What kind of person am I? Actually, I'd rather talk about vegetables.

I had a lot of weird dreams this week. In one I was on a date with Aunt Bee from The Andy Griffith Show and we had to push handcarts when our transportation went out. (It was not a good date, as she became furious when she thought I had given her a nostalgic ring out of selfish motives.) In another, I was part of a mass shooting--and then the next day a mass shooting actually happened in Kansas. (What is our world coming to?!) And in another, a guy had brought his girlfriend to church, and while reading scriptures out loud during Sunday School, he looked at her and began reading them very romantically, and we were all disgusted.

Anyway, sometimes these dreams wake me up, and sometimes I am left awake thinking about random things in the middle of the night. Oh, these usually aren't very important or heavy topics, but I think about them. And this week I was thinking about all the different kinds of people there are, and I was wondering what kind of person I am.

I tend to think of myself as extremely abnormal, like there is no one else like me. But this week I went to a work meeting where someone was wearing the exact same shirt I was, and later that day I met someone who shares my enthusiasm for Thanksgiving music. (I was able to recommend a few songs to her.) But if I'm not so unique, what category of person do I fit into?

***
This was the beginning of a post in which I described various different kinds of people--nerds, hipsters, hippies, bros, etc. I started it before church, and I was going to finish it later. However, I decided that doing so would be judgmental and simultaneously self-debasing and self-aggrandizing.

Since I have nothing else to talk about, I want to praise vegetables! But not just vegetables in general. I firmly believe that vegetables are better when they are cooked. (Despite what others say, I think they're healthier when cooked as well.)

First off, I don't like salads. Now, lettuce and other things are not better when cooked, but many salad vegetables (most notably onions) are better when cooked. And if the vegetables are fine, then very often I dislike the dressing--especially if there's a lot of it. And then, if the vegetables and the dressing are fine, there is often cheese added that makes it gross. I don't understand how people can bear to get foul-smelling feta near enough their nose to eat it. I can't stand it. I also don't like parmesan and have to fish it out if I happen to have a salad with it in it.

Salads aren't my thing. However, since I started cooking from a vegetarian cookbook last fall, I've really come to appreciate veggies.

Take celery, for example. I always thought that the only thing celery was good for was as a means to eat peanut butter. But recently I made a creamy celery soup. I didn't expect much of it. However, it was actually quite tasty. I didn't know that celery could impart such a nice flavor.

I went to an event that had veggie trays this week, and they included raw cauliflower and broccoli. I found those vegetables gross. Yet I have loved making stir-fried broccoli and broccoli-cauliflower soup.

And on Friday, I went to a restaurant, and I ate a portion of a cooked onion. I actually found myself craving more after I had finished. Yet when I go to Subway, I ask them to skip the onion, because I hate raw onions. They just make my mouth feel gross all day, and they don't even taste good. But they're wonderful when cooked.

I have also enjoyed vegetables that we don't often use as much, such as shallots and chard. I hope to be able to experiment with even more kinds of vegetables.

And lest you think I'm a health nut who will judge you for not eating healthy, I won't. (Well, I might judge you for guzzling soda every day.) I mean, yesterday I went to Arby's, and I still eat plenty of candy. (Seasonal, of course.) This is just my personal experience. My mom recently had surgery, so some people gave her a bunch of frozen meals that were largely meat based. I found them gross, whereas in the past I wouldn't have found them bad.

So eat your veggies. As long as they're cooked first.

Don't Kiss Me, I'm Only 29 Percent Irish.

Now that Valentine's Day is over, I've been trying to get into the St. Patrick's Day mood--eating Lucky Charms, listening to Irish music, reading Irish fairy tales, wearing shamrock socks and pajamas, and making brain-shaped Irish soda bread:

Last year I said the following:

I keep flip-flopping between whether St. Patrick's Day or Valentine's Day is my least favorite holiday (at least of the holidays I formally celebrate). Currently Valentine's Day is my least favorite. St. Patrick's Day is funner, and green is better than pink, but it is a rather pointless holiday, especially since I'm not Irish. I have a few Irish drops in the genealogical bucket, but I'm overwhelmingly of English and Scottish descent.

