Dream Diary: Part 7

Sister party fire
Our sister party destination this year is in a secret building in Payson, by the Crest gas station. (I've dreamt about this place before, but it likes to change locations, and the exterior changes based on the plot of my dream. My bedroom is in the corner of the basement, almost like a cupboard-under-the-stairs type thing, and there's a secret entrance to the room that only Kimberly and I know about.) Strangely, it's the little sisters who are in charge this time, while Tiffany, Mom, and I are just there for the ride. (There was a lot of role reversal going on in this dream, which made it all the more fun.) The gas station goes up in flame—through no fault of our own, may I add—but we continue our little getaway anyway. No one is fighting the fire, so I start to worry that our building will catch fire next. But we're not allowed to leave, because Kimberly is a government fire employee of some kind and she can't vacate premises until the fire marshal gives her the say-so. And Shannan knows who started the fire and why nobody is doing anything about it because she's some sort of spy, but she won't tell us what's going on. So I do the one thing I have control over: gather up my journals. I think about grabbing my Harry Potter books, too, but it's difficult enough carrying around 18 volumes of my life. Tiffany has a very Shannan-esque attitude about the whole thing—"Wait, there's a fire?"—and plops down to read next to an open door, letting all of the smoke in. Mom steals my thunder and is more concerned about when we will get to eat next than whether we will survive the fire. Kimberly finally gets a call from the fire marshall and is about to tell us what to do—in her best "I'm the oldest and therefore the most responsible" impression—when . . . my alarm goes off.

Bring on the stunt doubles
This was a Convention work dream. Except instead of running the Store and conducting training sessions, my team had to sail this old-fashioned boat made out of steel to a specific destination every day. And because of the high amount of danger involved, actors were hired to be my coworkers so the real people wouldn't get hurt.

Once a nerd, always a nerd
I dreamed I was going over a new semester of syllabi and marking my calendar with due dates, tests, and reading page counts (all color coded, of course). When I woke up I was sad because it wasn't real.

Lunch: from fuel to fun

Lunch has always been my least favorite meal. Since high school, it's been an ongoing dilemma to find foods that are portable, filling, and that don't need to be reheated/refrigerated. It's even harder when you try to be healthy while doing it. And in college I often had to eat on the go, so I needed food that was inconspicuous and odor free. There aren't a lot of foods that fit these parameters. And those that do are bland and uninteresting.

So I've taken very little delight in lunch; it's simply fuel to ensure I survive until my next meal.

Some people can pack a simple sandwich or throw a granola bar into their purse and consider themselves prepared for midday, but my appetite has always been too ravenous for such measly helpings. Others forget lunch altogether, to which I say, do you forget to get dressed in the mornings, too?

But as my schedule calmed down and my body required less fuel to get from one place to another (those hills at BYU are mean), I was able to gradually reduce the size of my lunches.

Not only that, but I think my metabolism is starting to slow down, as well. I got down to a sandwich + one side for lunch, and that's not even the weirdest thing. I no longer need toast to complement my breakfasts in the mornings. Noon rolls around and my stomach isn't imploding with hollowness. The work day ends and I sometimes have the stamina to consider taking my evening walk before eating dinner.

I am no longer the hungry person I once was.

This decrease in appetite happened around the same time I finally decided I had had enough of sandwiches. Even homemade bread wasn't enough to ensure my faithfulness of 10+ years.

So I made possibly the biggest food-related change of my entire life: I ditched the sandwiches and started experimenting with salads.

Let me clarify a few things before you die of shock. I did not go full-out vegetarian. Any time I eat a meal that is heavy on the fruits and vegetables, I feel deprived for the rest of the day and seek comfort in donuts, ice cream, and all things salty to compensate for my lack. Any meal that doesn't include meat and cheese just isn't a proper meal, in my opinion.

This drastic change was merely an opportunity for me to make lunch fun again, to stop eating the same boring thing every day. Even if it meant more time in the kitchen cutting up vegetables.

Some of the experiments didn't impress me, like this Italian Tuna and Rice Salad. The olives were delightful, though.

This experiment would repulse tomato haters, but scored with me (after I added some chicken, of course).

