Ash Valentine's Day

Of the nine holidays I formally celebrate, Valentine's Day is my least favorite. But that doesn't mean I don't like it. This was an enjoyable week.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a very physical week. The weather was indecisive, and I had some minor problems with my knee and my calf. But I did get to explore parts of a trail near Ensign Peak. It kind of disappeared on a ridge near City Creek Canyon. I wasn't impressed.

After the snow melts, I find all sorts of deer body parts. I also found part of a leg that still had fur and a hoof on it, but I didn't take a picture.

On Valentine's Day, I went out doing errands, including stopping at Winegars grocery store, which is closing. It's been there my whole life, so I'm a little sad. But I can't really say I'm surprised. In 2009 I noticed they had gone downhill, and I can't say they've improved since then. I often prefer going to the new Smith's, Dick's, and Lee's MarketPlace because they're all nicer stores. I saw a random comment on Facebook with a rumor of what the store would become. I find the rumor unlikely, so I won't spread it here--but if it's true, I will be very excited.

Valentine's Day was pretty low-key. I cleaned the kitchen while playing my Valentine's playlist on repeat (it only has sixteen songs). My family had pizza in honor of four years ago, when my mom broke her leg while carrying pizza, and we just watched the Olympics. Some friends dropped off a Valentine card signed by a bunch of friends. It was very thoughtful. Thank you!

Valentine's Day was also Ash Wednesday. I decided to count calories for Lent. You might recall that I counted calories from July 2016 to July 2017, and I gained weight over Christmas and California, so I'm counting again. But forty days is a lot easier/less daunting than a year.

I had several strange, spooky dreams, though I wouldn't necessarily call them nightmares. In the first, I was going up North Canyon, and at the trailhead (at the end of the dirt road), there was a building where I had a job interview. Once I had finished my interview and eaten lunch, I ran up the canyon, wondering if I would catch up with people from my ward who had just walked up. But before I got to Rudy's Flat, I found that a new resort building had been erected there. (There was also a pile of snow with bear tracks in it.) I went in the resort, and even though it was new, it seemed rather old, like the building at the bottom of the trail. But there was a scary clown that lived in mirrors and stalked people. My mind more-or-less consciously created characteristics of this clown. He could travel outside of mirrors, but only for a maximum of thirty minutes. The longer he was out of the mirror, the weaker he would get, and as he got weaker, he would turn into an octopus. He could travel from mirror to mirror, but he could only travel to the next-closest mirror. If you broke a mirror, it just meant there were lots of tiny, jagged mirrors he could travel through. He could also travel to shiny metal, such as handles, but not to reflections in clear windows. He began chasing me (via mirrors) throughout the resort, and even as I ran back down the canyon. (There was a wasp stinging me in there somewhere.)

In the second strange dream, there was a stream that flowed through our backyard. There had recently been a murder, and bones from the victim were carried by the stream. I took some of the smaller bones out, but then I realized I shouldn't do that, because they might test for DNA and I might be a suspect. So when I saw the skull and torso (ribs and backbone) in the stream, I decided to leave them there. I left and came back, and the stream had turned to a mudslide, and the skull and torso were no longer visible. I didn't know if they were buried or if they floated away, but I realized I couldn't leave any more bones in the stream. There were some fires under the mud, and a friend started playing with one, and it turned out the pelvis was on fire. I was deciding whether I should use a stick to fish it out of the stream of flow.

In the third dream, I was stuck at Smith's Marketplace, which was on lockdown because there was a shooter or bomber on the loose. (Isn't it sad I would have dreams like that? I wrote a relevant post five years ago--it's a little dated, but I still mostly agree with it.) The police eventually decided that it was late enough at night that it would be better for us to leave and go home, rather than all be together in one location. But we still had to make our way home with the shooter on the loose. I was with my parents, and after we had driven a little, they decided that the oil in the car was too old, so we couldn't drive it. So we began slowly walking home, and my niece, my aunt, and my grandparents all joined in at some point. At one point I was driving them all on a little kiddie trike, but it was still super slow. I learned that the shooter was a neighborhood kid at Orchard Elementary, and I was worried because we were still going so slow, and to go home we would have to go closer to the volatile zone.

Yesterday, my friend Susan and I went to southern Utah so I could get some more counties off my bucket list for this year: Beaver, Iron, and Washington. We went to the Cedar City Temple, which had a grayish-blue and rust-colored motif.

Cedar City has a great view.

 We also went to the St. George Dinosaur Discovery Site, where a major dinosaur trackway was discovered during construction in 2000. I remember 2000 pretty well! It's amazing that such big finds are still happening in my lifetime. It was fascinating to see all the tracks, especially the skin impressions. But I'm not a paleontologist, so I can't see all the tracks and marks they do.

Sometimes it can be challenging to work on my computer, because my cat will come up needing some love. Today he sat on my laptop. I was listening to music, yet he somehow got more music playing at the same time. Then he turned the volume full blast, and he got a look on his face like, "What is that noise? What's going on?!" Then he muted it and walked away. 😆