Trying my best

As I continue to work on my graduate portfolio while also working full time, I am reducing my expectations for myself. I no longer have to do a chore every weekday, and I no longer have to make dinner every week. The nice thing about making rules for yourself is that no one else cares if you break them.

I had the day off on Monday for Presidents' Day, and it was nice to get some extra relaxation, since my next holiday off is Memorial Day. 

For my run that day, I went down to the Jordan River Parkway. 

At one bridge there was a White Lives Matter sticker, so of course I tore it off.

Doing my part to end white supremacy

These mini snowstorms we have been having have been a bit frustrating. They're bringing us the havoc of slippery roads, but without the benefits of lots of snowfall. Ordinarily, I am super happy for February to end and March to begin. But I'm not feeling that way this year. We need March to act like February so we can get more snow. So if March is cold and snowy, I won't be happy because it will be cold and snowy. But if March is warm and sunny, I won't be happy because we are in dire straits for water.

Sometimes I feel bad that I don't do more to help the environment. But then I realized that if everyone acted the way I do, we would be in great shape. I can't remember the last time I used a plastic bag at the grocery store. I am very frustrated when I go to restaurants or dessert shops with all the single-use plastic. For example, this week I went to Kneaders with some colleagues. I know they usually put a lid on their soup. So I told the cashier, "I'm trying to reduce my plastic consumption, so I don't need a lid on my soup," and he also confirmed that I didn't want a spoon (I brought my own). But when I got my food, it still had a lid and a spoon, even though I specifically asked them not to! But if everyone acted like me, then the owners of restaurants would not give out single-use plastic, so that issue would be solved. (Now don't get me started on bottled water, which is morally bankrupt.) I try my best to do the right thing, so it's hard when my efforts seem so futile because of others' actions. (I have taken to driving without my heater on, since my hybrid car uses less gas when I keep it off.)

On Thursday, I took my parents to the airport so they could visit California, and all the signage to get to the terminal was very confusing. And it didn't help that it was snowy. 

Anyway, that means the last few days have just been me and Reginald in the house. Today marks two months since we put Jimmy down, so almost two months since we got Reggie. He has been very slowly warming up to us. One of the things I have missed about Jimmy is when he would come onto my bed to spend time with me. A few weeks ago, I picked up Reggie and took him to my bed to show him he could go there, but it didn't stick. So this week I tried it again, and it worked! He has been coming onto my bed frequently now. It is so wonderful to have a furry buddy sitting on me, and I love putting my hand or my ear on his body to feel or hear the purring. But so far, Reggie is a little less satisfying than Jimmy, because he is more restless and doesn't sit still for long. I guess that's one difference between old and young cats.

It's hard to get good pictures of him, because often when he sees me taking a picture, he gets up and rubs his head against my phone.

I have about two months before I graduate, and I still have a lot of work to do on my portfolio. So much in my life right now is on hold until I'm done with school. But I can do it!

Mid-February

 I don't really like February.

It sometimes pretends to be spring, but it really is just still winter. Running on the streets in the evening before sunset just feels bleak. I like every month except January and February.

Monday was Valentine's Day, so I didn't require myself to work on my portfolio that day. We got pizza, which has been our tradition since the disastrous Valentine's Day of 2014 (when my mom broke her leg while carrying a pizza downstairs). We watched the Olympics and Sleepless in Seattle. 

Valentine's Day is my least favorite of my nine canonized holidays. I think the holiday peaked when I was in elementary school. And now that my mom is retired, she doesn't come home with all the candy from her students. Last Sunday, I made a cherry crisp with cinnamon candies in the topping to celebrate the day. It was hard to taste the cinnamon, but when I did taste it, I don't think it's worth trying again with more candies. The flavors clashed just a little. (Not as good as the cinnamon crinkle cookies I made two years back.)

I need to sharpen or replace my food processor blade.

On Valentine's Day, my great-uncle Ross died. I didn't really know him that well. I think the last time I talked to him at all was in 2013, and I don't think I ever had a real conversation with him. He sent me a Facebook friend request, but I don't think he ever liked or commented on my posts, and I had to periodically unsubscribe from his posts, since he "shared" too many dumb things. (You know how it is with that demographic.)

Anyway, though I personally am not really affected by his death, I opted to accompany my parents to the funeral in Fillmore yesterday, because he was my grandfather's brother and the last of that generation. I felt a little weird going to a funeral for someone I barely knew. But it was fun to get more insights into my family. For example, my dad's cousin Larry, Ross's nephew, talked about how my grandfather's family wheeled their house into Fillmore during a Fourth of July parade. (I found a reminiscence from my grandfather that says it was the Twenty-Fourth. I'll have to do some more research on this sometime.) Ross's children came up to my parents and were especially eager to talk to my mom, even though he was my dad's uncle. But to me, these are only distant relatives, and I really don't know any of them at all.