I still agree with that assessment of the holiday. Additionally, mint and pistachio are better flavors than red velvet and strawberry, and leprechauns are more whimsical than cupids.

However, it turns out that my genealogical assessment might not be quite right.

I had come to believe that most of my ancestors were British in part because of Roots Mapper, an awesome website where, if you have a FamilySearch account, you can see where your ancestors lived. I have tons in the UK, but very few in Ireland. There are a few in France and Germany.

Well, in January I decided to have my DNA tested through Ancestry.com. I ordered a little kit (normally $100, but it was on sale for $80), spit in a little tube, and sent it back to be analyzed. I expected to be something like 80 percent British.

I got my results back this week, and it wasn't what I expected. I'm 99 percent European--no shocker there. However, the breakdown was a little more surprising:

• I'm 52 percent Western Europe--France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, etc. I knew I'd have some, but I didn't expect that much.
• I'm 29 percent Irish. I definitely wasn't expecting that. Maybe it explains the red that shows up when I grow out my sideburns. Makes me feel a little less silly celebrating March 17.
• I'm only 11 percent British. That really surprised me. I mean, my last name comes from a Scottish ancestor, and most of the others I knew about were from England or Scotland. I really thought there would be more than this.
• Then there are some trace regions. I'm 3 percent Iberian. And speaking of Iberian, here's a linguistic question that's puzzled me. Portuguese seems to be an intermediate form between Spanish and French, yet geographically, Spain is between Portugal and France. Shouldn't Spanish be the intermediate form? Maybe it has something to do with the Arabic influence. I don't know.
• I'm 3 percent Scandinavian. I find this one interesting. I have lots of Mormon pioneer ancestors, and there were lots of Scandinavian pioneers. Central Utah had lots of Danes, and there are an abundance of Christensens, Hansens, Andersens, etc. But not in my family. I don't even think any of my pioneer ancestors were Scandinavian. The only Scandinavians I know of, Matteson, are from my non-pioneer line.
• It tells me I'm less than 1 percent Italian/Greek and less than 1 percent Melanesian. I can buy the Italian, but the Melanesian is probably just a genetic coincidence.

There are some considerations to take into account:

• I know that their methodology isn't perfect. But I'm neither a geneticist nor a biologist. I studied words and rocks, not DNA. Therefore, I don't understand all of their methodology and can't know how accurate it is.
• While I have 52 percent Western Europe, a typical native of Western Europe only has 48 percent. So I'm more Western European than the Western Europeans--even though I've never even been to Europe.
• I don't really know anything about my biological maternal grandfather, because he was a terrible person. (I'll take my adoptive grandpa, thank you.) However, I have been able to trace one line through him back to Austria and Germany.
• Ireland, Britain, and France (and other Western European countries) are really largely connected--so the representative DNA from one place might more accurately be from another.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting.

But regardless of my DNA, culturally I'm 100 percent American. MURICA!

Happy Valentine's Day

I was going to say that this was the first time I blogged on Valentine's Day, since it's the first time Valentine's Day has been on a Sunday since 2010, and I didn't start blogging until May 2011. But then I realized that I blogged about my mom's accident two years ago. It's been a better Valentine's Day than that one, but not as fun as last year.

Valentine's Day is my least favorite of the eight or nine holidays I formally celebrate. Now that I'm not in elementary school, there are no class parties, no homemade valentine receptacles, no card exchanges. But let's face it, those were really about the candy, not the valentines. I was always annoyed with people who only gave little cards with no candy. But the beauty is that my mom is a schoolteacher, so we get the benefit of getting valentine candy!

The problem with Valentine's Day is that no one's actually sure what it's about. Some people think it's a day for romance, but do we really want kindergarteners thinking about romance? People say, "It's about having a significant other, so I don't celebrate it." Some say, "It's about loving your friends and family." Some even say it's about loving yourself. For me, it's about loving candy--although I'm getting better at not gorging myself on sugar.

Chaucer said it was the day "whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make," but there's some debate about whether his "seynt Volantynys day" was in February or May. It must have been May, because I certainly didn't see any bryds chesing their makes today, but then again I don't live in England.

(I wish I had taken Middle English. Oh, wait, I took geomorphology instead. Never mind.)

