Before I send them to the virtual landfill...

I just got a notice that my mailbox is 91% full and I need to clean it out. I went to my "sent mail" folder which I often neglect when it comes to deleting emails and I have stuff from 2005. Wow. That was before I had a blog! And before I had a blog, all my good stories were told to my friend Ilene via email. I've saved these over the years because there's good material in here. Here are a couple stories I shared with Ilene that I think are worth retelling. Or at least remembering.

6/1/2005

St. George

Maria and I went to St. George this past weekend. Mic (EQP) invited a bunch of people down to his condo. While we were there we visited a friend from our ward and his development. It's going to be a golf course and it will have 3500 houses as well. It's going to be called "Ledges". Sounds a little suicidal to me. The name, not the development, I'm sure he'll be very successful. He's a retired lawyer. He's thirty three and he's retired. And so he made all these good investments and now he's super rich.

So we go down to Mic's condo and there are about 17 people staying at this place. There are three bedrooms and two bathrooms. It was crazy. But it was fun. When we first got there everyone was just kind of crammed in the living room watching the huge plasma screen. Mic was flipping through the channels when he finally landed on the end of Predator. I've never seen Predator, but it was all pretty predictable to me. Maria and I were kind of playing the hecklers along with some other girls. Mic was like, "Don't give it away!" and we're all, "Um, we've never seen this before it's just predictable." I said something like, "I would love to see the script for this movie; it probably consists of twelve lines." Finally Mic says, "Man, you can't watch movies like Predator with girls."

Silence for about 3 seconds...

Random girl: "I wonder what Predator's mother is like..."

Steve-O

Steve is the ward's executive secretary. He called me on Thursday wondering if he could drive down with me and Maria. I was like, "Sure" especially since he wanted to drive. Steve was hilarious. He didn't bring any CDs to listen to because he'd rather have conversations. So every now and then he'd give us a topic of discusison and we would discuss. We talked about nicknames and how he prefers that we just call him Steve. His mother calls him Steven so we shouldn't. His buddies call him Steve-O but we shouldn't because that will destroy any possibilty of a romantic relationship in the future. And then occasionally he would turn on the radio. We'd listen to music and then he'd turn the radio down and say, "OK, now it's time for some quiet and self-reflection...just enjoy the silence and think of new topics of discussion." And then periodically he would turn down the radio and say, "All right, I think it's time for another evaluation of the trip. How are we doing? Anyone hungry? Cold? Any complaints?" The best though was when an 80's ballad would come on the radio and he would snap his fingers out of rhythm.

Each time we hit Utah County on the way there and back, he would get all tense, impatient and testy. He hates Utah County and he says it stresses him out. Our favorite game was when we'd change to 100.3 FM to listen to "Delilah". This is the soft rock station and people call in with their sappy stories and problems and Delilah acts all understanding and plays their requests. We would tune in during a song and guess what story a caller told that prompted the request for that song. We decided to play this after listening to this lady tell a 8-10 minute story about something really lame and then she requested "In my Father's Eyes." We were all hypnotized by the lameness of the story, waiting to hear what lame song she wanted to request and after the song played for 5 seconds, Steve shut the radio off and said, "Well. We could have saved ourselves a bunch of time and just listened to that on my CD."

And then I laughed for a good five minutes.

I'll show you how my garden grows.

I've had several friends / family ask how my garden is doing. Honestly, I'm worried about the brussel sprouts which seem to have been taken over by a disease or some sort of insect. I planted one plant inside my magic square and about 5 others outside the square, and the one inside the square is doing much better than the others. Way to go Mel's soil. I attribute it to you. So far I've harvested lettuce, spinach, cilantro, and broccoli. Oh, and LOTS of strawberries.

Below we have a little white blossom which I hope
will be a red bell pepper one day.


And here we have leeks that are growing
much more slowly than I expected.

My onions seem to be doing well. Sometimes I can't differentiate
between these and the leeks. Good thing I put a little sign.

I agree with what Ilene told me on the phone yesterday. Tomatoes are
the whole reason you plant a garden. Wait...Ilene I remember you being the roommate who didn't like tomatoes. Now I'm confused.

Red romaine. I love how I won't have to buy lettuce for the rest of
the season as long as I keep taking the outer leaves of my
romaine and it keeps growing up and up and up...

Mmm...strawberries. I have to admit, this strawberry patch
was in my plot before I got here.

Hey little buddy! You're the cutest bitty
corn cob I've ever seen.

This spinach. Man. I wish I could keep it around all season, but I think
it's season is coming to a close. I eat a lot of spinach -- okay,
I drink a lot of spinach. So this is one of the most
economical things I planted.

I don't know what I expected from my broccoli. I think I just expected more. I took one big bunch home before it started to flower and now whenever I'm at my garden I just pinch off these little shoots and I eat them while I'm there. Still good.

I planted this red leaf later in the season. I haven't really harvested any yet. I'll do that on Sunday when I feed guests who I promised a
"garden harvest meal." Mostly it will be a salad that I harvest.

The insects got some of my cabbage leaves, but I don't blame them.
They look delicious.

My parsley is finally catching on to the idea that
it's supposed to GROW.

ONE little lavender shoot. Maybe once I cut down the red romaine
it won't feel so dwarfed and it can work on it's confidence a little more.