The End

I put this off by watching Bones with Pepper for like three hours. However, I told myself I would end the blog tonight, and that's what I'm going to do.

When the blog began, I was a college student with no idea how her life would go. I had no idea that over the next five and a half years, I would not only graduate from college, I would also find a professional writing job, serve in two Relief Society presidencies, move out of my parents' home, receive my Latter-day Saint temple endowment, serve as a temple worker, travel to Disneyland (twice), take a road trip to Illinois, go to New York City (three times), go to Arizona (twice), visit San Diego, buy a new car, and have my appendix removed.

Throughout all this, there were times when my life was scary and uncertain, and my belief was the only thing to fall back on. My religion has not been incidental but crucial to everything I've done. I've done my best to convey what it's like to live the ordinary life of a person of my background, and I hope you've enjoyed the experience.

Now it's goodbye. Once I figure out what I'm doing next, I promise to come back and add it to this post.

Finite.

Things I've Learned

Baby Brother is very brave. He took all his birthday money and ordered a unicycle, which he is now teaching himself to ride. Dad and I are trying to help him, but neither of us know how to ride a unicycle ourselves, so we're mostly there for support. (Literally—learning to ride a unicycle seems to involve falling down a lot. Don't worry; Baby Brother also got a helmet and knee, elbow, and wrist pads.)

I won't be teaching myself to ride a unicycle anytime soon. Even if I was more interested in doing so, it's hard to make yourself learn new skills once you reach a certain age. There's no time, and for some reason the older you are, the more you get judged for starting something new.

I've been learning a lot just through life, though, especially this past year. Next week marks a year of serving as a Relief Society president, and that in itself has been a course in leadership, in teaching, and in so much more.

For example. I've always avoided making friends with girls who seemed really into hair, makeup, or clothes. Mostly because I assumed they wouldn't want to be friends with me. Which is odd, because I have friends and associates from all kinds of backgrounds, all of whom I respect and admire for various traits.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: We have different political views? We can still be friends!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: We have different religious views? Even up to the point of you actually hating my religion? We can still be friends!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: You wear eyelash extensions and I don't? We can never be friends! We're too different.

Sounds silly, but sadly not an exaggeration. Much.

Enter Vix, my second counselor. I've always thought she was pretty and stylish and cool, but she's a cosmetologist and always looks like she's about to star in a photo shoot or something. Out of my friendship league for sure. Being around her made me kind of nervous.

But you know what? It turns out that we have more in common than you would think. I consider her a friend now, and we've formed a great bond that means a lot to me.

I've come back to this post several times now, and I feel a need to add something thoughtful and wise to it. But what? "Don't do drugs, kids"? "Stay in school"? "Never eat a porcupine"? No, that's not it. Well, whatever wants to be said, hopefully it will come out tomorrow.

Logic, Winnipeg, and the Electric Boogaloo

I told Little Sister that if she wanted another Ask Awkward Mormon Girl post, now was the time. She said okay, then sent the questions when I was sleeping at one a.m. on a Sunday morning.

• If six people were in a room and there were four flavors of potato chips, which type would the person on your left eat first?

Statistically speaking, apparently America's favorite chip is Cheetos. But I am not having that, so that's not my final answer, Alex.

I'm pretty sure that this puzzle is solved with logic. Like that riddle in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. You know "poison sits on the nettle wine's left side" and all that stuff. I'm going to run that through the logic part of my brain and get back to you.

• If you could pick one country to never take a cruise to, what would it be?

I was going to say Winnipeg as Winnipeg is landlocked. Too bad, because I'll never get to cruise there to enjoy their *Googles frantically* jazz festival and hot-smoked fish. But then I remembered that Winnipeg isn't a country. It's part of the country of Canada, which apparently you can cruise to if you live in New England.

So instead I'm going to say Andorra. To which you might say, "Where's Andorra?" to which I say, "Exactly."

• Should your sequel blog be entirely dedicated to posts about Little Sister?

Meh, I was actually thinking of something more along the lines of Alvin and the Chipmunks: the Squeakquel. I didn't particularly like that movie, but it did well enough for them to make two more, so.

I am also considering Awkward Mormon Girl 2: Electric Boogaloo.

• Better yet- should Little Sister write your sequel blog?

Sure. It can be ghostwritten. If you can find the time for that. (Spoiler: Little Sister is too busy to find the time for that.)

