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Matilda and the Lake

My kind sister (Matilda, but know to the blogging world as Chicken Dust) reminded me that I left several important things out of my trip to Bear Lake. Namely, that she, her husband, and son came and stayed the night with us in the sweet cabin with the porch swing. And I could tell you that story and how awesome it was that they came up because I was going to go with 4 friends but 1 cancelled and 1 couldn't go and NO ONE ELSE that I even remotely knew could go either and I was really worried about paying for the 4-person cabin when we only had 2 people and then the night before I went up I called her and she and her family were going to be up at Bear Lake on Saturday anyway so it was like it was meant to be, but I will spare you the details. Just know that Peter, her son, spent a lovely night sleeping in the cabin and then wanted to get up and play at 5:45 am. But not with anyone else--Peter only lets his mother and father look at him. I looked at him a couple of times but he started screaming so I stopped. :)

Before they came up, though, my sister Losaunne and I were cruising around looking for a place to eat. And by "a place to eat" I mean a place with hamburgers that were less than $7 or chicken nuggets that were less than $5. We were appalled by the prices in town so we decided to drive out to this little diner I had seen near the north shore.

(If you want to know how to get sweet pictures like this, take a picture of something with your phone, then take a picture of the screen of your phone because you realize you can't upload from your phone to a computer. :)

We walked into the glaringly empty diner, saw the condition of the kitchen and dining area, and looked for a quick and non-awkward escape (oh, you guys don't serve filet mignon here? graceful exit). However, by this time a girl/woman (maybe 18 or 19--or 23, I couldn't tell) arose from where she was sitting in the dark corner of the restaurant, came over to us, and asked if we wanted menus.

"Do you have more than shakes?" I asked, as if this would be our easy out. When she nodded in the affirmative, we both took a menu and browsed our options. The menu had 3 folds and had breakfast, lunch, and dinner menus. As we were looking for cheap options and they only had 5 dinner items, all of which were over $7, I turned to the woman and asked, "Can we still order lunch items?"

She looked slowly at the clock, squinted at if for at least 5 seconds (it was 7:30 pm), and turned back and said, "Yeah."

Like it was a big deal or something. At this point we knew that we had to eat here--this place had real character.

Even after we saw the state of the kitchen.

Since we were the only ones in the diner, she brought out our water in large glass boot-shaped mugs. I turned to my sister and said, "This place is a dream!"

"Or a nightmare" she added.

Finally two other families came in (they must have thought it safe since we were eating there) and Losaunne and I were quick to observe that they got small brown plastic cups for their water. Ha.

And then they brought out our burgers. A cheeseburger, a hamburger, and a plate full of onion rings. I don't know what these onion rings were made out of, but they had very little onion and a lot of ring. A LOT of ring.

And don't worry--when I prayed I especially blessed my food so I would not get food poisoning, despite the filth in the kitchen, and it worked. The food was delicious and I probably only ate about 5 cups of oil and grease.

The killer story, however, involves my other Matilda--my car.

This is a picture of the space from the ground to the bottom of my car. Now picture my car buried in sand and rocks up to that rim. (Unfortunately, I didn't have my camera so didn't take a picture.)

This is how it happened: my sister and I wanted to go swimming before the tourists crowded the shores. So early Saturday morning we headed to a beach that was more secluded than the others--and thus less crowded. Problem: I wasn't wearing my contacts because I didn't want to swim with them in and it was fine driving like that because I can see any sort of object that would be a danger. I just couldn't see things like textures or have much depth perception. Therefore, I was really grateful when a car turned onto the dirt path to the beach right before I did so I could follow it.

Unfortunately, I turned in one path too soon. And this path was not for cars. It was for ATV's, or walkers, or animals, or anything that doesn't immediately sink into soft sand upon impact.

After getting halfway through the path (it connected to the main path after about 15 feet) I was up to my axel in sand and rock. My tires were buried and there was no getting out of this mess. Even so, I knew I had to do something, so I started digging my tires out with my hands and my sister and I tried to push the car while it was in neutral.

Seeing our fruitless effort (we were right next to the paved road) a large truck pulled over and a man got out and walked over to us.

"You guys stuck?" he asked.

I answered in the affirmative, thinking he would offer to pull us out.

"It is not our day. My truck's overheating."