Though I didn't work on my portfolio on Valentine's Day, which was planned, I also didn't work on it on Friday or Saturday. I didn't have the time. And I can't afford to take too many days off! I have two months until I defend it! So I have to reevaluate my expectations for myself and figure out what in my life is not as important, so I can focus on things that matter.

Bad dates

 Since my life lately isn't too exciting, I thought for this week's post, in honor of Valentine's Day, I would describe four of my worst dates over the years. I always like hearing about others'  cringeworthy dates, so maybe you'll enjoy hearing about mine.

#1. When I was in college, I had a custodial job, and one of my coworkers was from Mexico. I texted her and asked if she wanted to go to a play. When I picked her up, she said, "So, what game are we going to see?" English wasn't her first language, so she thought "play" was a sporting event! Then when we were waiting for the play to start, she spent the entire time looking at her phone. I think she only talked to me when she took a picture of the program and posted it on Facebook.

#2. My last semester of college, my roommate was dating a girl named Laura, and he suggested that we could do a group date. So Laura arranged for me to go on a blind date with her cousin. For the group date, we met at Laura's apartment and made cake balls. I met her cousin, whose name I honestly don't remember, so I'll call her Brittany. We made our introductions, and after I said I was studying English language/linguistics, Brittany said something like, "It seems like most language people I meet don't care about defending English." She went a prescriptive rant about how important it is to defend the language, even as I and Laura talked about how English has always changed. I remember standing at the stove, melting green mint chips, and thinking, "Ugh, this is just a terrible date." I wasn't interested in Brittany at all, and there we were with my roommate and his girlfriend, as well as Laura's roommate and her boyfriend. 

When the date ended, we arranged that I would take Brittany back to her apartment. So we walked over to my car. Now, I have heard girls say they don't like it when guys open car doors for them, and I wouldn't like that either. So I went to the driver's door and unlocked the car, and Brittany was just standing there. I said to her, "Your door should be unlocked." She said, "OK," and continued to just stand there, even as it was clear I wasn't planning on opening it for her. I thought, "Is this girl for real?" So I leaned over inside the car and opened the door for her, and she got in. (I later told my mom about this, and she said, "If  a guy didn't open my door, it wouldn't be a deal breaker, but the girl acting that way would be a deal breaker.")

The next day at church, Laura said to me, "I'm sorry for how rude Brittany was last night." I don't know if Laura knew about the car door incident, so I asked for clarification, and she said, "Just in general." Then she said that she actually meant to line me up with Brittany's sister, who would have been a better match for me, but then Brittany and her sister decided to send Brittany instead.

#3. Today is actually the anniversary of this date. Some of you readers know this girl, so I will call her Taylor. I picked her up to go to a concert on the U's campus. While I was in the left-turn lane at a light, Taylor was pressuring me to turn left before it turned red. But then I was just out in the intersection when I didn't feel safe to do turn, so I had to go in reverse to get back in the lane and wait for the light.

Then at the concert, Taylor rarely, if ever, clapped, so I could tell she didn't want to be there.

On the way back to her apartment, I was confused why my windows were so unusually foggy, and it was hard to see out of them. I remarked about my windows being so foggy. And only after the date did I realize what was going on. A friend had previously said that Taylor told her you shouldn't have hot air come out the top vent in your car; instead, you should set the heater to just come out down by your feet. So I realized that Taylor had turned down my heater, and turned off the defrost so it would just be on my feet, without telling me. I thought that was weird enough, but it really irked me that she wouldn't admit she had done it when I was complaining about my foggy windows. And clearly, her way was wrong, since it was hard to see out of my windows. I lost a lot of respect for Taylor that night.

#4. This one was actually a second date. On the first date, I mentioned I liked trail running, so for this second date, a June evening, we hiked up a canyon in Centerville. We had pleasant conversations on the way up. At one point, she asked me if I liked to lead when hiking; I think I gave some wishy-washy answer.

At least I saw a cool mushroom on this date!

We hiked to a waterfall, and then we agreed to run down. (She was athletic in high school but not so much in adulthood, so she didn't have the stamina to run up, but could run down.) This trail has a rope swing, so we took some time to swing on it. She got a little annoyed with me that I wasn't pushing her harder on the swing, but since she was spinning around unpredictably, I didn't want to accidentally grope her! 

At one point while we were running down, I stepped off the side of the trail to let someone come up. Once the hiker passed, Janice stepped in front of me to lead in running, without saying anything. I was OK with that, but I thought it was a little weird. But she was faster than me, so I didn't always see her.

