When you have a bishopric calling--and ward clerk is housed under the bishopric--you have long Sundays. Fortunately, my Sundays aren't as long as those of the real bishopric, or even as long as those of the executive secretary.
But today was especially long, which is why it is so late that I am writing this.
Today started out fairly typical. I had to get up to go to bishopric meeting. We discussed the problem our ward will be facing of an enormous turnover and even another possibility of ward changes I'm not yet authorized to speak of. Hopefully they'll be able to get me more assistants. It was our last Sunday with Alex, our executive secretary, who's getting married this week. I've known Alex since I moved into my apartment in winter 2012 and had my basic editing class with him. He and his almost-wife Sariah and I were extras in a library promo this week. It was fun; we got to tear paper and be crazy. I'll have to watch out for when the video comes out.
After bishopric meeting comes ward council. But I had to leave ward council early because I had a financial audit. I've only had this calling for three months, and I don't know finance stuff, so I didn't know what I was doing, and our finance clerk, Trent, was gone. But a few months ago we had problems with our MLS computer system, and when we redownloaded the program it lost a lot of our information that is necessary for the audit. The stake clerk is helping me get it back. But we had to postpone the audit, so I have to do it again next week.
The time between ward council and church is usually pretty relaxing, as it was today. I just hang around the bishop's office, doing some minor clerical work, while it is the bishopric and executive secretary who actually have to do things. Our first counselor, Brother Jensen, has a wife who is extraordinarily nice and always sends food for all of us at church. I always munch on whatever she's brought to tide me over through church.
Then church was pretty normal today. During elders quorum, our activities committee chair asked if we preferred having ward prayer with just our ward or combined with other wards. I called out, "Just our ward." Then the activities guy asked for other opinions, but no one said anything. Our bishop said, "I think that's how our country runs--one loud person gets to decide for everyone else." It was kind of funny.
Because my finance clerk was gone, I had to count tithing today. I haven't done it much, so I'm not very good at it. I'm ward clerk and I'm not good at counting tithing. Oh well.
And then after I was done counting tithing, I went to visit one of my home teachees. I took the first counselor in the elders quorum presidency, because my companion is the above-mentioned Alex, and he had to go somewhere and has other things on his mind. But the end of that home teaching visit was really just the beginning. Our bishopric really wants to make sure home teaching gets done, so they decided that they would go around and visit the people who weren't home taught. The elders quorum president and his first counselor were going out, and since I had free time and I feel bad for the bishopric for spending so much time doing church things, I offered to go too. I went with Brother Jensen, and we made four home teaching visits.
My roommate Jordan and I saw an interesting thing on Friday. We saw what we thought was a weird, big bug, but when we looked closely, we saw that it was actually some kind of winged insect (it looked kind of like a miniature hornet, although I'm not sure what it was) dragging a dead spider across the ground. The spider was twice the size of the insect. But not only did the bug drag it across the ground, it dragged it up the wall! Sometimes I feel like that dead spider during home teaching (or missionary) visits, because I'm just the ugly one who doesn't do or say anything and the other person has to pull my weight. (OK, I don't actually feel like this analogy works. I'm just trying to describe what happened this week in the context of Sunday, and this was the only way I could think of putting in the bug story by describing Sunday.)
On the home teaching visits, I talked about my appreciation of the pioneers, which I blogged about on Wednesday on my day off. That was a good, relaxing day, although the only holiday-ish thing I did was light some sparklers with some people.
Then after a brief interlude, I went to ward prayer, which didn't really happen. Another ward came over to join us, and Jordan told the activities guy in that ward, "Today in elders quorum there was a unanimous vote not to combine with other wards." That surprised the other guy, so he had to clarify that only one person voted. The other guy said, "Who was it? We'll go beat him up." I just smiled knowingly, glad that no one told him who it was. I need to get better about being social and outgoing in my ward (not in other wards), because it would make my clerk job (and just life in general) easier. I went to the Mt. Timpanogos Temple yesterday and thought about that while I was there.