Love,
Little Sister

I've figured out the answer to the riddle.

The only time I can think of where I'd be in a room with five other people and also four kinds of potato chips is opening presents with my siblings on Christmas Day. Based on where we usually sit to open presents, the person to my left is Little Sister, who should be eating the Pringles that came in her own stocking first. Unless she's a stealer. In which case she might be eating the Pizza Pringles from my stocking.

My First Kiss Didn't Go Like This

I waited a really long time to tell this story.

It's a story of teenage mishap featuring the Chess Master. It involves dating, which I try not to talk about much on this blog. It just doesn't seem very nice to do so. However—this story is now over ten years old, plus the Chess Master is married with a kid, so it no longer seems mean-spirited to share it.

After a lot of fumbling through email, the Chess Master asked me to go with him to prom. It was the first date for both of us, so neither of knew at all what we were doing. Through more email fumbling, plans were made, plans which involved dinner and dance tickets and a fuchsia dress.

Neither of us had a driver's license. No matter. His parents would drive us.

The Chess Master was the son of one of my former teachers. She was a nice lady, but she was intense. The Chess Master was the youngest in the family, so she and her husband especially doted on him. They were very involved parents, in both good ways and bad.

I didn't mind that the Chess Master's parents drove us, but I didn't know what to say around them. Truthfully, I didn't know what to say around the Chess Master, either. We were friends but not really. Any chances we had to truly get to know each other were thwarted by the fact that we'd decided early on we liked each other. At least, I think that's what happened. I never received any true confirmation that he ever had a crush on me. I just know that I had a crush on him.

Anyway. We didn't know each other. I had not yet learned to talk to people I didn't know or any people, really. We spent a lot of time in silence during dinner...on the drive to the dance...during the dance...and on the drive home.

Oh, the drive home. During said drive, the Chess Master's mother started talking about kissing. I couldn't tell you quite how. I was staring out the window, looking at billboards in the dark, while the Chess Master chatted aimlessly with his mom. He must have said something quite correct to her, for she said something like, "Good job, Chess Master. You win a prize, and that prize is a kiss."

I kept my eyes on the billboard. Just that morning, the fact that I didn't know the Chess Master very well had hit home hard, and I was questioning all of my feelings for him. Even if I hadn't been, I was not interested in being kissed on the first date much less my first date ever. I was too young for that!

The Chess Master's mom backtracked. "A kiss from me! And your dad. And your sister. And the dog."

Yeah, whatever, lady. I said nothing. It didn't even occur to me that I should say something. (I have only just recently realized how socially inept I was as a teenager. I'm mostly better now. Though in some ways, I really haven't improved.)

Eventually, the super chatty parents dropped us off and told us they'd circle around the block. Um...okay.

The Chess Master walked me to the door. Except...my memory is a bit hazy here, but I'm pretty sure he didn't even make it up on the porch. I think he stayed on the lawn. Perhaps he'd realized how much I didn't want to be kissed. Which is commendable, but it didn't require him to stay ten feet away from me.

We awkwardly said goodnight, and I went inside and shut the door behind me. My mom inquired after the dance, and I explained that the Chess Master was waiting outside for his parents to pick him up.

"Well, you should ask him to come in!"

I cracked open the door. "Chess Master, did you want to come in while you wait?"

He said no, no, and then his parents showed up, and so the night ended with me dodging my first kiss.

Three Weeks with Blue Apron

After my initial experiment with food subscription boxes, I got a discount on three more weeks of Blue Apron, so I was able to learn some additional new recipes.

Week one, recipe one was Seared Chicken in Coconut-Peach Broth with Bok Choy & Jasmine Rice. It took almost exactly an hour to make and yielded three portions.

I'd never cooked with bok choy or fresh ginger or sambal olek before. The recipe said to add as much sambal olek as you liked depending on how spicy you wanted your dish. I smelled it, and I decided that I could handle it, so I added it all. THIS WAS A BAD DECISION. Overall, the taste of this dish was pretty disappointing. Even without spiciness, the ginger and garlic and coconut milk and peach and vinegar together would have just been too much

Week one, recipe two was Cavatelli & Shrimp with Summer Vegetables. This recipe took 35 minutes to make and gave me not two, not three, but four portions.