I had been wrong. He wasn't coming over to help us, he was coming over to comiserate with us!!!

Thankfully, though, a jeep from on the beach saw our predicament (the people in the jeep, not the car) and came up to help us. They drove up, looked at the guy, and asked, "Are you going to help them?"

"I can't, man," he answered, and then walked back to his truck.

Things were getting quite comical by this point. A man with a truck comiserates with us about our bad day as I try to dig my car out of the sand with a small rock and my sister, in her pajamas and swimsuit, stands by looking on. The men with the jeep grapped a rope and quickly pulled my car out, for which I was thankful, but also so embarassed (especially since when they attached the rope, I asked if they wanted me to get in and steer. And they were like, yeah, while laughing in derision. It was awkward. I'm sorry! I've never been stuck before! I didn't know if they wanted to first get it unstuck and then have me steer!) that I parked down on the beach and we quickly ran as far away as possible from them so they couldn't see my red face. So thank you, two jeep-owning Samaritans, and I hope you don't recognize me if you ever see me again. I sure won't recognize you, because I wasn't wearing my contacts so couldn't determine your facial features.

All in all it was a thrill and a half to go to Bear Lake. And I was relieved that we had such odd experiences so I had something to blog (and laugh) about.

An Overdue Vacation

I decided this past weekend that I was long overdue for a vacation. My life is so stressful, what with keeping up 5 blogs and taking asparagus juice breaks, and I realized that in order to keep going full speed I definitely had to take a vacation.

And what better place than Bear Lake, in a cabin, over the 24th of July long weekend?

We stayed in a really delightful little place--a 4 person cabin with porch swing included. The porch swing sold the deal for me. Overnight stay at a KOA next to a beautiful lake--and, of course, free wireless access (even when I run away I can't get away! The workaholic in me screams no!!).

If any of you ever go to Bear Lake and are looking for a step up from camping (read--showers and not sleeping on the floor), I would definitely suggest the Garden City KOA. They even won a KOA award back in 2009--and with good reason! In addition to clean cabins and bathrooms (with showers--and the showers by the cabins are private, not stalls), this KOA boasts mini-golf, ping pong, tennis, a swimming pool, a playground, a small store with grocery essentials, and the famed jumping pillow.

The jumping pillow, like the porch swing, really sold the deal for me.

The weekend get-a-way included some time at the lake, taking jumping pictures of course. What is a vacation without jumping pictures?

Does anyone else think my arms look unnaturally like wings in this one?

My sister doing yoga. And she didn't even fall into the water.

It also included some time at Minnitonka cave (which, for the record, is not worth the $7 that it cost to get in. Just go into the first room and then turn around--if you go back that early you can still get your money back!).

Losaunne got really tired while waiting for the cave tour. Check out that balancing act--must have been from all that yoga.

Family Pictures

I have decided that it has been far too long since I posted some pictures. And what good is a blog without pictures, right?

I like to think that I take good (read: awesome) pictures. I don't have a professional camera, I am not a professional photographer, but I still am pretty proud of my pictures. And I am most proud of pictures of this family because their son is rarely smiling in pictures. And look at these! What can I say, my photography skills are killer.

So, if you won't judge me by the fact that I don't have a professional camera, here are some of the May Family Pictures:

(some of these were more on the funny and less on the artsy...)

The stats are in

So, about two weeks ago I got a "clustrmap" which shows the countries of all visitors which look at my blog. I don't know how they collect these stats, and I don't know if these people accidentally stumbled across my blog and didn't read it before leaving, or if they were just dying for news of Provo, or if they just thought my writing style was thrilling. In any case, here are the stats:

United States (US) 150
United Kingdom (GB) 38
Malaysia (MY) 8
Canada (CA) 6
Japan (JP) 5
United Arab Emirates (AE) 4
Jordan (JO) 3
Pakistan (PK) 3
Australia (AU) 3
Netherlands (NL) 2
France (FR) 2
Morocco (MA) 2
Taiwan (TW) 2
South Africa (ZA) 2
Vietnam (VN) 1
Denmark (DK) 1
Germany (DE) 1
Maldives (MV) 1
Ireland (IE) 1
Romania (RO) 1
Russian Federation (RU) 1
Moldova, Republic of (MD) 1
Saudi Arabia (SA) 1
Israel (IL) 1
Lebanon (LB) 1
Turkey (TR) 1
Serbia (RS) 1
Oman (OM) 1
Europe (EU) 1

