The fresh'ning breeze and the clear, blue sky

My leisurely work days have come to an end. Not only do I have real work to do at work, I've hit that time of year when I need to bring work home with me. It's only going to get worse from here. But I'm trying to remain optimistic and enjoy living in the moment.

I'm hoping I'll be able to work from home some this week. Well, I'm officially supposed to be off Thursday and Friday because of the best holiday of the year, but I wouldn't be surprised if I work from home on Friday and Saturday. But I'm hoping the forecasted snow will enable me to work from home other days as well. (Some people get to decide whether we work from home when it snows, but they don't always do their job.)

I had to take advantage of the opportunity to do one last trail run before the snow sticks around and before work gets obnoxiously hectic. There are trails above Wild Rose that I don't often do because they are very steep, and there are many intersecting trails and I don't know where they all go. So yesterday I wanted to see where one of them went. It was a lovely, but chilly, day.

The trail was a dead end overlooking City Creek Canyon, so I don't need to go on that exact path again, but I'm glad to know where it goes.

We don't have any Druids in Utah, so I know this is not a Druid ritual.

I also went to another side trail, but it was not a dead end. I will have to see where it goes some other time. But I don't think it's an official trail, and I often feel bad contributing to unofficial trails. I've been using Wild Rose for five years now, and it amazes me how much the trail has widened and unofficial trails now look official.

It's fun to see the Depression-era ridges that were put up to prevent erosion from overgrazing.

I wore gloves to keep my hands warm, because they are the first thing to get cold. (When I see runners wearing pants and jackets but no gloves, I think, "You're doing it wrong!") But I used my gloves to hold my water bottle and to wipe my sweat, so they got wet, and I didn't know which was colder, no gloves or wet gloves. I haven't had wet gloves before?

At one point during my run, I had "Eggbert the Easter Egg" stuck in my head, so I had to replace it with "Guffy the Goofy Gobbler" and "Little Johnny Pilgrim."

This is one of my favorite weeks of the year. I just hope it will still be my favorite now that work is picking up.

***
That was the blog post I wrote before church. I was delighted when I showed up at church and we sang "Father, Thy Children to Thee Now Raise," which is the least sung of the five Thanksgiving songs in our hymnal (91–95). I'm a big fan of Thanksgiving music. My mom tells me this is one of the first hymns her family learned around the time they were baptized on Guam in November 1966. I was thinking about their legacy of faith as I was singing it. (I snapped a picture of the hymnbook, but then I remembered that you're not supposed to take pictures in the chapel, so I'm not putting it here.)

But thinking about a legacy didn't stop there. In the previous edition of the hymnal, the one my mom learned from, there was an additional verse to this song:
Thankful to thee that a pilgrim band
Brought us to dwell in this favored land,
Led o'er the deserts and plains by thee, 
Here to a land of true liberty;
Thankful to thee for the mountains high,
The fresh'ning breeze and the clear, blue sky;
And for the fields covered o'er with corn,
Which now our loved mountain vales adorn.

A decade ago, when I learned about the "pilgrim band" lyric, I recognized that it was talking about Utah pioneers, but I supposed that Evan Stephens chose the term "pilgrim" to connect it to Thanksgiving. Now I'm not so sure. I'm not sure when he wrote this song, but during Stephens's lifetime, it was indeed popular to compare pioneers to the Pilgrims. But Pilgrims were just starting to be associated with Thanksgiving during his time, so I'm really not sure. Regardless, the verse got me thinking about the heritage of both the pioneers and the Pilgrims, who did hard things for their values, and that's why I am where I am today.

I also taught an elders quorum lesson today, and I went on a tangent about how we use the term "stripling warriors," even though the scriptures never say that. They say "stripling soldiers." We never use the word "stripling," but we do use the word "soldier," so why do we keep the word we don't use but disregard the word we do use?

***
It's time for the penultimate installment of pumpkinundation roundup!

I made these pumpkin blondies from The Pumpkin Lover's Cookbook for a work function. My coworkers loved them. I liked them, and they were nice and pumpkiny, but I thought they were more like pumpkin bread or cake than like blondies. 7/10.

The snack table at work has had these Trader Joe's Pumpkin Joe-Joe's. They're fine, but they're not as good as Pumpkin Spice Oreos (which need to make a comeback! Are you listening, Nabisco?). 7/10.

With the Joe-Joe and the blondie, I also had a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. They almost all taste the same. 7/10.

I got to try a Costco Pumpkin Cheesecake. I'm not a huge cheesecake person, but this was better than I expected. Not as tangy or dense as most cheesecake. 8/10.