I'd only heard of mascarpone in desserts; I was curious about its role in this pasta. I'd also never had cavatelli. It has the thicker consistency of gnocchi, though it's made of wheat, not potato. Mixed with the cavatelli was shrimp, tomatoes, and zucchini. It was all delicious! If there's one thing food subscription boxes have taught me, it's that it doesn't take a ton of dairy and oil to make a delicious pasta sauce; Blue Apron provided only a smidgen of Parmesan cheese that was somehow enough for all four servings.

Week two, recipe one was called Seared Steaks & Garlic Mashed Potatoes with Summer Vegetables. It took about 50 minutes to make and had three modest servings.

When I opened the bag, I discovered that a tiny bottle of sherry vinegar had gotten all over everything! I had enough left over to make the recipe, and nothing was inedible, but it wasn't a nice surprise. These cuts of steak were nowhere near as good as the last Blue Apron steak I had—partly because of paranoia that I would overcook the steak. Which led me to under-cook the steak. Ah well. The garlic mashed potatoes were all right, though not as good as the restaurant-style recipe I usually make. The caper butter didn't taste like much (besides, well, capers in butter). Surprisingly, the real star of this meal was the summer vegetables. ("Summer vegetables" is apparently just code for "zucchini and tomatoes.") I'm planning to someday pair the veggies from this recipe with the steaks from my first Blue Apron steak recipe. They can replace the kale I didn't love.

Speaking of kale, week two, recipe two was Barramundi & Caper-Butter Sauce with Kale & Lentils. It took about 50 minutes to make and lasted for two meals. (I could have stretched it longer if I wanted to, but I didn't this time.)

I'd only had lentils one time before this: in a Moroccan restaurant in Epcot. They weren't black like these lentils, though, but a vague brownish color. I'd never had barramundi before, period. I'd frozen the shrimp from the last box and thawed them successfully, so this time I again ended up freezing the fish and thawing it later in the week. It thawed pretty well, with only a small portion that turned out chewy and tasteless. I had really high hopes for this meal, but they were disappointed. The ras el hanout spice wasn't bad, but overall I found I just didn't like the flavors of the fish, the lime, the butter, the capers, the seasoning, the onions, the lentils, and the kale together. Not my food aesthetic.

Week three, recipe one was a weird one called Cajun Shrimp & Corn Pancakes with Sautéed Summer Vegetables. To the best of my memory, it took about 50 minutes and produced three servings.

In this case, "summer vegetables" actually ended up being corn with a poblano pepper and tomatoes. I'd never prepared ears of corn before except to be boiled at my parents' house, so that was a new experience. The shucked corn went both into the pancakes and on the side. The pancakes were fun, but kind of weird. The best part by far was the shrimp, which was perfectly spiced and perfectly cooked. Good one, Blue Apron. As usual, I was chagrined that they had me put green onions on top for no reason. Nooooo.

Week three, recipe two was also a weird one called Spicy Pork & Rice Cakes with Bok Choy. If I'm recalling correctly (I stopped taking good notes in the second week), this one also took around 50 minutes and provided three meals for me.

This one included lots of ingredients that were new to me: soy glaze, black bean sauce, and gochujang. And the rice cakes, of course. The recipe told me to put in as much gochujang as I wanted for spiciness. I learned my lesson from the sambal olek and only put in half. Another new ingredient was crème fraîche, which Blue Apron said they added to take some of the heat out of the gochujang. Good call. Finally, of course, there were the rice cakes. These were a delight. They had exactly the taste and texture that I was expecting, and they were a delightful alternative to pasta. Overall, it was a very good dish! For some reason, it tasted a bit like a fancy, Asian-inspired version of a Hamburger Helper mix I liked as a teen.

Running Away From Your Problems Redux

So one time, I was thinking about going on a mission.

I knew a couple of people who were very dear to me but were really struggling. There wasn't much I could do to help, but both Older Sister and Best Friend Boy were on missions, and I could see how through their missions, they were able to help others with similar struggles. I'd never wanted to serve a mission, but I was suddenly overcome with a desire to go so that I could help people.

I wanted to finish school before looking into going on a mission (because I was pretty sure that if I quit school, I would never find it in me to go back). So I had a few years to think about whether to go. I did mention it in passing in a letter to Best Friend Boy, who responded some weeks later by saying that I should pray about it to see if that's what Heavenly Father wanted for me.

