Jenny the teenager

This is Jenny.

We have had her for fourteen years now. I don't remember exactly when we got her, but it was sometime during September or October of 2002.

Fourteen itself isn't that significant an anniversary--except that I was fourteen when we got her. I turn twenty-eight this week, meaning we have had her for half of my life now! Of course, two of those fourteen years I was on a mission, and I had 4-5 years in college when I only saw her on occasion. But it's still been half of my life. And since I don't remember much when I was a tiny child, we have had her for more than half of my memory.

We like her, but I'm not really sure why. It's not like she's a particularly great cat. The only useful thing she does is kill mice. And furthermore, I don't really know why we as humans like cats. What's so great about a small mammal inhabiting our house, and why is that more desirable than innocuous, tiny six- or eight-legged animals? We exterminate one but seek out the other.

Regardless, I'm a cat person. I understand why other people prefer dogs, so don't come at me with your "Dogs are better than cats" arguments. I get it. But me, personally, I prefer cats. Probably because I have the personality of a cat--introverted and cynical.

We got her in the fall of 2002 after our previous cat mysteriously disappeared after we had her a year. We went to the animal shelter in Fruit Heights, and I picked the gray kitten, which we soon named Jenny, because she seemed like the most playful kitten they had. 

A few weeks after we had her, my dad's parents came to visit. My grandma was wearing soft white leather shoes, and Jenny began rubbing herself against them. I'm not sure that was the first time, but ever since then, she loves feet. She doesn't like being petted by your hands. She usually tolerates me rubbing her neck for a minute, but then she leaves. However, if you put your foot out and start wiggling it around, she will come up to it and rub against it. Often she does this when she wants something, but sometimes she just likes being petted by a foot. She could do it for a long time. 

When she was younger, she would often follow a petting session with a biting session, but she rarely does that anymore. And she also used to sometimes chase after my feet and hug my ankles to attack them, but she almost never does that anymore--although I think she did earlier this year.

When I was on my mission (so when she was between five and seven), my dad decided he was sick of her throwing up in the house (she seems to have a sensitive stomach), so he decided that she needed to be fed in our sun room, just off of my parents' bedroom. So now that's where we feed her. But my dad goes to bed early, and she wants to go into the room to be fed, so she figured out that if she presses her face into the door jamb just right, she can open the door! Then she goes and wakes my dad up--so we try to open it for her when we can.

She also dislikes children. She doesn't really hurt them, but she hisses at them and runs away--or sometimes she swats them, but she only has back claws, so no harm done. My niece lived with us or practically lived with us her whole life, and yet I think she was eleven before Jenny quit hissing at her. This past summer, Jenny kind of let my eleven-year-old nephew foot pet her, but only when my younger nephews weren't around, and she didn't like his style of foot petting. (She prefers to rub than to be rubbed.)

Despite her lack of front claws, she is adept at killing mice. She leaves them on the back porch. Last Halloween she brought us a large rat, and thrice this year I've found small rabbits--but I'm not sure those were her, because two of them weren't in the usual spot. It's gross to dispose of the rodents, but it's better than having them in the house. We haven't had mice problems, but I don't know if that's because of her, or if we wouldn't have them anyway and she just brings us mice we wouldn't otherwise see.

She is kind of picky about her water. She likes me to fill her bowl up--and then she plays in it, splashing it on the floor, putting her paw in while she drinks, and sometimes she'll just lick her wet paw instead of actually drinking.

She also purrs all the time. And she doesn't like most strangers; she usually hides, so most people haven't seen her. But on March 18 this year, we had some old neighbors come visit, and she was meowing to be let outside. Our neighbor began meowing, so Jenny came up to her foot! (The neighbor didn't like that.)

Last Halloween I first noticed that she was limping, and in March she was diagnosed with arthritis. We got special joint care food for her, but she still limps around. It's sad. When she jumps down from places, now her landing is a little clumsy. She's definitely slower than she was and doesn't dart down the hall like she used to. Other than that, she seems to be in decent health for her age.

We like this purring, mouse-killing, foot-loving, child-hating, door-opening, teenage creature. Even if we don't know why.

***

Time for pumpkinundation roundup!

