression. Then we drove up to Fillmore Canyon. I noticed all the arkose rocks. Then we met all of the Christensens, my dad's sister's family. We set up our tent, and then that night we roasted marshmallows for s'mores. I used red, white, and blue marshmallows so that I could have them. We talked about how good a man my Grandpa Boyd was. Sarena said that Judy was a good grandma, considering her circumstances.
2011. Before my 12:00 class, I downloaded "America the Beautiful," "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and "The Star Spangled Banner" from lds.org. When I came home from classes, I was talking to my roommate Chase, and I think we were looking at pictures of eight-legged creatures. I was people watching out the window and saw a barefoot guy with short shorts and a funny gait. (I can't remember if his shorts were salmon-colored or if his legs were.) Then our roommate Zach came home and we put our stuff in the car to carpool up to North Salt Lake. We had to stop at the Wilk to pick up Shannon Kelly. Zach made an illegal left turn to get out of the Wilk. As we were driving down University Parkway, there was a car in front of us with a peculiar accessory on the back--it looked like a TV screen. We wanted to figure out what it was, but the car got away from us. As we got on the freeway, Zach and Shannon talked about a time when they almost crashed getting on the freeway because of a crazy lady driver. Zach was a fairly aggressive driver and said why he wondered why some of the people were going slow. I said, "Maybe they believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." Zach was listening to his music on his iPod and Chase started dancing to "Viva la Vida." When Zach pulled up to my house, he was surprised to see the green Taurus in the driveway--he had ridden in that car before, but he didn't know I had switched cars. My dad wasn't too happy about turning 60. My mom made him a cake with blue frosting and red, white, and blue sprinkles. The sprinkles were for my sake, so I could eat the cake. She sent me to the store for something. I went with Allie, and we looked to see if there was such a thing as Fourth of July ice cream, since my mom said she had seen some. There wasn't. As we left the store, we saw Devan Gubler. Zach texted me to see if I wanted to play card games with him and some friends, but I declined. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2010. My roommate Alex Vincent sent a mass text to all of his friends about his friend Nik Day who was performing at Sammy's restaurant in honor of his EP release. I asked Alex what an EP was, and he said it was a short CD. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I went to the EP release and met a girl from our ward, Joyce Porter. The first performer that night was one Amy Whitcomb. Next up was Jarrett Burns, who was quite enthusiastic, and I found his music fun. He didn't have live music; he just played the minus tracks from his laptop. Sammy's passed around a menu of their food, and Jarrett Burns's parents were in attendance. Then there was a girl who sang, accompanied by Aaron Edson. She was singing a song and she kept amending the lyrics. One of lyrics was "We could make out," and she added, "in a totally appropriate way." She mentioned something about talking to a bishop. In the middle of the song she apologized and said she was being too silly. My thought was, if you're going to have to clean up the lyrics, why don't you just choose another song? She also sang, "Or we could make love...after going to the temple!" Then Nik Day got on. Alex was his mandolin player. He said he was going to sing "People Will Be People," and there were some cheers. He pointed out that obviously his family members were there. Some people were watching from the parking balcony of the adjacent hotel; the MC thanked them for not complaining about the noise. That night I bought Jarrett Burns's CD, and then I bought Nik Day's EP out of sympathy. (Well, sympathy's not the right word; I bought it because I felt bad not buying it, since it was his concert.) Joyce Porter bought the deal that included some extra songs and a Sammy's pie shake, but she tried to give the shake away. I drove Joyce home while listening to my Michelle Tumes CD. When I got to the Stratford Court parking lot, I told her she could get out because I was embarrassed to back into a parking spot with someone in the car, since I'm not a very good backer.
2009. At combined district meeting, our zone leaders told us they weren't going to give us a training on how to contact people but instead would have us go out and contact people. We all paired up with other missionaries and drove someplace to contact people. Elder Cluff drove us to the Walmart parking lot; he and his "companion" claimed the people who were standing underneath a tree outside of the parking lot. I thought the parking lot was a terrible idea. But before I could tell my temporary companion that it was a bad idea to talk to people in the parking lot, he went up and started talking to people. I changed the approach and just offered to take people's carts back for them, since that seemed more legal. That afternoon we went to Lapwai, and then we came back for the Lewiston 2nd Ward party. I commented on the springlike colors of the table cloths. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today the zone leaders had us leave in district meeting to go talk to people, and the other missionaries foolishly had us go to the Wal-Mart parking lot. That was bad and I didn't think it was an appropriate place to contact people.
"Jeffrey's was really slow. Then we went out to Lapwai. A bunch of the Indians are unhappy because a policeman shot an Indian who wouldn't pull over.
"Then we went to the ward party. It was kind of boring and had a poor turnout.
"I'm feeling like the days here are unfulfilling. On Wednesday I'll take over the area on exchanges, and I'm excited. I want to do some good work that will help me learn the area. I am pretty annoyed that Elder Lamb didn't update anything of former investigators."
2008. This is what my journal entry says:
"Today Elder Condie decided to sleep in [which was nothing new for him]. Then Teddie cancelled but still wanted a map to church. We stopped by a few people around her, then we came home. We had to usher for the stake play--they started it early for some reason. There was no organization. Then Kristy wasn't home when we showed up. We tried to call her but she got a new cell phone."
I seem to remember thinking it was dumb to start the play early, since lots of people were still showing up. I think this was the time we were standing outside the room of the performance, and we heard silence on stage (it was written as part of the play). Sister Shaw said that it was bad to have silence on stage for so long, whether it was intentional or not.
2005. I remember that my dad picked me up from school and we had to stop at a gas station to buy special ice to go camping. I guess our freezer ice wasn't good enough. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2002. I was home sick from school. I was taking some medicine for the sickness. I told my mom I couldn't breathe, so she took me to Instacare. They examined me and told me that my throat was closed up; I had anaphylaxis from the medicine. They did what they could for me, but then it was time for them to close, so I was transported by ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital. I think I could see my mom's car following the ambulance. I had to stay the night. They gave me an IV and I had to go to the bathroom all night, which annoyed my mom.
2001. We went up to Fillmore Canyon, where we were surprised to see a new outhouse near the gate of the parking area. It was nice and clean, but we didn't know how long it would stay that way. My mom had bought some twirly helicopter toys--you know, the ones that you spin with your hands and let go into the air. I thought about how the red and blue one could be a Fourth of July one, and the orange and purple one could be a Halloween one.
1994. If I am not mistaken, this was the last day of my preschool. They gave us pictures of our class and pencils that had pictures of the earth. They also gave us bags of clothes. These were clothes that our parents had given to the teachers in case we ever peed our pants, but a lot of us thought they were just giving us clothes. I can't remember whether or not I recognized the clothes as my own, but I do remember that I didn't recognize the Mario underwear as my own. (In fact, I think that underwear might have originally belonged to a friend named Keith, or else he had some that was the same. Underwear has a way of changing houses among children who are scared to use strangers' bathrooms.) One boy in my class was tearing off pieces from his plastic bag and eating them, saying, "I love plastic." I thought how I liked it too, but my mom and brother had told me it wasn't good to eat. (It's possible this last part was a dream; sometimes it's hard to distinguish old memories from dreams--but I always thought it really happened.) Then I think I played with my friend David Christensen while my parents were getting ready for camping. It was an overcast day. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2012. I went to my stupid history class in the morning and doodled patriotic things in the margins of my notes. Then that afternoon my parents came to town and picked me up. They wanted to try J-Dawgs, so they pulled into the parking lot. But I didn't warn them that the parking lot was really small, so my dad had to do some difficult maneuvering to back the Suburban into a parking spot. My dad ate his before we headed out. Allie was annoyed about turning the car off because it would make her start her movie over on her portable DVD player. Allie eventually said she didn't want to finish hers, so she gave it to my mom, but all that was left was the bun. My family had gone to Cabela's before picking me up and bought some Tootsie Rolls. I said that if they had bought patriotic-wrapped candies, I could have had them. I asked them if they remembered to bring the patriotic marshmallows. Allie was watching Matilda, and I didn't care for the language contained therein. I wanted to listen to Adele, and we eventually did. We drove out to see the lava tubes near Flowell; I think we saw a dust devil in a Flowell field. There was a cinder cone volcano that was half destroyed by some business. We drove on a road surrounded by basalt. There were lots of rocks in the road and I worried we would get a flat tire, which got Allie worrying as well. Then we got to the lava tubes. I went down into one. It was really cool! There were lots of grasshoppers and even some lizards. My dad told me about how he and some friends once set a fire in the open area of the lava tube, so he may have been responsible for the relative lack of vegetation down there. Then my dad took me and Allie into another lava tube, one that went far into the earth and out of the daylight. We had to use flashlights. My dad told me how he would go camping in the dark tube. I would be a little creeped out to sleep there. Then I hiked up nearby Tabernacle Hill while my mom and Allie waited in the car. I started on one side, but the path led to a steeper path on the other side. It was extraordinarily windy and I worried my glasses would blow off. My dad also climbed up. I tried to take pictures from the top, but my camera was out of battery. I wanted to walk over to a nearby alcove down in the lava tube, but it was so windy I decided not to. When we were driving back, my parents took a wrong turn (even though I told them it was wrong). We saw a sand dune with some cows on it; I said, "Look at that barchan sand dune!" My mom asked what barchan meant; she thought it was some slang expression. Then we drove up to Fillmore Canyon. I noticed all the arkose rocks. Then we met all of the Christensens, my dad's sister's family. We set up our tent, and then that night we roasted marshmallows for s'mores. I used red, white, and blue marshmallows so that I could have them. We talked about how good a man my Grandpa Boyd was. Sarena said that Judy was a good grandma, considering her circumstances.2011. Before my 12:00 class, I downloaded "America the Beautiful," "My Country, 'Tis of Thee," and "The Star Spangled Banner" from lds.org. When I came home from classes, I was talking to my roommate Chase, and I think we were looking at pictures of eight-legged creatures. I was people watching out the window and saw a barefoot guy with short shorts and a funny gait. (I can't remember if his shorts were salmon-colored or if his legs were.) Then our roommate Zach came home and we put our stuff in the car to carpool up to North Salt Lake. We had to stop at the Wilk to pick up Shannon Kelly. Zach made an illegal left turn to get out of the Wilk. As we were driving down University Parkway, there was a car in front of us with a peculiar accessory on the back--it looked like a TV screen. We wanted to figure out what it was, but the car got away from us. As we got on the freeway, Zach and Shannon talked about a time when they almost crashed getting on the freeway because of a crazy lady driver. Zach was a fairly aggressive driver and said why he wondered why some of the people were going slow. I said, "Maybe they believe in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law." Zach was listening to his music on his iPod and Chase started dancing to "Viva la Vida." When Zach pulled up to my house, he was surprised to see the green Taurus in the driveway--he had ridden in that car before, but he didn't know I had switched cars. My dad wasn't too happy about turning 60. My mom made him a cake with blue frosting and red, white, and blue sprinkles. The sprinkles were for my sake, so I could eat the cake. She sent me to the store for something. I went with Allie, and we looked to see if there was such a thing as Fourth of July ice cream, since my mom said she had seen some. There wasn't. As we left the store, we saw Devan Gubler. Zach texted me to see if I wanted to play card games with him and some friends, but I declined. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2010. My roommate Alex Vincent sent a mass text to all of his friends about his friend Nik Day who was performing at Sammy's restaurant in honor of his EP release. I asked Alex what an EP was, and he said it was a short CD. Since I didn't have anything better to do, I went to the EP release and met a girl from our ward, Joyce Porter. The first performer that night was one Amy Whitcomb. Next up was Jarrett Burns, who was quite enthusiastic, and I found his music fun. He didn't have live music; he just played the minus tracks from his laptop. Sammy's passed around a menu of their food, and Jarrett Burns's parents were in attendance. Then there was a girl who sang, accompanied by Aaron Edson. She was singing a song and she kept amending the lyrics. One of lyrics was "We could make out," and she added, "in a totally appropriate way." She mentioned something about talking to a bishop. In the middle of the song she apologized and said she was being too silly. My thought was, if you're going to have to clean up the lyrics, why don't you just choose another song? She also sang, "Or we could make love...after going to the temple!" Then Nik Day got on. Alex was his mandolin player. He said he was going to sing "People Will Be People," and there were some cheers. He pointed out that obviously his family members were there. Some people were watching from the parking balcony of the adjacent hotel; the MC thanked them for not complaining about the noise. That night I bought Jarrett Burns's CD, and then I bought Nik Day's EP out of sympathy. (Well, sympathy's not the right word; I bought it because I felt bad not buying it, since it was his concert.) Joyce Porter bought the deal that included some extra songs and a Sammy's pie shake, but she tried to give the shake away. I drove Joyce home while listening to my Michelle Tumes CD. When I got to the Stratford Court parking lot, I told her she could get out because I was embarrassed to back into a parking spot with someone in the car, since I'm not a very good backer.
