Brush Up Your Shakespeare

First, the good news that made my Monday a tolerable, nay, a great day! (normally, monday’s are no good) My boss called me into his office, which doesn’t happen very often, so naturally I assumed I was in trouble, but heaven only would know why if that were the case. But it was really wonderful news! I’ve been up for a promotion to be an editor, and Clint just got the go-ahead to switch me up! I’ve been doing editor work now for close to a couple of months, so it’s all a lot of the same stuff I’ve already been doing, but with a change of title . . . and more “importantly”, a raise! (we all like to hear that)

Now for the rest of the news that made my weekend fun. I, along with a couple of friends, went down to Cedar City for the Utah Shakespeare Festival! I’ve never been to the Utah festival, and I’ve only gone to the Oregon one in Ashland once, so this was a pretty cool and fun excursion for me, especially since it was kind of a spur-of-the-moment decision for me to go. But go I did, and it was totally fun!

Megan and I spent the entire drive down to Cedar gabbing and catching up on a bunch of stuff, considering we haven’t had a good talk in a few months, so the drive went by fairly quickly for me. The six of us met up, set up camp (we slept in tents at the KOA), then immediately headed to SUU to see Cyrano de Bergerac. Talk about cutting it close. The play began almost the instant we sat down. Good timing. And, wow! Out of the three plays we saw, Cyrano was my favorite. It was hilarious, touching, sad, exciting, etc., etc., etc.! The actor who portrayed Cyrano just owned the part, and it was awesome! I spent a good portion of the play crying, and fortunately I wasn’t the only one who did.

After Cyrano, our group headed over to the Wal-Mart so Megan, Jenny, and Mashell could pick up the latest “Twilight” book, since it came out that night. It was funny to see how excited they got about it, and we were thinking of reading it out loud with each other once we got back to our tents (megan was especially excited to do voices) because we were all just being silly. That didn’t exactly work out, considering we didn’t get back to the site until close to one, and we would have all been giggling and laughing and making too much noise for the other people around us.

On Saturday, we spent quite some time being silly in the souvenir shops and taking pictures with Mr. Shakespeare, but we went to Fiddler on the Roof in the afternoon, which was very excellent. Once again, I cried. (big shock) The musical numbers were just fun (when they were supposed to be, that is) and I really enjoyed the production. We watched the green show, which was sufficiently entertaining, before going to Othello. No crying in that one. It’s not really the kind of play to evoke a lot of sympathy from me because I feel like Othello doesn’t behave like a person you should feel sorry for, not after he becomes crazy-obsessive-scary man. But I still maintain that Iago is one of the smartest villains ever written.

After Othello came the drive back to Provo in the middle of the night. Megan and I did a good job of keeping each other awake and alert by playing music and singing along at the top of our lungs. First came Queen (which we sang along to a bit, but not really loud), and then came Wicked, which we started belting and didn’t stop, even when our voices became incredibly hoarse. (and what was joe doing the whole time he was in the back seat? Not sleeping, that’s for sure.) That was probably the most fun part of the night. After Wicked came Abba, which we again sang along to, not quite as loud as to Wicked, but still fairly loud. I was really glad I went in Megan’s car for the trip, because Jenny’s car was probably not nearly so . . . musical. Anyway, got home at about 3 am. A whirlwind trip, but a totally fun one, and I was really glad I went. Friends, food, fun, and awesome plays! Who could ask for anything more?

Quote of the day: “The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good—in spite of all the people who say he is very good.” –Robert Graves

Good night, good night. Parting is such sweet sorrow!

-Me

For There's No Blue Monday in Your Sunday Clothes

Hello, everyone! “Gan Nelson” here. I have successfully disposed of the girl known as Megan Jensen and taken her place in her home, her job, her ward, and her bed! Not only that, my roommate “Ishtar Morrisse” has done the same to Megan’s old roommate, Esther. Let the rule of the UN-lucky 7s begin! All shall love us and despair!

