Pioneer Day

I just discovered that Pioneer Day is a paid holiday at my work. To say that I am happy would be an understatement.

Tamale?

Today, while I was chopping down a tree, a woman walked by in the street, pulling a cooler in a wagon.

"Tamale?" she said, pointing to the cooler.

I considered, then gestured with my fingers to wait a second. I ran inside and found a couple of dollars, then ran back out.

"Cheekin?" she asked (that's my best attempt at phonetic spelling). I nodded yes. Then added "Si!" for good measure.

She rummaged through her cooler and found a couple of chicken tamales. After a second she found them, put them in a brown lunch bag, and handed them to me. Then she more or less said "Tienes Agua para tomar?" (That's my best attempt at using my Portuguese to understand, and write, her Spanish). Luckily, she also made a drinking motion with her hands.

I ran inside and got her a glass of water. When I came back out, a guy had pulled up in a truck and was buying something like 20 tamales. He told me he had purchased them from the woman before and that they were great. Before he left, he wished the woman a good weekend in what I'd describe as "Mormon mission president Spanish," i.e. heavily accented but grammatically correct Spanish.

While the woman was drinking the glass of water, I said "Como...tu...chamas?" (That is literally what I said, not an estimate.) She responded by telling me her name was Consuela.

Anyway, the woman eventually left and went on selling tamales to other people nearby. I eventually tried the tamales, and they were delicious.

Sunday and animal cookies

Because I work at a newspaper, I occasionally have to work on Sundays. May is my month, where I work each Sunday for four hours, and work 9 hour days four other times during the week. It's an interesting schedule, that has both pros and cons.

However, today a serious con turned out to be Circus Animal cookies. Actually, it turned out to be a con is pro's clothing.

Apparently on Friday (when I was not working) my part of the office had an little celebration in honor of the pending Rapture. People brought treats, etc.

But when I got to the office, some of that food was still sitting out. Actually a bunch of cans of root beer and half a bag of the cookies were still siting out. Over the course of my time at work today, I have eaten most of those cookies. They aren't really good. In small quantities, they can be alright, in a nostalgic sort of way. But after handfuls and handfuls, they get pretty disgusting. I can say that, because that's what I have experienced today. I don't know why I did it, but learn from my mistake and never eat half a bag of Circus Animal cookies.

Utah Valley Spring Art Show

Earlier today I was perusing the blogosphere when I saw a post about the 2011 Utah Valley Spring Art Show. Somehow I hadn't heard about it, but it sounded cool so Laura and I went, along with Laura's brother, Will. I figured it would be cool, and I heard it would be in the top of the big Zion's Bank building, which I was excited to see.

But as it turns out, it was much more than cool. Most of the floors had tons of art, with each floor having different live music and catering. There were also a ton of people there. (I don't know how I didn't hear about it earlier.) As it turned out, it was one of the coolest things I have been to in Provo in a while. It was also good to see that the arts are still very much alive in the area, considering the general collapse of the student-ish art scene in the 100 Block over the last couple of years.

Anyway, by the time we left, I was already looking forward to next year.

Movies I have watched "lately"

So I moved about a week and a half ago. That meant no instant streaming while we set up internet at our new home, plus way less time to watch movies generally. So here is the very small list, which spans probably at least two weeks.

Black Swan
The Knack... and How to Get It
Mean Streets (I'm actually still in the process of watching this one)
Megamind

I also watched significant parts of:
Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
Darling

I listed those last two separately because, unlike Mean Streets, there is a good chance that I won't finish them. Neither were terrible, but neither were great either and I just don't have the time for them at the moment.

Costco

This evening Laura had to get some things for her school so we went to Costco, aka Price Club. (We do not have a membership, nor do I really ever plan to get membership, but she had her school's card.)

Anyway, visiting the store was about as nostalgic an experience as I've ever had. When I was little I used to go to Price Club with my mom, and it was a huge adventure. The store was sublimely big, almost a city, or maybe even a civilization, within a building. To this day I don't think we ever reached the outer regions of the structure.

On really special occasions, my mom would get one of those flat cart-palate things, and my sister and I would get to ride on it. We always asked to do this, but only rarely were allowed. Sometimes we climbed through the products — probably to our mom's embarrassment, but to our own delight. (I saw some kids doing this tonight and felt like Holden Caulfield. Stay in the boxes kids, I wanted to say, it doesn't get better than that.)

In any case, there was always a wealth of free samples, unexplored corridors, and mysterious products filled with the allure of the unknown.

In short, and like the world itself, as a child Costco was filled with wonder, promise and possibility.

Before tonight I hadn't been to Costco in years, and as an adult it was considerably less exciting (I could see the walls, for example, destroying the illusion of an endless landscape of products.) Still, the store smelled the same way that it used to — sort of like a clean warehouse filled with packaging materials. There were also products I haven't seen since my childhood, and consequently associate with that period. Things like family sized boxes of fruit rollups and granola bars, huge packages of cleaning supplies and toiletries. Ice cream sandwiches. Kirkland products. Some things even brought back specific memories, like the dog food and the golden retriever my family had when I was five, or the double boxes of milk and the structures we built out of those same boxes.

Like I said, I don't plan to get a membership to Costco. It's sort of a nightmare as an adult. But occasionally, when I got a whiff of the bakery or the book section, that nightmare turned into a dream.

Hulu Commercials

What's with the commercials on Hulu that are either a still image, or a moving image embedded within a still frame? I get the idea that they are designed to be clicked on (maybe they're supposed to look like a website?) and that they're probably some new innovation. But these commercials are ugly. They're sort of confusing. And they really don't take advantage of technology the way their designers probably anticipated.