Rewind five years

I had a busy week! On Monday and Wednesday, I headed to the Woodbriar Trail and enjoyed all the June wildflowers.

Here, a mulesear is photobombing a sticky geranium.

I love the blue of Wasatch penstemon.

Utah sweetpea!

On Tuesday, I was off work, so I ran up North Canyon, my favorite trail, where I hadn't been since October. I was glad to see heartleaf arnica

 and a Nuttall's violet.

As I was running up, I was thinking how I missed pink springbeauties this year; since it was so rainy, I didn't do much spring running. But near the top, I saw some mixed with some glacier lilies! Glacier lilies first come out in March, so I was surprised to see them in June!

This weekend was the conference of the Mormon History Association. I didn't go, but I did some things this week that made me feel like I was still part of that academic community. Three years ago, a book I coedited, A Historian in Zion, was released. It was a reprint of the autobiography of Andrew Jenson, Assistant Church Historian at the turn of the twentieth century. For this book, I wrote the epilogue about the closing years of his life. He had a custom-made gravestone, an obelisk with a globe on top. The globe showed the route of his first trip around the world. His name was on one side of the obelisk, and his three wives each had their names on a side. At the time I wrote the epilogue, my boss told me that the gravestone had been stolen. But more recently, he told me he heard it was still there. I decided to go check it out for myself.

Now, finding a tombstone in the Salt Lake City Cemetery is surprisingly nonintuitive. The cemetery itself has no database, either online or on site, to tell you where people are buried. There might have been records in the sexton house, but it was closed. Findagrave.com does not say where in the cemetery he is buried. Wikipedia had coordinates, but they took me to the wrong spot. The Salt Lake Cemetery is huge, so just combing through it is not practical. I was ready to give up, but I finally just had to Google "How do you find someone in the Salt Lake Cemetery?" And a tourist website directed me to Names in Stone. Bingo! I finally found it, but it shouldn't have been that hard! I had looked at pictures on Find A Grave, but apparently the marker was moved at some point, because the surrounding landscape was different from the pictures.

Well, the obelisk is still there, but the globe is gone. If someone stole it, I hope they drop it on their foot, and then their foot never heals, and they have to limp the rest of their life, which will hopefully be short.

My old boss from the Church History Library is leaving to be a mission president this month, so he hosted a dinner for me and his two current research assistants. When I went to his house, he gave me a copy of a newly published documentary history he edited, The Annals of the Southern Utah Mission. I spent the summer of 2014 looking at PDFs of handwritten nineteenth-century documents, making sure they had been transcribed correctly for this book. Five years later, it's finally published.

With nearly nine hundred pages, this book is huge! I will have to make room for it on my "I edited this book" shelf.

Today I attended his farewell. It was a large church building, and all the overflows were full. They had four young men blessing the sacrament and sixteen passing it! I have never seen that before. Elder Snow of the Seventy commended their efficiency.

The 2014 nostalgia continued on Friday night. In 2013 and 2014, when I was in Provo, I loved attending the Rooftop Concert Series, free concerts during the summer months. They are a fun atmosphere and wonderful ways to spend summer evenings. (How can you prefer winter to summer? Winter doesn't have outdoor concerts!) This year is the last year, and this month the National Parks were playing. I hadn't been to the Rooftop Concert since I moved from Provo in 2014, and I wanted to see TNP. I first heard them in May 2014 at the Rooftop Concert.

I missed most of the first act, but the second act was Mindy Gledhill, whom I also saw at Rooftop back in August 2013. She is a talented musician, but I've grown a little tired of her. Also, her latest album is about leaving the Church. I'm glad for her to do her thing, but her thing is not my thing. The audience was surprisingly apathetic about her. 

But the National Parks never disappoint. It's always so enjoyable to hear Brady's voice and songwriting, the fiddle playing, and the contributions of the other band members. It's fun to be around fellow fans who know the words to every song. As far as local bands go (as opposed to individual singers), they are probably my favorite. I bought a new T-shirt and their Until I Live album on vinyl (even though I don't listen to records that often).

They mostly sang their own stuff, but they also played Clean Bandit's "Rather Be." That song (which I love!) was popular back in 2014, during my last months in Provo. The nostalgia had come full circle.