Most of you probably saw that my grandparents' story was featured on the Mormon history blog Keepapitchinin. That was an exciting development, and it happened all because of me! I'm not sure at this point I'm at liberty to say how on the internet, but you can ask me in person, or I might tell you online in June or so. It comes through my connection with Mormon history. (I got a shout-out on the blog comments!) History was generally my worst subject, so I'm surprised that it's now my profession, at least for a time. What's even more surprising is that I'm loving it!

Speaking of my grandparents, last night I had a dream that they were adopting a navy blue cat. I wanted to come up with a sky name for it, so I thought of Midnight, which seemed like a cliché, and then I thought of Twilight, but that's like the books, and then I thought of Dawn. Then I learned that the name given it by the shelter was Don-Don, so I thought Dawn was perfect. Then I woke up and was disappointed to realize that blue cats don't exist.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Weird feelings

I have some strange feelings right now. I don't know how to describe them but strange. And probably a little depressing. (I don't feel depressed, however.)

First, there's February. At least January's over, but February's not much better. Well, good thing February only has 28 days. Oh, wait...

Today my bishopric got released. At first I was thinking that I hadn't had them for a super long time--and then I remembered that I've been up here for half the time they were in the bishopric. If you recall, my bishop is President Eyring's son. I'm sad that we will no longer hear from President Eyring at Christmas and other times anymore. He actually came today, and they asked him to speak at the end. At the pulpit there's a sign that says "Please state your name" for fast Sundays, so he got up and said, "The sign says 'Please state your name.' My name is Hal Eyring." I'm a little sad, yet not as sad as I could be. Sad because unlike a conventional ward, he's not in the ward anymore, so I'm not going to see him on a regular basis. Not so sad because it's not like he's moving away or anything. I mean, I'll still run past his house on my street-running route. However, I was glad that when we sang "Each Life That Touches Ours for Good" at the end, we only sang one verse, because it would have made it harder to make it through the song.


I suspect that our ward will see a drop in attendance, as our outgoing bishop is probably the warmest, least judgmental bishop I've ever known. There are people who don't actually live in our ward boundaries who come, and people who are close to becoming too old, and I can see this becoming a turning point for them. It will be sad. But there was a lot of talk about the new bishopric having big shoes to fill, and President Eyring said they'll be able to do what the outgoing bishopric did and more, because they're not filling shoes but filling a place.

I know it's silly to feel weird after a dream, as it's a fantasy that exists only in your brain, but it happens. Last night I dreamed that I moved back to Provo; I moved in with my old roommate Jordan, but we each had private rooms. It's weird to me that I moved from Provo a year and a half ago. Two years ago, I was in my final semester of college. On my mission two years seemed like a while, but two years isn't very long at all. Well, it is and it isn't. Facebook tells me that two years ago, I responded to a "What character are you?" fad by making a snarky image. That was two years ago!?

Anyway, sometimes I miss Provo. It has its goods and its bads, like anywhere. I think I found myself in Provo. But I'm still at a point where I don't know where life will take me. My job has been extended through May, but I don't know what will happen to me after that, whether or not they will extend it again. But I don't really mind this temporary gig. In May I will have four years of experience with scholarly publishing, so these extra months will help give me experience.

Yesterday I was looking through the garage, finding things to get rid of. I found a box full of stuffed animals and other things. I don't consider myself a hoarder, but I do have a hard time getting rid of things because I can be very sentimental and remember backstories for most items--even if the backstory is meaningless. You probably saw me post the picture of the t-shirt that had a three-year-old me on it.

You can bet I didn't get rid of that, or most of the other things in the box. However, I did get rid of a bear that once belonged to my brother; I took it to DI. There were two things in the box that were in such bad condition that I couldn't even donate. One was a pink bunny that at one time could wiggle its ears and nose and play "Easter Parade." Now it's too dirty and broken to keep. The other was a toy lamb that had a music box inside that played Brahms's Lullaby. It was all dirty and had a missing ear. I threw the lamb and the bunny away. But I remember playing with them as a very young child, so I'm a little sad to get rid of them, even though they're junk.

Thanks for reading through my ramblings today. I try to find positive things about whatever time of the year it is, but it is a little hard to be positive about this time of the year.