 I go to Kneaders a lot this time of year, and I got the Kneaders spice cupcake. I reviewed it last year, and I feel the same way. The cake is tasty, and I like the filling on the inside. But there is way, way, way too much frosting. For one thing, the purpose of a cupcake is to be easy to eat, but that much frosting makes it difficult. You basically have to eat the frosting separate from the cake, and what's the point in that? But even worse, that much frosting takes it from being indulgent to being sickening. And yet I still eat it all because I hate wasting food. I feel the same way about their red velvet cupcakes (Valentine's Day) and mint chocolate cupcakes (St. Patrick's Day). I give it 3/5. It would get 4/5, or maybe even 5/5, with less frosting.

On a separate Kneaders trip, I also had Kneaders pumpkin pie, which is typical pumpkin pie. I forgot to take a picture because a friendly stranger was chatting with me. (He told me I have a healthy lifestyle, since I read books for a living and like trail running.) But it looks like typical pumpkin pie, except there are cute leaf cutouts on top. 4/5.

 I went to Farr's Fresh downtown and got their Farr's pumpkin pie soft-serve ice cream. I put some granola on it. It was tasty, but not exactly bursting with flavor. 4/5.

 I went to Target and got these Archer Farms Pumpkin Spice Glazed Pepitas. (They're in a teaspoon because I was running out of calories for the day.) Pepitas are unshelled pumpkin seeds. I didn't know what to expect, but I was pleasantly surprised. These are really good. The glaze is made with pumpkin powder, butter, and spices, and it goes well with the crunch of the seeds. 4/5.

 I'm not really a yogurt person, especially Greek yogurt, but I got this Chobani pumpkin spice blended Greek yogurt. There's a little bit of a spice flavor in there, but mostly it has the bitterness of Greek yogurt. 3/5.

 Chobani caramel apple blended Greek yogurt is better. It has real apple pieces, and the sweetness cuts the tang of the yogurt. I definitely recommend it over the pumpkin spice one. 3.5/5.

My parents got this Krusteaz pumpkin spice quick bread mix. It can be used in a variety of recipes, this time pancakes. It comes with pecans to put in the mix, but not a whole lot of them. Definitely better than plain pancakes. I didn't put any syrup on them. But not spectacular either. I appreciate that they actually have pumpkin in them (pumpkin flakes). 3.5/5.

But wait, there's more!

With my last plum crisp and last purple grape juice a couple of weeks ago, I figured I'd be done making things from freshly grown fruit. But then I decided that I wanted to try white grape juice, since we still had some green grapes left, even though the purple were all gone. It was a little tricky getting the grapes, since they were harder to reach, but I got a fair amount. I expected the juice to be a yellowish color, as store-bought white grape juice is. And it came out...

 pink??

And then the dregs of the juice were purpler! I assure you, there were only green grapes in the batch. Unless a few purple ones snuck in, but even if they did, there could have been no more than five.

I don't like this "white" grape juice as much as the purple. The Concord grapes give it a nice kick, but this one is lacking.

Also, our neighbors have an apple tree, and its branches hang over into our yard. Seventy-five percent of the apples have worms (in a good year), so the apples aren't good for plain eating. But if you cut them up, you can use them. I made an apple crisp. It was OK.

This week I saw a wizard walking down the road. He was wearing a brown robe and had long hair and a long, bushy, graying beard. He was waving a wooden staff around. I know he was a wizard because it's too late for Comic Con but too early for Halloween. But I didn't know wizards got large cups of soda from gas stations!

(Speaking of large cups of soda--I don't usually judge people for what they eat. But if you go to the gas station every day and get a large soda all the time, I will judge you. You have been warned.)

Last month I determined that I was having a hard time focusing during scripture study, so I began writing summaries of each chapter I read. Yesterday was Ezekiel 40: "A brass man measures a building."

In case you couldn't tell, it wasn't a super eventful week.

***

However, this week marks the return of pumpkinundation roundup, when there is an inundation of everything pumpkin spice, caramel apple, and candy corn! I've been documenting the things I've had so far. Sometimes I wonder if this fad is going to fizzle out, but it doesn't appear to be going anywhere soon. I'll take it. Not because I'm in love with pumpkin spice per se, but because I'm in love with seasonal things in general.

When they say "pumpkin spice," it means one of three things: (1) actual pumpkin and spices, (2) spices (or spicy flavoring) and some vague pumpkin flavoring, and (3) only spices. This last one is most pointless to me, because pumpkin spice without the pumpkin is exactly the same as gingerbread spice without the molasses, or carrot cake spice without the carrots and cream cheese frosting. Those items that actually have pumpkin in them are by far the best.

