So much to say, so little time in which to say it...
Today is day 6 of the Fjeldsted family vacation, and thus day 6 of my solitary confinement (except for the dogs and gerbil, but they don't talk to me, so it amounts to the same thing). There should be a study done comparing the effectiveness of canine companionship in staving off signs of lunacy when alone for long periods of time. I bet dogs provide a kind of outlet for social interaction that helps keep otherwise isolated people from going completely bonkers. It's not as bad as all that, but a few days have been rather boring.
The first full day they were gone, last Wednesday, I managed to lock myself out of the house! Here's the account firsthand from an email written not long ago: "I found out by midday, because the neighbor kid who comes over to let the dogs out during the day called my aunt and uncle and told them the door from the garage to the house was locked. It turns out that I unlocked it, but not completely, and it snapped back to being locked when I closed the door behind me. Anyway, I got home around 4:30, and looked around the house. Doors locked. My aunt texted me and said that one of the windows on the second floor was probably unlocked. However, we didn't have a ladder in the garage that went that high (maybe 14-15 feet, pretty high up). So, I had to borrow one from the neighbors. First house I tried (because they were the only neighbors I had met), no one was home. A lady across the street was out watering her plants, so I approached her, introduced myself as the nephew staying for the summer, and asked her if she had a ladder I could borrow. I really think serving a mission works wonders for forcing yourself through awkward situations, because that was pretty awkward. "Hi, I've never met you before, but I need your ladder to break into the house across the street that I've locked myself out of. Thanks!" She looked a little confused and awkward herself, but her genuinely nice and neighborly nature won out and she graciously let me borrow their ladder. Off I went to the back yard to put it up against the house. I climbed up only to discover that I would have to stand on the very top of a skinny ladder perched precariously against the wall several feet off a brick patio to even attempt to reach the window, and on top of that there was a bug screen on the outside of the window. Scratched that idea. Climbed onto a section of roof jutting out to try opening another window with a bug screen, couldn't get the screen off. I then went around the ground floor windows (without screens), trying to open them. I tried pushing on one of them to get a grip so I could then push up to open it, and it fell in the house! Only diagonally - the bottom of it was still in the windowsill track and lifted up a little bit. So I returned the ladder and clambered awkwardly over the jutting window. This whole time, the dogs were barking furiously, having not been let out for 10 hours. They weren't angry with me; in fact, I was their hero. They spent the rest of the afternoon/evening following me around and making sure I wasn't going to leave them. Anyway, the window got put back in properly, and everything was fine, but it was an awkward 20-minute adventure! Imagine me presenting the neighbor lady (I didn't even ask her name) with a chocolate souffle after that..." The context of that last sentence will remain forever unknown for those to whom the email was not addressed, but apart from that, it was quite an experience. We all need things to keep us humble, right?
Saturday was spent mostly doing chores and yard work; I also hatched a plan to invite people from the YSA over for dinner. I discovered the complete recipe for Cafe Rio Pork Salad on someone's blog a few weeks ago (rice, beans, pork, dressing, everything completely authentic), so I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to have some people over so it wasn't just me and the dogs all Sunday afternoon. I remembered how much I love gardening - driving to the grocery store I saw a greenhouse/nursery and stopped to browse. I ended up buying some herbs and pots and potting soil, of course. Not very sensible since I'm only here for another five weeks, but there you have it. It's one of my primal urges. I was wondering what to do with myself around 8 pm when I got a text from Kurt in the ward, asking if I wanted to come hang out and go on a boat cruise. Very fortuitous. He lives on a lake a few miles away.
It ended up being a 'booze cruise'! Not exactly, because although the chips and popcorn and marshmallows were almost certainly real, the booze was sparkling cider and pear and pomegranate Martinelli's. There were four girls and me and Kurt in the boat, and we cruised around the lake and snacked and rocked out to Jason Mraz (I'd never heard of him until a couple of days before, and then that's all we listened to - isn't life full of coincidences like that?). I really like his music; I'll have to buy a few songs. The marshmallows were strawberry and regular flavored and about 3 inches in diameter and 3 inches tall - we had a mouth stuffing contest, which ended up with two being spit overboard and the rest swallowed after much laborious maneuvering! We stopped after an hour to pick another guy up, and then we had a dance party in the middle of the lake for a bit. After that ended around 11 pm, Kurt tried to start the boat, only to find that it was dead. Bother. None of us was dressed to plunge in the lake (not that we wanted to anyway), and for a time it seemed that the booze cruise was destined to keep us there all night. A great excuse not to be at church! Kurt had a charger for the battery at home and an oar, though, so he ended up having his brother drive the charger around the lake to us while he paddled to shore with his singular oar. And thus the day was saved. There are pictures on Facebook...
Church yesterday was great. I've grown to really love the ward here, and I'll miss it when I'm gone. I already feel more at home in this ward than I did in either of my BYU wards last year, and I've only been here a few weeks. Maybe part of it is that it's smaller and more tight-knit, and that I have multiple callings and opportunities to serve, but whatever the cause, I hope to be back in a ward like this one soon, either at BYU or elsewhere. Throughout church I invited people to dinner, but it seemed like no one was going to come! It being Father's Day, most of the people from the area were going home for dinner. I then focused on the summer marketers, but one group was having a company barbecue and the other was heading to an uncle's house. Desperately I continued the search - as tasty as Cafe Rio salads are, I couldn't eat ten by myself! Thankfully, I ended up having five other people over - Matt, Victor, Lauren, and the elders. Matt just got here from BYU as a Target intern, and he knows at least three other really good friends of mine. We were in Helaman Halls the same time. Funny how paths collide. Anyway, they enjoyed dinner and we played some Apples to Apples afterward. Then, half an hour after they left, some summer marketers who couldn't make it showed up to hang out with a couple other people from the ward. We played pool (I dominated until my partner scratched on the 8 ball!) and crud and then some more Apples to Apples. Crud is so much fun - I didn't realize how much I missed it until we played last night. There was an apartment on my mission with a pool table and we would play at least a couple times a week. I lost the first round or two, but after that I was unstoppable - three in a row!
I've discovered in the last couple years how much I enjoy helping people be happy and have a good time. I get it from my mom. She's always helping everyone and she loves the YSA and she has people over for Sunday dinner pretty much every week! She's always been a mom to anyone and everyone who comes under her roof. I feel the same way - I love cooking for people, I love it when people enjoy my cooking, and I like being with people when they're having a good time and knowing that I helped. So even though I still have a sink full of dishes to do (no time yesterday before I had to go to bed, no time this morning to do them either), I fell asleep last night happier than I've been in a while, because I made people happy by inviting them over when they didn't have anything else to do. I don't think I'll become a professional chef or lounge host anytime soon, but it's nice to clearly figure out one of the things that brings me fulfillment.
English title: Booze Cruise!
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