Because it was boring and combined and nothing happened at ward prayer, I went home. Then I accompanied my roommate Jordan to home teach the people across the hall--one of whom is Alex. It was funny to be home teaching my companion.
After that, a girl in my ward named Katria had invited me over for some banana bread before her home teachers came over. On my way over, I saw that someone had destroyed the watermelon jack-o-lanterns Jordan and I made on a double date on Friday, which we had put at the entrance of our complex. I also saw my old horse friend Carissa on my way over. (Speaking of horse friends, this week I watched the first episode of Mister Ed on Hulu. For a show about a talking horse, it's kind of a boring show.) While I was at Katria's apartment, her home teachers came over, and they were two of the guys I had just been home teaching. They invited me to stay and be home taught. But I had enough of home teaching for the day, and I still needed to write this, so I declined and came home.
It was a satisfying Sunday. But I hope next week is calmer.
Sunday, July 28, 2013
Wednesday, July 24, 2013
Whenever I think about pioneers
Growing up, I didn't think much about Pioneer Day. It's not one of the eight holidays I formally celebrate. The time around Pioneer Day just meant fireworks, images of wagons and handcarts, and singing about pioneer children walking and walking and walking and walking and walking.
But recently I've come to realize just how incredible the Mormon pioneers were, and I am lucky enough to have pioneer heritage. I have had the opportunity to work for a scholarly religious journal, which has given me greater appreciation of the pioneers.
Regardless of your opinion of the religion, think of how amazing they are. There's this group of people whose leader is put in jail on false and trumped-up charges, over and over, and ultimately a mob breaks in the jail and kills him. Even after his death, this group of people faces intense hardships. Eventually they have to leave behind everything--their homes, their neighbors, the beautiful temple they worked so hard to build.
(And lest you think they deserved it, as some antagonists tend to believe, I have seen a letter written by non-Mormon government officials in 1844 to anti-Mormon mobs, in which they basically said, "Even if the Mormons are as bad as you say they are, they still aren't as bad as you are.")
Then they had to make their way across the country. But they couldn't fly in a plane, ride on a train, drive a car, or even ride a bicycle. They walked. Day after day, they walked, pushing and pulling handcarts over pebbles and mud and dirt. There were no rest stops, no convenience stores, no hotels. The hard travel meant that many of them had to bury their family members. They couldn't put fancy tombstones on these graves, and they would never come back to visit these graves again.
And then they come to this barren wasteland where the largest body of water is four times saltier than the oceans.
And it was the right place.
They made this little desert blossom as a rose. They made towns and settlements all over the place. Some of them, such as Pariah in southern Utah, didn't last. But lots of them did.
Great Salt Lake City (later dropping the "Great" part). Bountiful. Provo. St. George, named for Apostle George A. Smith. Not only are these places still around today, they're really big!
It baffles me that there are people who live here who want to eradicate Mormons or destroy the LDS Church or think that nothing good ever came out of Mormonism. I can understand not believing or disagreeing with the doctrines, but don't you realize that Mormons are the reason this place even exists?!
I am fascinated by all the places in Utah that still bear significant pioneer influences, where the residents are largely pioneer descendants. My dad is from the small town of Fillmore, UT, which was originally meant to be Utah's capital. The Fillmore cemetery is full of old pioneer graves. It has the grave of Amasa Lyman, who is mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants and who is one of my ancestors. It has graves of the wives of Edward Partridge, who was the first bishop of the Church. Some of the pioneers were members of Zion's Camp, a group that went out with Joseph Smith. My grandparents are buried in this very cemetery, and my parents will be too.