This year, I will be assigning ratings to the things I review. I will also put pictures before each paragraph of what I'm reviewing, rather than after. These ratings are entirely subjective and are based on taste, level of pumpkin, and overall experience.

 I have a confession about these Jet-Puffed Jumbo Caramel Apple Marshmallows. September 15 is my arbitrary date for starting eating these things, but I cheated and ate them on Labor Day, September 5. My family was planning on roasting marshmallows and having smores, so I got these for that. But it wasn't 100 percent cheating, because I would have used regular marshmallows if I were completely cheating. I think it's funny that the actual marshmallows look more like caramel apples than the picture of the marshmallows.

 Last year I had candy corn and pumpkin spice marshmallows. These were the best of all three, because they actually taste like what they're supposed to. The candy corn ones don't taste like anything, and the pumpkin spice ones taste like ginger. These have a fake caramel apple taste, but it's definitely caramel apple. Plus, their size is perfect for roasting and smores; the other flavors are too small. (However, these are probably too big for hot chocolate.) 4/5.

 So I actually bought this Extra Pumpkin Spice Gum in January, because it was on clearance and I didn't see it last fall. But I can have gum anytime. Who knows, maybe they won't even sell it this year. They don't really taste like pumpkin or spices. They almost have a buttery flavor. They're OK, but I like fruity or minty gum better. 2/5.

 I love Quaker Life, so I was excited to try this Pumpkin Spice Life. I could live off of Cinnamon Life. But this is no Cinnamon Life. They have a flavor of spices, though I can't pick what ones, but I didn't note any pumpkin to it. It's not as flavorful as Cinnamon Life, but it has less sugar; it's about equal to the other flavors. I'd get it again, but mainly because it's Life, not because it's pumpkin. 3/5.

 One of the few seasonal things in the vending machines at work is the Dunford Bakers Calley's Favorites Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie. It's exactly what you'd expect in such a cookie. 4/5.

 I reviewed these Fiber One Pumpkin Bars last year, and we happened to have some in the house this year. They're actually pretty good. 4/5.

 I'm not a fan of plain Cheerios but I like their flavored varieties. I don't eat them often, though, because I don't find them very filling. These Pumpkin Spice Cheerios actually use pumpkin, which automatically makes them better. Even though they're cold cereal, there's something warm and comforting about them.

 They also leave a nice milk in the bowl. Way better than plain Cheerios. 4/5.

 I went to the state fair and got this Cinnamon Candy Apple. We usually have caramel apples, but sometimes I've seen pictures of candy apples and wanted to try one. I mean, they're in the "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" scene of Mary Poppins. I understand now why I'd never had them. It was really just hard candy on an apple, so it was hard to eat. I worried about hurting my teeth, and then my teeth kept sliding around on the smooth surface. I had some very similar candy strawberries in Taiwan fourteen years ago, but at least strawberries are soft. You know those cheap hard candy cinnamon disks? It was like having one of those on an apple. 2/5.

 I also got this pumpkin fudge at the fair. It's a good thing I'm counting calories, because I could eat this whole block in one sitting. 5/5.

 I got a whole box of Spiced Pumpkin Pie Clif Bars, although I think they were intended as a display box. Since they're an outdoorsy item, I had to do something outdoorsy when I ate it. You guessed it, I ran up North Canyon. I actually went a little past Rudy's Flat, up a trail I'd never been on before. (It wasn't great for running.) Sorry the picture's not good; I thought I took another one but apparently I didn't. I know some people hate Clif Bars, but I kind of like them. The pumpkin pie ones are one of their stronger offerings. 4/5.

 The third cereal I tried this week was Kellogg's Special K Pumpkin Spice Crunch. They are just Special K flakes with fake yogurt-covered, spicy clusters. The clusters tasted fake, but they were tasty. Unfortunately, there weren't many of them. The cereal would have benefited from more clusters. There's really nothing pumpkin about these. 3/5.

 I had to try Pumpkin Donut and Apple Crisp Laffy Taffy. At first I thought it was a weird concept: these aren't flavored like pumpkin, they're flavored like something pumpkin flavored. But then I realized that these are a kid's candy, and all kids like donuts, but they might not like pumpkin spice or even pumpkin pie. The pumpkin donut ones are a little weird, because I expect Laffy Taffys to be fruity. But once you realize they don't need to be fruity, they're good. (I remember having vanilla ones as a kid, back when they were still squares in wax paper wrappers. They didn't stick to wrappers then.) The apple crisp ones taste a little more fruity. 3/5.