Pretty impressive for two weeks, I think! I am now obsessed with checking my clustrmap daily to see what new countries have popped up. I have to admit that my favorites include Romania and Moldova (my friend served her mission there), Russia (I have always wanted to go), Israel, Jordan, and Taiwan (lived there), and the random visitor from "Europe." I was surprised that I had no hits from South America, but one of my other blogs made up for it:

United States (US) 33
United Kingdom (GB) 20
Germany (DE) 2
Pakistan (PK) 2
Qatar (QA) 2
Switzerland (CH) 1
Malaysia (MY) 1
Canada (CA) 1
Turkey (TR) 1
Libyan Arab Jamahiriya (LY) 1
Argentina (AR) 1
Spain (ES) 1
Kuwait (KW) 1

Just 20 days, guys, and I already have a visitor from the "Libyan Arab Jamahiriya." Could life get better than this? We'll have to wait until next week...

(It also makes me wonder if all of these visitors can read English. And how they stumble across my blog. And, most importantly, what they think of it, since only 2 people comment most days...)

Things that go "meow" in the night

This past week several very odd things have happened. So much so that I realized it was a sign that I needed to write about said happenings on my blog. And what better time than when I am supposed to be writing a paper?

So last Sunday I ran down from church (we have church in the third floor of our apartment complex...a little stifling, but quite convenient) to get something from my apartment. As I walked back up the stairs I was startled to see a little black something leap out at me from the stairwell.

It was a cat. A very young kitten actually, and it followed me all the way up to Relief Society. She would have followed me in, too, but I closed the door before she got in. Maybe she wanted a visiting teaching assignment, too.

So then. Fast forward several hours, when someone came by my apartment to talk about FHE. He left the door open, and the cat ran in and made a beeline for under the couch. My roommate started freaking out, screaming something about allergies leading to instant death, and the cat kept running each time I moved a couch and bent down to pick her up. After moving all of the couches and chasing this cat as she ran around and around our living room, from under one couch to another, I realized that we had already established a bond of friendship and merely crouched down with my hand out. The kitten walked up to me and I, victorious, set her outside and closed the door. Don't worry, no instant death on the part of my roommate.

So then at ward prayer that night, calls were made to kill the cat (honestly! it was just a kitten) because it had committed the sin of being on the grounds of our apartment complex. I didn't want the cat eradicated because I hadn't taken a picture of it yet for this blog post, but since I do technically live in BYU housing the "RA" made threats about kicking any one out that fed the cat or let it in their apartment (too late for that one!).

And the next day, the cat disappeared. And I never took a picture of it for the blog. Sigh.

So then. The next morning as I was getting ready for work I heard someone banging on the door. It was 6:30 am, and I just figured that it was one of my roommates who had locked herself out and was just going to have to wait until I was fully clothed. Well, the banging didn't stop, so I threw a coat on and ran to the peephole--only to see FIREMEN outside the door--but no longer knocking, so I assumed that it was no longer my responsibility to open the door. I turned to my roommate for an explanation and she said that she had already opened the door and the firemen had said that there was smoke coming out of the apartments next to us and above us.

And why they needed to tell us that, I am still not sure. Maybe if the ceiling in our apartment had suddenly collapsed in on us, burning, we would at least have been warned. Or something like that. But I left for work soon after and we still had a ceiling when I got home that night, so it must have been taken care of.

And one more story. This one might make my sister Kaitlyn feel better about all her bug stories. Early this morning I was grabbing some food to take on a hike. I grabbed some grapes that I had forgotten to put in my cookie salad and that were still sitting in their bag in the fridge. I was just going to grab a bunch and wash them off and put them in a bag, taking them off the stem later, but these grapes (green, fortunately--I am glad red grapes were not put to waste like this) were so tightly squished together I had a feeling that they might just be housing something in the middle. Something alive or that had been alive. And I didn't want to have to deal with it after the grapes were supposedly "washed."

So I started pulling grapes off and washing them before dropping them in a plastic bag. As I got nearer to the center of the bunch I saw something white peeking through--and then, when I pulled off one more grape, I saw a large white bundle which appeared to be an egg sac--and a large white spider.