In the very back of the yard that belonged to my grandparents is a tree called a Pottawattamie tree that grows special plums. I can never recall eating any, although I think I remember seeing they were orange. Pottawatamie was the name of a county in Iowa where the Mormons set up a temporary settlement (several years) for people to prepare to cross the plains. When I Google Pottawatamie, I can find plenty about the county in Iowa and about the Indians, but I find hardly anything about the plant. Therefore, this is my hypothesis about the tree: It was named by Mormons who had lived in Pottawatamie. Then when my dad and his family call it a Pottawatamie plant, they are calling it by the pioneer term that has been passed down through generations, not by a name they read in a textbook or a name they heard on TV.
Our Utah accent has a lot of Scottish influences in it from the Scottish pioneers.
Non-Utahns often make fun of us for our use of the word sluff to refer to skipping school. What I learned from my phonetics class this year is that sluff is a Utah term that came from slough, which meant something like discard. Sluff therefore comes from Mormon pioneers from the British Isles.
I think it is so fascinating that more than a century and a half later, we are still influenced greatly by the pioneers, both in large things and small things. Utah's state symbol is the beehive (a manmade beehive, mind you; bees don't make structures like that), a relict from pioneer days, when the place was called Deseret. We still have the Deseret News and Deseret Book. The state's two big universities, the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, were started by pioneers. (Today the U seems to be the one that anti-Mormons prefer--but again, don't they realize it exists because of Mormons?) So many place names are named after places and names in Mormon scriptures: Bountiful, Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, Ephraim, Manti, Goshen, and so on.
Thank you, pioneers.
But recently I've come to realize just how incredible the Mormon pioneers were, and I am lucky enough to have pioneer heritage. I have had the opportunity to work for a scholarly religious journal, which has given me greater appreciation of the pioneers.
Regardless of your opinion of the religion, think of how amazing they are. There's this group of people whose leader is put in jail on false and trumped-up charges, over and over, and ultimately a mob breaks in the jail and kills him. Even after his death, this group of people faces intense hardships. Eventually they have to leave behind everything--their homes, their neighbors, the beautiful temple they worked so hard to build.
(And lest you think they deserved it, as some antagonists tend to believe, I have seen a letter written by non-Mormon government officials in 1844 to anti-Mormon mobs, in which they basically said, "Even if the Mormons are as bad as you say they are, they still aren't as bad as you are.")
Then they had to make their way across the country. But they couldn't fly in a plane, ride on a train, drive a car, or even ride a bicycle. They walked. Day after day, they walked, pushing and pulling handcarts over pebbles and mud and dirt. There were no rest stops, no convenience stores, no hotels. The hard travel meant that many of them had to bury their family members. They couldn't put fancy tombstones on these graves, and they would never come back to visit these graves again.
And then they come to this barren wasteland where the largest body of water is four times saltier than the oceans.
And it was the right place.
They made this little desert blossom as a rose. They made towns and settlements all over the place. Some of them, such as Pariah in southern Utah, didn't last. But lots of them did.
Great Salt Lake City (later dropping the "Great" part). Bountiful. Provo. St. George, named for Apostle George A. Smith. Not only are these places still around today, they're really big!
It baffles me that there are people who live here who want to eradicate Mormons or destroy the LDS Church or think that nothing good ever came out of Mormonism. I can understand not believing or disagreeing with the doctrines, but don't you realize that Mormons are the reason this place even exists?!
I am fascinated by all the places in Utah that still bear significant pioneer influences, where the residents are largely pioneer descendants. My dad is from the small town of Fillmore, UT, which was originally meant to be Utah's capital. The Fillmore cemetery is full of old pioneer graves. It has the grave of Amasa Lyman, who is mentioned in the Doctrine and Covenants and who is one of my ancestors. It has graves of the wives of Edward Partridge, who was the first bishop of the Church. Some of the pioneers were members of Zion's Camp, a group that went out with Joseph Smith. My grandparents are buried in this very cemetery, and my parents will be too.