Toward the end, they said, "This is the part of the show where we go off stage and you awkwardly wait for us to come back on, so we're just going to play two more songs." I appreciated that, because encores are always awkward. During their last song, "As We Ran," they told everyone to get low, then they had everyone jump while they played one of the more upbeat parts of the song. They really put on a fantastic show. I highly recommend seeing them live.

(no pictures)

It seemed like a long week. Not because it was a bad week. I just keep thinking, "Really? Memorial Day was just this week?"

I had to work Memorial Day, and it was busy at the park. Most of my coworkers dislike slow days, but I prefer them. I got stressed out this week with guests who went around touching everything. You, teenage girl! Why do you feel a need to slide that tied type around, even though there's a "Don't Touch" sign, and when I tell you not to, you pick it up, making it fall apart? One very touchy young boy, probably around four, came and put his hand directly on ink in the print shop, getting ink all over his hand. I don't feel bad at all when that happens, and I also wouldn't feel bad if he stained his clothes with ink, because that's what you get for touching everything (or letting your kids touch everything, or halfheartedly "stopping" them)!

Since everything was still too wet for trails, I hopped on my bike in the evening. I heard about a trail in North Salt Lake called the Foxboro Wetlands Trail, and since it was paved, I thought I'd try it out. It really wasn't special. It was just a paved path among vacant lots. But I did see an unusual bird, and since it was behind houses, I saw two cats, which are always a bonus in my book.

I did have a few pictures to show you, but Blogger is not uploading them. Blogger is owned by Google, and I feel like it's a very low priority for them. They don't seem to care about fixing bugs, and its functionality seems to have deteriorated. I hope it's only temporary, otherwise I might have to change my platform!

On Tuesday, I went on another bike ride along the Legacy Parkway Trail, but it was extremely buggy. I will probably stay away from there for a while.

Wednesday was my day off, and the timing worked out well for my family. My niece had her last day of school, so I picked her up early. My dad has been constructing a deer fence, and it arrived that morning, so I was able to help get it off the FedEx truck. There were a few incidents last summer that made my dad want a deer fence. First, we had a deer die in our backyard. (It died right where our cat Jenny is buried. Coincidence?) Later, a deer charged at my dad in our yard. And then apparently some deer were eating plums off our tree, and they broke a branch off. (It looks like we will have a good plum crop this year, but I don't know if we'll be able to reach them.) So this week I have done some helping of the fence. I really know nothing about being handy. I'm also very lazy.

On Friday, I had to help out in the livery at work, because they were shorthanded. They don't pay me enough to be around animals, but it's good to learn new skills. My coworker also was helping out, and he ended up sneezing and getting hives after being around the ponies. So the next morning I had to take his spot in the drugstore at the park until he had washed his clothes. It was my first time at that site.

And now it's June. I like spring and fall more than summer, but increasingly I like summer more than I used to. In June, I look forward to popsicles, eradicating goatheads, picking cherries and baking with them, sego lilies, visiting nephews, and more. June 1 is the beginning of meteorological summer, which I really think makes more sense than astronomical (which only has to do with the length of days). Bring on the summertime!

May showers and flowers

This May has been the coldest and wettest I can remember since 2011. But I'm fine with that. Though I'm sad it lessens my time on the trails, I find something comforting and cozy about unseasonable cold. Also, work usually closes early if it's rainy and no one's there, so I get extra free time.

Between storms, I have been able to spend some time outside. May is the prettiest month that is not in the fall, but it has the bonus of staying light for a long time.

The weather and cool temperatures seem to have pushed the wildflowers' natural seasons back a little. I don't remember seeing longleaf phlox this late.

This plant had some unusual four-petaled flowers instead of the usual five.

 We also have common paintbrush,

 Utah sweetpea,

 and arrowleaf balsamroot.

The Bonneville Shoreline Trail isn't always my favorite trail, but I had to make sure I saw the field of Palmer's penstemon this season. They are gorgeous, but they smell even better. I smelled their scent in the air before I saw them.

Tufted evening primrose smells like Froot Loops, but only when you're up close. I adore their huge blossoms.

There are many kinds of vetch, but I can't distinguish them.

Mulesears are just starting to bloom. They haven't reached their peak amazingness yet. But there are few things as fantastic as a full field of mulesears in bloom. But they have a weird smell, even when they're not in bloom.

One evening, I stayed off the trails because they would have been muddy, but I rode my bike on the paved Legacy Parkway Trail. That isn't always the most scenic, but everything is scenic in May, even chain-link fences.