-scuffle, shoving, fighting, drawing of light-sabers, dropkicking of “Gan” to another galaxy-

Okay, everyone. It’s me again, Megan. Phew! That took a lot out of me! I’m sure Esther had no trouble getting rid of the dreaded “Ishtar Morrisse”, but “Gan Nelson” put up quite a fight. To dispel a popular theory, the name “Gan” did not come from an attempt of mine to copy my mother’s granny-nickname, which is “Ganny”. It came from an attempt of some guys in the ward to suggest possible nicknames for me, and Neal decided to use the second syllable of my name, rather than the first syllable, which has never happened to me before in my life. I was astonished at the originality, but wasn’t so much a fan of the name, however much it reminded me of that ever-popular classic, The Journey of Natty Gann. However, the name still occasionally pops up randomly, even from my beloved roommate. So now I can’t quite get rid of the name, but heaven knows, I needed to get rid of that phantom spirit that accompanied it and has been responsible for all unexplained and strange occurrences in the Lucky 7s home.

But all hail the conquering hero! (that’s me) Two nights ago, I went running (again) and accomplished a first. Now, this may come across as kind of pathetic to others, but I have never run a mile straight in my life. I’ve run a mile in one outing, yes—well over a mile, even—but never have I run a mile without stopping after about half a mile and walking a bit, then running another bit, then walking a bit, etc. But Tuesday night, I ran a mile without stopping! Yay! Endurance in running has never been my strong suit, so I was kind of proud of myself when I did it. So everyone rejoice (with the pathetic girl who stinks at running)!

Yet another movie recommendation coming your way. Wall-E. It was very cute, and kind of makes you think, which you wouldn’t really expect from a Disney/Pixar flick, but very good. It was almost worth going to it just to see the short film played before it, which was called Presto. Kelly, Whitney, Steve, and I couldn’t stop laughing; it was so hysterical. Wall-E certainly made me laugh out loud quite a bit, and it had me tapping my toes with how many times “Sunday Clothes” from “Hello, Dolly” was played. When the movie opened and the music started with “Out there, there’s a world outside of Yonkers . . .”, I was suddenly so excited and I started semi-singing along to the words, causing Steve to be very baffled because he thought that I hadn’t seen Wall-E yet (to which Whitney whispered that the song was from something else). And fortunately, my friends thought it was endearing rather than annoying that I “sang” along to the song during that opening minute.

I got to spend a lot of Saturday with my friend Bethany, and we did a bunch of girly things, like get our hair cut (ironic, since I was with her the last time I got my hair cut), chat, eat junk food, and go shoe shopping. Girly things are fun to do every once in a while. Esther and I decided to watch Anne of Green Gables last night, so Sarah (a friend from work who also loves Anne) and Becky came over and we watched a bit of it. Awesome times. I also played games with both Marys, Marianne, and Andrea last night for a bit, so it seems I’m doing pretty well with the gal pals. Yay!

Quote for the Day: “Acting is the most minor of gifts and not a very high-class way to earn a living. After all, Shirley Temple could do it at the age of four.” –Katharine Hepburn

With no cutesy or clever sign-off,
Me (megan, not gan).

-Theme Music- Batman!!!

Holy amazing movie, Batman! Really, anybody who actually reads this blog. SEE the new Batman movie! It will completely astound you. I have to say that my heart was in throat for a good two-thirds of the movie; that’s how intense it was. I most definitely do not regret going to see it at midnight with my girls, because it was absolutely incredible. I came away from it very satisfied (which is a total understatement for how all of us felt about it). It was hilarious walking out of the movie theater at 2:45 last night and seeing all the other movie-goers, just looking amazed and out of breath. We were among them. It was great. (and by the way, I was not disappointed by Heath Ledger’s performance, like I was afraid I might be with all the hype about it. It really was eye-popping. Totally lost the actor and saw the Joker.)

So, needless to say, this weekend will probably be devoted to catching up on the sleep I did not get last night. We got home at three, and I was tired, but I was also really wired from the excitement of the movie, so I probably didn’t fall asleep until about 4. That’s not a good night’s rest. That’s a nap. But that’s okay with me.