Good & Gather Apple Pie Date & Nut Bars are Target's answer to Larabars. I liked these better than Larabars (they seemed nuttier), but they're still kind of weird. 7/10.

7-Select Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Mini Muffins are something that I forgot I even had, meaning they're not very memorable. But they're OK. The chocolate chips on top didn't do much. 6/10.

White Pumpkin Pie M&M's didn't come around until 2017, but they've been coming back because Mars finally nailed the pumpkin version of M&Ms (after a few misses in the preceding years). I like the pumpkin flavor with the white chocolate. 8/10.

In Park City, I went to lunch and had Windy Ridge Cafe Hot Turkey. This entree cost fifteen dollars, but it wasn't even that good. It was Cheesecake Factory prices for Village Inn quality. It was only worth half the price. I ate leftovers the next day and it was even worse, but it might have absorbed flavors from the container. But then I remember that food doesn't usually absorb flavor in that container. 6/10.

But the Windy Ridge Cafe Mile-High Apple Pie was worth the five dollars. It wasn't an unusual apple pie, but it was a large piece with ice cream. And since three-dollar cookies are the fad right now, I thought this was reasonable. 8/10.

There are so many cookie shops these days that I thought I'd try a Goodly Cookies Pumpkin Mallow Cookie. It's a pumpkin chocolate chip cookie with a toasted marshmallow on top. This was like a Chip cookie, with a dense, thick, moist interior. I didn't think the marshmallow added much—but it also didn't detract from it, so this was a wonderful cookie. 8/10.

I've seen these Voortman Bakery Pumpkin Spice Wafers for years, but I didn't get them until this week. They do have a pumpkin spice flavor and real pumpkin in them, but I didn't think they were unusually good. Everyone loves wafer cookies, but the pumpkin didn't add much new to the experience. 7/10.

I first saw a Pumpkin Spice Larry & Larry's The Complete Cookie in New York City in June 2018, and this year I saw that 7-Eleven was selling them, but I could never find them. I finally found one this week at a Park City grocery store. Since this is a protein cookie, it's dense and not super flavorful. It's OK. 6/10.

For over a month now, I have been searching for Roasted Turkey Pringles. I was even one of those crazy people who kept refreshing the Kellogg's website to try to get the Friendsgiving Turducken Pringles kit, but it sold out before I could order it. But I finally found them at Smith's! How are they? Well, they do have a strong umami flavor, but I wouldn't call it turkey. But I still really like them. But I also love most Pringles (except for any Pringles with a cheese flavor, which I absolutely can't stand). 8/10.

I got Pecan Pie M&M's a few weeks ago, but for some reason I neglected to post them here. These are one of my favorite M&M flavors. Like, I don't know that I can pick out a pecan pie flavor per se, but they're still a delightful seasonal chocolate. It would have been more innovative to use real pecans (after all, we have peanut and almond M&Ms), but I don't know if they would be as good that way. 8/10.

My latest frozen turkey meal is Smart Ones Slow Roasted Turkey Breast, which was the saddest of all the meals I've had. Even though the mashed potatoes were flavored, I thought they were the blandest. And the turkey wasn't a very good quality. 5/10.

And then we have Apple Pie Larabars, which are a typical Larabar. 6/10.

And I might as well show you this new apple variety, Autumn Glory apples. But aren't all apples a glory of autumn? These are pricey, but I did find some on sale at Lee's. They remind me of honeycrisp, but they're more like candy. I'm not sure what to think of the flavor, but they're definitely a wonderful apple, sweet and crispy. Possibly my second favorite (after Pink Lady). 8/10.

Mid-November

Those of you who use Spotify are probably familiar with Discover Weekly, the automatically generated playlist of songs that Spotify thinks you will like, based on your listening history. Since we just had Halloween, my Discover Weekly for the last couple of weeks has been full of Halloween songs. Even though that holiday is over, I'm always looking for new holiday songs, so I gladly listened. (Yesterday I bought six new Thanksgiving songs, but that's not part of the story.)

I was listening to these Halloween songs when suddenly I was arrested by this song: "It's Halloween" by the Shaggs.
😂😂🤣🤣

Long-time readers of this blog might remember that back in 2012, I was obsessed with Jan Terri, a YouTube singer whose videos and songs were notoriously bad. I was surprised with how similar the Shaggs sounded to Jan Terri! Truth be told, I think they're worse than her—but then again, Jan doesn't play her own instruments.

It turns out that the backstory of  this band is both bizarre and tragic. The father of the girls once had his mother read his palm, and she told him his daughters would be in a popular band, so he took them out of school and forced them to play music. They even recorded their album, and the producer vanished with most of the copies. But some of them survived, and years later they gained a cult following.