In the very back of the yard that belonged to my grandparents is a tree called a Pottawattamie tree that grows special plums. I can never recall eating any, although I think I remember seeing they were orange. Pottawatamie was the name of a county in Iowa where the Mormons set up a temporary settlement (several years) for people to prepare to cross the plains. When I Google Pottawatamie, I can find plenty about the county in Iowa and about the Indians, but I find hardly anything about the plant. Therefore, this is my hypothesis about the tree: It was named by Mormons who had lived in Pottawatamie. Then when my dad and his family call it a Pottawatamie plant, they are calling it by the pioneer term that has been passed down through generations, not by a name they read in a textbook or a name they heard on TV.
Our Utah accent has a lot of Scottish influences in it from the Scottish pioneers.
Non-Utahns often make fun of us for our use of the word sluff to refer to skipping school. What I learned from my phonetics class this year is that sluff is a Utah term that came from slough, which meant something like discard. Sluff therefore comes from Mormon pioneers from the British Isles.
I think it is so fascinating that more than a century and a half later, we are still influenced greatly by the pioneers, both in large things and small things. Utah's state symbol is the beehive (a manmade beehive, mind you; bees don't make structures like that), a relict from pioneer days, when the place was called Deseret. We still have the Deseret News and Deseret Book. The state's two big universities, the University of Utah and Brigham Young University, were started by pioneers. (Today the U seems to be the one that anti-Mormons prefer--but again, don't they realize it exists because of Mormons?) So many place names are named after places and names in Mormon scriptures: Bountiful, Nephi, Lehi, Moroni, Ephraim, Manti, Goshen, and so on.
Thank you, pioneers.
Sunday, July 21, 2013
La Terre de Disney
Have you heard the theory some people have that World War I and World War II are really just one enormous war, with a brief peaceful interlude that led to the second part?
Well, I just had Summer Vacation II, but it was really part of one great summer vacation with a week of working thrown in the middle.
On Tuesday I rode with my family back to California to take my nephews back and to go to Disneyland. None of us kids in my family got to go to Disneyland as kids. I got to go two years ago, and my sister went on that trip, as well as a trip when I was on my mission. But my brother hadn't been at all until this trip.
Tuesday we drove the whole day with four kids in the car. Preston was intentionally annoying, asking "Are we there yet?" frequently. He also likes to ask millions of questions. Susanne was being silly with him and wrote love notes to princesses, pretending that he wrote them. She did that to Franklin too, but Franklin is hypersensitive and started crying. Franklin also took up telling bizarre jokes, which I plan on writing about on my other blog. Baby is the happiest, youngest, and best behaved of my nephews, and he was perfect on the car ride.
On Wednesday we went to see the La Brea tar pits. I didn't take any pictures because I don't like my camera and because I'd been there before. This is a place where Miocene-age liquid asphalt seeps up through the ground. They have some of the seeps contained, but some of it is just randomly popping up through the grass. It has been doing this for thousands of years. During the Ice Age, animals would get caught in the "tar," which isn't very deep, but is deep enough for the animals to get stuck. They would die and then get buried, and the process would continue. There are thousands of Ice-Age fossils there, including giant ground sloths, mammoths, dire wolves, short-faced bears, and saber-tooth cats. It's amazing that ten thousand years ago, which isn't really that long ago, there were camels, elephants, and horses roaming around North America! Fossils really are amazing, but I do wish they had spent more time explaining the geology there. They only focus on the fossils, but I wanted to know more about the liquid asphalt and why it's seeping up. I got into geology because of the fossils, but I've learned that there's a lot more interesting things than just fossils.
We were going to go to Grauman's Chinese Theater, but it was really busy. Apparently there were riots there that day. It was a good day not to go.
Thursday was our day at Disneyland. We went to both Disneyland and California Adventure. My brother's family has a friend who works for Pixar, so they were able to get free tickets. There were only three kids who needed to buy tickets. It is really expensive. But Lagoon is very expensive, and Lagoon doesn't even hold a candle to Disneyland. Disneyland is meticulously detailed and very clean. I can't say the same for Lagoon.