2009. At combined district meeting, our zone leaders told us they weren't going to give us a training on how to contact people but instead would have us go out and contact people. We all paired up with other missionaries and drove someplace to contact people. Elder Cluff drove us to the Walmart parking lot; he and his "companion" claimed the people who were standing underneath a tree outside of the parking lot. I thought the parking lot was a terrible idea. But before I could tell my temporary companion that it was a bad idea to talk to people in the parking lot, he went up and started talking to people. I changed the approach and just offered to take people's carts back for them, since that seemed more legal. That afternoon we went to Lapwai, and then we came back for the Lewiston 2nd Ward party. I commented on the springlike colors of the table cloths. Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today the zone leaders had us leave in district meeting to go talk to people, and the other missionaries foolishly had us go to the Wal-Mart parking lot. That was bad and I didn't think it was an appropriate place to contact people.
"Jeffrey's was really slow. Then we went out to Lapwai. A bunch of the Indians are unhappy because a policeman shot an Indian who wouldn't pull over.
"Then we went to the ward party. It was kind of boring and had a poor turnout.
"I'm feeling like the days here are unfulfilling. On Wednesday I'll take over the area on exchanges, and I'm excited. I want to do some good work that will help me learn the area. I am pretty annoyed that Elder Lamb didn't update anything of former investigators."
2008. This is what my journal entry says:
"Today Elder Condie decided to sleep in [which was nothing new for him]. Then Teddie cancelled but still wanted a map to church. We stopped by a few people around her, then we came home. We had to usher for the stake play--they started it early for some reason. There was no organization. Then Kristy wasn't home when we showed up. We tried to call her but she got a new cell phone."
I seem to remember thinking it was dumb to start the play early, since lots of people were still showing up. I think this was the time we were standing outside the room of the performance, and we heard silence on stage (it was written as part of the play). Sister Shaw said that it was bad to have silence on stage for so long, whether it was intentional or not.
2005. I remember that my dad picked me up from school and we had to stop at a gas station to buy special ice to go camping. I guess our freezer ice wasn't good enough. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
2002. I was home sick from school. I was taking some medicine for the sickness. I told my mom I couldn't breathe, so she took me to Instacare. They examined me and told me that my throat was closed up; I had anaphylaxis from the medicine. They did what they could for me, but then it was time for them to close, so I was transported by ambulance to Primary Children's Hospital. I think I could see my mom's car following the ambulance. I had to stay the night. They gave me an IV and I had to go to the bathroom all night, which annoyed my mom.
2001. We went up to Fillmore Canyon, where we were surprised to see a new outhouse near the gate of the parking area. It was nice and clean, but we didn't know how long it would stay that way. My mom had bought some twirly helicopter toys--you know, the ones that you spin with your hands and let go into the air. I thought about how the red and blue one could be a Fourth of July one, and the orange and purple one could be a Halloween one.
1994. If I am not mistaken, this was the last day of my preschool. They gave us pictures of our class and pencils that had pictures of the earth. They also gave us bags of clothes. These were clothes that our parents had given to the teachers in case we ever peed our pants, but a lot of us thought they were just giving us clothes. I can't remember whether or not I recognized the clothes as my own, but I do remember that I didn't recognize the Mario underwear as my own. (In fact, I think that underwear might have originally belonged to a friend named Keith, or else he had some that was the same. Underwear has a way of changing houses among children who are scared to use strangers' bathrooms.) One boy in my class was tearing off pieces from his plastic bag and eating them, saying, "I love plastic." I thought how I liked it too, but my mom and brother had told me it wasn't good to eat. (It's possible this last part was a dream; sometimes it's hard to distinguish old memories from dreams--but I always thought it really happened.) Then I think I played with my friend David Christensen while my parents were getting ready for camping. It was an overcast day. (Taken from the post about my dad's birthday.)
Sunday, May 12, 2013
When elementary school teachers were wrong
When I attended Orchard Elementary School, I thought that my teachers were smart people. But there were occasions when they were wrong.
Like when my third grade teacher said that Cinco de Mayo is the equivalent of the Fourth of July in Mexico. But that's false. Cinco de Mayo commemorates one small victory of the Mexicans over the French. Mexico's Independence Day is September 16, not May 5.
My fourth-grade teacher Mr. Williams was kind of a know-it-all. I remember once at Christmastime he gave us a bunch of Christmas words. One of the words was "manger." He told us that a manger is a barn, and he said that "Away in a Manger" could be called "Away in a Barn." But a manger is not a barn. That's a stable. A manger is a feedbox. The French word manger means "to eat."
It was Mr. Williams who taught me a stupid prescriptive rule, one that I followed for a long time. I wrote an Easter story that started off, "The funnest Easter I can remember," and he told me funnest wasn't a word. I had never heard that. He asked me to look in a dictionary to see if funner was in it. But now I know where that rule came from, and it's pure nonsense. Originally, fun was a noun. But if you say, "That was fun," it's hard to know whether fun is a noun or an adjective. But fun has now become an adjective, as in "That was a fun party." But stupid prescriptivists say you can't say "funner" because fun was a noun, and you can't add -est or -er to a noun. But today, fun is more of an adjective than it is a verb, and almost all (and maybe all!) other single-syllable adjectives take the -er or -est suffixes. If you're going to say funner is wrong, then you technically should say that more fun is also wrong. So take that!
In fifth grade, we used to rotate teachers. Mrs. Cowan was in charge of English stuff. And once she had to write the word business on the board. She wrote it as buisness. We corrected her, but she apparently had never considered the etymology or morphology of the word, and after writing it the right way, she said, "No!" and "corrected" it back to buisness.
I remember learning about the core, mantle, and crust in second grade. Then in fifth grade, the science teacher, Mrs. (or Miss?) Belnap, told us about more layers. There was the crust, the lithosphere, the outer core, and the inner core. I never fully understood what the lithosphere was, especially in relation to the core. But now I know that you can't talk about the core and the lithosphere at the same time. The crust relates to chemical properties (composition), and the lithosphere relates to physical properties.
The lithosphere and the crust are almost the same, except that the lithosphere is slightly thicker. The lithosphere is made of all of the crust and a little bit of the mantle. My teacher made it seem that the lithosphere was below the crust, but they're actually almost the same thing.
Then I had Mr. Williams again in sixth grade. Now, he was my favorite elementary school teacher, but sometimes, looking back, I question his ethics. He decided one day that our book that we would read as a class was the first Harry Potter book. But he hadn't read it, and he just played the book on tape, which meant that he didn't have to read it. Then one day he gave us a test on the book. But since he hadn't read it, he couldn't make one, so he Googled one. And he couldn't know how accurate the test was. And this was a terrible test. First of all, it had elements from the first three books, not just the first, so those who hadn't read all of them were at a disadvantage. But not only that, the test was WRONG! One of the questions asked which character had wizard parents. The options were Ron, Harry, Hermione, and maybe someone else. Of course, both Harry and Ron had wizard parents, even though Harry was raised by muggles. But the test said that Ron was the only one with wizard parents. So we challenged Mr. Williams about it. But instead of listening to us, he actually defended the test, even though he didn't know what he was talking about! Someone brought up that Harry's parents attended Hogwarts, and Mr. Williams said, "They were muggles who attended a wizard school." Um, no. That is completely false. It was obvious that he was making things up because he didn't want the quiz to be wrong.