Life continues pretty much in the same vein as ever. Just trying to keep myself busy. I’ve been practicing the piano again, trying to get back into the groove and feel like I’m actually good at it once more. We’ll see how that goes. Last week was pretty full, which made me happy. I want to make sure I’m keeping busy. No problem doing so on weekdays, but weekends come along and it’s a completely different story, which makes me think the world must be upside-down, because that just doesn’t seem to sound right. Let’s just hope that occasionally plans will work out so I’m not just being bored. I had some things I was doing over the weekend, so I wasn’t being totally lazy or anything, but a couple of plans fell through, so I ended up being less busy than I wanted to be. Oh, well. That happens. That’s life! Isn’t it great?

So here’s to life, everyone. Live it up. Work hard. Play hard. And, don’t be afraid to fall in love. It’s awesome. Not that I’m in love. If I were, you can bet I would write about that before I ever mentioned Batman. But loving people is great. Sure, you make yourself vulnerable by doing so, but it’s really worth the risk. Even people who have loved and lost will probably agree with me. At least, I think they would.

However, this week’s quote comes from a fictional character whom I have always loved because he made me laugh as a kid (haha, ironic—he SANG “Make ‘em laugh”), and this was one of my favorite exchanges of his: “Talking pictures, that means I'm out of a job. At last I can start suffering and write that symphony.” -Cosmo Brown “You're not out of job, we're putting you in as head of our new music department.” –R.F. Simpson “Oh, thanks, R.F.! At last I can stop suffering and write that symphony.” –Cosmo (“Singin’ in the Rain”—See it, love Cosmo Brown. That’s all I ask.)

With affection and alliteration, Gan.

Fifty Nifty United States

Now comes the time of year that is a struggle for me: the time of year that I have to get rid of songs that have been stuck in my head for about two weeks. And you know what they are. Patriotic anthems such as “God Bless America” and “My Country, ‘Tis of Thee”. Not that there is anything wrong with those songs. Definitely not! But now that the Fourth of July has passed, it is time I got some regular songs stuck in my head, like “Billie Jean” or “Once There Was a Snowman”. (wait . . . ) So in that round-about way, I have brought up a topic about which I can blog—my Fourth of July weekend.

It was a very good and successful weekend, I’d say. If there’s one thing Provo, Utah, knows how to do, it’s how to celebrate the Fourth of July. I would be hard-pressed to find a more patriotic city. (any challenges to that? Anyone?) On Sunday, Esther, Becky, and I went to a patriotic service where the keynote speaker was Glenn Beck, who was treated like a star the instant he stepped into the Marriott Center. You can have your own opinions about Glenn Beck, but I sure enjoyed what he had to say that night. I felt very patriotic, which I think was the point. The rest of the week went by pretty normally, and then Thursday and Friday afternoons, I took to the main streets of Provo with friends to cruise the market that they set up for the Freedom Festival. It reminded me of Saturday Market in Portland, only MUCH hotter and more crowded, since this kind of thing is such a novelty here. But there were some cool booths to explore, and a lot of jewelry set at prices I wouldn’t think of paying until I’m a little bit richer. Esther and I explored it together on Thursday, then Bethany, Becky, and Whitney, and I met up on Friday for some more jostling and fun. Bethany and I were in kind of silly moods (which happens a lot when I’m with her; she rocks), so we got our faces painted, which made us both happy. I got comments the rest of the day about how “festive” I looked!

Friday morning, I went to the parade that goes down University Avenue and up Center Street. My grandparents were in town, so I got to see them as well as other family members (mostly second cousins that I’ve never met). That evening, I went to a barbeque at the “Leisure Lounge”, which is the nickname for the house of some guys in my ward. There were chairs, a couch, and Mary’s Love Sack set up in the front yard, and it was a good crowd of people that showed up to partake of some expertly cooked meat (as well as some awesome desserts) throughout the evening. I was especially proud when Mary and I managed to begin an intense debate among all the people there about the best Disney princesses and princes. It was kind of our own private conversation until we asked David his opinion, and then it just kind of blew up from there. Amazing, what people will get passionate about. Disney princesses. Luke actually gave me quite the impassioned speech about barbeque-flavored chips as Mary and I took over a bag of cheddar/sour cream-flavored chips. Mike was quite vocal about his love for Mountain Dew, and Neal had no problem letting people know his negative feelings toward Coke. Anyway, people kind of came and went as they pleased, but there were still about ten or so of us who drove up 3rd south to find a place to watch the Stadium of Fire fireworks once it was around that time. They were a little far away, but I didn’t mind that much. When we got back to the house, Neal and Mike started “Independence Day” (appropriate) on a projector, and I relinquished my spot on the Love Sack, which I had pretty much commandeered most of the night. We didn’t start the movie until late because of all the traffic driving by, so it was around two when it ended. Half the people on the lawn were asleep, and I was pretty close to fading, myself. Fortunately, I was able to stumble the ENTIRE block back to my house, where I fell asleep on the couch at 2:30 and didn’t get up until close to noon the next day. How lazy. But a good Fourth of July, nonetheless.