It's so much more fun to spend time outside than cooped up watching TV. This week I thought about making some snide comment about people watching Game of Thrones, but then I remembered that time I was obsessed with Gilligan's Island.


Friday was my day off, and it is a special day. The Friday before Memorial Day is the day I kick off the Fourth of July season. The offerings of red, white, and blue food seem smaller this year, but there are some new things. I am sad that all the Shopkos closed, because they had the best selection of Fourth of July candy. That's almost the only reason I'm sad they closed, but I'm sad nevertheless.

I think this is my second-favorite weekend of the entire year (Thanksgiving being my first). Even though I have to work both Saturday and Monday this year, I love the patriotic and celebratory mood in the air.

This morning, in our Come, Follow Me discussion, my parents both pronounced Lazarus as "Lazareth." I started wondering why no one ever pronounces Nazareth as "Nazarus." Right after I wondered that, one of today's speakers in sacrament meeting said, "Jesus of Nazarus." So it goes both ways after all.

The birds

I only worked four days this week because I had other things I had to do, and it's easier to take a full day off rather than a partial day.

On Monday, I had an interview in Lehi, but I didn't get the job; but I don't know if I wanted it anyway. Recently I decided that I wanted to add the America songs from Schoolhouse Rock to my Fourth of July playlist. But the songs are unavailable on streaming services or as MP3s, but I found out that Graywhale in Sandy happened to have a used CD of America Rock, so I was happy to stop by on my way home to get it.

On Tuesday evening, I had some time for a short run. When I don't have much time, my favorite trail is the Woodbriar Trail. It's one of the prettiest trails, if not the prettiest trail, around. It's also very difficult and steep, which means it's a good workout in a short amount of time, and it's not someplace I want to go if I'm exerting myself for a long time.

I had noticed an unofficial side trail off the main trail, so I thought I would see where it went.

This is the beginning of the main trail. Western waterleaf, which grows under the trees, is in bloom now.

Arrowleaf balsamroot, seen here, is a spectacular flower, but less spectacular than its cousin the mulesears.

 The "trail" didn't go anywhere significant, and it kind of faded away. It looked like portions were once a Jeep trail, and the other parts might have been a game trail. It got really steep. I don't feel a need to go back, but I was glad to satiate my curiosity. Oh, and I saw some wild turkeys.

I also saw a moth that looked like a hummingbird, after I had seen one in our garden earlier than night.

Here is one of those Depression-era ridges constructed for erosion control.

 It was a lovely May evening. Too bad our other May evenings were marred with rain.

On Thursday morning, I returned to the main trail. I haven't been there since the fall, so I wasn't entirely in shape, so I couldn't run without stopping. But I hope to return to my full stamina.

This is an example of a picture I took so I could have an excuse to stop.

I didn't work on Thursday because my old boss at the Church History Department is going to be a mission president, so they had a going-away program for him. His family came and got stuck in the elevator! I found one of the last empty seats in the room, and a woman leaned over to introduce herself. Then I realized that she was my boss from BYU Studies, my first internship! It was good to catch up with her and others I used to work with. Some of my interactions were awkward, because I'm awkward. But then I realized maybe it isn't entirely my fault. Maybe the other person also has some awkwardness that contributes to the situation. I also realized I am perhaps too dismissive when I describe my This Is the Place job. My old boss got a special framed picture that also pictured some of his books about missionary work, and I was glad to see that they included our book that just came out.

At work, we have lots of magpies (and other wildlife) in the park. On Friday, a bird crashed into a window at the press, where I was working. I opened the window to see if it was all right; I saw it sitting on the ground, blinking its eyes, but I didn't know if it was hurt or not. Next thing I knew, a magpie had grabbed it in its beak, then flew a few yards away and started pecking at it! It was sad to hear the bird chirping. I didn't know magpies did that. But I didn't know what we were going to do with an injured bird (if it was in fact injured), so I was glad that the magpie made the decision for us.

Remember last week when I showed you that poor-quality patriotic decoration ("Land where my father died")? Well, I found another one. "The American Spirt lives forver." Don't spend your money on this garbage, folks.

Instead, spend it on worthwhile decorations, like I do. If it doesn't have any words, it can't have any typos.

