June 30, 2008-2014

June 30 is my mom's birthday, and a few years ago I made a post about the times when I saw her on her birthday, but I didn't include other years. This post will include all other memories I have of June 30--not just because of her birthday but as part of Fourth of July week.

2014. In the morning I was in my apartment doing work at my desk. I had a Facebook tab open, and I was shocked when my news feed showed that my old roommate Cameron had commented on a Buzzfeed article using the most unnecessarily profane language. I decided that during my lunch break, I would run my rent check over to Aspen Ridge Management, so I did so, and while running I was disturbed that the Cameron I knew apparently was not the real Cameron. Running the check and then taking a shower took me a bit longer than I had expected. Our apartment was getting painted, so I also had to pack up a lot of my stuff, which I would be taking home that night. I loaded up my car, and then that evening I headed up to a ward activity at a park in American Fork. I was wearing light blue shorts and a Fourth of July shirt. I wasn't sure if I was in the right place, but I saw my roommate Jordan playing tennis in a bright green/yellow shirt, so I knew that's where we were. I had lots of watermelon and a cheeseburger made with spicy cheese. Brother Clasby (who was about my age) complimented my shorts and said he had green ones. I was looking along the fence to see if there were any goatheads for me to pick, and I declined playing many of the sports. I remember talking to someone about what I did for work. At some point, they were saying that they thought San Francisco had originally been founded by Mormons. I thought they were confusing it with Las Vegas, but I didn't say anything because I didn't know. (It turns out they were somewhat, but not completely, right.) Then I left, and I walked by a Michaela Miller, but I didn't say hi. I drove home.

2013. We loaded up our cars to leave the cabins where we'd been staying in Kings Canyon National Park. Preston and Franklin wanted to ride with me and my parents. Nathaniel (who then was still called "Baby") initially wanted to go with us but then changed his mind and went with his parents. Preston was in the middle row with me and Franklin was in the back. Before we left the park, we drove to a place with a short hike. My dad and brother and I went further, going to a massive tree stump where early California folks held dances. I took my mom's camera but took blurry pictures. At some point that day, the boys wanted chips, and Franklin got really mad when I said he couldn't have Doritos because they would make him throw up. At one point, Preston and I were amused at Franklin's sleeping position.

My parents didn't believe in keeping the Sabbath holy on vacation, so we stopped at a fast-food place for lunch. It was discovered that Franklin had peed his pants; his mom asked him if he was asleep, and he admitted that he had been awake--he was apparently too shy to tell us. Ya-ping took the carseat out to dry in the sun. At another point we stopped at a gas station and my mom let the boys get candy. Preston wanted candy corn; my mom was skeptical that he would like it, but he really wanted it. He had fun sticking one candy corn into another. The boys used their travel DVD player to watch Batman cartoons and The Incredibles, which they were watching when we arrived at their house. Ya-ping made my mom a fancy pink cake for her birthday, but since it wasn't patriotic I couldn't eat it. I was sitting at their table doing something when a girl was dropped off by her grandma; she made some comments about her grandma being a little nitpicky, but she was essentially being raised by her grandma. David asked her how old she was and she said 15; she looked older than that. I pulled out my flashdrive and used it to post an essay for my blog that week. It took a long time on my dad's little pink laptop (the girl was using David's desktop computer). The boys wanted to watch a movie, and David recommended Spirited Away, which the teenage girl liked. The boys had an obsession with nipples, and one character was a vegetable-esque being, and Franklin said, "Nipples!" My mom said, "I think they're supposed to be roots on that guy," but she didn't realize that the character did have nipples in addition to the root structures. When the movie was over, David told them it was time to go to bed, and Franklin started crying, "But I didn't like that movie!" as though he was entitled to watch another movie because he didn't like that one.

2012. In the morning I went and took a Book of Mormon test; then I went to the electronic piano classroom and played some hymns, I think the patriotic hymns. When I was coming home, I found a goathead plant growing in the sidewalk near my house, so I plucked it up. I went in my apartment and showed it to my roommate Cameron. Then I took a small plate and a knife and began cutting its green seeds. I dusted our laundry room and found a hotel "key"--the card you use to get in the room. I considered returning it, but I realized I had no idea where it came from, as it could be from anywhere in the country. I started fasting, and my friend Kat knocked on the door. She had a cupcake with blue frosting and an American flag-wrapped Tootsie Roll on it. She said, "I saw this and I thought of you." I thanked her but told her I was fasting, but I would save it, so I put it on top of the fridge. She was leaving that night, so that was the last time I saw her until that December.