The rest of the weekend went pretty well, too. Esther, Becky, Whitney, and I went out to dinner on Saturday night to another Thai restaurant, and, while it’s still no Thai Ruby, it was quite good, and we didn’t stop ourselves from getting a second order of Masman, even after we’d pretty much gorged ourselves on our original orders. Oink, oink on us! After that scrumptious feast, I went to a movie with Mary, Andrea, and Julie. Mary and Andrea are quickly becoming some of my favorite people in the ward, and I’m glad I’m finally making friends. It’s always nice to have them. I fully intend on keeping my friends that I already have, but it’s good to have more. Good friends. Great family. Food. A bed. Who could ask for anything more? (well, I could, but I think people are sick of me talking about wanting to bring a boyfriend into the mix.)

I dedicate this quote of the day to Sylvia, who has been set up on more blind dates in the last six months than everybody else I know has been set up on blind dates in their lifetimes COMBINED: “I’ve been on so many blind dates, I should get a free dog.” –Whitney M. Young

With affection and alliteration, Me.

Mein Vater War ein Wandersmann . . .

Wow, it's been awhile! I guess that just means that I have had nothing of great excitement to report. May was a pretty busy month for me and my little corner of the world, but June definitely calmed down as the weather heated up. Not to say I'm complaining that it's finally warm on a regular basis, but I'm a lot more okay with it now than I was a week ago before our a/c unit was put in. But now it's in and the house is bearable once more. Yay!

This week is going to be a hard week to get through for one simple reason: Esther and I are trying to go an entire week without eating Hint of Lime Tostitos! And it's so hard! She asked me last night if we had just agreed not to buy them, because that would have created a wonderful loophole, but I had to be honest and say that we, in fact, said that we would not eat them. Those Hint of Limes are our downfall. We go through a bag within about a day if left to our own devices. Bad! But we've managed three days without them; I'm sure we can make it. At least, I sure hope we can!

Friday night, Esther, Becky, and I hiked Y Mountain. I haven't done that in about four years (woah . . . really? yeah!), and the last time I did (the only time i did), my altitude sickness kicked in with a vengeance. Yuck. However, I didn't even feel dizzy this time around! It's not a very long hike, and it probably is wimpy for me to rejoice that I made it, but it's a steep hike and not overly pleasant, and I was glad that I didn't get sick or grumpy (esther and becky can attest to that fact). We went after dark, so it was kind of neat to see the lights of the valley below us.

On Saturday, we three and Whitney headed out the canyon for a picnic at South Fork park, and that was a nice afternoon once we got there (i couldn't believe that people were refusing to go the speed limit; i was hungry!). There were some big groups around, but we made our own little place until that got too hot (which happened very quickly), and then we moved into some shade, which made us happy. Well, Esther decided we were wimpy and continued to read her book in the sun, but Becky, Whitney, and I stayed in the shade while Becky experimented with her camera functions. She succeeded in taking a picture of me that has been described as "hot" and "like a vogue picture". Not sure if that's totally a good thing, but that was kind of cool to get that kind of a response out of a picture of me!

Other than that, life is pretty much the same. I "come home, read a book, have a couple of beers, take myself for a walk and go to bed." (well, maybe not the beers bit, but the other stuff is pretty much true) (thanks to Rowlf the Dog for the quote) Maybe July will pick up and I'll have more exciting events to report. Maybe I'll even go on a date! Oh, heavens, what a concept.