People who are unteachable shouldn't be teachers.
Like when my third grade teacher said that Cinco de Mayo is the equivalent of the Fourth of July in Mexico. But that's false. Cinco de Mayo commemorates one small victory of the Mexicans over the French. Mexico's Independence Day is September 16, not May 5.
My fourth-grade teacher Mr. Williams was kind of a know-it-all. I remember once at Christmastime he gave us a bunch of Christmas words. One of the words was "manger." He told us that a manger is a barn, and he said that "Away in a Manger" could be called "Away in a Barn." But a manger is not a barn. That's a stable. A manger is a feedbox. The French word manger means "to eat."
It was Mr. Williams who taught me a stupid prescriptive rule, one that I followed for a long time. I wrote an Easter story that started off, "The funnest Easter I can remember," and he told me funnest wasn't a word. I had never heard that. He asked me to look in a dictionary to see if funner was in it. But now I know where that rule came from, and it's pure nonsense. Originally, fun was a noun. But if you say, "That was fun," it's hard to know whether fun is a noun or an adjective. But fun has now become an adjective, as in "That was a fun party." But stupid prescriptivists say you can't say "funner" because fun was a noun, and you can't add -est or -er to a noun. But today, fun is more of an adjective than it is a verb, and almost all (and maybe all!) other single-syllable adjectives take the -er or -est suffixes. If you're going to say funner is wrong, then you technically should say that more fun is also wrong. So take that!
In fifth grade, we used to rotate teachers. Mrs. Cowan was in charge of English stuff. And once she had to write the word business on the board. She wrote it as buisness. We corrected her, but she apparently had never considered the etymology or morphology of the word, and after writing it the right way, she said, "No!" and "corrected" it back to buisness.
I remember learning about the core, mantle, and crust in second grade. Then in fifth grade, the science teacher, Mrs. (or Miss?) Belnap, told us about more layers. There was the crust, the lithosphere, the outer core, and the inner core. I never fully understood what the lithosphere was, especially in relation to the core. But now I know that you can't talk about the core and the lithosphere at the same time. The crust relates to chemical properties (composition), and the lithosphere relates to physical properties.
Then I had Mr. Williams again in sixth grade. Now, he was my favorite elementary school teacher, but sometimes, looking back, I question his ethics. He decided one day that our book that we would read as a class was the first Harry Potter book. But he hadn't read it, and he just played the book on tape, which meant that he didn't have to read it. Then one day he gave us a test on the book. But since he hadn't read it, he couldn't make one, so he Googled one. And he couldn't know how accurate the test was. And this was a terrible test. First of all, it had elements from the first three books, not just the first, so those who hadn't read all of them were at a disadvantage. But not only that, the test was WRONG! One of the questions asked which character had wizard parents. The options were Ron, Harry, Hermione, and maybe someone else. Of course, both Harry and Ron had wizard parents, even though Harry was raised by muggles. But the test said that Ron was the only one with wizard parents. So we challenged Mr. Williams about it. But instead of listening to us, he actually defended the test, even though he didn't know what he was talking about! Someone brought up that Harry's parents attended Hogwarts, and Mr. Williams said, "They were muggles who attended a wizard school." Um, no. That is completely false. It was obvious that he was making things up because he didn't want the quiz to be wrong.
People who are unteachable shouldn't be teachers.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
The day before Mother's Day
It's almost Mother's Day, so I'm going to remember what I can about the day before the holiday.
2012. My mom and I headed up to Clearfield to help my cousin Ryan move out of his parents' house. My mom asked about taking music to listen to; I brought Neon Trees' album Picture Show and Taylor Swift's Speak Now. (We listened to Cherie Call and later to Neon Trees [my mom wanted to hear them since she'd read about them in the paper], but we never listened to Taylor.) I think for some reason we were driving in some neighborhoods in Centerville and Farmington; maybe we had to pick up a missionary plaque in Centerville. When we got to the Gildersleeves', we met Ryan's son Brennon, who kept calling my mom "Grandma Ebbert." Debbie kept talking about how I came all the way up from BYU to help move, which was only partly true. We helped move stuff out of the garage. There was a tub of rotting apples in the garage. There were several garage sales going on on the street, and people kept coming up because they thought it was a garage sale. One was a weird old guy and my mom told him we were moving stuff; he said there was a lot of stuff to move, and I told him not all of it was going. One was a Hispanic guy in a pickup truck who was listening to 80s music. I was surprised that he actually parked in the driveway. Maria had to tell him it wasn't a sale. Some other people pulled up and my mom told them it wasn't a sale. We loaded up a lot of Brennon's toys in our Rav to take over to the new house. Brennon found a bug (a "poteena" bug, he called it) that he wanted to take over to the new house; he tried to put it in my pocket. We drove over to the new house and unloaded stuff. Later my uncle Rick came and I talked with him a little about my studies. Then my mom and I left. Before getting on the freeway we stopped at Wendy's for lunch; I was unimpressed with my chicken sandwich. Then we stopped at a hardware store on our way back because my mom wanted to get an outdoor fire pit for Mother's Day (we had to load it on a dolly). We might have also got some plants (I know we at least looked at them), and I know we got a Gatorade because I was thirsty. I brought the Rav over to load the fire pit. Then we drove home. Later we went to Walmart. I was excited to see that they had red, white, and blue star-shaped marshmallows, so we bought them so that I could have them two weeks later. We also bought caramel marshmallows to roast on the new fire pit. We came home and set it up. I seem to recall something about turning on the hose in the front lawn and admiring the rocks in the garden. Then the Brunners in our ward drove past and stopped and Katy and Mia talked to Allie. Then we went back on the patio and roasted marshmallows. Allie was kind of careless with her roasting stick. She told Karen about how I had said there was flavored peanut butter; I didn't know why she thought that was worth telling her. My mom said something about her college son eating peanut butter, and Karen talked about her daughters liking Nutella and saying it was healthy. My mom brought up how I had compared its nutrition facts to chocolate frosting. Karen said it was like eating fudge but "mighty tasty."
2011. My dad and I went to Kmart to get flowers for my mom. I was ready to put them on the checkstand but the checker told me she could just scan them in the cart. I paid, and then we went over to get gas. I think my dad bought gas, and he told me he would have bought the flowers too. (Or maybe he paid for the flowers and I bought the gas. I can't remember.) We went home and kept the flowers in the trunk. Unfortunately, I can't remember what else happened that day at the moment.
2010. As I was leaving my apartment, a girl asked me if I was going home for Mother's Day. When I responded that I was, she said I was a good son. Nan and Matt and Allie were going to meet us to go to dinner. My mom initially wanted to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory, but then she changed her mind and wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse and Allie was mad. I had never been to Texas Roadhouse. My mom and sister liked our server. After dinner, Nan and Matt left and Allie went with us to get the car inspected. Allie got a Blo-Pop there and swallowed the gum. Then we went to Costco. Being forever overly indulgent, my parents got a frozen yogurt swirl shake for Allie, and she started her characteristic esophageal choking. We thought it was because of the gum she swallowed, but it turned out to be from the chicken she ate at Texas Roadhouse.
2008. This is what my journal says:
"All our appointments cancelled again today. Elder Condie says this has happened before on his mission and everything goes wrong while he gets a really weird feeling.
"We had dinner at a high priests dinner. Then we biked to a nearby less-active part-member relationship. That was good. We hate these kinds of days."
I think this was the time that Elder Condie said that the reason our appointments cancelled was because he wasn't obedient, so he didn't have the Spirit, and the D&C says that if you have not the Spirit you shall not teach. Mind you, he didn't use this to try to become more obedient. At the high priests dinner, they played old music. One was this dumb song that had the singer just "singing" "HeEE hee, hee hee hee hee hee," etc. Elder Condie said, "No me gusta," and I told him how I had once received a Valentine's gift of a dumb CD with dumb songs, and that was one of the songs.
2000. During the day, David and his girlfriend Andrea prepared a fancy meal for my mom (and the rest of us) for Mother's Day. Andrea asked my mom if she had a bottle for dressing. My mom found one, and I thought it was a decoration that had had oil in it (but I later learned it wasn't). I think the salad had mandarin oranges in it. My dad asked me to bless the food, but I was really shy with Andrea around, so I declined. Then David and Andrea left, and my mom had to clean up. She was quite annoyed that she had to clean up this meal made for her and said to me, "Mark, never do this." Then my dad took me shopping for her present. I think I got a black double-hooked garden pole from Kmart. When we got home, my dad told me to go distract my mom so that he could move the pole in the garage without her knowing. So I went up in the kitchen and said excitedly, "Hi Mom! How are you?" and she immediately knew what I was up to, since I never talked like that. She might have been annoyed that I was getting her present the night before Mother's Day.