2011. I know I would have gone to my history class in the morning, but I don't specifically remember it.

2010. I think I had gone into the library to study for my Dinosaurs! class when I logged onto Facebook and shared this story, which I still find quite funny. (Most of my Facebook posts from 2010 make me cringe, but I like this one.)
"I thought my milk expired on July 10. Then I discovered it was actually June 27. What confused me was that there was a name on the milk (who knows why), and the name was JULIO, which looks very much like JUL 10."

2009. I think we got in late because we were teaching Nick Montez; hence I didn't write in my journal.

2008. I think I was on exchanges with Elder Major in East Wenatchee, and I think when a member picked us up to go to his house for dinner, Elder Major asked him whether ribbon or string floss was better, since the member was a dentist. They sent us home with some sort of Reese's dessert. Then I think we were tracting 11th Street. Elder Major wanted to talk to someone who was in his yard, but I knew that Elder Bramall (my companion) had already tracted that side and therefore likely talked to him already. The guy wasn't too happy to talk to us. We knocked on one door and this lady very happily said, "Would you join us for dinner?" We had already eaten, so she invited us to have chocolate cake, and Elder Major accepted. When people are that friendly, they are either (1) members or (2) trying to set you up for a bash. I looked around their house nervously trying to get clues. I saw a "House Rules" with Bible verses, which I have seen in Mormon houses, but that was all I saw. It turned out they were evangelicals wanting to bash, telling us what we believe about pregnancy and eternity and things. (Just because a past leader said some uncomfortable thing in the past doesn't mean that it's our doctrine or what we believe.) We left without any chocolate cake. I think when someone slammed the door on us, Elder Major laughed, but I wasn't as charitable. This is my rather melodramatic journal entry for the day:
"I hate exchanges. And I hate people who are wolves in sheep's clothing who want to bash. And I hate people who slam the door on you. And I hate biking in hot weather. And I hate losing my pant clip. And I hate realizing Elder Bramall is like Elder Chun because that means he hates me. Therefore, I wasn't too fond of today."

Latest and earliest snows

We're done with snow for the season (most likely), but it got me thinking about the most unseasonable snows I've seen. I love unseasonable snow.

In 1995, I remember spending a summer vacation day in early June playing cards (probably Crazy 8s) with my mom and siblings while we were amazed that it was snowing in June. It stuck to the grass, but it didn't last long. My memory tells me that it was the first day of summer vacation, but the internet tells me it was Tuesday, June 6, which probably was the second day of summer.

In 2000, my eleven-year-old scout troop went early in the morning to the Bountiful "Bubble" to practice saving yourself from drowning. I believe it was September 23. We all wore long-sleeve shirts (because apparently that's what you wear near water) to do the training for the merit badge. Afterwards in the locker room, an old guy was talking to me. I didn't understand what he was saying, so I just smiled, but our leader, Austin Anderson, answered his question (I think about why we were there). The old man was saying he could warm his hands on Ryan Jones's red hair. We went out to the lobby (we might have gone to the skating rink and/or gotten food), and I looked outside and saw that it was snowing. I got really excited: "Hey guys! It's snowing outside!" Jaydon Bean said it was probably just raining. But then when everyone looked outside, they saw that it really was snowing. Then I went home. I believe my mom was in Iowa at the time, but she had left hidden toys and things in the house. The Olympics were on; David and his friends watched them, and they were saying that they thought the abbreviation for Brazil ("BRA") was simply an identification of the apparel for the women's beach volleyball, and they thought the Brazilian flag was a logo. That night the news did a story about the early snowstorm; one interviewee from New York said, "We get big snow storms in New York, but we don't get snow this early." However, I didn't actually see any snow on the ground; just falling from the sky.

The earliest I've seen snow on the ground was my birthday, September 29, 2007. You can read about that here.

My aunt's maroon van

When I was a kid in the early 1990s, my aunt had a maroon van. I saw and rode in that van many times, so it has a moderate presence in my childhood memories. I always knew when my cousins had arrived at our house because I could hear it moaning up the driveway.

I always thought it was really cool because it had lots of little pockets and things where you could store things. It also had a means to control the radio from the first row of backseats. I remember my cousin Joey annoying his mom by switching the radio to rock 'n' roll instead of whatever she was listening to.

I remember going to a Saver's store when I was four or five (I always thought of Lifesavers when I heard of Saver's), and on that same day I got a watch that came with a stick full of candy. It was very rainy that day.

On another occasion, I remember singing along with Billy Joel on the radio (of course, I had no idea who was singing): "In the middle of the night, I go walking in my street." My cousin Jesse corrected me: "Sleep!" In fact, when I hear early 90s music, I often think of this van.