Seeing this, I did what any dignified adult would do. I stifled a scream (my roommates were still sleeping), threw the whole bunch in a pot filled with water sitting in the sink (so then if they spiders hatched and came out they would drown first) and ran out the door.

When I came back from my hike, I carefully lifted the whole bundle into a plastic bag and threw it away outside.

Sick. We should have kept that cat to eat our spiders...

Bizarre Encounters

I am horrible at remembering peoples' names. Heck, I am horrible at remembering people! Sometimes I remember the face but not the name, sometimes (less times) I remember the name but not the face, but most of the time I remember neither. So many times I have been walking around on campus (or off campus, but most of my time is spent on campus, so that is where I see most of the people) and people will wave at me, come up to talk to me, or say hello. I, of course, reply in a friendly manner, but inside I am thinking, "how do I know you? Is there a non-awkward way to ask your name, since you know mine?"

I was glad to discover last week that this is not only a problem with me. My friend Jane and I were at the Springville art museum (they have some cool stuff there, by the way), walking through one of the galleries, and this guy with his girlfriend says "Hi Jane!" and starts talking to her about what she is doing this summer, etc. After a 4-5 minute conversation, we walked away, and Jane turned to me and said, "Breanne, I have no idea who that was!"

I laughed hysterically. She pulled it off pretty well, though; I never would have guessed!

So then we were walking down the stairs when another guy and his girlfriend came walking up the stairs. As he passed me, he said, "Hi Breanne! How are you?" Thankfully there were people behind both of us wanting to keep moving so I just smiled and nodded.

And then I turned around and Jane looked at me expectantly. "Nope," I said. "I have no clue who that was."

Weird, huh.

Which is what makes today's story even weirder. I was walking to the library across a deserted campus. It was approaching 9pm and I just had to go in and grab a book before I headed home for the evening. I saw a girl walking perpendicular to my path and I realized that if we continued at the same speed we would bump into each other (I think about weird things like this when walking to the library) so I slowed down, avoiding eye contact, and tried to let her pass so I could cross behind her.

She stopped, looked me in the eye, and said "I know you from somewhere."

I looked up at her and immediately thought, "You were in my Honors 200 class in fall of 2005."

But I didn't say that. I mean, there is no way I could remember who she was, especially from 5 years ago. So we played that "where do I know you from" game and realized that she was in the MTC at the same time as me and sisters from the other Chinese district going to Taiwan were her roommates. I said, "Oh, we must have seen each other there," smiled courteously, and turned to leave.

But then! She didn't move, kept staring at me, and said, "No, I know you from somewhere other than the MTC." And once again I thought, "Honors 200 Fall 2005." Pushing that thought away, we tried a couple more options (but was this really important? That's what I thought, anyway) and finally I said, "This is crazy, but were you take Honors 200 in Fall 2005?" (And I thought to myself, I don't know why I would remember you, because I don't even remember the teacher's name!)

And she said, "Yes!!"

Grateful we got that figured out, we parted ways. And I thought, how bizarre. I have never remembered where I know a person from with that clarity before.

Weird, huh.

Why the World Cup is so much better this year...

It's all about the theme music. No matter how the games go, this year's theme music is much better than the past few World Cups'.

Am I alone in this opinion?

Racism in the Checkout Line

Today I was at the DI (surprising, I know) to buy a pair of shoes because my other ones were broken (even more surprising, right?) and this nice old man was ringing up my shoes. (I always want to say "checking me out" instead of "ringing me up" but I catch myself because it sounds weird.)

Like I said, he was really nice. I wished him a happy 4th and he looked startled, then his expression relaxed. "Oh yeah, I knew it was the 3rd this morning! That means tomorrow is Saturday, huh. I'm just like my wife says..."

And then the checkout lady at the stand next to his turned and said, "What does your wife say?"

"That I can't remember anything these days...not even what day it is."

After a chorus of "Oh," "It's been a long day at work, eh?" and other words of support, we all went back to our respective duties.

And the cute old man ringing up my items turned to me and said, speaking of the woman who asked the question, "I've got my eavesdropping n****r over there."

WHAT? I was so shocked I didn't even know what to say. I mean, he is old, but I don't think it's been politically correct to say the n-word since like 1960. And he wasn't even black.

I walked out stunned. I think it is the first time in years that I have heard this term in anything but a literary context.

And at the DI!!!