Juice-buying heebie jeebies

I parked on the street when I got home from my evening out, because I had the intention of running my rent check to my landlord's house and stopping by the store. However, I found that I was very tired. Tired enough to fall asleep awkwardly on the couch. You know, mouth agape. No drool this time, surprisingly.

Well, I woke up just after midnight, remembering that I promised my friend I'd buy some juice for Sunday Conference breakfast. I felt weird about leaving the house. I couldn't figure out if it was because I was tired or if my subconscious was trying to tell me that it was technically the Sabbath Day and the need for juice was no ox-in-the-mire.

I left for the store anyway.

The whole time I was gone, I felt weird inside, like something was wrong or something bad would happen.

When I got home, I parked in my usual spot in the back. As I was pulling in, I noticed that the door of the neighbor's car was open. I was sufficiently creeped. I wasn't sure if I should pull back out. I tried to look in the car to see if the neighbor was in it. I couldn't see anyone.

I sat paralyzed for several seconds trying to decide if it was safe to get out of my car.
Fortunately, there were two women on the porch of the next door neighbor's house. I figured if something went wrong, they'd hear my scream and call the police. Unless of course, they were involved in the crime scheme.

I considered knocking on my neighbor's door, but I figured it'd be safer to go straight inside.
Not sure entirely what to do, I called the Salt Lake City Police non-emergency line. I explained the scene and told them my car had been broken into last week. They sent a patrolman to check it out.
I heard the officer knock on the neighbor's door and ask him about his car. The neighbor sounded panicked and went out to his car. A few moments later, he returned to his apartment and closed the door, and the officer left. I assume that means that nothing was stolen.

I am trying to tell myself that it was simply an error on the part of the neighbor. He left his car door open on accident.

But, of course, I've watched enough crime dramas to imagine otherwise.

Now, my mind is imagining that someone was breaking into my neighbor's car. The deviant saw my headlights pulling in and hid behind one of the open carport storage doors beside the abandoned bbq grill or in one of the empty storage rooms. Fortunately, this deviant is non-violent, non-confrontational, so he/she waited for me to go inside and then left non-chalant, with the two women being unphased by his/her exit. (My short haircut made it impossible for them to know if driver of the vehicle that had just pulled in was a girl or boy. So the deviant could've been either sex and the women would've assumed that he/she was the car driver walking out of the alley.)

So, my conclusion. I am a hero. I stopped a burglary in action. My neighbor will never truly understand how blessed he is that I kept his vehicle from being robbed, stolen, or vandalized.
But my hero status doesn't make me any less scared. I wonder if Batman was scared every time he was involved in stopping a crime or remedying criminal action but followed through anyway because he's a hero and that's the expectation.

Thanks for listening (reading would be more appropriate unless you use a text reader and have the computer software read you all your internet text). This exercise helped me type out my fear and return to my sleepy state. Keep yourself safe this weekend, because this hero hasn't honed all of her superhuman skills yet. I don't know if I can do much beyond startle a would-be thief with my timing.

A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes

I have been having all sorts of life-like dreams lately.  That's how I usually dream.  I don't dream the bizarre.  I dream things that actually could happen.  And the stars of my dreams are the people who I interact with regularly.

Last night, I dreamed I met the guy of my dreams.  He was everything I've ever wanted (and many things I never knew I wanted).  We hit it off immediately.  I was totally into him.  He was totally into me.  The evening was progressing quite well.
My friend, Jared, happened to stop by. 
Jared and I have been friends for a little over a year.  He is one of my favorite people to talk with.  We can talk for hours.  And hours.  And hours.  He and my roommate used to spend a lot of time together and so often, he'd be at my house when I'd come home at night.  One of my favorite conversations occurred one night when I came home to a pitch black house.  (Supposedly they heard me pull up and turned off the tv to scare me.  Sure, I believe it.)  I followed my usual routine of getting a drink of water, never turning on the lights.  And then my roommate said my name.  Having seen Jared's Jeep out front, I greeted them both.  Jared and I started talking right there in the dark.  I don't remember what we talked about, but I remember it being a great conversation.  For several hours.  In the dark.  Needless to say, with all this conversing, Jared and I have formed a very solid bond.  We have talked each other through some challenging life experiences and have spent many a good hour out and about enjoying life.
Back to my dream.
Sometime during the evening, Jared got really sick.  I mean really sick.  The kind of sick that he needed the care and attention of someone else to endure this sickness.  I began tending to Jared's needs and almost entirely ignoring my dream guy.
Well, a dream guy can't be perfect.  This guy possessed some jealousy issues and maybe lacked some confidence.  Upon seeing the intimacy in the way I cared for Jared (being able to anticipate his needs and communicate with him without talking much), my dream guy assumed this meant that I was secretly and madly in love with Jared.  My dream guy abruptly left before we could naturally end the evening and before I could seal my fate (you know, by securing future dates and such).
Once I realized this, I got Jared taken care of well enough that I could dash out the door.  Of course, I was barefoot and there was snow on the ground.  (Because of my real-life distaste for snow, I think snow in my dreams symbolizes when something has gone awry.)  I ran as far as I could before my feet couldn't stand it.  I ran back and grabbed some shoes.  Of course the only shoes I could find were heels.  That didn't make for a quick journey in the snow.  He was already gone.
Now, I have to somehow convince the man of my dreams (literally and figuratively) that my compassion represented true charity and not passionate romantic love for Jared.  But I'm not worried.  If anyone can convince anyone of something, it's Jared.  (Most of the conversations I had with him were essentially debates.)  Jared will just convince my dream man that these actions speak volumes of my character and the kind of love he can anticipate throughout our relationship.