One time (I was probably about six) my aunt drove me to the zoo, and when we got there, my cousin Peter threw up on the sidewalk in front of the van, so my aunt had to tell the person when we got our tickets that he had thrown up in front of the "maroon van." That was the first time I heard it called that. (It may have been the first time I ever heard the word "maroon.") When we got done for the day, we saw a wet spot in front of the van where Peter had thrown up.

Then I think I was probably seven or so when my mom got a call that they had been in a wreck. I was jealous that my cousins got to be in a car wreck, since I had never been in one.

"Good People, Bad People"

This is a short, rather random memory.

When I was six years old (perhaps seven), I was at my cousins' house, and my cousin Joey showed me how he had put water in a bottle that had contained root beer, which turned the water a yellowish color. He thought it was really cool that he had invented a new drink, saying, "I call it 'Berry Juice.'" His brother Jesse was saying it was gross.

Well, that gave me an idea. I took some off-brand Sprite (I don't remember why we had it; I might have asked my parents to buy it for me) and mixed it with water in order to make a new drink. I called it "Good People, Bad People" because I figured it would taste good to some people and bad to others. My siblings weren't too anxious to try it, but my dad did and said, "I only taste the good people." I remember thinking he obviously didn't understand my naming conventions. I remember touting how it tasted good even though it was better for you than straight soda. I even began creating my own label for the drink, drawing stick figures to represent the people. I think that on one occasion I even tried to take Good People, Bad People to a family party, but I don't remember if that ended up happening.

July 1-5, 2014

Memorial Day weekend has me thinking about patriotic holidays--specifically the Fourth of July, so I'm going to remember what I can about the Fourth of July last year.

July 1. I got up early and called my boss, and he told me he wanted me to create his Wikipedia page. He wanted me to look at other Mormon historians and pattern the page after theirs. I'd never done any Wikipedia work before, so I spent the day learning how to do it and writing his bio. That night I pulled down my bicycle and pumped up the tires, and I went biking. I biked near Lofty Lane in North Salt Lake and passed a family lighting fireworks. This is part of my journal entry for the day (parts of it have things I shouldn't put on the internet):
"I got up earlier than usual today because I needed to call Reid. He wants me to create his Wikipedia page, so I've been trying to do that.
"During my lunch break, I went to Winegar's. After work, I did some light organizing, then played some Nintendo.
"I almost went running, but then I decided to go biking instead. It was fun to be on a bike again. I had to get on the sidewalk to avoid some fireworks. Then I lifted weights, and then I watched Bewitched."

July 2. This might have been the day when I told my dad that a lot of the work I had been doing on Wikipedia had been lost. He said "Oh no" like it was a horrible thing, but I wasn't that worried about it. I was wearing my blue-and-white-striped socks with red stars when I went biking again that night. I went up to Gary Way via Centennial and went on David Way. I wasn't gone very long. My dad seemed disappointed I went for such a short time and said he wouldn't have closed the garage if he knew how soon I would come back. Late that night, my mom came home with my sister-in-law Ya-ping, my niece Allie, my three nephews, and Ya-ping's niece.


July 3. I was working from home, as usual. When I was working on the Wikipedia page, I got this funny Captcha image, so I put it on Facebook:

My aunt, Sue, was going to the zoo, so she invited my nephews to go to it. Preston and Franklin didn't want to go, but Nathaniel did, so my mom took him there. When she came home, she said that it was funny to see him shy when he met up with Peter. I reminded her that he was shy at first when we met them that summer but quickly warmed up. Later Peter came back with him, and it had taken him a very long time to get to our house because he got extremely turned around. As soon as he got to our house, Preston and Franklin became very noisy, so I had to go work in my room. Then Sue and Nicole and the babies Nathan "Wallace" and John "Bruce" came over to go up to the fireworks with us. At one point, I went downstairs and my mom and Susanne told me Nathaniel had been talking about his other moms. Susanne said, "How many was it he had? [Some number in the thousands]?" and Nathaniel chimed in, "And wifty," which we all found quite funny. We walked up to the fireworks, and I brought my patriotic Goldfish with us. Ya-ping made the boys take jackets, even though it was the middle of the summer, which I thought was ridiculous. We passed the Anderson house, and Sue stayed behind and talked with them. Preston was getting way ahead, even though he didn't know where we were going. At the top of the hill just as we enter the golf course, Franklin was bawling, and I think it was because Preston had hit him with his jacket and the zipper hit him in the face. I think Franklin's crying was excessive, but I told Preston he needed to be careful, and he gave some excuse I didn't entirely buy. After we had secured a spot on the grass, Nathaniel needed to go to the bathroom, so I took him. There were long lines, and he kept asking why it was taking so long. We had an interesting conversation, which went something like this:
"Why is the sun in half?"
"That's not the sun, that's the moon."
"Where did the sun go?"
"It went down already."
"Is the sun made out of fire?"
"Kind of." (Keep in mind that I was talking to a four-year-old.)
"Is it made out of lava?"
"Nope."
"Preston said it was made out of lava, but he was lying. Is the moon made out of fire?"
"No, the moon is made out of rocks."
"Why did they make it like that?"
"Because a really long time ago, in space, there were lots of pieces that stuck together and became rocks, and then lots of rocks stuck together and made the moon. And the earth."
"That happened a really long time ago?"
Allie met her friend Katy and played with her. We were missing "Wallace," so we assumed he had gone with Allie. A little later, Peter suddenly got up and ran over to catch Wallace, who was wandering on his own in a large group of people. When Allie came back to us, we said, "Did you know that Nathan followed you?" She said yeah, it apparently not having occurred to her that she should have made sure he was still with her, so we told her to be more careful. Susanne distributed glow sticks to us, and Nicole gave some Goldfish to John. We could hear distant music playing. One song was Pharrell's "Happy," and Preston said, "Why is the 'Happy' song from Despicable Me 2 so popular?" When Katy Perry's "Firework" was playing, we knew the fireworks would start soon. During the fireworks, Nathaniel got a little scared, saying, "They're getting woser [closer]!" He cuddled up to Sue for protection. Then when they were over, we walked home. I carried John in his stroller down the rocky hill.

July 4. That morning, Preston went outside and got stung by a wasp. He came inside and said he was stung; he looked at the sting and said he still had the stinger in him because he could see a little black dot. Ya-ping looked at it and also saw the dot, but I looked at it, and I said I thought it was just where some blood had filled in where he had been poked and then dried. Franklin said, surprised, "You know about science?!" I made a Facebook status that day that said, "I love America! But I don't feel that I have a right to say I'm proud to be American, because I didn't do anything to be American." Sue was at our house again and said she thought it was funny. I think she also complimented my flag socks. I invited the boys to watch a Fourth-of-July-themed movie, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July, but initially only Preston wanted to. He asked me when it was made; I said 1980, and he said, "It's pretty good for its age." Later, the other boys came in. When the bearded villain Winterbolt flew in on his sleigh, and Rudolph said, "It's a sleigh all right, but it's not Santa," Nathaniel said, "It is Santa Claus!" I had to explain it just looked like him. At some point that day, our AC broke. My mom and Ya-ping had gone shopping, and I stayed with the boys. Franklin saw a Monopoly game in our closet, and he wanted to play it, but I said it would be hard and complicated, but we could try it. Well, both Preston and Franklin were distracted by watching cartoons, so I basically had to do everything, which was annoying and stressful. Franklin wanted to buy every property he could, but Preston didn't. At one point Franklin said, "I like this game. You said it was hard and complicated," and I thought it was weird he said that, since I was the one doing everything in the game. Mom and the girls came home with hot dogs and a watermelon. Ya-ping cut the watermelon the weirdest way I have ever seen. She put the Monopoly game away, which I had left out in case the boys wanted to continue playing, but she put it away hastily, and I had to go back and organize all the money again. That evening, she was on the patio talking to David, and I was lighting the fire pit to roast the last patriotic marshmallows with the boys. When I started the fire, it flared up, and Ya-ping gasped--then I heard her saying my nickname in Chinese on the phone, presumably telling David why she gasped. We had s'mores, but some of the boys just wanted marshmallows. That night we went to Susanne's house to light fireworks. The first ones were parachutes, and the boys were arguing over who got them, since some exploded or disappeared. Sue said she would take them and later that evening there would be a number-guessing game to see who got them. My mom said she was just going to tell them it didn't matter, but Sue's idea was to make them forget about it. (It worked.) Susanne's neighbors had huge fireworks. I shared my red, white, and blue Tic-Tacs with the boys and everyone else, and when I was waving my sparkler, I pretended I was conducting music. Then we went home and I got on my computer, listening to a few of my Fourth of July songs before bed. Here's my journal entry for the day:
"An OK Fourth. I stayed home most of the day. When the girls went shopping, I stayed home with the boys. Preston watched Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July with me. He asked how old it was, then said, 'It's pretty good for its age.' Then Franklin wanted to play Monopoly, which kind of stressed me out. Then I had to grill on the barbecue, because Pops was trying to fix the broken AC. Then we went to Nan's and lit little fireworks while her neighbors did big ones."

