Thirty, Flirty, and Thriving

My sister turned 30 over Martin Luther King, Jr. weekend so to celebrate we went to Disneyland. It was a blast. As we were getting ready in the hotel the morning of Lindsay's birthday she said, "I think I'm going to wear my good life experience shirt today." When she said that I assumed she was talking about a shirt that she wore when she had good life experiences, but when she put it on I say that it was just a shirt for the band The Goodlife Experience. We also created some new inside jokes. My favorite is dancing like a turtle. There are some turtles in the new Little Mermaid ride that have some really awesome moves and we recreated those moves daily. We got pretty good at it.

Lindsay and I were so excited to be at Disneyland that we clicked our heels. We're really just big kids.

Lindsay insisted that we get real Mexican food for her birthday dinner. I asked a Hispanic cast member at Disneyland where we could get authentic Mexican food near the park. She said, “Real Mexican food? By Disneyland? There isn’t any.” She recommended a place called Los Sanchez about 10 minutes away. We followed her sage advice and it was good (we were the only non-Hispanics in the place). They had the whole restaurant sing Happy Birthday to Lindsay and they even gave her a mug that just happened to say “Happy 30th Anniversay” on it. They also had a Mexican mannequin that we took our picture with. There was a sign on him that said: “My name is Mr. Sanchez. You can take your picture with me.” How could we resist?

We all love Splash Mountain (except for my mom) and got extremely wet the first time we went on it. That's usually not a problem because we usually go to Disneyland in the summer, but it was really cold and being wet was not fun. Lindsay decided to by a poncho to keep herself dry. I was far too cheap to spend $8.50 on a poncho so when Lindsay bought hers I asked the cashier for a big plastic bag. I cut it up with my keys and used it to shield myself from the water. It worked like a charm. Since it was so cold no one wanted to ride Splash Mountain and we rode it multiple times without waiting at all. Notice how wet we are in the picture.

My nephew and sister-in-law came too and it was so fun to have them there. Bowen had never been before and it was great to see how excited he was about everything. When we first saw them the first thing Bowen said to me was, “My birthday’s in five days!” I had expected hello, but that worked too. When you're six birthdays are a big deal. Bowen doesn’t like fast rides, but his mom does. She convinced him to go on a number of rides by saying, “Just try it once and if you don’t like it you don’t have to do it again.” She successfully got him on Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, but he wised up to her plan and avoided all the other fast rides. We sent Bowen off with grandma while we thrill seeking adults went on the fast rides.

Bowen and I waiting in line at the Toy Story Mania ride.

One of my favorite things we did was canoeing on the Rivers of America. Sometimes the simplest things are the best.

It was such a fun trip and I don't know how I'm going to top it when I turn thirty. Also, I wrote Lindsay a parody song for her birthday. I tried to upload it, but realized that I don't know how to upload videos. It's to the tune of Dynamite by Taio Cruz. Use your imagination.

On a completely unrelated note, my parents stopped by my house briefly yesterday. My dad tripped as he was going down the stairs, tumbled down six stairs, and crashed into the wall before hitting the ground. It was a frightening few seconds before we found out that he was okay. He was pretty lucky and escaped with only bruises. It could have been really bad if he had landed differently, but he’s fine. The wall, however, now has a huge hole in it.

Solving the hole problem turned out to be super-simple. Not only did I cover up the hole, but now I want to go to Brazil.

Bursting My Bubble

BYU students often refer to Provo as “the bubble” since we’re somewhat isolated from the real world. I loved living in Provo, but it’s definitely not the real world. I would often go weeks without hearing someone swear or seeing a girl’s exposed shoulder. That is not the real world. Even though I grew up outside of the bubble I still tend to surround myself with Mormons thus creating my own bubble. A few experiences lately have helped me burst out of my bubble. On an unrelated note, on Friday night my roommate and his girlfriend told me they were going to a poetry reading. Jesse wasn’t excited to go and I agreed that it sounded super-boring. After expressing how I’d rather do almost anything than go to a poetry reading, I added, “However, I think a limerick reading would be awesome.” I’ve decided to write a limerick to go along with each of my bubble bursting experiences.

I have a coworker who lovingly and frequently calls me lazy, cheap, boring, etc. I was texting with her one day and she responded to my text by writing: lmao. When I saw that I thought she had misspelled the word “lame-o” because I could totally see her calling me that. I forgot about it for a few minutes until I suddenly remembered someone telling me that it stood for “laughing my *rear* off.” That made a lot more sense. Here’s limerick about that story:

Lol, g2g, brb,
All of these make sense to me,
But add in a swear word
And I’ll think I misheard
Cursing’s not my cup of tea.