I had these belVita Pumpkin Spice biscuits last year, and they were good enough for me to get again this year. But they're not as good as I remembered. They're not very pumpkiny, but they're good on their own. They're very dry, best eaten with milk. 3/5.

And believe it or not, I had all of these things while still remaining in my calorie budget!

Nine point five

It was a fun week. I know someone who said Labor Day is his favorite holiday because you don't have to do anything to celebrate it. It's true.

After another North Canyon trail run seeing yellow leaves and blue chicory flowers,

I went out and did some errands. But not ordinary errands.

I have two church callings, because my last bishopric was big into giving people multiple callings. (The most I heard of was four.) One of these is a stake family history calling. For the last few years we have had paper cutouts on which people can write the names of ancestors they find, and this year we decided to do silhouette cutouts. I didn't like the idea of using all that ink, so I thought I'd buy a Cricut ("cricket") machine. And I did!

A Cricut is an awesome machine. You can select a picture and it will cut it out on paper, fabric, all sorts of things. You can also put in pens and it will draw things. All I needed was paper cutouts, and I will probably never use it to its full capability. I'm really not a crafty person. But I'm at a place in life where my income far exceeds my expenses (that's what happens when you're a college grad living with your parents), so I can afford silly, cool gadgets. Plus, my mom's a teacher, so it will get used. 

Weekly tutoring for a group of Tongan students resumed this week, but there wasn't enough for me to be of much help.

On Friday, I went with my family to the state fair. I remember visiting the fair in fourth grade and liking their county displays. I went to see them this year and was disappointed. Only seven counties (Summit, Weber, Cache, Juab, Beaver, Grand, and Washington, I think) did them, and only Washington's was impressive. I'm not sure why our society likes fairs, but we do.

On Saturday, I fulfilled a bucket-list item I made it a goal to do this year. But before that happened, my dad had the door open, and a dog that isn't ours invited itself into our house! 

This year I have gone on many runs to Rudy's Flat up North Canyon and Elephant Rock up Mueller Park Canyon. But those places connect, and I wanted to see the connecting trail. So I arranged for my dad to drop me off at North Canyon and pick me up at Mueller Park.

Now, I still think North Canyon is the prettiest trail I've been on in Bountiful. Mueller Park gets all the publicity, but North Canyon is nicer, IMO. Also harder.

As I passed a group of boy scouts coming down from an apparent camping trip, one of their leaders said to a boy, "This crazy guy's going to run all the way!" 

Thus once I got to the portion of the trail where I'd never been, I was feeling pretty proud of myself. I mean, going to Rudy's Flat is hard enough, but here I was going past it! But my feelings of accomplishment were diminished when a middle-aged couple ran past me. I guess among average people I'm a good trail runner, but among trail runners I'm not. But it was nice to be on new portions of the trail. 

All told, it was a 9.5-mile run, the farthest I've ever run. It was a climb of about 1,600 feet--past Rudy's Flat, it was basically all downhill. Once upon a time, I weighed 250 pounds and could barely run a mile on a flat field. Ten years ago, I would have never guessed that this would become my hobby. But here I am.

One more thing: Fall is upon us, and last year I did a pumpkinundation roundup, wherein I documented and reviewed various pumpkin spice items, as well as their cousins, candy corn-flavored and caramel apple-flavored things. I got some positive feedback on that, so I'm considering doing that again. I've also toyed with the idea of doing it on a separate platform, like another blog or possibly a Twitter account. (This would include additional seasonal items.) I would put a poll in, but it doesn't look like there's an easy way to do it, so let me know what you think. (I won't be able to include as much this year, because I'm counting calories now.)

Rhyolitic, andesitic, basaltic weekend

Well, August is over. I spent some of its last hours running up to Elephant Rock, and I was out too late and had to run with my phone flashlight for the last bit of the trail. But it was fun, and leaves were changing. And there were some cyclists who were just starting the trail when I was just finishing it!

The real highlight of the week, though, was going out rockhounding with my family. They used to collect rocks before I was born and when I was a tiny kid, but I really missed out on most of it. Yet I'm the one who actually became a pseudo-geologist. However, I don't generally like rocks just because they're pretty, but I like to know where they came from or the story behind them. So I'm not the sort of person who would just buy a rock. (However, I do think it's cool that we have a rock from a rock shop that literally looks like a painting, even though it's just a rock.)