Too bad it was all just a dream.

I also dreamed last night that I was hiking in Zion National Park when an earthquake struck.  The roads were destroyed or covered in rocks, so my friends and I had to hike out of the park.  And for some reason, I was wearing Converse sneakers.  Not sound hiking shoes.

I probably shouldn't have gone to bed with sore feet last night.

You light up my life

It was just after midnight. I was sitting on my couch using my laptop to prepare some things for school. All of the sudden, there was a bright light outside my window. The light resembled that of fire, but there was no way a fire that large could flare up that fast. Within moments, it was gone. A few minutes later, I heard a low rumbling sound much like the roar of an engine and my floor vibrated slowly. Admittedly, I was scared. I didn't know what caused the light or the noise. Of course, I turned to facebook for comfort. I posted, "There is something strange happening in my backyard. I don't know if I dare look outside."

Moments later, my sister, Casey, posted that she had just seen the most amazing meteor in her entire life on her drive home. She said, "It looked like Superman shot across the sky. It was so bright; I was blinking the image for several minutes."

I was a little jealous of Casey, having spent almost an hour the night before in the bitter cold watching for meteors as brilliant as the one Casey just reported seeing. I commented on her post, "I hope you made the ultimate wish."

I, never knowing what caused the strange light in my backyard, went to sleep.

The next morning, I checked facebook as part of my morning routine. A friend of mine, Brian, who works as a reporter for The Spectrum, commented on my post saying, "You aren't the only one to report such an incident." He left the link for the newscast on KSL.

I watched the newscast and got really excited. That bright light I saw was in fact the light from the meteor Casey had seen while driving in Salt Lake. I was thrilled. I couldn't wait to get to school to talk to others about it.

I hadn't missed out (entirely) on the greatest astronomical event of my life.

An adventure at Bear Lake

What does an alfalfa field have to do with my adventure to Bear Lake?
Everything.

My adventure started with this status update.
Having scored an invite, I was set to go. I didn't bother with finding out any more details than what time my sister, Casey, and I should meet them.
It turns out this was a singles stake activity. Our link to the stake was Karl, but he didn't even know what ward he was in or the names of his Bishopric. (He's new to the ward.)
Having waited for Nic to get off work, we didn't get to Bear Lake until after dinner had been scheduled to be served, so we stopped at a pizza joint.
We arrived at the stake campsite just in time for the rest of a concert.

Wanting to leave the crowded campsite behind to enjoy a peaceful night under the stars, we went in search of a place to camp on the shore. Karl told us that a former Bishop of his owned some property up on the Idaho side that had beach access. He assured us that it would be okay for us to stay there.
We trusted him.
We pulled off the road onto an alfalfa farm. He promised us that a short hike would lead to the beach.
We trusted him.
We piled all our stuff on our backs and started walking through the field. Before we knew it, we hit muddy, marshy patches. We kept going, because Karl insisted that the beach was just ahead.
We trusted him.
At one dry point, we set our stuff down and sent Karl through the next wet patch. Our trust in him was fading. He soon reached a barbed wire fence.
We decided to set up camp right there.
Nic brought a tent which he shared with Michelle. Casey and I didn't have a tent, but had planned to sleep under the stars anyway. Karl brought a tent but didn't want to use it.
Michelle had borrowed a tarp which turned out to be ginormous. How big was it? Large enough for three tacos and a tent. (You had to be there, although I will attempt to explain in just a bit.)