Today's quote of the day: "I talk a lot, but I don't necessarily always have something to say." -Me (think about it)

With affection and alliteration,
Me

Fly Me to the Moon (or canyons)

All hail the intrepid explorers! I and my little gang went down to St. George to enjoy the three-day weekend and go hiking around the (somewhat) nearby canyons. Good weekend. Tiring, but good. None of us were particularly excited for the drive, but three and a half hours isn’t really that long. We got down to St. George Friday night and settled in at my grandparents’ house (“settled in” meaning we bought food and assigned bedrooms). Woot for free lodging!

Saturday took us out to Bryce Canyon, where we enjoyed every possible kind of weather there is within a matter of an hour. The boys were in one car and we girls were in the other, entertaining the shuttle bus behind us while we rocked out to the music. The canyon was incredibly gorgeous and very cool. We stopped so many times to take pictures . . . and to wrestle backpacks away from each other (too bad I lost that game, but it’s hard to win when Kelly, Becky, and Esther gang up on you). The best pictures were most likely of Jeremie, who, in true Jeremie fashion, never passed up an opportunity for a silly Kodak moment. All in all, we hiked there for about five and a half hours and were totally dead by the time we got back to St. George that night. However, that didn’t stop us from eating our fill at Olive Garden. Mmm, salad.

Sunday we went to a nearby family ward, which was totally full! It was like attending a stake conference! The six of us got to squish up next to each other on the bench, so it’s a good thing we’re all friends, right? The rest of the day was pretty lazy, but we went down to the temple grounds, walked around, and took pictures where we actually look decent. After that, we went back to the house and made a birthday cake for Steve, which then ended up being used as weaponry as Kelly and I started flinging chocolate frosting at each other.

The truly unfortunate occurrence of the weekend was that the weather went cruddy again on Monday, which meant we couldn’t do the hikes at Zion National Park that we wanted to. So it was an earlier arrival back in Provo than we originally anticipated, but that’s okay. We still had a good weekend all together, and I was happy that there were no major catastrophes on the trip.

Key Phrases of the Weekend: “Chihuahua.” “Go ahead, merge! I’m only imploding!” “It’s good!”

With affection and alliteration, Me.

There Can be Miracles When You Believe

Woot! A miracle has occurred. The other day, Esther and I were in Wal-Mart, and while I was waiting for her to get her eyes checked, I was wandering in the women’s clothing section, which I never do at Wal-Mart. Anyway, I randomly picked up some jeans and thought, “Why not?” At this point I must point out that jeans and I have not been getting along for a couple of years. Nothing fits me the way I want it to, and none of them are ever long enough. I don’t know how many different stores I have gone to in an attempt to find jeans. And I found them at Wal-Mart. It was so completely unexpected, but talk about a miracle! (at least, for me it is, even though it probably sounds totally lame to everyone else)

Esther and I had our “housewarming” bbq last weekend, which ended up being pretty good. My friend Matt brought his grill over and cooked for us, we got our volleyball/badminton net set up in the backyard, and it was a good group of people that showed up. Had everyone that we invited and said would come actually show up, we would have had around 30 people there, but naturally, not everyone came, so we ended up with a group of about 15, which was a goodly number. The weather cooperated, so it was a beautiful day, and we broke out Esther’s telescope once it got dark and looked at the moon; got a brief glimpse of Saturn, too.

I planted my flowers Saturday morning, which was pretty exciting for me. Buying the flowers made me feel slightly grown up, and there was even a hummingbird in the nursery while I was picking them out, so that was a happy moment. Esther and I had a good time digging up all the weeds and yucky grass in front of our place . . . kind of. Esther started helping me once I’d gotten into a rhythm with it, so whenever I say I’m no good at anything, she reminds me that I’m a great digger. And then I feel better. We had a good laugh at ourselves while we were doing so, and an ever bigger laugh when we tried to work the lawnmower. Getting it started wasn’t a problem, but it wasn’t cutting anything. So back in the “Love Shack” it went (that is the name of the shed in our backyard—it’s painted red with the name in white; we did not name it).

And now for the quote of the week: “I’m not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose . . . it’ll be much harder to detect.” –George Carlin

With affection and alliteration, Me.