On New Year’s Eve my friend Christian and I went to the YSA dance in Seattle. We were stuck in heavy traffic at 10:00 pm when Christian said, “Wow, look at that girl puke.” I looked at the sidewalk on the left and didn’t see her. I looked to the right and didn’t see her. And then I looked straight ahead and she was puking out of the backseat window of the car right in front of us. She puked a lot and for a long time. When she was done she opened the car door and stumbled into the street obviously quite drunk. She was covered in vomit as was the car door. Another girl got out of the same door to help her friend find her way out of the street. As they walked away the other back door of the car opened up and another girl got out. I quickly saw that that girl was not wearing pants or underwear and appeared to only have a jacket on. Then she just walked off down the street, still not wearing pants. Not the kind of thing you would typically see in Provo. And honestly, not the kind of thing I expected to see in Seattle. Here’s the limerick:

If you’re going to go to a dance
You need to plan in advance
Don’t get drunk before 10:00
Or puke in front of Ben
And always remember your pants.

I went to Starbucks with some coworkers a few weeks ago. I think it was my fifth time ever going to Starbucks. One of my coworkers ordered a tall something-or-other and the other ordered a grande something-or-other. I was very unfamiliar with the names of the different sizes at Starbucks so I said, “Can I get a medium size hot chocolate?” and the cashier said, “A grande?” and I said, “Uh, sure.” My coworker looked at me and said, “Not used to the Seattle lingo yet?” I replied, “Actually, I grew up here.” Somehow I managed to live in the Seattle area for two decades without learning how to order at Starbucks. I have since learned that Starbucks drinks, from smallest to largest, are: short, tall, grande, and venti. And the final limerick:

Should I order a tall or a short?
Will my drink be an ounce or a quart?
I stand here confused
And rather bemused
I need some Starbucks support.

And those are my bubble bursting experiences. Now instead of saying that I’m naïve, I feel like I could confidently say that I’m simply uninformed.

I Stand Resolute

On New Year's Eve I got together with eight of my friends to embark on a quest to find the best French fry and shake in the area. We split up into teams of three and went to different restaurants buying fries and a shake from each one. My team was called the Crafty Stallions because Vu and I are stallions and Becky likes to do crafts. We all met up at Vu's house and tried all the fries and shakes to determine which one was the best. I feel that the best fry comes from XXX Burger in Issaquah and the best shake is the Oreo shake from Jack in the Box. We bought way too much food and could not finish it all. The main flaw in the plan was that we couldn't eat the food until we were all together at Vu's place and ended up with a lot of cold, soggy fries and melted shakes. It was still fun, though.

Time for New Year's resolutions. Every year I hear people say things like, "New Year's resolutions are a waste of time because no one ever keeps them." To those negative Nancys I say, "You obviously haven't met Ben Schilaty." For the last few years I've chosen three goals and then have done them all year. Last year my first two goals were to read my scriptures everyday and to write in my journal everyday. I was already basically doing those things so they weren't too much of stretch. My third goal, however, was quite a stretch. I decided to make my bed everyday which I knew would be tough since I never made my bed. There were a few days where I was running late and thought, crap, I still need to make my bed. I managed to stick to each of my three goals last year and I feel that I'm a better person for it (and my room always looks a little cleaner, too! And I have a very detailed record of my life in 2011).

I have three goals for 2012. They are 1) memorize one scripture a week, 2) cook a meal for someone else once a week, and 3) run a marathon. I decided to memorize a scripture a week because of Elder Scott's last conference talk. You can read it by clicking here (I find Elder Scott a little too soothing to listen to and prefer to read them). The cooking goal stems from my desire to learn how to cook. I can prepare food for myself, but I really wouldn't call it cooking and it's about time that I became a full-fledged adult and learned to cook. As for the marathon, I've wanted to run a marathon for years and now is the time to finally do it. I haven't gone running since May so it will take quite a bit of training. All in all, I'm super-excited about my 2012 goals.

In 2010 I decided to have a theme song and my theme song for that year was I Get Around by the Beach Boys ("getting around" referring to going places) and I sadly didn't pick a theme song for 2011. However, looking back I think the best song would have been Me Party from The Muppet Movie. I had a blast in 2011, but spent more time alone than usual. After much deliberation with my brain I've decided that Make 'Em Laugh from Singin' in the Rain will be my theme song for 2012. I picked that song because no matter what happens this year I hope it's funny and that I can make others laugh along the way. Making people laugh is pretty easy. Fart! Poop! Stink! See? Making you laugh (or cringe) was easy. Happy 2012!