The forecast had stated a chance of rain showers in the area. Those of us who were sleeping under the stars staged our sleeping quarters so that we could roll the tarp over us if it started to rain. Sometime, someone called this tarp covering a taco. From then on, we referred to covering ourselves with the tarp tacoing in.
Less than an hour after falling asleep, I awoke, because I was certain that someone was walking on our tarp. It turns out I was crazy, but it still proved beneficial.
The stars were no longer visible and the air was moist. It was ready to rain. My sister woke up to me making some noise. She asked me what I was doing. I casually stated that I was going to taco in, because I suspected it would rain any minute. Nic and Michelle hadn't yet fallen asleep and erupted in laughter at the use of the new phrase. Karl awoke to their laughter; he tacoed in as well.
The rain did come. Although never a heavy rain, it was a consistent rain. The tarp amplified the drips of the small raindrops keeping me from falling into a deep sleep.
Morning soon came to our excitement. We all desperately wanted to see where we had spent the night.
(This photo was not staged. These were the real expressions on their faces shortly after waking up and looking around.)

We packed in a hurry, because we didn't want confrontation with a farmer. (I still can't believe it. We camped in the middle of a recently harvested alfalfa field. Ahhh hahahahaha!)
Below is one of the wet, marshy areas we trudged through because we trusted Karl.

The rain continued throughout the morning. Finally, we decided to pack up and head home. We didn't want to wait to see if the rain would stop so that we could go out on the lake.

Since neither Michelle, Casey, nor I had ever been to Bear Lake, we were determined to make it to the shore. We stopped near the stake campsite to view the lake. Not knowing that we could've accessed the beach much easier down the road, we three girls started trudging through the mud and river reeds to get to the water. Nic hollered at us after we had already gone halfway to tell us there was an easier way. However, we were committed (and no longer foreign to getting our pants soaked and muddy). We enjoyed the little bit of the lake we got to experience.


Although different than I ever would've imagined, my adventure at Bear Lake was wonderful...wonderfully memorable. I can't wait until next time when I can enjoy it like any normal person would.

The things you do for love

My sister walked through the door today a little more worn out than usual at the end of her long work days. She called me, not knowing I was home, because she had to vent her frustration. I wasn't prepared for the story she told.
She slept most of the bus ride home as usual. She woke up about ten minutes before her stop. For the last few blocks, she was the only one left on the bus. She moved to the front and took out one of her ear buds in case the driver wanted to ask her what her stop would be so as not to bother with any others.
That was the worst mistake of her life.
He tried to open with a clever tease. He quickly posed the relationship status question and when finding out she was single jumped straight to the request for her number. Since she had recently had a similar unfortunate disaster which led to multiple unsolicited phone calls, she wisely stated that she would take his number and call him the next time that she knew of an activity going on and would invite him.
Well, he must have been duped by other girls in the past. He followed up by asking her to go ahead and call his phone so that he could have her number as well.
Despite every desire not to, she couldn't come up with a way to get out of that step.
On her walk home from the bus stop, the phone rang.
It was the bus driver.
He spoke to her for a few minutes and divulged all his unflattering characteristics. He shared with her a few things that he admitted had been a turn off for girls he tried to date in the past. Yet he revealed them in the first conversation. I don't understand boys like that.
Well, I left the house for a couple hours. When I got home, I found out that he had already called her twice more.
She didn't answer either time.

Now it's your turn to share the advice. What should she do? How can she tactfully but forcefully get the point across that he is coming on far too strong (which makes her not interested WHATSOEVER!)? I don't know what to tell her. I can sympathize, having endured a similar situation last summer, but I don't know what I did to shake the kid loose. What would you do or have you done?

*Addendum: It is five minutes shy of 11pm. The bus driver just called for the fourth time today.
*Addendum #2: My sister mentioned she was living with me in the bus conversation. The bus driver just sent my sister a text that asked, "How old is your sister?"

A dream is a wish your heart makes

I hope that Cinderella wasn't right. I have strange dreams all the time.

I'm still at the dorms for a few weeks. I noticed yesterday that there were still several bikes left in the bike rack. I wondered what the housing director would do with all those bikes.
I dreamed last night that he clipped all the locks and gave the bikes away. I was so frustrated, since one of the bikes was mine, that I stormed into his office and yelled at him until I cried.
I just sent him an email (in real life) requesting that he save me the embarrassment and realize that one of those bikes is mine and not to give them away just yet.

And the night before (Saturday to Sunday), I had a dream that I was playing the organ for church services. My voice was hoarse from being so jubilant and silly on graduation night, so I couldn't sing while I played. I noticed that no one else was singing, either. I was so saddened that I started to cry. I couldn't be consoled. (If you know me, then this would be no surprise. Okay, maybe the crying would be a surprise, but the fact that I was so upset that no one was singing shouldn't surprise you. I love nothing more than the singing of the hymns.) Then some young man had the audacity to add to my grief by blaming me for playing poorly.
It was an awful dream.