Most of the rides we went on were the more kid-friendly ones. Which is fine, but it means I didn't get to go on the more exciting rides. The only really exciting one was California Screamin'. (As a side note only tangentially related, I think this trip has made the Mamas and the Papas a new favorite of mine.) Franklin wanted to go to the haunted house. When we called it the Haunted Mansion, I think he thought we were saying "Haunted Mountain." Once we were inside, he didn't like it and said to me, "I didn't know it was going to be that tary [scary]." But when we got done, Baby said he wanted to do it again.
The boys all wanted the same identical water bottle fan as the souvenir my mom got them. Since I act like a child, my mom got me a souvenir as well, a Nightmare Before Christmas t-shirt. I like it because most Nightmare shirts are marketed to the goth/emo demographic, but this shirt is a reminder that The Nightmare Before Christmas is not a marketing gimmick but is actually a movie, a very clever movie. (The worst example of Jack Skellington marketing I've seen was a shirt that had four ordinary skeletons (no clothes, normal anatomy) playing musical instruments, and each skeleton had Jack's head. It didn't even make sense!)
Then Friday we said goodbye to Preston, Franklin, and Nathaniel and drove back to Utah.
Then yesterday my parents bought me things in preparation for my field studies class next month.
And hopefully my air conditioning will be fixed tomorrow, right in time for the hottest time of the year.
Well, I just had Summer Vacation II, but it was really part of one great summer vacation with a week of working thrown in the middle.
On Tuesday I rode with my family back to California to take my nephews back and to go to Disneyland. None of us kids in my family got to go to Disneyland as kids. I got to go two years ago, and my sister went on that trip, as well as a trip when I was on my mission. But my brother hadn't been at all until this trip.
Tuesday we drove the whole day with four kids in the car. Preston was intentionally annoying, asking "Are we there yet?" frequently. He also likes to ask millions of questions. Susanne was being silly with him and wrote love notes to princesses, pretending that he wrote them. She did that to Franklin too, but Franklin is hypersensitive and started crying. Franklin also took up telling bizarre jokes, which I plan on writing about on my other blog. Baby is the happiest, youngest, and best behaved of my nephews, and he was perfect on the car ride.
On Wednesday we went to see the La Brea tar pits. I didn't take any pictures because I don't like my camera and because I'd been there before. This is a place where Miocene-age liquid asphalt seeps up through the ground. They have some of the seeps contained, but some of it is just randomly popping up through the grass. It has been doing this for thousands of years. During the Ice Age, animals would get caught in the "tar," which isn't very deep, but is deep enough for the animals to get stuck. They would die and then get buried, and the process would continue. There are thousands of Ice-Age fossils there, including giant ground sloths, mammoths, dire wolves, short-faced bears, and saber-tooth cats. It's amazing that ten thousand years ago, which isn't really that long ago, there were camels, elephants, and horses roaming around North America! Fossils really are amazing, but I do wish they had spent more time explaining the geology there. They only focus on the fossils, but I wanted to know more about the liquid asphalt and why it's seeping up. I got into geology because of the fossils, but I've learned that there's a lot more interesting things than just fossils.
We were going to go to Grauman's Chinese Theater, but it was really busy. Apparently there were riots there that day. It was a good day not to go.
Thursday was our day at Disneyland. We went to both Disneyland and California Adventure. My brother's family has a friend who works for Pixar, so they were able to get free tickets. There were only three kids who needed to buy tickets. It is really expensive. But Lagoon is very expensive, and Lagoon doesn't even hold a candle to Disneyland. Disneyland is meticulously detailed and very clean. I can't say the same for Lagoon.