Cardio

Some people like lifting weights but hate cardio. I'm the opposite. I do pushups every morning, and I hate them every morning. We have a weight set in our house, yet I don't use it too often, because it's not fun. But cardio is something I enjoy. I had a triathlon this week, so I tried to get some last-minute training in.

On Monday, my ward played kickball, and I participated, because I thought it might be fun to try again. I'm fine with kicking and running. But every time I'm in the outfield, I'm super stressed out about it, dreading that the ball is going to come to me. It's not even fun. At one point I caught the ball and dropped it, and I felt so bad I let my team down. That's one reason I don't like sports. I don't like competition that much. If I don't win, I feel bad that I'm not great; if I do win, I feel bad that I made other people lose.

On Tuesday, I didn't want to get on the trails, because it was muddy. So instead, I took my bike down and rode about twelve miles on the Jordan River Parkway Trail. It was a great night, and I liked being so close to the river. But I felt weird biking through Rose Park, and I didn't like crossing Redwood Road.

On Wednesday, I had my last session of tutoring for the Tongan Ward for the rest of the school year. They were having a garage sale thing for that ward, and I found this weird DVD:

Talk about a strange element of Mormon culture! Remember those Baby Einstein videos for babies and toddlers? This apparently was a Latter-day Saint knockoff. So many things beg for attention. The ugly baby. The unrelated locations (Kolob, Iowa, and Aspen?). The lowercase "am" in the title, even though it should be capitalized because it's a verb. The concept itself.

On Thursday I ran on the Bonneville Shoreline Trail. It had been two weeks since I had been running, due to my recent sickness, and it was harder than usual, but maybe that's because of kickball and biking earlier in the week. I did see some tufted evening primrose, a wonderful flower with huge blossoms. I am disappointed that I've been sick and it's been rainy, because May is the best month for trails, except for maybe the fall months.

Friday, May 10, was the 150th anniversary of the transcontinental railroad, and This Is the Place did some major events for it.

That meant we had to work from 9 a.m. (early meeting) until 8 p.m. It wasn't as busy as we expected, but it was still busier than a typical day. I was assigned to be in the bank, but there were two of us there, because it was expected it would be very busy. My coworker was in the print shop, but he was busy helping with the cannon and other things, so I had to do the field trips in that site, and I was back and forth all day. It was a busy day.

Then Saturday, I got up early for my triathlon, which I also did last year. It was less intimidating this year, because I already knew what to expect. But I was nervous, because I had done less training. I hadn't been to the pool in more than a month, and my recent sickness certainly didn't help.

The swimming part, which was first, wasn't great. I passed one person, but many others passed me. I didn't do as well as I had done in my practice swims; I had to do an extra lap of breaststroke to catch my breath. I think I did more freestyle swimming than I did last year, yet somehow my time was worse. But the time includes time in and out of the pool, and I didn't hear the volunteer tell me I could get in, and maybe I was slower getting out?

They changed the bike route on the morning of the race. I don't know what it was originally supposed to be, but it was certainly different from last year. Last year's course was completely flat, but this year it involved more hills. Good thing I often go on hills when I go biking! It also involved being in more traffic, and I spent a long time at a red light.

I only have a mountain bike, which means my biking is really slow, and I didn't pass a single person. Also, I think the gears were poorly designed. The lever that shifts up on the left is the lever that shifts down on the right, so I can never remember which lever does what. I still cannot come up with a conceivable reason they would make it that way.

The run was only three miles, which is a short run for me, but it just seemed extra hard this time around. But since I am a runner and not so much a biker or swimmer, not a single person passed me running, and I passed many people.

I ended up eight seconds worse than my time last year, and honestly I'm surprised that's all, since the bike route was so different. I might have made up for the time in the transition area.

I had three friends who also did the race as a relay. Their time was eight minutes slower than mine, but they finished earlier because their swimmer got in the pool first. They took a picture of me, and then we went to breakfast, after I put my pants on.

This time I was #197, "O Savior, Thou Who Wearest a Crown." Last year, I was #319, "Ye Elders of Israel."

I spent the rest of the day buying new shoes and weird cereals. Since I already showed you the weird Baby Mormon find, I want to show you this unfortunate decorative sign I saw at Walmart:

Do you see that? "Land where my father died"? They missed one letter, and it entirely changes the meaning. In this case, the context means it's not even an issue of singular vs. plural! This is why nobody likes you, Walmart!