2012. My mom and I headed up to Clearfield to help my cousin Ryan move out of his parents' house. My mom asked about taking music to listen to; I brought Neon Trees' album Picture Show and Taylor Swift's Speak Now. (We listened to Cherie Call and later to Neon Trees [my mom wanted to hear them since she'd read about them in the paper], but we never listened to Taylor.) I think for some reason we were driving in some neighborhoods in Centerville and Farmington; maybe we had to pick up a missionary plaque in Centerville. When we got to the Gildersleeves', we met Ryan's son Brennon, who kept calling my mom "Grandma Ebbert." Debbie kept talking about how I came all the way up from BYU to help move, which was only partly true. We helped move stuff out of the garage. There was a tub of rotting apples in the garage. There were several garage sales going on on the street, and people kept coming up because they thought it was a garage sale. One was a weird old guy and my mom told him we were moving stuff; he said there was a lot of stuff to move, and I told him not all of it was going. One was a Hispanic guy in a pickup truck who was listening to 80s music. I was surprised that he actually parked in the driveway. Maria had to tell him it wasn't a sale. Some other people pulled up and my mom told them it wasn't a sale. We loaded up a lot of Brennon's toys in our Rav to take over to the new house. Brennon found a bug (a "poteena" bug, he called it) that he wanted to take over to the new house; he tried to put it in my pocket. We drove over to the new house and unloaded stuff. Later my uncle Rick came and I talked with him a little about my studies. Then my mom and I left. Before getting on the freeway we stopped at Wendy's for lunch; I was unimpressed with my chicken sandwich. Then we stopped at a hardware store on our way back because my mom wanted to get an outdoor fire pit for Mother's Day (we had to load it on a dolly). We might have also got some plants (I know we at least looked at them), and I know we got a Gatorade because I was thirsty. I brought the Rav over to load the fire pit. Then we drove home. Later we went to Walmart. I was excited to see that they had red, white, and blue star-shaped marshmallows, so we bought them so that I could have them two weeks later. We also bought caramel marshmallows to roast on the new fire pit. We came home and set it up. I seem to recall something about turning on the hose in the front lawn and admiring the rocks in the garden. Then the Brunners in our ward drove past and stopped and Katy and Mia talked to Allie. Then we went back on the patio and roasted marshmallows. Allie was kind of careless with her roasting stick. She told Karen about how I had said there was flavored peanut butter; I didn't know why she thought that was worth telling her. My mom said something about her college son eating peanut butter, and Karen talked about her daughters liking Nutella and saying it was healthy. My mom brought up how I had compared its nutrition facts to chocolate frosting. Karen said it was like eating fudge but "mighty tasty."
2011. My dad and I went to Kmart to get flowers for my mom. I was ready to put them on the checkstand but the checker told me she could just scan them in the cart. I paid, and then we went over to get gas. I think my dad bought gas, and he told me he would have bought the flowers too. (Or maybe he paid for the flowers and I bought the gas. I can't remember.) We went home and kept the flowers in the trunk. Unfortunately, I can't remember what else happened that day at the moment.
2010. As I was leaving my apartment, a girl asked me if I was going home for Mother's Day. When I responded that I was, she said I was a good son. Nan and Matt and Allie were going to meet us to go to dinner. My mom initially wanted to go to the Old Spaghetti Factory, but then she changed her mind and wanted to go to Texas Roadhouse and Allie was mad. I had never been to Texas Roadhouse. My mom and sister liked our server. After dinner, Nan and Matt left and Allie went with us to get the car inspected. Allie got a Blo-Pop there and swallowed the gum. Then we went to Costco. Being forever overly indulgent, my parents got a frozen yogurt swirl shake for Allie, and she started her characteristic esophageal choking. We thought it was because of the gum she swallowed, but it turned out to be from the chicken she ate at Texas Roadhouse.
2008. This is what my journal says:
"All our appointments cancelled again today. Elder Condie says this has happened before on his mission and everything goes wrong while he gets a really weird feeling.
"We had dinner at a high priests dinner. Then we biked to a nearby less-active part-member relationship. That was good. We hate these kinds of days."
I think this was the time that Elder Condie said that the reason our appointments cancelled was because he wasn't obedient, so he didn't have the Spirit, and the D&C says that if you have not the Spirit you shall not teach. Mind you, he didn't use this to try to become more obedient. At the high priests dinner, they played old music. One was this dumb song that had the singer just "singing" "HeEE hee, hee hee hee hee hee," etc. Elder Condie said, "No me gusta," and I told him how I had once received a Valentine's gift of a dumb CD with dumb songs, and that was one of the songs.
2000. During the day, David and his girlfriend Andrea prepared a fancy meal for my mom (and the rest of us) for Mother's Day. Andrea asked my mom if she had a bottle for dressing. My mom found one, and I thought it was a decoration that had had oil in it (but I later learned it wasn't). I think the salad had mandarin oranges in it. My dad asked me to bless the food, but I was really shy with Andrea around, so I declined. Then David and Andrea left, and my mom had to clean up. She was quite annoyed that she had to clean up this meal made for her and said to me, "Mark, never do this." Then my dad took me shopping for her present. I think I got a black double-hooked garden pole from Kmart. When we got home, my dad told me to go distract my mom so that he could move the pole in the garage without her knowing. So I went up in the kitchen and said excitedly, "Hi Mom! How are you?" and she immediately knew what I was up to, since I never talked like that. She might have been annoyed that I was getting her present the night before Mother's Day.
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Mother's Day
Mother's Day is soon, so I will try to remember what I can about that day. I know I'm going to forget stuff.
2012. At church, during Priesthood I sat next to David Christensen. He told me he was amazed at my memory on my blog, how much I could remember going so far back. He told me about a TED talk he had seen about memory. That afternoon we had a family gathering at our house. I think my mom and grandparents ate on the patio, but my aunt Sue ate inside. Jesse and Peter raved about my memory. Peter said, "Do you remember your birth?" and joked, "'Well, there was a bright light...'" or something like that. Sue found that really funny. Jesse said that he liked on my Year of Holiday Memories post that not only did I remember the Fourth of July ads that popped up on Facebook but who liked them. I said, "Well, it was less than a year ago." So then they tried to remember what they had done the previous Fourth of July. They couldn't even remember what state they were in, but I think they eventually determined that they were in Utah. They asked me what I did on the day five years previously, so I told them some of the things that are found in 2007 below. I mentioned that I was thinking of starting this blog, and they said it would be awesome. Jesse found a plastic Easter egg. I told him he could eat the candy, since he found it and the candy was out of season anyway. Eventually I returned to Provo and wrote a blog post.
2011. In the morning we gave my mom the flowers we had bought her the day before. I seem to remember my extended family coming over to our house, and the flowers were on the fireplace. Then I returned to Provo and wrote a cheesy blog post.
2010. Allie's esophagus was blocked, so she couldn't eat solid food. She was excited that she would be entitled to milkshakes at my grandparents' house when everyone else wouldn't be. My mom let her eat frozen Cool Whip in the car on the way to my grandparents'; Allie said it would be like ice cream (except that Cool Whip is just oil). I was going to be going back to Provo after the family dinner, so we loaded my groceries in the trunk and put my milk in the cardboard box it came in (from Costco). As I was pulling out of the driveway, I noticed how cool the crabapple tree looked in blossom, so I snapped a picture on my phone. When we got to my grandparents' house, my mom said that she and Allie had been listening to the Cherie Call CD I had given her. My cousin April asked me, "How is it at the devil school?" I said, "I don't go there." After a pause in the conversation, she said, "No, really, how is school?" At some point I changed my phone's screensaver to the crabapple tree and I showed my mom. It wasn't that interesting, but then my grandma and aunt wanted to see it too. When I showed it to Sue, the little house icon was lit up in front of the picture, and she said that when she first saw it she wondered why we had a little house in our yard. Some of the boys were taking Allie to feed the ducks, and they gave her bread, which she started eating. My mom had to yell at her that she couldn't eat it, and Sue said "Never give bread to a starving child." (That sounds really funny out of context, doesn't it?)
2009. It was my first Sunday in the Lewiston 2nd Ward and the Lewis-Clark YSA Branch. During Priesthood, the second counselor in the bishopric introduced me. He introduced me as "Elder Medville" and said I'd been out about a year. (I had actually told him over a year, not about a year.) Then in the singles branch, we had to bless the sacrament, and then we spoke in sacrament meeting. I told them that I was shocked at how quiet their meeting was. (Little did I know that every single guest speaker in the branch would make the same comment. That's the quietest congregation I've ever been in.) I think I was assigned to talk about fast offerings. At some point I talked about James 2 and faith without works, and how some people would tell us missionaries to stay warm but would do nothing to help us stay warm. President Landeen (the branch president) laughed. That afternoon we went to the Biglers' to make our Mother's Day phone calls. Elder LaPratt (I can't say his name without my blood boiling) called on a cellphone and I called on the landline. The Biglers had a family member who kept calling and knocking me off the line. Once I talked to that person, and she felt bad for kicking me off. Allie told me something about her bike. I told her, "I can't believe you are five," and she corrected, "Five and a half." Toward the end of the conversation, my cousin Quin got on the phone, and I was annoyed because it was supposed to be an immediate family call. His voice had changed, so I didn't know who he was at first. Toward the end of the conversation, I said, "I'll see you in six months," and my mom and sister cheered, but I didn't feel the same way. I heard Chancey yell goodbye at me, but he didn't pick up the phone. That night we met with our investigator Kim [Last name withheld for privacy] at the stake center. She wanted to get baptized, but her family was opposed to it. We taught with one of the Ball boys. Tyson was her boyfriend, but it seems like it could have been Brock. We talked about baptism, and Kim told us that her family wanted her to wait (I think like two years). Tyson (or Brock) said that he thought she should wait. Elder LaPratt and I looked at each other in frustration and Elder LaPratt said, "That's reasonably good advice, but..." and we talked about how she should get baptized sooner. At some point in the lesson I brought out Doctrine and Covenants 20:37 and Elder LaPratt said, "I think Elder Melville has a scripture." After I read it, Tyson said, "Will you explain to her what that means?" It seemed clear to me that he was asking for himself more than for her. We went over the baptismal interview questions. One of the questions was, "Have you ever participated in a homosexual relationship?" She said she had made out with a girl, and we didn't know if that counted. We set a baptism date for her for May 23, and talked about what songs we could sing. Elder LaPratt suggested "All Creatures of Our God and King." I tried to plunk it out on the piano so she could hear it, but it was harder than I expected. We went home, and Elder LaPratt called President Clark and asked if kissing a girl counted as a homosexual relationship. President said it had to be more intimate. Then I think that night Elder LaPratt reported Kim's progress to other missionaries, and there may have been some Katy Perry references (but I didn't know any Katy Perry so I wouldn't have gotten the jokes.) Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was my first Sunday in the units. Once again I was called Elder Medville, a term I hadn't heard since my greenie days. I spoke in sacrament meeting for the singles branch. I don't think I did a very good job. I was really nervous, and I think I was short.
"It was pretty weird making my final phone call home. I only have six months left :(. Allie was specific about being five and a half. I was shocked to hear the Christensens divorced back home.
"We had a lesson with Kim, to put her on date. She has family opposition. We were annoyed when her fellowshipper was advising her to wait. It was also weird when she said she'd made out with a girl. But hopefully she'll be baptized May 23."