At one point, we came to a fork in the trail—and I hadn't seen which way she went. We had come up one way, but that trail was less obvious, so I really didn't know which way to go. I decided to go the way we had come up, but I didn't see her. I called her name, but of course I don't have a loud voice. So then I went back and went on the other trail, but I still didn't see her. She had evidently realized I wasn't behind her, so she went backwards, and we kept missing each other. It was starting to get dark at this point. Eventually I heard her calling my name frantically, and she was relieved to see me. She worried I had fallen off the trail somewhere. 

We really didn't say much the rest of the way down. On the drive home, I asked her if she wanted to go anywhere else. She said only if we got drinks, but she didn't like shaved ice, and I didn't like smoothies, so I just took her home.

***

So, yeah, those are my four worst dates. I suppose I have been on other dates where the girl thought it was a bad date. 

Also, I have had several occasions when the girl cancelled last minute. I get that things come up. But if you don't want to date me, just say no. When they agree to a date and then cancel the same day, it means that I can't make other plans that day, and it just wastes my time.

minutiae

 Since I tested negative for COVID last week, I just resumed my boring life of working in the day and improving my grad portfolio in the evening. I did a couple of short evening runs after work, but since there's still snow on the ground, I'm still avoiding the trails. If it's not going to snow, it might as well just melt all the snow we already have. 

I can't entirely say my life is boring, because I really do enjoy my job. I learn so many interesting things. My supervisors have asked me to reach out to other people in the department to ask for help on finding sources. But I feel so weird doing that. These people are experts in their fields, so they have better things to do than read emails from lowly interns like me! I need to work on not feeling that way. I have been reading letters from Brigham Young, which are available online, and one of them was a response to a man who asked Brigham Young to look for his lost mule. It amazes me that people would, and still do, send random letters to high-ranking people they don't know. It stresses me out to send emails even when I have a legitimate reason to do so!

A few weeks ago, my mom got a notification that an Amazon package had been delivered. But when I went to the door, the package was nowhere to be seen, so she got a refund. (The delivery driver had not taken a picture of the delivery, like they usually do.) Then yesterday, I looked at the decorative barrel in our garden and happened to notice a package sitting on top of it! Since it was grey, it kind of blended in with the snowy atmosphere. I'm trying to figure out why they put it there: it's nowhere near our front door, and it's not even that close to the side door. There's not a clear direction that would lead them to that one spot. So weird.

I'm feeling guilty for a grocery store incident. Last night I bought some beets, and I put them in my reusable produce bag, which is not see-through. Then I picked out some avocados and absentmindedly put them in the same bag. I was going to use the self-checkout, but there was a line, so they opened up a regular till for me. I didn't even pay attention to the cashier weighing my beets, since I was still loading groceries, and I declined a receipt. And then when I got home I realized the beets and avocados were together, and I don't know what they charged me. They might have weighed the costlier avocados with the cheaper beets! I feel so guilty that I might have cheated them! But I didn't do it on purpose. Oh well.

For my Sunday School lesson for the fifteen-year-olds today, I talked about the importance of keeping a book of remembrance. To illustrate, I took a journal, then I asked them to give me a date within the range of the journal (October 2015 to August 2016). I would see what I could remember about the date, then turn to the journal to fill in the gaps. They picked the date of November 21, which was a Saturday, but I didn't remember what else happened that day until I checked out what I wrote in my journal. (It turns out that was the day I went to a play and someone with my same name had already picked up my tickets.) When I had finished the content of my lesson, they were all fascinated that I remembered the day of the week, so then they began pulling out random dates, including their birthdates, to ask what day of the week it was. My method is fairly simple: I just happen to remember the day of the week of various holidays in a particular year, and then I work from that. So in the case of November 21, 2015, I remembered that Halloween was a Saturday, so November 21 was exactly three weeks after that.

I also gave the kids little boxes of conversation hearts, since I had also talked about being "of one heart and one mind." They seemed to appreciate that.

For someone who obsesses over seasonally appropriate foods, it is a great time to be alive, and I think that I actually won't be able to try all the Valentine's offerings from various dessert shops. That is a great problem to have! Such a thing would have been unthinkable ten, fifteen years ago, though I also paid less attention then. Sometimes I wonder, "Are my eating habits sustainable?" But I have been eating this way for at least seven years, so I suppose they are.

Here are two Valentine's flavors from Baskin-Robbins. On the bottom is the classic Love Potion #31, with raspberry-filled hearts, but on the top is the new Secret Admirer, which has rose-flavored ice cream, but it didn't taste like flower to me.