Most of the rides we went on were the more kid-friendly ones. Which is fine, but it means I didn't get to go on the more exciting rides. The only really exciting one was California Screamin'. (As a side note only tangentially related, I think this trip has made the Mamas and the Papas a new favorite of mine.) Franklin wanted to go to the haunted house. When we called it the Haunted Mansion, I think he thought we were saying "Haunted Mountain." Once we were inside, he didn't like it and said to me, "I didn't know it was going to be that tary [scary]." But when we got done, Baby said he wanted to do it again.
The boys all wanted the same identical water bottle fan as the souvenir my mom got them. Since I act like a child, my mom got me a souvenir as well, a Nightmare Before Christmas t-shirt. I like it because most Nightmare shirts are marketed to the goth/emo demographic, but this shirt is a reminder that The Nightmare Before Christmas is not a marketing gimmick but is actually a movie, a very clever movie. (The worst example of Jack Skellington marketing I've seen was a shirt that had four ordinary skeletons (no clothes, normal anatomy) playing musical instruments, and each skeleton had Jack's head. It didn't even make sense!)
Then Friday we said goodbye to Preston, Franklin, and Nathaniel and drove back to Utah.
Then yesterday my parents bought me things in preparation for my field studies class next month.
And hopefully my air conditioning will be fixed tomorrow, right in time for the hottest time of the year.
Sunday, July 14, 2013
The Hadean Eon
Remember two years ago when my air conditioning went out and I had a hot apartment for six weeks?
Well, my air conditioning has gone out again. It's only been a week this time, but it's still not fixed. Sometimes it's warmer inside than it is outside. That's all fine and dandy during the winter, but not during July.
I would much rather have the heat go out. If the heat goes out, you can have multiple blankets and multiple jackets and cook lots of warm things on the stove and consume lots of soup and hot chocolate. But when the heat goes out, all you can do is put a fan in the window and maybe eat some popsicles. But I don't have any popsicles at the moment, and I don't think they help that much anyway. Now I've had the AC go out twice, but never have I had the heat go out.
When this happened two years ago, I was the only one in the apartment, and someone below me invited me to sleep in their extra bed. But this time, there are two of us, and no one has invited us to their apartments. (My roommate Bryton moved out this week to go to Mexico. New people are moving in at the end of the month.) I have been trying to cope with open windows, fans, and sleeping in as few clothes as possible.
I suppose it could be a lot worse. I could be living in Arizona or Texas or, heaven forbid, Death Valley and have my AC go out. I could be someplace where I can't just go on campus to escape the heat. I guess a broken AC is really a first-world problem.
Plus, I have had some relief. It was rainy on Thursday and Friday. I went running Wednesday and Thursday because I wanted to be outside, where it was cooler. On Friday I spent the night at home, where I spent most of Saturday.
Friday night I drove up to West Jordan. First I went to Target. There is a CD called Frankenweenie Unleashed that consists of songs inspired by the movie, and if I am counting the movie as a Halloween movie, then the CD would therefore be a Halloween CD. I learned that Target had an exclusive version with two extra songs, so if I were to get it, that would be the version to have, since it both is a physical CD and has bonus tracks. (Amazon and iTunes have bonus tracks, but those are only MP3s.) After looking for this Target-exclusive CD at the Targets in Centerville, Salt Lake, American Fork, and Orem, I thought West Jordan would be the last place that could possibly have it--and I was pleasantly surprised to see they did! This was a dumb paragraph. I would delete it, but I spent too much time writing it.
Then I went to my aunt's house because she was giving away rocks. I got a pretty green quartzite and a rock that looks like an intermediate form between phyllite and schist. My cousin's two-year-old "Wallace" was there. When I showed up, he said, "Where Aunt Ann go?" since the only times he has ever seen me have been around my mom. I'm pretty sure he has the cutest voice any kid has ever had--really high, kind of quiet, and maybe even a little breathy. At one point when I was carrying the phyllite, he said to me, "Put it there." So I put it down and he said, "Thank you Mark." Then we went to Macaroni Grill for the birthday of my cousin-in-law Lisa. I think that a meal that is more than $10 is highway robbery.