But things got even more fun when I finally stepped out of my comfort zone and tried out a new grocery store: Trader Joe's. My coworkers who truly care about the food they consume swear by Trader Joe's, so I decided to try it out. And let me just say, I haven't had so much fun grocery shopping in a long time. The store is small, so you don't waste any time traveling through miles and miles of aisles, making the hunt for specific items so much easier. And so far, everything I've tried has been a hit: the carrot-cake cookies, the tomatoes, the applesauce, and the concoctions I threw together for lunch.

Not lunch, but delightful all the same.

You hungry yet? Let the fun commence!

A temple for Payson

It was during a five-minute break from my evening ASL class that I got the news. Payson was getting a temple.

And it wasn't folklore this time; we had an official Church press release affirming that fact.

It's difficult to describe the emotions that course through your body when you get this kind of announcement. Over the next few days I went through stages of shock, excitement, incredulity, gratitude, and joy. Utah (at the time) was home to 13 temples, but this temple would be for little ol' Payson. My people.

Some of those feelings came back when I went to the open house yesterday. Strangeness at seeing such a magnificent structure where there used to be a simple field (and during some of my pizza delivering days, the road didn't even stretch out that far). Surprise when I recognized some of the ushers. The complete incredulity of feeling like a tourist in my own town, a town that doesn't have any tourist-y attractions (except for, perhaps, Peteetneet Academy, but the only people who would drop by to see that building are Payson natives).

And once we made it inside, it wasn't just the beauty of the apple blossom motifs, the hand-painted gold trim, and the abundance of stained-glass windows that pleased the eye and spirit. It was the extra Payson-ness—the paintings of familiar mountains and scenery, the work done by local artists. All the little reminders that this temple was built with the people of Payson in mind. The building captured the feeling of home in a way no other temple can.

I'm probably biased, but it's one of the most beautiful temples I've ever seen. I may not live in the temple district anymore, but I'll still be proudly claiming the Payson temple as my temple.

Why YSA wards are proof of God's love

It's a truth universally acknowledged that single twenty-somethings are the red-headed stepchildren of Mormon culture. Each family ward has a place for children, youth, and adults, but those of marriageable age with no children suddenly find themselves without a niche.

The solution? Throw them into a singles ward! Marry them off as quickly as you can so they can move back into a real ward and finally feel comfortable with real adults!

Okay, so it's not that bad. Except, sometimes it feels that way. Sometimes I worry that the comical, negative stereotype super-glued to YSA wards is the only perception people have of YSA wards. That they view those who didn't seize the low-hanging fruit in their early twenties as too weird/selfish/lazy/immature to get married.

And I'm not just talking about others here—I thought the same thing until I became one of those single twenty-somethings.

When in fact marriage really has little to do with singles wards in the first place. It's often a side effect, yes. But after 7 1/2 years in a YSA ward, I've felt more and more strongly that these wards were created because God loves his YSAs, not because he wants to "fix" them.

My first YSA ward was a BYU ward. To my 20-year-old self, it was like an unsupervised playground that spontaneously shot couples with Cupid's arrows. Even beyond that, it was a haven, a place of belonging. This was a ward specifically for me and all the other transitioning adults in my small corner of Provo.

I never thought I could learn so much from people my own age, or that church would still feel so right in a setting without families.

Being surrounded by budding romances did wear me down toward the end of my BYU experience, though, and I lost sight of all that is good about singles wards for a while. I felt like that guy from that Singles Ward movie, who, after his divorce, was more upset that he would have to go back to a singles ward than that his marriage had ended.

My perspective shifted when I moved to Midvale and started going to a newly formed singles ward, where beards were rampant and college graduates were the norm. Refreshingly one of the young ones of the ward again, I felt more at home at church than I had in a while. The pressure to get married was still faint, but I was surrounded by people in the same boat I was—trying to make the most of a life experience most of us didn't expect to have.

And being part of a singles ward is an integral part of that experience. It provides you with people who roll their eyes with you when someone admonishes you to "try a little harder" at dating, like it's that simple. (And they're also the ones you listen to when you really do need to try a little harder.) You have a support group to lean on when all of your friendships change because your friends are married and you are not. Sunday School, Relief Society, and Priesthood lessons are relevant to your life today, not the one you hope to have in the future.