In many ways, this trip was reminiscent of August and September of 2013, in time of year, locale, and nature of the expedition. For those who don't know, I minored in geology in college. In August 2013, I had a two-week field studies class where we went out identifying rock formations and seeing various places. Three credit hours smashed into two weeks and camping. I was the only major from the college of humanities in the entire class. I wouldn't say it was my favorite class, but it's definitely the most unique one I took. I miss it. In fall 2013, I took a groundwater class. That probably sounds really boring to you, and it was somewhat, but I didn't expect it to be. Anyway, on September 27 and 28, 2013, we had a field trip to Great Basin National Park, Nevada, and Snake Valley, Utah. On this trip we went to the same Subway in Delta we went to on that field trip (twice, in fact, on that field trip).

My parents and niece and I headed out on Friday afternoon. Our first stop was at a place between Tooele and Delta, where we found these wonderstones, which are a beautiful form of rhyolitic tuff. I brought along my books Roadside Geology of Utah (Williams et al. 2014) and Geologic History of Utah (Hintze and Kowallis 2009) to help me identify. Now, I'm not a real geologist, but using these books, I'm guessing these rocks are part of the Salt Lake Group, which is Miocene in age. The Miocene Epoch was 5 to 23 million years ago.

(Since I'm being science-y, I used the APA citation style, even though I hate it and use Chicago for a living. Why does the American Psychological Association get to decide a style for all the sciences? I mean, the psychology major was the butt of all the jokes of one of my geology professors!)

That night we spent the night at the home of my uncle and aunt, who live in Delta. It's probably been twenty years since I was last at their house. The next morning, my dad showed us some cars that belonged to him, since you can keep old cars when you live outside of Delta. I'm not a car person, but I'm a very nostalgic person, so I liked seeing this Jeep, which we owned when I was between the ages of 7 and 14. My dad also showed us his first car from the 1960s.

We drove south from Delta and came across Fort Deseret, which was a fort that was made of adobe in 1865 during the Blackhawk War (an event I should know more about than I do). It was originally ten feet high. It's definitely not that tall anymore, but I'm still impressed at how much is still there after 150 years.

We made a stop at Great Stone Face, which also had some petroglyphs.

Then we headed down to our primary destination, the ghost town of Frisco in Beaver County. Frisco was a mining community in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but it was abandoned after the mine collapsed. 

The only place you can get to by car is the Frisco Cemetery. A few things surprised me. It's a ghost town cemetery, and yet there are still fake flowers and toys placed at the graves. I don't think anyone is alive today who would have known these people. There was a pinwheel and some other things that still looked very fresh and new.

 These miners must have been well to do, because there were lots of large tombstones for babies. Babies usually get small stones, but there were big ones. Also, most Utah mining towns were not Mormon communities, but there was someone buried here who was born in San Bernardino in 1852. Definitely a Mormon connection there.

You couldn't drive to the ruins, but you could walk up to them. Only one building still had a roof, and that was just barely--I was standing inside it when a big gust of wind came up, and I was paranoid it would collapse on me, so I got out. It was fun to see all the old places and wonder what it was like a hundred years ago. But I didn't see any ghosts. Sadly.

My best (educated) guess for the geology of this area is that it's the Horn Silver Andesite, 34 million years old from the Oligocene Epoch. Andesite is a volcanic rock that has more iron than rhyolite but less iron than basalt (the black rock that dominates west-central Utah). I was surprised it was that old. 

Then we headed to the desert between Milford and Kanosh, Utah, to find obsidian. Small pieces of it were everywhere. I like it because it's smooth without being polished. Obsidian, of course, forms when lava cools really fast, too fast for any crystals to form. There were lots of cool, glassy rocks in the area. I brought home an interesting brown specimen that had so many shiny parts it looked wet, even though it wasn't. I don't know how old these rocks were, I'm guessing between 700,000 and 1.5 million years, but they could be older or younger.

We made a brief stop at a cousin's house in Fillmore, and she had not one but two cats sleeping in plants. I love cats, because they don't even have to do anything and they're hilarious.

On our way home, we had a flat tire. But it was actually a propitious occurrence! In twelve years of driving, I've never learned how to change a tire, so it was a perfect opportunity to learn. I still don't know if I'll know what to do if I get a flat, but at least I'll be less clueless.

It was a great way to kick off September. And speaking of "kick off," how 'bout that game, amirite?

Actually, I don't know. I don't watch football.