More spurge purging

Last week, as you recall, I was sick. I was recovering, and I had every intention of going to work on Monday. But I did not sleep well Sunday night, and I had a headache. When I got up on Monday, my headache and my poor sleep meant that working sounded absolutely terrible.

But on Tuesday I was back at work. It might have been better for my physical well-being to stay home, but it was better for my mental well-being to be at work. I hate doing nothing all day!

I always like it when it snows in May, so I was glad to see snow on May 1. Will that be our last snow until November?

But since I was still recovering, it wasn't a very eventful week. I didn't want to be running again, so I took the opportunity to purge more spurge from the trails. Yesterday I went to the Chukar Loop, a more remote section that nevertheless has some spurge. I thought I might make more of a dent here. And I think I did! These pictures aren't the exact same spot, but they show some improvement. Before:

 After:

The plants on the flat part were difficult to pull out, and mostly I was pulling stems off the main root. But when they were growing on the slope, they were a lot easier to pull, and I managed to get most of the roots. Hooray!

Personally, I think goatheads are worse than spurge, but I think spurge is worse for the environment. Goatheads tend to grow where nothing else is growing, but spurge takes over. It was disheartening to see it growing among my favorite wildflowers, including arrowleaf balsamroot, vetch, and western waterleaf.

Perhaps I wasn't extremely responsible in purging it, because I just left the uprooted plants along the trail. If I took containers, they would fill up too quickly, and plastic is bad for the environment anyway. With some of the plants, I was so happy to pull them up that I threw them away in triumph, and they landed in trees.

I am paying for it today, with some mild rashes on my wrists, which were not always protected from these nefarious plants' milky substance.

Unfortunately, I doubt my little efforts will have much of an effect, but at least I'm trying to do something about the problem. It is not enough to simply gripe about it.

another anniversary

Today (May 1) is the eighth anniversary of this blog, and I like to post on every anniversary.

Sometimes I have done lists or themes, but I couldn't think of anything I really cared to do this time. So I just thought I would jot down some thoughts about my blog.

During the spring of 2011, I was reading my mission emails, and I liked that I had a weekly account of what I was doing for those two years. I thought a blog would fill the same purpose.

I feel like I more or less became who I am in 2012, so I get a little embarrassed by my posts from 2011. If I had made my blog after 2011, I probably would have picked a different URL. Oh well, it works.

In 2012–2014, I was in school, and I would often geek out over the things I was learning, especially my geology classes. I also fancied myself as exceptionally weird and exceptionally awkward. The "weird" part came from amused introspection and self-reflection; the "awkward" part came from my own insecurities.

Not to discount my own actual weirdness and awkwardness, but I have come to realize that everyone thinks they're weird and awkward. I see lots of memes of penguins acting funny or people making strange faces, and people like to tag themselves as the weird one. So it is perfectly normal to think you're weird. Also, everyone is insecure to some degree, and everyone agonizes over the less-than-perfect things they say and do.

When I was no longer in school (starting in 2014), I would often geek out about the historical things I was learning at work. And without any homework, I was able to spend more time blogging about hobbies: trail running, summertime baking, cooking unusual vegetable dishes. I find myself increasingly uncomfortable blogging about movies, TV shows, plays, and other pop culture; I just feel so corny doing so. I feel like my blog became more popular in 2015 or 2016.

In 2015, I began my annual tradition of pumpkinundation roundup, which has been more popular than I expected. I find it obnoxious when people are always blogging their meals. Like, who cares? But people seem to like my collection of pumpkin stuff.

I have found that a lot of people make perceptions about me, but their perceptions are not always accurate. Since I am naturally a quiet person, people don't always know much about me in person. But because of my blogging, people can learn more about me that they might not know. I like the idea that I am full of surprises, and I like to think that I am far more interesting (and funnier) than people would otherwise assume. (And now I feel totally conceited and self-centered.)

I still have not missed a single Sunday since I started. (OK, maybe there were a few times I blogged after midnight, but that was still before I went to bed.) I look forward to writing my blog each week. I can just write whatever I feel like, and I don't have to worry about it being logical or convincing. I don't have to cite sources. I just like getting my thoughts and my jokes out there in a low-pressure setting.

A year from now, I will probably read this post and cringe. But I already cringe at all my old posts anyway.