I don't know why I've had two frustrating dreams the last couple nights. Maybe it's due to the fact that my family and I went to Outback Steakhouse on Saturday night. I used to have frustrating and stressful dreams all the time when I worked there. Serving in a busy restaurant is very stressful work. If you don't believe me, try playing Diner Dash.

Random post is now ending.

I'm thankful for 911

Weird. Weird. Weird. I hope one day my brain will recover.

I went to the movies tonight with Eliza and my sister, Casey. Never would I have imagined the way my night ended.
We left the theater ten minutes after eleven. We were at the cheap theater and got out of the latest show, so there were only about six cars in the parking lot. The car parked next to us had a few running lights on, so I assumed that someone had used their keyless entry to unlock it from across the lot. However, there was no one walking in the same direction as us.
I walked around to the passenger side of the truck away from the car. Eliza said in a very light-hearted tone, "Do you think that kid's dead?"
(You read it right. This story is going to be crazy!)
What kid? I hadn't seen anyone in the vehicle. I got out of the truck with Casey behind me. There was a young man in the driver's seat slumped over with his head lowered on the passenger's side. We waited a moment thinking that he must just be looking for something. Yet he didn't move at all.
Casey, which coincidentally means Brave, practiced courage as she walked over to the passenger window and starting knocking. She knocked and knocked and knocked. After the fourth or fifth time of knocking without a response, I suggested we call 911.
After a short moment, Casey knocked again. Finally, the kid slowly sat up. He never looked in her direction. He started rubbing his face the whole while she stood in the passenger window. He started nodding as one does when extremely tired.
She knocked again. He sat up slowly again touching his face with his hands. Still he did not look in her direction or notice that Eliza and I were also staring into his vehicle.
Casey walked around to the driver's side. He must've had his window down as she immediately began asking him questions. Again, he wouldn't look at her. That was when I called 911.
Casey asked him over and over again, "Are you waiting for someone? Did you just fall asleep in your car? Are you okay? Do you need help?"
He never looked at her and she said he never enunciated a clear response.
As I spoke with dispatcher, he sat there with an absent look and a lifeless body. Casey finally came around to the passenger side of Eliza's truck.
Shortly after I walked to the back of the truck to get his car make/model and license number, he started revving his engine. I told the dispatcher that if he could get the vehicle in gear, then he would likely start driving.
All the while, I wondered why we didn't have an emergency response vehicle yet on the scene. I pass numerous cops every night. Where were they now when I needed them?
He finally put his car into reverse. He backed up about four feet and then stopped. In the mean time, I had passed the phone to Casey so she could tell the dispatcher if she saw any paraphernalia or smelled anything strange.
As she explained that there was no physical evidence of drug or alcohol use, he managed to put the car in drive. He drove right over the cement curb. He swerved to miss another cement divide and then stopped.
He stayed there for about ten seconds, then he started driving again. He stopped. He stayed there for a moment.
Still there was no police car on scene.
When he started driving toward the light to get onto the main road, Eliza had us pull our doors closed and she started following him.
He very slowly rolled into the main road and turned right. Fortunately, the car in his lane was attentive enough to slow down and move out of the way.
Finally, a police car pulled in behind him. Two other cops were right behind.
We came around the corner to find the car successfully pulled over in a business parking lot. We pulled in as per the request of the dispatcher. An officer came to our window and we explained that we had called in the incident. He had us fill out witness sheets.
It was very evident that this boy was looped out on something. Watching the search process and sobriety tests, it was obvious that he was not coherent. The only way I know how to describe him in the car and standing with the cops is to say that he looked like a zombie or a body without a spirit.
The officer that took our statements didn't give us much detail but told us that prescription medication was found in his car. Likely, he overdosed.
The officer told us thank you a few separate times as this boy could have killed someone tonight had he tried to drive farther.

This leads me to the gratitude section.
I'm thankful for
1. Eliza and her dad's truck. Had we gone to the movies in her tiny car, none of us would have seen the boy. Because Eliza had to climb up into the tall beast, she was able to see right into his car. I'm also glad she said something, even in jest. She explained that she said it that way hoping that it would really be a joke and that he'd sit up and catch her looking in his car.
2. Casey's courage. I hope I would have been able to knock on the window and attempt to talk to the boy like Casey did. Anything could have happened, so it took much courage for Casey to do what she did.
3. 911 and cell phones. I don't know what we would've done had we had to handle this on our own. Also, I'm glad we didn't have to leave the scene to get to a phone. Who knows what would have happened.
4. Nice police officers. The officer who took our statement was so very kind. I know I'm in good hands with kind and knowledgeable officers like him.

Read Eliza's take on the evening.