好久不見！

I don't recall exactly when I posted last, but I think it was almost two weeks ago following the Hamelin concert (disregarding the multiple-choice question, which hardly counts as a post).  Since that time, my world has been turned completely upside down!

Just kidding, but it's as good of an attention-grabber as any.  The news in brief: last weekend, being Memorial Day weekend, was long.  In my case, it was extra long.  At work on Friday, I was about to go to lunch when my boss came up to me and informed me in a roundabout way that I could leave whenever I wanted to.  I took his words to heart and left as soon as I was finished eating (had I not brought a lunch, I likely would have left upon finishing our conversation!).  Thereupon followed a lengthy bike ride.  We live in the northwest corner of the Twin Cities, with basically wilderness on three sides of the town, and there's a nature reserve a couple miles away with biking trails and paths, so I biked up there.  Within the confines of Elm Creek Park Reserve, I biked past a frisbee golf course (if I had anyone around to play with, I might go - maybe I can plan for that as an FHE activity!), a lake (no one was on it, but I guess the weekend hadn't officially started yet), several horse trails (marked specifically 'no bicycles'; sad day!), and various woodland creatures.  I was sunburned, but that didn't stop me from going out for rides on Saturday and Monday as well.  For those forays I took different paths.  There are so many paths here I could probably go on a different ride every day of the summer.

On Saturday we went to the Mall of America.  It wasn't as big as I expected it to be, but I suppose nothing compares to the mall in the base of the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur.  It's four stories high, with a Nickelodeon theme park in the middle (complete with rides, though we didn't get to do any).  It was only moderately crowded, given the holiday weekend, but notwithstanding the crowds I triumphed at every store in my path!  In particular, I spent only $3 (on a pair of socks, 25% off) at Banana Republic, a daring feat with which I will regale my children and my children's children.  Other stores, unfortunately, coaxed a bit more out of me.  I went with Jakob and Chelsey, and Jakob needed some new shoes, but by the time Chelsey and I were done, Jakob hadn't even looked at shoes yet, so I went with him to Journeys and fell in love with some neon green Converse shoes while I was waiting for him.  I then spied some neon blue ones, and was suddenly stuck between a rock and a hard place.  I asked the salesgirl if I could buy one of each pair, but she was firmly opposed unless I bought both pairs, so I ended up going for the green.

In other news, I'm suddenly undecided on my recital program again.  I listened to the Grenados Goyescas with the score for the first time this week, and I fell in love with them, so now it's a toss-up between them and Iberia, where last week I was firmly in the Albeniz camp.  It may boil down to length, as the Prokofiev is 30 minutes long and I don't have time to play more than two of the Goyescas.  What to do?

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this on here, but I was listening to the radio a couple weeks ago and heard a piece for piano and harpsichord duo, a Tango by Asako Hirabayashi.  It was eccentric and fun, and she's a composer and harpsichordist who lives here in the Twin Cities, so I looked her up, emailed her, and asked her for a copy of it.  She very willingly sold me a copy, and I'm toying with including it in my recital as well.  Should I learn the harpsichord part, or have someone else (probably Dr. Bush) play it?  Or forgo it altogether?  It would be really neat to have pieces spanning the time from Scarlatti to 2010 (she wrote it in 2009 and revised it a little before giving it to me), and I can guarantee that no one in attendance will ever have heard it before...

Today was mostly uneventful: oil change, haircut, practicing.  I had stake conference (the evening session) tonight, and I mistakenly thought it was at 8 pm when it was in fact at 6 pm.  I arrived at 7:30 (half an hour early, or so I thought) to a full parking lot and was at once chagrined, but I went in, figuring that the last half an hour would be as valuable as any.  I was right - Elder C. Scott Grow of the Seventy was presiding, and I heard about five minutes of him speaking, and the rest of the time was members of the congregation asking questions of him and his answers.  I won't list all of them here, but it was amazing, because each of the questions had direct applicability to me, and his answers went straight to my heart and bore witness that he was a servant of God.  I'm so grateful to belong to a church with direct revelation and the fulness of the Holy Ghost.

I'm excited for tomorrow, which will be more of the same, no doubt.  I also get to go to my brother Andrew's graduation from high school in Maryland next weekend!  Two great things to look forward to.  Jakob is calling me for a game of Monopoly, so this blog will be adjourned until such time as is convenient for it to be in session.

English title: Long time no see!

P.S. If you dare, go to Sporcle.com and try to name the countries of the world!  Britny got me started on it, and now my fastest time is 5:03.  If you can't name all the countries in the world yet, start with each continent and work your way up.  Have fun!