I was really annoyed by this. I was planning to pray about it, just not yet. It was a few years away!

However, being so annoyed, I decided I would pray right then and there, just so that I could write back to Best Friend Boy and let him know that I had. I was the only one home, so I knelt right down in the living room, and—

It was one of the most unmistakable prayers I've prayed in my life. I asked if I should go on a mission after graduation. I felt sickish and headache-ish. Well, what about right now? Still sickish and headache-ish.

Lovely. I asked a couple other questions, and I immediately felt pushed in a direction that didn't entirely make sense to me but that felt right. So be it.

A couple of years passed, and I found myself deeply entrenched in the path that had felt right. Only everything was going terribly. I was so frustrated and wondered if I'd interpreted what I'd felt correctly. Maybe I just wanted to walk down this path so badly that I'd manufactured feelings of confirmation. Madam President seemed to think so. Shortly before we were called to the Relief Society presidency, her serious boyfriend broke up with her. She hadn't been able to get over how badly she wanted to get back together with him until getting a blessing from a General Authority that she knew. The blessing laid out a different path for her life than she'd hoped. Then, ta-da, she got a job and got married and everything worked for her, and she was happy! She gave me the General Authority's number and recommended that I get a blessing from him, too. I knew she was hoping that my blessing, too, would tell me that I'd been wrong about the direction that my life was going to go and that I should do something else. I sat on the number for a year and then I decided to find out for myself.

The blessing was lovely, but it was also frustrating. It basically said that I could do what I want. It cast no aspersions on the path I'd been walking, which meant I was free to keep walking it if I so chose. Before the blessing, the General Authority also told me that I wouldn't get an answer before making a decision but that I should choose and then start moving forward with the choice. Then I'd get my answer.

Once again, lovely, but how to choose? I went straight from his home to a semi-solo trip where I pondered my options. I wrote a list of pros and cons and I studied and I thought.

In the end, I decided that whatever had (or hadn't) happened since then, there was a reason why I stayed, and it would be better not to throw that away. Once again, I choose to stay, and I'm glad I did. The following year was incredible. So many of the things that frustrated me righted themselves. Things were really looking up. In fact, the reason I felt I should stay seemed to be finally coming to fruition.

In December of that incredible year, I was stepping into the shower when I suddenly had a thought: "If you wanted to go on a mission, this thing will wait for you."

A third time: lovely. But I was honest: I didn't want to go on a mission now. Things were finally going well for me. Once again, I chose to stay.

I never felt like it was a mistake to stay. The thought was fleeting, anyway—not persistent the way important thoughts tend to be. However, over the next six months, my life got wild. So many things went wrong, and my reason for staying eluded me yet again. My eyes turned toward a mission once more, but it didn't feel right. I told my bishop as much shortly before he extended the calling of Relief Society president to me.

Everything was hunky-dory for a few months. Then came an Interpersonal Crisis that was literally one of my worst nightmares.

The great thing about the Interpersonal Crisis was that it eliminated one of the things I would have felt I was missing out on by going on a mission. Ah-ha! Almost immediately I began to wonder if now, at last, this was the time to go. Almost everything else in my life was going wrong, too, so it seemed like it was all screaming that I had nothing to lose by leaving. I thought about it, then talked to my bishop, then set a date to make a decision.

The date rolled around, and...found me recovering from appendicitis. Whoops. Obviously not a good time to make life-changing decisions, so I forewent it, but even after I recovered, I didn't know what I was feeling. At work, at home, in the temple, in San Diego—no real answer seemed forthcoming.

My stake conference came around, and with it forced interaction with the person with whom I was having an Interpersonal Crisis. Some time had passed, so—well, I don't know what I was thinking except that I knew this person was a good person and didn't believe they would double down on the way they'd treated me. But they did double down on it. I felt like I'd been slapped, and I left the building in a daze. All of a sudden, it became clear that if more of this treatment was in store each time I saw this person, I couldn't stay here. I remembered about what the General Authority said about making a decision and getting confirmation after moving forward. So be it. Every time I'd chosen not to go on a mission, things hadn't really worked out. What is it they say: that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results? Time to do something different. I rushed to speak with my bishop the next day.

My bishop, a wise man whom I very much look up to, thought I would make a great missionary. We agreed to officially start the mission papers. However, he also said: "Don't go on a mission to run away from your problems."