2008. Elder Condie had made a dinner of a bean burrito, but then the Welshes (the couple we lived with) made dinner and let us have some. I ate their dinner, but Elder Condie ate his burrito. Except that he didn't. He was so trunky that he couldn't finish his dinner because he wanted to call home. His family told him that they weren't going to get cable after the government changed it. After dinner it was my turn to call home. I was kind of nervous to call home for some reason. I didn't get to talk to Susanne but I talked to my parents. My mom told me about Susanne's boyfriend Matt. I played on the Welshes' ridiculous piano for my mom. I avoided looking at my watch so that I wouldn't know how long it had been. Then it was time to say goodbye. Here is my journal for the day:
"No one [investigators] showed up at church today.
"But I had a very nice talk with my family. Allie is sounding so old. Most of the conversation was trivial but it was wonderful to talk with them. Mom, of course, cried a lot. They said Allie is talking a lot. I can't believe how much more clearly Allie talks. She's almost five! Grandpa apparently said he's feeling old. He just has to wait for me."
2007. I think this was the year I got one of the Work and the Glory movies for my mom. We had the family over. My mom was telling them that a newspaper article made her sad--it was about how missionaries got to call home for Mother's Day, and it reminded her that the following Mother's Day I would be on my mission. We had my senior picture in a frame in preparation for seminary graduation the following Sunday. Allie saw me in my tux and said, "Oh, when did you get married?" Later that night her mom showed up and parked on the street. My grandma or my aunt said to her, "Allie, who just showed up?" and she said excitedly, "Susanne!" They thought that was hilarious.
2006. I got my mom the DVD of Mary Poppins. I think that day I cut up strawberries for strawberry shortcake. I asked my mom if I could take a nap and she said I could, and I think I even double checked. But then I found out later that she was mad at me for taking a nap. But I had asked her! That night we watched the special features on the DVD.
2004. I think I got my mom some Snoopy socks and other socks. She got a black pearl for Susanne with a note that was supposed to be from baby Allie that said "Maybe when I'm 25 I'll have enough money to buy you a whole string." The family came over. I think this was the time I was in the kitchen buttering garlic bread. I said something about not wanting too much butter on the bread. Wayne said, "It's good for you," and I wondered how he could possibly think that garlic butter was actually good for you. That evening Wayne was a long time in the main bathroom. Then it was discovered that he was downstairs in Susanne's bathroom, even though he had just been in the upstairs bathroom. It was deduced that he just wanted to snoop in Susanne's room, and when Susanne found out she was furious and creeped out.
2002. I think this was the year I made French toast for my mom. I picked tulips from the garden, but I did that several years.
2000. I gave my mom a hooked garden pole. I snapped pictures when David gave her the flower arrangement he had made from the dried yellow roses that my late aunt Darleen had given her. I also took a picture of my grandpa. That night my siblings asked if I wanted to contribute to the picture book they had bought my mom of the "Touch of the Master's Hand" poem. I hadn't heard it before, but they told me my mom loved it.
1999. I wonder if this was the year I gave my mom the garden gnome with daisies.
1998. I think this was the year Susanne had to work but she left a mug full of candy for my mom.
1996. I think I gave my mom a garden gnome and a birdhouse I had painted myself. In school we had made our own wrapping paper and I drew flowers with glow-in-the-dark crayons. I had drawn something with a story about my mom, and I think my mom was a little embarrassed. I had heard this story and I thought that my mom had said an acceptable word but one of the kids in her student-teaching class misheard her and said, "Mrs. Melville, you didn't have to swear!" That was the picture I drew. But I later found out that my mom had actually said the swear word, and when she retold the story she said the acceptable word because it sounded similar to the swear word.
Mother's Day was a hard holiday to remember.
2012. At church, during Priesthood I sat next to David Christensen. He told me he was amazed at my memory on my blog, how much I could remember going so far back. He told me about a TED talk he had seen about memory. That afternoon we had a family gathering at our house. I think my mom and grandparents ate on the patio, but my aunt Sue ate inside. Jesse and Peter raved about my memory. Peter said, "Do you remember your birth?" and joked, "'Well, there was a bright light...'" or something like that. Sue found that really funny. Jesse said that he liked on my Year of Holiday Memories post that not only did I remember the Fourth of July ads that popped up on Facebook but who liked them. I said, "Well, it was less than a year ago." So then they tried to remember what they had done the previous Fourth of July. They couldn't even remember what state they were in, but I think they eventually determined that they were in Utah. They asked me what I did on the day five years previously, so I told them some of the things that are found in 2007 below. I mentioned that I was thinking of starting this blog, and they said it would be awesome. Jesse found a plastic Easter egg. I told him he could eat the candy, since he found it and the candy was out of season anyway. Eventually I returned to Provo and wrote a blog post.
2011. In the morning we gave my mom the flowers we had bought her the day before. I seem to remember my extended family coming over to our house, and the flowers were on the fireplace. Then I returned to Provo and wrote a cheesy blog post.
2010. Allie's esophagus was blocked, so she couldn't eat solid food. She was excited that she would be entitled to milkshakes at my grandparents' house when everyone else wouldn't be. My mom let her eat frozen Cool Whip in the car on the way to my grandparents'; Allie said it would be like ice cream (except that Cool Whip is just oil). I was going to be going back to Provo after the family dinner, so we loaded my groceries in the trunk and put my milk in the cardboard box it came in (from Costco). As I was pulling out of the driveway, I noticed how cool the crabapple tree looked in blossom, so I snapped a picture on my phone. When we got to my grandparents' house, my mom said that she and Allie had been listening to the Cherie Call CD I had given her. My cousin April asked me, "How is it at the devil school?" I said, "I don't go there." After a pause in the conversation, she said, "No, really, how is school?" At some point I changed my phone's screensaver to the crabapple tree and I showed my mom. It wasn't that interesting, but then my grandma and aunt wanted to see it too. When I showed it to Sue, the little house icon was lit up in front of the picture, and she said that when she first saw it she wondered why we had a little house in our yard. Some of the boys were taking Allie to feed the ducks, and they gave her bread, which she started eating. My mom had to yell at her that she couldn't eat it, and Sue said "Never give bread to a starving child." (That sounds really funny out of context, doesn't it?)
2009. It was my first Sunday in the Lewiston 2nd Ward and the Lewis-Clark YSA Branch. During Priesthood, the second counselor in the bishopric introduced me. He introduced me as "Elder Medville" and said I'd been out about a year. (I had actually told him over a year, not about a year.) Then in the singles branch, we had to bless the sacrament, and then we spoke in sacrament meeting. I told them that I was shocked at how quiet their meeting was. (Little did I know that every single guest speaker in the branch would make the same comment. That's the quietest congregation I've ever been in.) I think I was assigned to talk about fast offerings. At some point I talked about James 2 and faith without works, and how some people would tell us missionaries to stay warm but would do nothing to help us stay warm. President Landeen (the branch president) laughed. That afternoon we went to the Biglers' to make our Mother's Day phone calls. Elder LaPratt (I can't say his name without my blood boiling) called on a cellphone and I called on the landline. The Biglers had a family member who kept calling and knocking me off the line. Once I talked to that person, and she felt bad for kicking me off. Allie told me something about her bike. I told her, "I can't believe you are five," and she corrected, "Five and a half." Toward the end of the conversation, my cousin Quin got on the phone, and I was annoyed because it was supposed to be an immediate family call. His voice had changed, so I didn't know who he was at first. Toward the end of the conversation, I said, "I'll see you in six months," and my mom and sister cheered, but I didn't feel the same way. I heard Chancey yell goodbye at me, but he didn't pick up the phone. That night we met with our investigator Kim [Last name withheld for privacy] at the stake center. She wanted to get baptized, but her family was opposed to it. We taught with one of the Ball boys. Tyson was her boyfriend, but it seems like it could have been Brock. We talked about baptism, and Kim told us that her family wanted her to wait (I think like two years). Tyson (or Brock) said that he thought she should wait. Elder LaPratt and I looked at each other in frustration and Elder LaPratt said, "That's reasonably good advice, but..." and we talked about how she should get baptized sooner. At some point in the lesson I brought out Doctrine and Covenants 20:37 and Elder LaPratt said, "I think Elder Melville has a scripture." After I read it, Tyson said, "Will you explain to her what that means?" It seemed clear to me that he was asking for himself more than for her. We went over the baptismal interview questions. One of the questions was, "Have you ever participated in a homosexual relationship?" She said she had made out with a girl, and we didn't know if that counted. We set a baptism date for her for May 23, and talked about what songs we could sing. Elder LaPratt suggested "All Creatures of Our God and King." I tried to plunk it out on the piano so she could hear it, but it was harder than I expected. We went home, and Elder LaPratt called President Clark and asked if kissing a girl counted as a homosexual relationship. President said it had to be more intimate. Then I think that night Elder LaPratt reported Kim's progress to other missionaries, and there may have been some Katy Perry references (but I didn't know any Katy Perry so I wouldn't have gotten the jokes.) Here is my journal entry for the day:
"Today was my first Sunday in the units. Once again I was called Elder Medville, a term I hadn't heard since my greenie days. I spoke in sacrament meeting for the singles branch. I don't think I did a very good job. I was really nervous, and I think I was short.
"It was pretty weird making my final phone call home. I only have six months left :(. Allie was specific about being five and a half. I was shocked to hear the Christensens divorced back home.
"We had a lesson with Kim, to put her on date. She has family opposition. We were annoyed when her fellowshipper was advising her to wait. It was also weird when she said she'd made out with a girl. But hopefully she'll be baptized May 23."
2008. Elder Condie had made a dinner of a bean burrito, but then the Welshes (the couple we lived with) made dinner and let us have some. I ate their dinner, but Elder Condie ate his burrito. Except that he didn't. He was so trunky that he couldn't finish his dinner because he wanted to call home. His family told him that they weren't going to get cable after the government changed it. After dinner it was my turn to call home. I was kind of nervous to call home for some reason. I didn't get to talk to Susanne but I talked to my parents. My mom told me about Susanne's boyfriend Matt. I played on the Welshes' ridiculous piano for my mom. I avoided looking at my watch so that I wouldn't know how long it had been. Then it was time to say goodbye. Here is my journal for the day:
"No one [investigators] showed up at church today.