I somehow have a high tolerance for low-quality things, and I have already listened to their album, Philosophy of the World, more than twice. This love of camp goes back at least to fourth grade, when I would watch Teletubbies, even though I was way older than the show's intended demographic. (I remember the first time my cousins and I saw Teletubbies; we laughed at the sun baby and all the other whimsical things that probably weren't meant to be funny.)

In other news, I'm gaining an appreciation of Park City. It helps that we are in the heart of the city now. I've found some delightful paved trails going through the city; they seem somewhat like nature even though they're in the city. One of them goes from the area of my office up to Main Street. On the vanpool, I've heard out-of-staters say they feel like they're working at a mountain resort. On Thursday, I ran along an old rail trail that was next to some ponds and wetlands. It was enjoyable. Not as enjoyable as a real trail, but at least it's not muddy, and it's better than running through neighborhoods. But there were some icy patches, which I didn't like. First of all, that indicates that it's probably not plowed or shoveled during the winter. Second, it's been well over two weeks since it last snowed, and we've had nothing but warm, sunny days since then. Why is it taking so long to melt? True, the icy snow patches were in the shade of trees and bushes—but it's November, so they have lost their leaves and aren't extremely shady. What gives?

Yesterday, I returned to Wild Rose Trail after a hiatus of a few weeks, and I was surprised to see some changes, including a barricade for bicycles at the park.

I adore November. It's so stark, yet joyous because of Thanksgiving. But I can't believe there was still snow on the the ground. It was surprisingly busy on the trail.

During the fall and early spring months, there are random deer bones and parts scattered all over.

 When I was in fifth grade, we went on a small hike in Cub Scouts in September, and I found a dried-out sego lily. Since 2015, I have seen living sego lilies, and I questioned my memory of seeing a dead one in September, because they all disappear by early July. But yesterday, I went on the ridge above Wild Rose, and I saw dozens of dried out sego lilies. Hooray! My fifth-grade memory is correct!

I love living in the moment, which is why I will gladly stick to Thanksgiving for now. You have probably seen the memes about "Christmas November 1–27, Thanksgiving November 28, Christmas November 29–December 31." But I find those tragic and condescending. I love Thanksgiving! I enjoyed watching Ultimate Thanksgiving Challenge on Thursday night, delighted that a TV series devoted to my favorite holiday exists. I was making apple omelets while I watched, and it made me feel a sense of urgency while I was cooking. It also made me want to experiment with crazy cooking innovations. But now that I'm not watching it at the moment, I am once again scared of being too adventurous. Maybe someday.

One of my coworkers at Sundance just published a book and did a reading at King's English Bookstore in Salt Lake City. So I went. The last time I went there was February 15, 2003. I, too, am a published author, but my niche is one that isn't really appreciated (or wanted) at Sundance culture. Some of my coworkers and friends have been participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). But I only write nonfiction.

***

Pumpkinundation roundup has been going on for two months now, and it's still going strong! But some of the items on this week's list are a bit of a stretch.

I don't think I've seen Planters Pumpkin Spice Almonds since 2015. They use pumpkin powder, so it's not just spices. They're nice nuts, but they do get a bit boring. 7/10.

I had an Einstein Pumpkin Bagel with Einstein Pumpkin Shmear. Unremarkable on both counts. 7/10.

This My/Mo Pumpkin Spice Mochi Ice Cream is the first time I've had mochi. It's a rice flour dough surrounding ice cream. The pumpkin ice cream was fine, but it was overshadowed by the dough, which I didn't much care for. 4/10.

I always like to support local businesses, so I had a Blacksmith Ice Cream Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream in Bountiful. I've had many pumpkin ice creams, but this one didn't have much flavor. Also, there were these weird bits in the ice cream that made me wonder if it had been properly mixed. 6/10.

Continuing the theme of local ice cream, I had a Normal Ice Cream Sweet Po Casserole Composed Cone. Normal Ice Cream makes these composed cones by taking a flavor and putting random toppings on. This is a sweet potato ice cream with marshmallow topping, pieces of sweet potato cake, and little meringue things. The sweet potato ice cream was more flavorful than some of their others, and I really liked the cake pieces. At first it was overly sweet with the marshmallow topping, but once I finished that, it was better. This is my favorite composed cone I've had since carrot cake in the spring. 8/10.

I made a Trader Joe's run (which is harder now that it's not on my commute) and got a few Thanksgiving-adjacent items. Trader Joe's Cornbread Crisps remind of pita chips, except they're cornbread. They're creative yet a little boring. 7/10.

