Embracing the Season

As I have said many times before, this is my least favorite time of year. But I've been trying to embrace what it does have to offer.

Monday was Epiphany, which isn't really part of the holiday calendar in a state dominated by Latter-day Saints and a nation dominated by Protestantism. We have a donut shop, JJ Donuts, at the bottom of our hill, and they made rosca de reyes for Epiphany, since it's a traditional Mexican treat. I had never had one, so I wanted to try one. It was OK. It didn't really have much flavor. I much preferred the Mardi Gras king cake I got at Parsons' Bakery last year. 

On Tuesday, I practiced with the swim team, the first time I had done so since October. And I also swam twice on my own. My swimming has definitely improved since last year, and especially since I took swimming lessons two years ago. In 2023, I often had an existential crisis when I was swimming freestyle. But I've been swimming eight laps freestyle in a row without stopping, which would have been way too much for me in past years.

Then yesterday (Saturday), I took my dad to Great Salt Lake State Park for a ranger-led tour of their mirabilite mounds. Mirabilite is a salty mineral, and under certain conditions, it forms beautiful mounds. Because of the low lake level, these have only been documented at the GSL in the last five years, and it's the only place in the United States where they've been found. It needs to be subfreezing temperatures in a dry climate and at a salty body of water. I didn't think the ranger tour was necessary, but it was cool to see them, especially since they're only around in the winter.

Fish from streams sometimes end up in the lake, and then they wash ashore. There were also several dead birds, but for some reason it seems grosser/sadder to take pictures of dead birds.

While we were out there we stopped at Black Rock. There was once a resort there, and Black Rock was a favorite spot for Fourth of July and Twenty-Fourth of July celebrations in the nineteenth century. It's no longer surrounded by water, but it was still cool to see.

Courtesy Utah Historical Society

This past fall, my uncle gave my parents a big bag of pine nuts he collected. In November and December, I spent some time shelling them, which is a very time-consuming process. This weekend, I wanted to make some pine nut cookies, but the nuts I had shelled were moldy. Sigh. Then my mom peeled more, and I was able to make the cookies, which were very small and like shortbread, similar to Girl Scouts Trefoils. I like them, but I don't think they're worth the troubling of shelling pine nuts. Why are pine nuts a thing? They're so much work, and they're not that great. They're most commonly used in pesto, and I can't stand pesto. (Parmesan strikes again!)

OK, so there's not a lot of things that are special to this time of year, but there are some things. Here are this week's dreams. 

Mark looks for an available bathroom in his grandparents' four-level house, which they share with Santa and Rudolph

Mark calls his junior high crush and asks if she wants to get ice cream sometime, and he is relieved when she declines

a four-inch wasp lands on David

Mark doesn't have a music folder for the performance of "Utah, This Is the Place"

Mark wears blue shorts he finds while walking through a construction site, and he sees a white scorpion

Mark plays a game with his family and wins with the entry "potato room"

Allie enters Five Below, and the owner gives her the keys

Mark washes his hand in David's lemon wine

four dogs try to enter the house, but only two are allowed

the cat is out of water because the carpet soaked it up

Mark rides his bike to the border of a small town, where there are sego lilies in bloom (I'm so sad it didn't actually do sego lilies)

Mark watches giant waves at the Great Salt Lake visitor center

Mark trips in floodwaters at BYU

Voldemort and Dolores Umbridge kiss

Mark takes a bath in a bucket while reading a book of random facts

Mark asks his friends what they're doing for Valentine's Day while his mom removes a red velvet rope

a video game involves stabbing the belly of a jellyfish

a man has Mark assemble bullets while the class watches, and microphones amplify the sound

Mark finds his brother's letters written in Chinese at a used-book store

a jumping spider hitchhikes on Mark's orange, then builds a web on his jack-o'-lantern

the city narrows the street by putting trees in front of people's houses