But it's more than just the sense of community and commonality. It's the way your relationship with God strengthens as the regulars in your life diminish. It's the trust your bishopric has for young adults to fulfill the "important" leadership callings in the ward. It's the way the ward focuses on you and helping you reach your potential.

I haven't missed going to a family ward for a long time, and I know I'll be really sad when I have to leave. Because YSA wards aren't just a solution to the twenty-somethings problem—they exist because God watches out for all of his children, even the misfits.

Read the Old Testament: Check

It took about five years, but I can finally check off "read the entire Old Testament" off my bucket list.

Given the length of time it took to complete it, this goal clearly wasn't a top priority. (I can only think of one other book that took me longer to read—Little Women. I started it in junior high, picked it up sporadically throughout high school, and then finally started over and gave the book one last try after graduating from college. Incidentally, it is now one of my favorite books. Timing is everything, my friends.)

One of my favorite classes at BYU—possibly the favorite—was the Bible as Literature. We studied the bible from historical and literary perspectives, something you don't get to do much in your typical LDS Sunday School class. To make things even more interesting, Dr. Eliason didn't assign a specific edition for the entire class; instead, he asked us to pick out a couple different versions and base our study on those. (This made read-aloud sessions more fun—it's fascinating how much the translations differ from each other.)

I went a little beyond the minimum book requirement (my checking account wasn't happy about it). But this English major couldn't resist the "prompting" to just buy one more . . .

And just like that, instead of the dry, hard-to-understand text I had previously associated with the bible, I had a book of stories akin to Aesop's Fables or Hans Christian Anderson's fairy tales (although some of the stories are definitely more Grimm.) During that semester, I discovered so many new stories and understood some of my old favorites in deeper, more satisfying ways. Who knew you could learn so much from the line "and Eglon was a very fat man"? Who in this modern era wouldn't enjoy a story about a young woman who pounded a tent peg through her captor's head rather than wait for rescue?

The bible is full of stories like that, and unfortunately we couldn't cover all of them in four short months. Never fear, I told myself, you can read the entire thing on your own time.

Which is what I did, although it wasn't quite the experience I was expecting. Turns out it helps to have a bible expert at your side to provide context. And some of it is about as interesting as an inventory list. Not to mention the stuff that is just plain incomprehensible. (Think Isaiah is hard? Then you haven't tried Ezekiel.)

But you know the phrase "You only get out what you put in"? That is essential to Old Testament scripture study. You can't peruse through it like you would a picture book and wait for knowledge to pop out at you with lots of pretty colors. Those inventory lists, family trees, and detailed laws may not be fun reading, but if you start to think about why they're there, you might learn something anyway. If you're paying attention, you'll find that many of the men and women have personalities—they're real people, not one-dimensional stick figures who exist solely to teach lessons. And most importantly, stories about talking donkeys and whales that swallow humans and large bodies of water that are split in half still have so much relevance to the boring, troubling, and confusing things we deal with every day.

I am by no means an Old Testament expert yet, and I plan to dive back into the book many more times to dig out more treasures.

But for now, on to the New Testament!

When you're playing hooky

When you've procured for yourself a burn-out recovery day, you have to do it upright.

An excellent start to any day begins at the temple. It's especially satisfying to do the Lord's work when you're supposed to be in a cubicle somewhere.

After a quick lunch, grab a book and read outside. It's a beautiful day out.

Next, let's hit the matinee showing of the latest must-see movie.

But first, buy a treat with your spare change. That's what it's for.

And if you're lucky, you'll get an entire theater to yourself.

When the movie's over, you'll be ready to move around a bit—so why not explore some new walking trails in the luscious spring sunshine and see what you can find?

And be sure to take more pictures of flowers. Because it's fun.

When you get home, this would be the optimal time to start preparing for a fabulous dinner. But chances are you don't have any food to cook, so plan on enjoying leftovers again later.

Oh my, look at the time. The work day is just ending.

The rest of the evening is yours to do with as you wish. If you've followed these instructions, you should be sufficiently recharged by bedtime.

Throwback Thursday: The stupid Beauty and the Beast and the paper-tree Cinderella

One time I was on a date, telling this guy about my favorite restaurant. He listened with a smile, and then said, "Are you sure the food is that good, or do you love it just because it's nostalgic?"

