I was just polishing off my blog post last week when I got a text from KSL telling me about the horrendous, awful, terrible, wicked, nefarious, despicable, deplorable, horrible, satanic, diabolical, detestable, devilish, and downright evil act of Josh Powell. It wasn't until later in the week that I learned he used a hatchet on his children. If he were alive, I would like to see him hang by his toenails above a vat of boiling oil. When his nails eventually ripped off, he'd plunge into the oil, which would then empty into ice water. Then, while his skin was still raw from the oil, he would be tied by one ankle to the back of a pickup truck and dragged at freeway speeds down a gravel road.
I know a lot of people also feel this way. But that is just the natural man in us; our Father in Heaven doesn't feel that way, which is why the stereotypical notion of Hell as a place where flames scorch you and satyrs poke you with pitchforks is false. Josh will have to answer for his deeds, but he won't be eternally tormented. Charlie and Braden, on the other hand, are guaranteed a spot in the Celestial Kingdom--which is where I hope their mother will be, as well. (I have a hard time imagining Josh in anything but the Telestial. But I'm not the one to judge, which is a good thing.)
What frustrates me is that people are compounding the heartache by pointing fingers. The West Valley police didn't work hard enough, they say, or the judge shouldn't have let Josh have visits, or the child agency should have sent more than one person, or the 911 dispatcher should have taken it more seriously. None of these people killed Charlie or Braden or Susan. None of these people suspected it to end this way. Passing blame will not bring anyone back. I'm sure all of those people already feel bad enough without people blaming them. I'm not saying improvements can't be made; I just think we need to look at things from their perspective. The "if onlys" will only hurt.
Moving on to happier things...
Valentine's Day is in two days. As you can tell from my blog decorations, I don't care for the subject matter of the holiday. (Unless you're reading this after Valentine's Day. Then you won't see them.) I just happen to like all holidays, and Valentine's Day is just another one. I try to focus mainly on the candy and the red and pink colors.
I find it interesting that in the fall and winter we have three major holidays in a row, and this pattern repeats in winter and spring. The first member of these trios is pointless but pretty popular. The last member of these trios is a religious holiday that has been largely secularized and features a fictitious gift-bearing being. These secularized holidays have become so big that they overpower the preceding holiday.
These comparisons can't be taken too far; Thanksgiving is actually a meaningful holiday, while St. Patrick's Day most definitely is not. But I think there are significant parallels between Halloween and Valentine's Day.
They are both ancient holidays that somehow have survived into the twenty-first century. They both don't really have much meaning (although you could argue that for V-day), but they are popular. For kids, they are the only holidays that are small enough that we still have to go to school yet big enough that we have class parties. They both involve large amounts of candy.
When I was in third grade, I had a dream that combined the two days. We had given out our little valentine cards, but we were in costumes. We would give a solitary orange or black M&M to anyone who entered the classroom. Our school librarian was dressed as a spiderweb (meaning she had a fake spiderweb draped around her), and she was super excited to get the M&M. I went out to recess and was playing with a friend when some wolves arrived via small tornadoes. This last part had nothing to do with either holiday, but it was implied that it was Valentine's Day.
I have heard that in the early twentieth century, Halloween was kind of a lovers' day.
This week I looked at the definition for Valentine in The Oxford English Dictionary, and came across this interesting entry from 1854: "Valentining, children going from house to house, the morning of St. Valentine's day, soliciting small gratuities." They went trick-or-treating on Valentine's Day!
This week I wanted to buy some Valentine's candy, and there wasn't too big of a selection at the store. I bought some to try. I had only had it once, and that was when I got it in my trick-or-treat bag. At the time I thought I got a stale box, but no, they're made that way. The candy? Jujyfruits. When I first started eating them, I wondered how they could possibly still make them. They're very weird and very sticky. Normal Jujyfruits come (I think) in five flavors, but the Valentine ones come in three--raspberry (red), cherry (pink), and strawberry (white). Even though these weren't the greatest candies, I found myself just popping one in after another.
Not only are the textures and flavors odd, the shapes are really weird. So weird, in fact, that the candy's own website makes fun of them. They have some moderately normal shapes, such as a raspberry and a cluster of grapes. They have a fish-like pineapple and a banana with the brand name Heide on it. Then they have one that looks like a flower. Only it's not a flower. It's a tomato. Yes, a tomato. And the other shapes? A peapod and asparagus. Not only are vegetables weird shapes for candy, they're not even convincing vegetable shapes.
Anyway, I was comparing Halloween and Valentine's Day. Even though I'd only had Jujyfruits once before, there were times when I was chewing (and chewing and chewing) that it really felt like it could be October 31.
These are just some observations. What did I do this week?
Well, this week there was a tri-ward dance. I'm anti-dancing, but my other choice was to sit alone in my apartment on Friday night doing homework, so I decided to go. It was supposed to be a formal event, but it was a weeknight, so I wore my blue Converse shoes along with my blue dress shirt, black slacks, and pink Snoopy Valentine tie. Fortunately, they had lots of goodies and tables set up so it wasn't too awkward to be a wall weed. Before lots of people showed up, I went to talk to some girls from another ward. One of them seemed genuinely freaked out by me. I decided maybe that wasn't a good idea, but then more people came and I was able to visit with members of my ward. Since I was just sitting there and it's hard to carry on a conversation at a dance party, after an hour or so a girl told me we should do something spontaneous. She had some CDs she wanted to break. We tried rocks, but those didn't work well. We ended up putting them in sandwich bags and breaking them by hand.
Yesterday was a warm day, so I went running. I ran for 56 minutes, and my goal was 51. I'm only four minutes shy of my eventual hour goal. But a lot of my time was spent stopped at stoplights. Part of it was spent fixing my shoe. I spent good money on running shoes back in September. One of the pairs has an insole that never stays in place, and yesterday it was actually sticking out the back of my shoe. I hate these shoes. They kill my feet. I want to use them so that they will get worn out and I won't have to wear them anymore, but I can't wear them often because wearing them even just a little bit gives me blood blisters or something.
Then I changed my plans when my roommate invited me to do baptisms for the dead. There's a lady who's done a lot of work with Cheyenne Indian names, so I had names like Low Dog and Young Wolf Tooth. Then I made cookies for my home teachees.
If you've been reading my blog lately, you may be wondering when I'm going to mention geology. Here it is. This week we're studying sedimentary rocks. I get to use my mouth again. Halite has returned as rock salt. And the way to determine between shale and siltstone is that shale dissolves in your mouth while siltstone is just grainy. I don't plan on practicing this too much (I'll probably only do it for the quiz). It's hard to break off small pieces (I don't dare bite the rocks), and shale tastes terrible. But the other night I dreamed that I ate an entire bag of rocks.
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