Saturday I spent with my nephews. The one who needs most supervising is "Baby." He is so adorable that I want to kidnap him and protect him from his brothers' bullying. I supervised games of Candy Land between my niece Allie and my nephews Franklin, Baby, and Preston. Baby didn't really play--he had more fun climbing a vanity--but that's the nature of Candy Land: It doesn't matter who actually is playing, since there is zero skill involved. I had to do some careful observing. Franklin would sarcastically tease Allie, so she would playfully hit him. She apparently doesn't understand that you can't do that with Franklin. Franklin has a chip on his shoulder, and he believes that anything done to him is done with malicious intent. If I hadn't been there to supervise, I think Franklin would have beat Allie up. Preston loved picking apricots, so much that he picked some green ones. We were swinging in the backyard. Baby walked right in the path of Preston's swing and got knocked over. He was fine, but he didn't think he was at first. I thought he knew better than to walk in front of swings.
It was also a family party. While everyone else ate non-seasonal cookies and pie, I ate Otter Pops. In two months from tomorrow, I can start eating Halloween desserts. But I need to remember that that's still a long way away.
But as long as my apartment feels like the Hadean, all I want is popsicles anyway.
Then today I had my typical church meetings. I had to do some filling in for the executive secretary, who is out of town. I nearly had to count tithing, but then my assistant finance clerk showed up just in time. I really appreciate both of my assistants, so I hope they don't steal them away to other callings (but one's moving out anyway).
And now I am writing this blog, with my back all sweaty.
Well, my air conditioning has gone out again. It's only been a week this time, but it's still not fixed. Sometimes it's warmer inside than it is outside. That's all fine and dandy during the winter, but not during July.
I would much rather have the heat go out. If the heat goes out, you can have multiple blankets and multiple jackets and cook lots of warm things on the stove and consume lots of soup and hot chocolate. But when the heat goes out, all you can do is put a fan in the window and maybe eat some popsicles. But I don't have any popsicles at the moment, and I don't think they help that much anyway. Now I've had the AC go out twice, but never have I had the heat go out.
When this happened two years ago, I was the only one in the apartment, and someone below me invited me to sleep in their extra bed. But this time, there are two of us, and no one has invited us to their apartments. (My roommate Bryton moved out this week to go to Mexico. New people are moving in at the end of the month.) I have been trying to cope with open windows, fans, and sleeping in as few clothes as possible.
I suppose it could be a lot worse. I could be living in Arizona or Texas or, heaven forbid, Death Valley and have my AC go out. I could be someplace where I can't just go on campus to escape the heat. I guess a broken AC is really a first-world problem.
Plus, I have had some relief. It was rainy on Thursday and Friday. I went running Wednesday and Thursday because I wanted to be outside, where it was cooler. On Friday I spent the night at home, where I spent most of Saturday.
Friday night I drove up to West Jordan. First I went to Target. There is a CD called Frankenweenie Unleashed that consists of songs inspired by the movie, and if I am counting the movie as a Halloween movie, then the CD would therefore be a Halloween CD. I learned that Target had an exclusive version with two extra songs, so if I were to get it, that would be the version to have, since it both is a physical CD and has bonus tracks. (Amazon and iTunes have bonus tracks, but those are only MP3s.) After looking for this Target-exclusive CD at the Targets in Centerville, Salt Lake, American Fork, and Orem, I thought West Jordan would be the last place that could possibly have it--and I was pleasantly surprised to see they did! This was a dumb paragraph. I would delete it, but I spent too much time writing it.
Then I went to my aunt's house because she was giving away rocks. I got a pretty green quartzite and a rock that looks like an intermediate form between phyllite and schist. My cousin's two-year-old "Wallace" was there. When I showed up, he said, "Where Aunt Ann go?" since the only times he has ever seen me have been around my mom. I'm pretty sure he has the cutest voice any kid has ever had--really high, kind of quiet, and maybe even a little breathy. At one point when I was carrying the phyllite, he said to me, "Put it there." So I put it down and he said, "Thank you Mark." Then we went to Macaroni Grill for the birthday of my cousin-in-law Lisa. I think that a meal that is more than $10 is highway robbery.