The thought had never occurred to me, and I was actually a little offended that he would suggest such a thing. But, he had a point. Part of the charm of the place is the memories and the photo wallpaper that includes several of my relatives.

But while I'm still convinced that the best Mexican food in the world is served at La Casita in Springville, Utah (one of the biggest disappointments of my adult life was discovering that not all Mexican food is that delicious), I can acknowledge several things that continue to be the best thing in the world only because of the love I had for them in my childhood. 

Two movies in particular. My family affectionately calls them "the stupid Beauty and the Beast" and "the paper-tree Cinderella." 

Since every fairy tale retelling is unique, allow me to give a brief synopsis of each.

Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (1965)

Cindrella lives in a cottage far, far away with her stepmother who never looks at people when she talks and her two 40-year-old stepsisters. They live in a cruel land; the men are forced to wear tights and the women must wear cones on their heads when they go out. The prince, the son of the King and Queen of Hearts, has just gotten home from slaying dragons and saving princesses, but has not yet managed to fall in love. So the king announces a ball, and all twenty of the lovely maidens in the land show up. All sound is sucked out of the ballroom when Cinderella arrives, and you know the prince is falling more and more in love because his smile gets so big it's in danger of breaking his head. But Cinderella must leave at midnight, and they are tragically separated. But, don't despair; they can still sing duets telepathically. Alas, that isn't enough for the prince—especially since his parents keep trying to join in—and he sets out to find the girl whose name he never bothered to learn. Cinderella's stepsisters are the last to be tortured via forced glass-slipper-trying-on, and just as the prince is about to leave, Cinderella's fairy godmother reminds her the prince is always dying of thirst. So she gives him some cool water from the well, he sees his princess through the dirty cheeks and Halloween-colored wardrobe, and they live happily ever after.

Beauty and the Beast (1987)

Beauty lives with her father and four helpless siblings who are in their thirties. Disaster strikes, and they have to leave their mansion and move into a cute little cottage and do chores. It's the end of the world. UNTIL . . . The father's clerk announces that one of their lost ships has been found. The father is delighted, and plans to leave at once to go claim his ship. Everyone but Beauty demands their father to bring home gifts, but Beauty simply asks for a rose. The ship has been sold to someone else by the time the father arrives after "two weeks' journey later," and then the father somehow ends up in a creepy castle in the middle of a desert. The castle is full of fog and causes him to sing conversations with himself. But he has a grand old time, and he sets off the next morning to go home to his children—but not before cutting a rose from a garden. Suddenly, a beast with an upset stomach runs down 17 flights of spiral staircases and confronts him, a little dizzy. In payment for the rose he stole, the father must come back in two days and offer up either himself or one of his daughters for life. Beauty, feeling guilty about her silly request, volunteers to go, and her father, seeking the Father of the Year Award, tells her he'll accompany her on the journey. Beauty has a lovely time at the castle, dancing with statues, talking to pictures, and gazing sternly at the metal owl in the library. And every night, the beast asks her to marry him, and she answers daintily, "No, Beast." Meanwhile, every night in her dreams, she meets a prince that looks exactly like Beast and he is always sad because he failed his acting class. Eventually, Beauty asks if she can go home to visit her family, but her visit isn't all she thought it would be because they've all learned how to dress and feed themselves in her absence. So she goes back to the beast because he's the only one that needs her, and POOF. He explodes into fireworks, Dream Prince appears, and they live happily ever after after the most awkward kiss ever.

Sorry, I guess those weren't very brief. If you only knew how many gems I left out . . .

Ahem. Back to my point. Over the years, my eyes have been opened to the atrocious acting and terrible sets. But as I'm cringing at performances the actors are probably too ashamed to put on their résumés (especially since most of them are actually quite good in other movies), I'm also remembering dancing in the driveway under the stars singing "A Lovely Night," imagining myself in Cinderella's fur-trimmed dress while I sing "10 Minutes Ago" with a handsome prince, and dreaming of living in a magic castle with a dream prince. I notice the cone-shaped trees and off-key singing, but I'm too busy reveling in the return of childhood innocence to really be bothered by them. 

So every few years, I pull out one of these movies, ready to grin stupidly for 90 minutes and come up with more clever ways to mock them with my sisters. They're terrible movies by any set of standards, but I love them so.