Trader Joe's Sweet Potato Chips are less salty than I expected. They're a little bland. 6/10.

This Trader Joe's Salad Palette Turkey Harvest reminds me why I don't like salad. It had Thanksgiving things like turkey, sweet potatoes, and cranberries. Those things were OK, but it had greens like kale and brussels sprouts that were not so good. I firmly believe that most veggies are better cooked, including brussels sprouts. And the apple cider vinaigrette was too bitter to use very much of it. 4/10.

I've been eating the See's Pumpkin Spice Lollypops samples I got for free last year, forgetting that I had a whole sucker in my drawer leftover from last year.  This is one of the worst See's Lollypops; it has little flavor. 5/10.

The Brownies! Brownies! Brownies! Pumpkin Pie Blondie was less pumpkiny than I expected; it had whipped cream on top instead of more pumpkin, while the pumpkin was confined to the filling. Still good though. 7/10.

I got these Trader Joe's Sweet Potato Tortilla Chips last month, but I can't remember if I included them on here. They are better than both the pumpkin tortilla chips and the sweet potato chips. 8/10.

Trader Joe's Turkey Pot Pie has stuffing and dried cranberries in it, making it a definite Thanksgiving meal. I didn't find it especially flavorful, but it still has a comfort food vibe. 7/10.

I had this RubySnap Isabella, which is a pumpkin mascarpone cookie. It's delightful, though it has a tang that is typical of RubySnap. 8/10. I also sampled a Peggy, which is a pecan praline cookie, and I liked it even better, but I couldn't justify buying it because I wasn't sure it was actually a Thanksgiving cookie.

I had a Crumbl Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie because Crumbl does an abysmal job of scheduling seasonal cookies, so I have to support them when they have them. But it's just a typical pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. 7/10.

And finally, we have Trader Joe's Turkey & Stuffing en Croute, which has turkey meat and stuffing in a crust, served with gravy and cranberry sauce. It won't replace the real thing, and it was hard to keep it together, but I found it enjoyable. 8/10.

Muddy trails

Sundance has had very little work for me to do so far, but it's just the calm before the storm. I've appreciated the free time at work before it gets hectic in a few weeks. It has given me time to work on my Pioneer Day research, though I'm entering the second half of the twentieth century, where fewer resources are online. I might have to go back and flesh out my nineteenth-century information.

Since I love eating pumpkin everything, I know I have to exert calories to justify it, so I go running during my breaks. Unfortunately, there has been too much snow on the ground. It last snowed almost two weeks ago, and we've had nothing but warm, sunny days since then, but the snow remains.

Nevertheless, I decided I didn't care that it was snowy, and I ended up going on some of the Park City trails anyway, because who knows when it will snow and they will be covered in ice for months. I found a small nature preserve that was some kind of wetlands.

 There's also a river next to a soccer field.

Looming over the main part of Park City is PC Hill, and I decided to run to the top of it. The trailhead is only a mile from my office, and it's only like half a mile to the top. Unfortunately, there are many unofficial trails, so it was hard to follow the real trail. Parts of it were also extremely muddy. I will let this one dry out before I go back, but I'm glad I went.

This is the P.

 Directly across the street from the office is a small hill with a weather station and some kind of reservoir (or something) on top. That one is short enough that I have already gone up it a few times, and it's mostly dry.

I even found another, longer trail that also goes to the top of this hill, but much of that trail is on a north-facing slope, so it's still too muddy.

Me: We need snow to help with our water supply, and we need the whiteness of the snow to reflect heat away. Snow is absolutely essential.
Also me: Won't you all melt already?!!

I also got the rest of my Thanksgiving decorations up. I don't understand the early Christmas people, because for one thing, won't you be sick of it by the time Christmas actually gets here, but also, I get a great deal of joy from Thanksgiving decorations and music. I used to think of Pilgrims as a seventeenth-century thing, but now that I'm a nineteenth-century historian, I think of them as a nineteenth-century thing. Late-nineteenth-century Americans loved Pilgrims, and many of our (sometimes erroneous) ideas about them (including their connection to Thanksgiving) come from the late 1800s.

I decorate with toys, because I absolutely love kitsch.

When we went to Plymouth last year, I saw the Plymouth Rock squishy thing, and I knew it would be the perfect accessory for my Little People Mayflower.

Since there was still snow in my yard on Saturday, I knew the local trails would still be muddy, so I did my default sidewalk run of eleven miles to and from the Bountiful Temple. It makes me feel good that that run is no longer even that difficult for me. I don't like doing hard things. I only do things that are a little hard until they are easy. But my calves were more sore (in a good way) than I thought they should be.