Saturday I spent with my nephews. The one who needs most supervising is "Baby." He is so adorable that I want to kidnap him and protect him from his brothers' bullying. I supervised games of Candy Land between my niece Allie and my nephews Franklin, Baby, and Preston. Baby didn't really play--he had more fun climbing a vanity--but that's the nature of Candy Land: It doesn't matter who actually is playing, since there is zero skill involved. I had to do some careful observing. Franklin would sarcastically tease Allie, so she would playfully hit him. She apparently doesn't understand that you can't do that with Franklin. Franklin has a chip on his shoulder, and he believes that anything done to him is done with malicious intent. If I hadn't been there to supervise, I think Franklin would have beat Allie up. Preston loved picking apricots, so much that he picked some green ones. We were swinging in the backyard. Baby walked right in the path of Preston's swing and got knocked over. He was fine, but he didn't think he was at first. I thought he knew better than to walk in front of swings.
It was also a family party. While everyone else ate non-seasonal cookies and pie, I ate Otter Pops. In two months from tomorrow, I can start eating Halloween desserts. But I need to remember that that's still a long way away.
But as long as my apartment feels like the Hadean, all I want is popsicles anyway.
Then today I had my typical church meetings. I had to do some filling in for the executive secretary, who is out of town. I nearly had to count tithing, but then my assistant finance clerk showed up just in time. I really appreciate both of my assistants, so I hope they don't steal them away to other callings (but one's moving out anyway).
And now I am writing this blog, with my back all sweaty.
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Just checking in
I'm just making this post because I don't want to miss a Sunday. Technically Sunday is over, but I'll count it. I got home late to Provo because I was visiting my visiting nephews.
I don't get to see my nephews much, since they live in California, although I see them more now that they don't live in Nashville. I have three: Preston, the cynical eight-year-old; Franklin, the adorable, shy five-year-old who sometimes gets possessed by the devil; and Nathaniel ("Baby"), the consonantless three-year-old who's as cute as can be.
For the past week and a half I've been on vacation with my parents. I spent a night in the hellish wasteland of Mesquite, NV; went to King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks; went to my brother's house in Richmond, CA; got a headache after a ride at Six Flags and was sick with a sore throat the remainder of the trip; watched multiple firework shows from a distance (and therefore missed the familiar booms and smoke smells of the Fourth of July); drove more than half a day with my nephews; and had Peppermint Patty invite herself and others to our house while we were still unloading the car and hadn't even been able to sit down and rest--literally. Will I go into more details on all these events? I don't know.
Some of it may depend on how soon I get better--because if I'm healthy I'll be spending less time on my computer.
I don't get to see my nephews much, since they live in California, although I see them more now that they don't live in Nashville. I have three: Preston, the cynical eight-year-old; Franklin, the adorable, shy five-year-old who sometimes gets possessed by the devil; and Nathaniel ("Baby"), the consonantless three-year-old who's as cute as can be.
For the past week and a half I've been on vacation with my parents. I spent a night in the hellish wasteland of Mesquite, NV; went to King's Canyon and Sequoia National Parks; went to my brother's house in Richmond, CA; got a headache after a ride at Six Flags and was sick with a sore throat the remainder of the trip; watched multiple firework shows from a distance (and therefore missed the familiar booms and smoke smells of the Fourth of July); drove more than half a day with my nephews; and had Peppermint Patty invite herself and others to our house while we were still unloading the car and hadn't even been able to sit down and rest--literally. Will I go into more details on all these events? I don't know.
Some of it may depend on how soon I get better--because if I'm healthy I'll be spending less time on my computer.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)