"But I had a very nice talk with my family. Allie is sounding so old. Most of the conversation was trivial but it was wonderful to talk with them. Mom, of course, cried a lot. They said Allie is talking a lot. I can't believe how much more clearly Allie talks. She's almost five! Grandpa apparently said he's feeling old. He just has to wait for me."
2007. I think this was the year I got one of the Work and the Glory movies for my mom. We had the family over. My mom was telling them that a newspaper article made her sad--it was about how missionaries got to call home for Mother's Day, and it reminded her that the following Mother's Day I would be on my mission. We had my senior picture in a frame in preparation for seminary graduation the following Sunday. Allie saw me in my tux and said, "Oh, when did you get married?" Later that night her mom showed up and parked on the street. My grandma or my aunt said to her, "Allie, who just showed up?" and she said excitedly, "Susanne!" They thought that was hilarious.
2006. I got my mom the DVD of Mary Poppins. I think that day I cut up strawberries for strawberry shortcake. I asked my mom if I could take a nap and she said I could, and I think I even double checked. But then I found out later that she was mad at me for taking a nap. But I had asked her! That night we watched the special features on the DVD.
2004. I think I got my mom some Snoopy socks and other socks. She got a black pearl for Susanne with a note that was supposed to be from baby Allie that said "Maybe when I'm 25 I'll have enough money to buy you a whole string." The family came over. I think this was the time I was in the kitchen buttering garlic bread. I said something about not wanting too much butter on the bread. Wayne said, "It's good for you," and I wondered how he could possibly think that garlic butter was actually good for you. That evening Wayne was a long time in the main bathroom. Then it was discovered that he was downstairs in Susanne's bathroom, even though he had just been in the upstairs bathroom. It was deduced that he just wanted to snoop in Susanne's room, and when Susanne found out she was furious and creeped out.
2002. I think this was the year I made French toast for my mom. I picked tulips from the garden, but I did that several years.
2000. I gave my mom a hooked garden pole. I snapped pictures when David gave her the flower arrangement he had made from the dried yellow roses that my late aunt Darleen had given her. I also took a picture of my grandpa. That night my siblings asked if I wanted to contribute to the picture book they had bought my mom of the "Touch of the Master's Hand" poem. I hadn't heard it before, but they told me my mom loved it.
1999. I wonder if this was the year I gave my mom the garden gnome with daisies.
1998. I think this was the year Susanne had to work but she left a mug full of candy for my mom.
1996. I think I gave my mom a garden gnome and a birdhouse I had painted myself. In school we had made our own wrapping paper and I drew flowers with glow-in-the-dark crayons. I had drawn something with a story about my mom, and I think my mom was a little embarrassed. I had heard this story and I thought that my mom had said an acceptable word but one of the kids in her student-teaching class misheard her and said, "Mrs. Melville, you didn't have to swear!" That was the picture I drew. But I later found out that my mom had actually said the swear word, and when she retold the story she said the acceptable word because it sounded similar to the swear word.
Mother's Day was a hard holiday to remember.
Tuesday, April 23, 2013
Pre-preschool
I'm going to try to pull together the memories I have between the time I moved into our new house and the time I entered Wishing Well Preschool--basically, memories from between the ages of 2 and 4. Inevitably I'm going to miss something, since I have many memories. I'm also not going to include things that are included in other memory posts (but there aren't many of those). I'm also not including memories where I don't know whether it was before or after I was in preschool (for example, my sister's "crazy years").
I can remember some early church memories. I remember playing "Ring Around the Rosie" in nursery with Martha Steagall and other kids. As a sunbeam I remember singing "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," only I thought it was "sunbean." Every time I sang "A sunbean, a sunbean!" I would laugh hysterically because I thought it was so funny to be singing about beans. When I started laughing, another girl would start laughing. Sometimes I didn't like going to my classes, so I would go to Relief Society with my mom. I remember looking at the curtain against the back wall and resting my head against my mom. When she sang, it sounded really funny, since it was muffled with my ear next to her body.
I can remember one night being in our family room and David pulled a seed out of my belly button. I'm not sure whether this was a dream or whether I really did have a seed in my belly button for some reason. Regardless of whether it actually happened, I thought it happened, and sometimes I would say, somewhat distraught, "David took the seed out of my belly button!" I thought that I was supposed to have a seed there, and he ruined my body.
I can remember sitting in my bedroom, listening to the train whistles from the bottom of the hill, playing with various toys. I had a little red duffle bag and a plush Ernie that you could practice dressing. I can remember reading a little pink book called The Rose Petal Place that had an evil spider woman with an assistant fly. I would look at the back and wish we had the tape and the purple and green books in the series. I remember looking at the package for the Pull-Ups I would wear and imagined that the kids on the package lived in a special room that was out of the picture and I would go visit them.
I can remember my dad putting me in a backpack when he went jogging. I remember him giving me some fruit snack or gummy candy on occasion, which I loved. I would hear the bird call that has a high pitch followed by a lower pitch, and I imagined that the birds were saying, "Big Bird!" They were friends with the Sesame Street character. On one occasion my dad pulled some papers out of the post of a gate near what is now the Eaglewood Golf Course (I don't know what was there before). I thought it was a special mailbox for him.
When I was mad, I used to lie down on the ground and say dramatically, "I'm dead!"
We had a gold Subaru that would make a beeping noise if you had the door open with the keys in. I always said it was saying, "Dave don't! Dave don't!" That would make David really mad.
Once I remember being at my aunt Susie's house, and she was offering me a candy or a popsicle or something. She asked what color I wanted, and she made fun of me for saying "lellow."
I remember going to my grandparents' house. They always had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fruit snacks, and we would always ask, "Can I have a turtle snack?" We called them turtle snacks even if they bought other fruit snacks. Sometimes they would get pizza from Pizza Hut, which came with little plastic things to keep the lid from smashing into the pizza. We would fight over who got to keep the little plastic thing. While we ate pizza we would pretend we were Ninja Turtles and would argue about who should be who. Our cousin April was always April. (I actually don't remember anything about TMNT, except that I used to know all the characters.) Grandma and Grandpa also always had apple sodas that we loved to get from their basement, but they had bottle caps so we had to have someone open them for us.
Once I spent the night at my grandparents' house. The next day, my grandma took me to a store and bought me a Pinocchio book and some Tic-Tacs (both were things I wanted). Then we came back to their house and I fell asleep in their family room while watching The Jungle Book. My grandparents had lots of movies we would always watch. I used to laugh and punctuate my laugh with a dramatic sigh, and all the adults would laugh. Once while watching Robin Hood, one of the kids in the movie sighed like I did, and all of our parents laughed, probably because they realized that's where I got it from. But I thought they just thought that kind of laughing was funny, and I didn't understand what was so funny about it.
I remember wearing my Mickey Mouse slipper socks at my other grandparents' house in Fillmore.
One day my mom presented me with a gift of a St. Patrick's Day troll. It had little plastic, green shamrock-shaped glasses. I broke the glasses twice because I wanted to see what color the troll's eyes were. After that, I had a great liking of trolls.
Once, on one of the days after Easter, I was watching cartoons in our family room, eating Easter candy. I liked to bite the ears off of my Peeps bunnies because when they didn't have ears, they looked like snowmen.
My mom worked at a preschool/daycare called Kids Klub. I had a class of my own, but I was so shy that I rarely went to it. I remember once I got to choose a prize, but I wondered why I got a prize since I didn't go to that class often enough to have very many stickers. They used to feed us macaroni and cheese and hot dogs. There was a girl there who would wear a dress that was like a watermelon slice. I remember playing on the monkey bars in the back, and some girls once made mud pies. Once I remember a kid crying because he got hurt, and my mom told him there was a bone called a tailbone. Once my mom found a lock of hair. She took the kids one by one and asked them if they were the ones who had cut their hair. They each denied it, but when one boy said no (I think the same one who hurt his tailbone), she knew he was lying and he got in trouble.
We used to take field trips. On one occasion, we went to a park, and when we were walking back, one of the older kids said, "Quit stepping on the cracks! You're hurting your mom's back!" I hadn't heard anything like that before, and I felt guilty. On that same trip some kids had tried to burn ants with a magnifying glass. I had also brought one of my trolls in the car, a special one that stuck its tongue out when you squeezed it. One of the delinquent kids broke the tongue and I was really upset. On another occasion we went to the zoo. When we were back at Kids Klub, we were drawing pictures. I said I wanted to draw a picture of a little boy listening to the radio. A girl drawing a turtle told me we had to draw pictures of animals we had seen at the zoo. So I drew a picture of a fish listening to the radio.
I'm sure that I'm going to remember more things after I post this, but this should be a good sampling of what my life was like as a 90s kid.
I can remember some early church memories. I remember playing "Ring Around the Rosie" in nursery with Martha Steagall and other kids. As a sunbeam I remember singing "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam," only I thought it was "sunbean." Every time I sang "A sunbean, a sunbean!" I would laugh hysterically because I thought it was so funny to be singing about beans. When I started laughing, another girl would start laughing. Sometimes I didn't like going to my classes, so I would go to Relief Society with my mom. I remember looking at the curtain against the back wall and resting my head against my mom. When she sang, it sounded really funny, since it was muffled with my ear next to her body.
I can remember one night being in our family room and David pulled a seed out of my belly button. I'm not sure whether this was a dream or whether I really did have a seed in my belly button for some reason. Regardless of whether it actually happened, I thought it happened, and sometimes I would say, somewhat distraught, "David took the seed out of my belly button!" I thought that I was supposed to have a seed there, and he ruined my body.
I can remember sitting in my bedroom, listening to the train whistles from the bottom of the hill, playing with various toys. I had a little red duffle bag and a plush Ernie that you could practice dressing. I can remember reading a little pink book called The Rose Petal Place that had an evil spider woman with an assistant fly. I would look at the back and wish we had the tape and the purple and green books in the series. I remember looking at the package for the Pull-Ups I would wear and imagined that the kids on the package lived in a special room that was out of the picture and I would go visit them.