***
For real though, much of my motivation for running so much is so I can eat all the junk food I have in my drawers and so I can go out and buy more for pumpkinundation roundup.

I used this Trader Joe's Organic Pumpkin...

 ...to put in this Turkey and Pumpkin Black Bean Chili from Fix-It and Forget-It Diabetic Cookbook. (No, I'm not diabetic.) It also includes onions, peppers, cumin, chili powder, and garlic. This isn't the best chili I've ever had, but it's good enough for me to make it every year. 7/10.

This Maddy & Maize Apple Pie a la Mode Gourmet Popcorn nails the "à la mode" part. There's this white confection that feels cool and creamy. But I only get the faintest bit of apple, and it's not really pie-y. 7/10.

I took these Trader Joe's Pumpkin Chocolate Chunk Oatmeal Cookies to a work function, and everyone seemed to love them. But to me, they're not especially out of the ordinary. They're great, but I love all chocolate oatmeal cookies. 8/10.

At that work function there were mini apple tartlets, which were like apple pie filling in a phyllo crust. It was fine but somewhat weird. 7/10.

 They also had pumpkin bread, which is hard to mess up. 8/10.

 There's a Maverik across the street from work, and they had a discount on this Hershey's Candy Corn Bar. It's a white chocolate, candy corn–flavored bar with soft candy pieces. It's fine. 7/10.

This Smith's Bakery Bite Size Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie is a typical pumpkin chocolate chip cookie. Generally speaking, you've had one, you've had them all. 7/10.

 I was only going to buy the above Hershey's bar, but the Maverik cashier told me the clearance candy was two for a dollar, so I also got White Candy Corn M&Ms. These have been around for almost a decade, surprisingly. They're enjoyable but not spectacular. 7/10.

 For some reason I'm drawn to seasonal protein bars, such as this Quest Pumpkin Pie Protein Bar. It's not especially pumpkiny. It has a somewhat waxy coating with a dry interior. But at least there's very little sugar. 5/10.

Brownies! Brownies! Brownies! is a cute little brownie shop in Sugar House that I found via Google Maps. The brownies themselves aren't especially noteworthy, but what makes the shop unique is that they make brownie sandwiches with different fillings and toppings. (This is the first time I've been back since I had their Peeps and Cadbury Egg brownies back in the spring.) For November, they have pie flavors, so I got a Brownies! Brownies! Brownies! Pecan Pie Brownie. It has pecans on top, and I'm not sure what the filling was. I love pecan pie, and I love brownies, but I didn't think the combination was extraordinary. 8/10.

During this time of year, I like to get frozen turkey lunches. Doing so makes me realize how wasteful frozen lunches are; this is like the only time of year I eat them. A waste of money, a waste of time, and especially a waste of packaging. This Banquet Turkey Meal has turkey, stuffing, potatoes, gravy, and peas. It's OK. 6/10.

Three years ago, I got this container of Apple Pie Tic Tac, and I still have it. Not because they're bad, but because I just don't go through that many. These are my favorite Tic Tacs ever, so I'm sad they only made them one year. It was this very pack that got me my gig over at The Impulsive Buy.

Overall, the Hungry-Man Roasted Carved White Meat Turkey is my favorite of all the frozen turkey meals. The turkey is closest to a Thanksgiving meal. The veggies are bland, though. The cranberry apple dessert isn't noteworthy, but I appreciate the effort. Unlike most frozen meals, this one is big enough to be a meal itself. (Of course, I exert enough calories that I need bigger meals.) 8/10.

My mom thought Cutler's Frosted Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookie was too dry, but I thought it was better than most in its class. 8/10.

It's hard to keep all the meals straight, but I think Stouffer's Classics Roast Turkey had the best stuffing of all of them. 7/10.

It's been a few years since I've had Nielsen's Pumpkin Frozen Custard. I'm going on a little rant about Nielsen's. I think they are a ridiculous restaurant. Only recently did they start accepting credit cards. They're like literally forty years behind the times! And it's annoying that you have to look at a physical menu when you go in; they don't have the menu on a sign. And their menu is confusing. As for the custard itself, it's good, and it's nice that it has fewer calories than ice cream. 8/10. 

Marie Callender's Honey Roasted Turkey Breast might actually be the least authentic turkey of all of them, and I'm sad it doesn't have stuffing. 6/10.

I like most pumpkin soups, but I'm not a fan of Trader Joe's Pumpkin Bisque. There's something in it that doesn't appeal to me, whether it's the apple cider vinegar, tahini, or something else. 4/10.