July 5. My family was going to a wedding for my first cousin once removed, and we stopped at Susanne's house beforehand. I, on the other hand, was going back to Provo. I found that my clip-on sunglasses had the plastic coating melt so that they had a permanent smudge on them. I got back to my apartment, which was a mess because it had just been painted. I decided to try out Spotify, so I downloaded the program and listened to some odds and ends. I think I was discovering how useful a tool it would be to find holiday music, and I listened to Ed Sheeran's "Sing."

Real-life Snopes stories

On the internet, all sorts of crazy stories circulate. It's pretty easy to check Snopes.com and say, "Yeah, that didn't happen."

But on occasion, I've heard these stories repeated in real life, not on the internet (although in many cases I'm sure they originated there). So here are some I've heard in real life, and not just on the internet.

On Easter in 2010, I was at my aunt's house, and she was telling us how my cousin April shared an experience that supposedly happened to her friend. Her friend's son had Down syndrome or something, and one day he called his mom frantic at work and said, "Mom, everything's OK, but you need to come home right now. I've got a troll locked in the closet." Well, the mom went home, and it wasn't a troll, of course, but a midget Jehovah's Witness. They had knocked on the door and the boy took the small person and trapped him. My aunt said that the JWs weren't mad about the situation. Later, I talked to my mom about the story, and she had heard it too, and said that the JWs were actually mad and wanted to sue. These contradictions aren't the only red flag to this story. I think it would be pretty hard for an intellectually disabled person to wrangle someone into a closet, especially if a full-statured person was accompanying the small person. Lo and behold, it's on Snopes.

In winter 2012, I had a semantics and pragmatics class in which our professor told a story that allegedly happened to a past general authority who had held a prominent position in a California city. They were hosting a dinner with a lot of important people and had some expensive salmon flown in. While they were making preparations for dinner, they found their cat on the table, eating the salmon. Well, it wouldn't do to serve the cat-eaten portion, so they put the cat outside and cut out the part of the fish it had been eating. The guests came and left, and then the hosts went outside and found their cat dead. Worrying it must be the salmon, they called someone about it, and they said they couldn't take chances, that the salmon might be poisonous. They had to call all of their guests and tell them they needed to have their stomachs pumped because their cat had eaten the salmon and died. It was obviously a painfully humiliating experience. The next day, their neighbor told them that he had run over their cat (which is how it died), but he didn't want to interrupt their important dinner party to tell them that. He then said that that story had been incorporated into a movie. I really wanted this one to be true, since I heard it from a professor who seemed he would do more fact checking, but it's on Snopes as well.

On December 20 last year, I went to a game night where a girl told a story that happened to a friend, or maybe a friend of a friend. She had filled up her gas tank, and an attendant in the store called on a loudspeaker to her that her card didn't work and she needed to come inside to pay. When she got inside, she learned that the attendant called her inside because someone had gotten in her car and was lurking in her backseat. The girl telling this story provided it as a warning to everyone. Then someone else said they heard that if someone drives without headlights, you shouldn't flash your lights at them, because it's part of a gang initiation--the new gang member has to attack whoever flashes their lights. I said, "That's sounds like a story you'd read on Snopes.com." I went home and looked at both of them, and they both were there. In fact, the gas station story had been quoted almost verbatim.

I'm sure there have been other times, but these are all I can remember now.

Baby birds

With it being spring, I thought I would reflect on times I've seen baby birds in the "wild."

When I was about six years old, we had birds that built nests in our roof. On one occasion, we found a baby bird lying on the ground, chirping. That was the first time I had ever seen a baby bird and learned how ugly they are. My mom called a vet, or maybe animal control, to ask what to do. We put it on a stack of toilet paper in the front yard and left it in the sun. But it died soon after that.

On my mission in spring 2009, we visited a less-active member who had a bird nest on her fence, so we looked at the babies. They had bugs on their faces.

During spring term of 2010, I came home from grocery shopping one afternoon and discovered a baby bird lying in a parking spot in our parking lot. It was placed at an exact position where a car's tires would go, and I didn't want it to get run over. I called animal control and asked what they recommended. They said they didn't take birds, and the guy told me just to leave it in case the mother decided she wanted it again. But after I hung up, I realized that I had forgotten one of the reasons I was calling. I couldn't just leave it, because it would get squashed by a car, but I didn't want to call back. So I put on a rubber glove and moved the bird to the grass next to the parking lot. I told my roommate Alex about what I had done, and then he went outside to look at it. I looked out our bedroom window, and he looked up at me and frowned. But then he looked more closely and smiled at me, indicating that it was still alive then. Later, it was gone. I assume it died and the groundskeepers got rid of it.

I think that's all. (I wanted to do a short one this week.)