I can remember my dad putting me in a backpack when he went jogging. I remember him giving me some fruit snack or gummy candy on occasion, which I loved. I would hear the bird call that has a high pitch followed by a lower pitch, and I imagined that the birds were saying, "Big Bird!" They were friends with the Sesame Street character. On one occasion my dad pulled some papers out of the post of a gate near what is now the Eaglewood Golf Course (I don't know what was there before). I thought it was a special mailbox for him.
When I was mad, I used to lie down on the ground and say dramatically, "I'm dead!"
We had a gold Subaru that would make a beeping noise if you had the door open with the keys in. I always said it was saying, "Dave don't! Dave don't!" That would make David really mad.
Once I remember being at my aunt Susie's house, and she was offering me a candy or a popsicle or something. She asked what color I wanted, and she made fun of me for saying "lellow."
I remember going to my grandparents' house. They always had Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle fruit snacks, and we would always ask, "Can I have a turtle snack?" We called them turtle snacks even if they bought other fruit snacks. Sometimes they would get pizza from Pizza Hut, which came with little plastic things to keep the lid from smashing into the pizza. We would fight over who got to keep the little plastic thing. While we ate pizza we would pretend we were Ninja Turtles and would argue about who should be who. Our cousin April was always April. (I actually don't remember anything about TMNT, except that I used to know all the characters.) Grandma and Grandpa also always had apple sodas that we loved to get from their basement, but they had bottle caps so we had to have someone open them for us.
Once I spent the night at my grandparents' house. The next day, my grandma took me to a store and bought me a Pinocchio book and some Tic-Tacs (both were things I wanted). Then we came back to their house and I fell asleep in their family room while watching The Jungle Book. My grandparents had lots of movies we would always watch. I used to laugh and punctuate my laugh with a dramatic sigh, and all the adults would laugh. Once while watching Robin Hood, one of the kids in the movie sighed like I did, and all of our parents laughed, probably because they realized that's where I got it from. But I thought they just thought that kind of laughing was funny, and I didn't understand what was so funny about it.
I remember wearing my Mickey Mouse slipper socks at my other grandparents' house in Fillmore.
One day my mom presented me with a gift of a St. Patrick's Day troll. It had little plastic, green shamrock-shaped glasses. I broke the glasses twice because I wanted to see what color the troll's eyes were. After that, I had a great liking of trolls.
Once, on one of the days after Easter, I was watching cartoons in our family room, eating Easter candy. I liked to bite the ears off of my Peeps bunnies because when they didn't have ears, they looked like snowmen.
My mom worked at a preschool/daycare called Kids Klub. I had a class of my own, but I was so shy that I rarely went to it. I remember once I got to choose a prize, but I wondered why I got a prize since I didn't go to that class often enough to have very many stickers. They used to feed us macaroni and cheese and hot dogs. There was a girl there who would wear a dress that was like a watermelon slice. I remember playing on the monkey bars in the back, and some girls once made mud pies. Once I remember a kid crying because he got hurt, and my mom told him there was a bone called a tailbone. Once my mom found a lock of hair. She took the kids one by one and asked them if they were the ones who had cut their hair. They each denied it, but when one boy said no (I think the same one who hurt his tailbone), she knew he was lying and he got in trouble.
We used to take field trips. On one occasion, we went to a park, and when we were walking back, one of the older kids said, "Quit stepping on the cracks! You're hurting your mom's back!" I hadn't heard anything like that before, and I felt guilty. On that same trip some kids had tried to burn ants with a magnifying glass. I had also brought one of my trolls in the car, a special one that stuck its tongue out when you squeezed it. One of the delinquent kids broke the tongue and I was really upset. On another occasion we went to the zoo. When we were back at Kids Klub, we were drawing pictures. I said I wanted to draw a picture of a little boy listening to the radio. A girl drawing a turtle told me we had to draw pictures of animals we had seen at the zoo. So I drew a picture of a fish listening to the radio.
I'm sure that I'm going to remember more things after I post this, but this should be a good sampling of what my life was like as a 90s kid.
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
April 23
I'm going to remember as much as I can about April 23. What is significant about April 23, you ask? Well, nothing really, except that I happen to remember things from the last few years about it.
2012. During the day, I gathered my stuff to go back to Provo for spring term. I pulled my bike out of the garage and rode it around the driveway. Then I took the front wheel off so that I could load it into the car. I loaded up and headed out while listening to Taylor Swift's Speak Now album. When I got back into Provo, I stopped at In-N-Out for dinner, since my Distribution job had given me a gift card there for my birthday seven months previously. I kept a close eye on my car, since I didn't want anyone to steal my bike. Then I went back to my apartment and unloaded everything. That night our ward was doing a ward Capture the Flag game, and we were meeting in our parking lot. It was my first time playing Capture the Flag since September 15, 2006 (I think). While we were in the parking lot, we were talking about how warm it was, and I said that that year was the first time that Salt Lake City ever hit 80 degrees during the month of March. We walked up to campus for our game, and on the way my roommate Cameron was talking with Krista Roy about marathons. At first we played near the library, but Bryan Clark and some others were cheating, so we moved the location. TJ Maxwell was wearing a light blue shirt. He was on my team, but there was one point when I was running after him and he had to remind me we were on the same team. I'm a slow runner, so I was unable to get some people, but I did get some. One was easy because he was trying to climb over a wall, and I was able to get him when he came down. Then we went home. I wanted to go running, and I didn't want to drink too much water because I didn't want to have to pee the whole time I was running. It was around 9:00 and I was getting ready to go running when Kat knocked on the door. She invited me to go watch What's Up Doc? with her and some ward members. I really wanted to go running, and after some research I determined that the movie probably didn't fit my standards, so I went running. It was shortly before 10:00. I think I first ran up by the Eyring to see if I could use the restroom there; I can't remember whether it was open. My plan was to run for an hour, and near the end of my run I went down 700 North before coming to my apartment to lengthen my time. I ran past Pickup Place (the house in my ward across from my complex) and Chris Rostrom and some others were standing outside. I didn't feel well, but I looked at my watch and I only needed two more minutes to hit my hour, so I ran past my complex for the final two minutes. But at 59 minutes, I felt even worse, and I knew I had to stop. So I stopped and I wanted to lean against a sign until I felt better. The next thing I knew I could feel my skin breaking, but I didn't care because it felt good to be lying down, taking deep breaths. Then I came out of my less-than-conscious state and thought, "Why am I on the ground?" Then I opened my eyes and thought, "I've got to get out of the middle of the road!" I was glad no cars were around to run me over, and I wondered how I got there, since I was so far from the sign I wanted to lean against. I wondered if anyone had seen me. I walked up to my apartment and got a drink. Instead of doing my usual post-run pushups and situps, I decided to watch Green Acres instead, since I was all scraped up, and I didn't know why I fainted. I made a Facebook status about what happened to me. I was sitting on the couch watching Green Acres when my roommate Cameron came home. He saw me all scraped up and asked me what happened, so I explained. A little later Bryton came home. As he opened the door, he said, "Is someone bleeding?" I said, "Oh, did I get blood on the door?" My hands were bleeding, but I didn't realize that I got blood on the doorknob. I felt kind of bad, but at least I don't have AIDS. I didn't have any bandages of any kind, so I tried to tape some paper towels around my knees. They didn't end up working too well, but maybe it was better than nothing.
2011. This is taken directly from my Day Before Easter post: I actually don't remember much about this day. We got our Easter baskets and Allie got some Disney Princess Squinkies. I suspect this was the time that my aunt and cousins came to our house. My mom gave my cousin Quin the toy sword he had asked her to buy at Disneyland; he began playing with it. We showed them all the Nightmare Before Christmas paraphernalia I got; Quin said, "Best deck of cards ever." This might be the year that when I was watching Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Susanne said that Grandma Judy always let them watch it on TV and she hated it.
2010. It was a rainy Arbor Day. I sat on the couch in the living room and wrote an episode recap for It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown on TV.com. I might have watched that special as well, but I can't remember. I was wearing jeans and a red t-shirt with black collar and sleeves. That evening we had a get-together in honor of my sister's marriage, since she had had an exclusive wedding. When the Thompsons came over, we played Apples to Apples, and then I think we started a game of "ethnic" rummy. A little later my grandparents came over, and so did the Gildersleeves. They had brought Ryan's son Brennon, and I kept asking, "Is this Ryan's kid?" but no one answered me. Allie had fun playing with Brennon, and at some point he tried to kiss her. She was a little weirded out, and Rick Gildersleeve said that Brennon wasn't used to having his kisses rejected. They had been there for some time when my grandparents turned the conversation to how my cousin Tammy's kids had had a lockdown at their school; she had written about it on her blog. My mom asked me to get my laptop. At the mention of my name, Debbie said, "Where is Mark?" since she hadn't seen me since I'd been home from my mission. I stood up and Debbie was surprised. I had been in the room the whole time, but she just thought I was another Thompson. She said, "Well, look at you!" since I was so much thinner than the last time she had seen me. I went upstairs and got my laptop and brought it downstairs. I looked at Tammy's blog and I think I might have looked at some other stuff online. Rhys showed me the burned CD he had brought with him and told me he liked to listen to Marilyn Manson. Later that night, after the Gildersleeves had left, we were all upstairs in the kitchen and talked about Rhys. My mom also mentioned that she thought it was hilarious that Debbie didn't recognize me even though she'd been in the room for so long.
2009. This is what my journal says about the day:
"Today we had cold weather and rain and sleet/hail. We just walked around and most people weren't home. We had a good lesson with the Williamses. I think we'll really be able to help them progress. Their dad basically taught them the law of chastity, and he wants to quit smoking and take the sacrament."
Ah yes, the Williamses. The Williamses were an inactive family; the parents had been baptized a few years earlier. We were teaching Michael and Travis, who were 9 and 8 respectively; neither of them had been baptized. Our lessons with them were hilarious; they always had fun insights. Brother Williams was a very nice but kind of odd fellow. I vaguely remember this particular lesson. He brought up the story of the woman taken in adultery. He then explained what adultery was; I can't remember whether the kids had asked or if he just decided to explain it to them. Later Elder Kitchen and I talked about how we were glad that he had the chastity talk with them so that we didn't have to.
2008. This is what my journal says about the day:
"We had district meeting this morning. Then we had a long visit with Cindy. She gave us food from Zip's. Then we contacted a referral and hopefully he'll be a new gator tomorrow.
"We taught the Davises and Sister Davis had a seizure while we taught."
Oh yes, a bunch of interesting people. Cindy Neely was what we call an eternal investigator. She had been taking lessons off an on for more than ten years but never got baptized. She was an incredibly lazy person and could never give up smoking or leave her low-paying job (which consisted of her doing nothing most of the time, quite literally). My second companion was a bad companion, and we spent way too much time with Cindy. On this occasion, she had just gotten paid, so she asked us if we wanted food from Zip's (a gross, overrated fast food joint in Washington). We went with her there and I kind of felt bad, since Zip's was overpriced and she didn't have a lot of money. But she was very kind. I think that the referral I'm talking about was a man named Jeremiah. He was married to a less-active member. They lived in the massive apartment complex at the southeast corner of our area, and when we knocked on the door, Jeremiah was very nice and invited us in. Then the Davises were an interesting family. The mom had a lot of health problems and had two teenage daughters. Her caretaker, Shane, also lived with them...but we think he may have been more than a caretaker. I can't remember whether this seizure incident was unique or not. I imagine that what happened was that the fourteen-year-old daughter was a little concerned, but the seventeen-year-old daughter and the caretaker weren't too concerned, since she frequently had seizures.
2000. This is taken from my Easter post: Easter dinner was at our house this year. It was supposed to be at 5:00. My mom told me and David she wanted to have a discussion on the true meaning of Easter before everyone came. But before it was even 4:00, the Thompsons all pulled up in their van. I said, "What are they doing here!?" I think I remember wondering why Sue was driving instead of Wayne, because my dad was always the one to drive in my family. Because they arrived early, we didn't get to have our Easter discussion.
2012. During the day, I gathered my stuff to go back to Provo for spring term. I pulled my bike out of the garage and rode it around the driveway. Then I took the front wheel off so that I could load it into the car. I loaded up and headed out while listening to Taylor Swift's Speak Now album. When I got back into Provo, I stopped at In-N-Out for dinner, since my Distribution job had given me a gift card there for my birthday seven months previously. I kept a close eye on my car, since I didn't want anyone to steal my bike. Then I went back to my apartment and unloaded everything. That night our ward was doing a ward Capture the Flag game, and we were meeting in our parking lot. It was my first time playing Capture the Flag since September 15, 2006 (I think). While we were in the parking lot, we were talking about how warm it was, and I said that that year was the first time that Salt Lake City ever hit 80 degrees during the month of March. We walked up to campus for our game, and on the way my roommate Cameron was talking with Krista Roy about marathons. At first we played near the library, but Bryan Clark and some others were cheating, so we moved the location. TJ Maxwell was wearing a light blue shirt. He was on my team, but there was one point when I was running after him and he had to remind me we were on the same team. I'm a slow runner, so I was unable to get some people, but I did get some. One was easy because he was trying to climb over a wall, and I was able to get him when he came down. Then we went home. I wanted to go running, and I didn't want to drink too much water because I didn't want to have to pee the whole time I was running. It was around 9:00 and I was getting ready to go running when Kat knocked on the door. She invited me to go watch What's Up Doc? with her and some ward members. I really wanted to go running, and after some research I determined that the movie probably didn't fit my standards, so I went running. It was shortly before 10:00. I think I first ran up by the Eyring to see if I could use the restroom there; I can't remember whether it was open. My plan was to run for an hour, and near the end of my run I went down 700 North before coming to my apartment to lengthen my time. I ran past Pickup Place (the house in my ward across from my complex) and Chris Rostrom and some others were standing outside. I didn't feel well, but I looked at my watch and I only needed two more minutes to hit my hour, so I ran past my complex for the final two minutes. But at 59 minutes, I felt even worse, and I knew I had to stop. So I stopped and I wanted to lean against a sign until I felt better. The next thing I knew I could feel my skin breaking, but I didn't care because it felt good to be lying down, taking deep breaths. Then I came out of my less-than-conscious state and thought, "Why am I on the ground?" Then I opened my eyes and thought, "I've got to get out of the middle of the road!" I was glad no cars were around to run me over, and I wondered how I got there, since I was so far from the sign I wanted to lean against. I wondered if anyone had seen me. I walked up to my apartment and got a drink. Instead of doing my usual post-run pushups and situps, I decided to watch Green Acres instead, since I was all scraped up, and I didn't know why I fainted. I made a Facebook status about what happened to me. I was sitting on the couch watching Green Acres when my roommate Cameron came home. He saw me all scraped up and asked me what happened, so I explained. A little later Bryton came home. As he opened the door, he said, "Is someone bleeding?" I said, "Oh, did I get blood on the door?" My hands were bleeding, but I didn't realize that I got blood on the doorknob. I felt kind of bad, but at least I don't have AIDS. I didn't have any bandages of any kind, so I tried to tape some paper towels around my knees. They didn't end up working too well, but maybe it was better than nothing.
2011. This is taken directly from my Day Before Easter post: I actually don't remember much about this day. We got our Easter baskets and Allie got some Disney Princess Squinkies. I suspect this was the time that my aunt and cousins came to our house. My mom gave my cousin Quin the toy sword he had asked her to buy at Disneyland; he began playing with it. We showed them all the Nightmare Before Christmas paraphernalia I got; Quin said, "Best deck of cards ever." This might be the year that when I was watching Here Comes Peter Cottontail, Susanne said that Grandma Judy always let them watch it on TV and she hated it.
2010. It was a rainy Arbor Day. I sat on the couch in the living room and wrote an episode recap for It's Arbor Day, Charlie Brown on TV.com. I might have watched that special as well, but I can't remember. I was wearing jeans and a red t-shirt with black collar and sleeves. That evening we had a get-together in honor of my sister's marriage, since she had had an exclusive wedding. When the Thompsons came over, we played Apples to Apples, and then I think we started a game of "ethnic" rummy. A little later my grandparents came over, and so did the Gildersleeves. They had brought Ryan's son Brennon, and I kept asking, "Is this Ryan's kid?" but no one answered me. Allie had fun playing with Brennon, and at some point he tried to kiss her. She was a little weirded out, and Rick Gildersleeve said that Brennon wasn't used to having his kisses rejected. They had been there for some time when my grandparents turned the conversation to how my cousin Tammy's kids had had a lockdown at their school; she had written about it on her blog. My mom asked me to get my laptop. At the mention of my name, Debbie said, "Where is Mark?" since she hadn't seen me since I'd been home from my mission. I stood up and Debbie was surprised. I had been in the room the whole time, but she just thought I was another Thompson. She said, "Well, look at you!" since I was so much thinner than the last time she had seen me. I went upstairs and got my laptop and brought it downstairs. I looked at Tammy's blog and I think I might have looked at some other stuff online. Rhys showed me the burned CD he had brought with him and told me he liked to listen to Marilyn Manson. Later that night, after the Gildersleeves had left, we were all upstairs in the kitchen and talked about Rhys. My mom also mentioned that she thought it was hilarious that Debbie didn't recognize me even though she'd been in the room for so long.
2009. This is what my journal says about the day:
"Today we had cold weather and rain and sleet/hail. We just walked around and most people weren't home. We had a good lesson with the Williamses. I think we'll really be able to help them progress. Their dad basically taught them the law of chastity, and he wants to quit smoking and take the sacrament."
Ah yes, the Williamses. The Williamses were an inactive family; the parents had been baptized a few years earlier. We were teaching Michael and Travis, who were 9 and 8 respectively; neither of them had been baptized. Our lessons with them were hilarious; they always had fun insights. Brother Williams was a very nice but kind of odd fellow. I vaguely remember this particular lesson. He brought up the story of the woman taken in adultery. He then explained what adultery was; I can't remember whether the kids had asked or if he just decided to explain it to them. Later Elder Kitchen and I talked about how we were glad that he had the chastity talk with them so that we didn't have to.
2008. This is what my journal says about the day:
"We had district meeting this morning. Then we had a long visit with Cindy. She gave us food from Zip's. Then we contacted a referral and hopefully he'll be a new gator tomorrow.
"We taught the Davises and Sister Davis had a seizure while we taught."
Oh yes, a bunch of interesting people. Cindy Neely was what we call an eternal investigator. She had been taking lessons off an on for more than ten years but never got baptized. She was an incredibly lazy person and could never give up smoking or leave her low-paying job (which consisted of her doing nothing most of the time, quite literally). My second companion was a bad companion, and we spent way too much time with Cindy. On this occasion, she had just gotten paid, so she asked us if we wanted food from Zip's (a gross, overrated fast food joint in Washington). We went with her there and I kind of felt bad, since Zip's was overpriced and she didn't have a lot of money. But she was very kind. I think that the referral I'm talking about was a man named Jeremiah. He was married to a less-active member. They lived in the massive apartment complex at the southeast corner of our area, and when we knocked on the door, Jeremiah was very nice and invited us in. Then the Davises were an interesting family. The mom had a lot of health problems and had two teenage daughters. Her caretaker, Shane, also lived with them...but we think he may have been more than a caretaker. I can't remember whether this seizure incident was unique or not. I imagine that what happened was that the fourteen-year-old daughter was a little concerned, but the seventeen-year-old daughter and the caretaker weren't too concerned, since she frequently had seizures.
2000. This is taken from my Easter post: Easter dinner was at our house this year. It was supposed to be at 5:00. My mom told me and David she wanted to have a discussion on the true meaning of Easter before everyone came. But before it was even 4:00, the Thompsons all pulled up in their van. I said, "What are they doing here!?" I think I remember wondering why Sue was driving instead of Wayne, because my dad was always the one to drive in my family. Because they arrived early, we didn't get to have our Easter discussion.
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