Easier said than done. No matter the other reasons, the sole thing that allowed me to feel free to pursue a mission was how terribly my life was going. Those problems would be a catalyst regardless of anything else. I worked to resolve them as much as I could to make the decision-making process clearer, but they refused to resolve.

Meanwhile, as I filled out my mission papers, I felt terrible. I felt a sick feeling similar to the one I felt the first time I prayed about it. I didn't like talking or thinking about the mission even as I prepared in earnest. I knew in my heart that this wasn't right, but I was so tired of choosing to stay yet being so unsuccessful.

Things came to a head, and blessedly I was able to take a step back and say, "What am I doing? This doesn't make sense." I was just a few steps away from completing my mission papers, but I decided not to do so. The sick feeling went away. I knew I'd made the right decision. I wish I could say that things got better, but they're still pretty up in the air. I'm hoping for a couple of miracles, but in the meantime, I at least feel stronger and more able to deal with some things.

And that's how I almost ran away from all my problems.

My New Kid

I guess Alexa has a brother.

Since school started, I've been getting calls to let me know that some kid named Antonio isn't showing up for class.

These calls are a little different—not in Spanish, and they don't tell me what grade mijo Antonio is in. But they appear to be coming from a similar, maybe even the same, number as two years ago.

I hope it's not a problem that their real parents aren't getting these calls!

In Which I Break Up

A few times over the last few years, I've joked that even though I don't have a boyfriend, I'm in a long-term relationship with this blog.

Well.

Well...

The blog and I are breaking up.

When I started the blog, it had a clear purpose. As my life has gotten more complicated, that purpose has been muddied somewhat. Don't get me wrong; I've enjoyed the journey. It's just that after five and a half years, I'm losing track of all I truly wanted to say.

I was planning to start phasing the blog out this year, but then I felt like I shouldn't. Since then, I've been wondering what it is that I should do.

The answer came in an unexpected form: President Nelson has received revelation that it's time for us to stop using the term "Mormon" to refer to ourselves. I've never loved the term, since it's originally a slur and also an inaccurate way to define what I believe, but since that's what most call us, the Church has tried to reclaim the term and proudly own it.

Well, no more. From now on, we refer to ourselves as "Mormons" no longer. We're going to start being sticklers for the proper terms: "member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints" or "Latter-day Saints."

I think this is great. However, "Awkward Member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Girl" isn't exactly catchy. So I'm taking it as a sign that it's a good time to lay aside this blog. The last post will be September 22nd. (If there's anything anyone would really like me to write about between now and then, I'm taking ideas.)

I don't think I'm going to quit blogging; I think I will probably eventually start a new blog that will be a sequel of sorts. But I'm still thinking about it, especially because I don't want it to be just the same as this one. I want it to have all the good parts of this blog but be even better. (I'm taking ideas for that, too.)

Tiny Toothpaste Reef

Baby Brother wanted me to tell you something.

For his birthday, the little cutie, as expected, asked for a bunch of Marvel stuff (including this sweet Mjolnir nightlight that looks like the hammer is embedded in the wall). But he also asked for something unusual: fish.

We've had pet fish in our family before, just not for a while. Honestly, I thought my parents would deny the request, but on Baby Brother's birthday morn, what did I see but one of those fancy cylindrical fish tanks. My brother was over the moon. Even though we went to the international festival and did all kinds of fun things, mostly he just wanted to talk about the fish he was going to get. Before his birthday was over, the parents had bought him four fish plus a snail. Their names? Debra Deluise the orange guppy, Tiffany DeMarco the yellow guppy, Sue DaNube the turquoise guppy, Jimboline the Queen the zebra danio, and Classy Gladyss. (Classy Gladyss is the snail.)

A bit fancy for fish if you ask me, but Baby Brother didn't. He named his fish, provided for their needs with food and filters and plastic plants, and proudly proclaimed his new tank "Tiny Toothpaste Reef". He's a proud fish father who shows off his "fishies" any chance he gets.

Jimboline the Queen has already died, but the guppies are still kicking. Metaphorically, of course. You need legs to kick.

Something Wonderful

I've been something of a sad sap lately. Despite my best intentions, this blog has recently been like 50% faith-affirming statements. Which isn't a bad thing. It's just, you know, not what people come here for. At least, that's what I presume when I review the numbers for the most-read posts, which ain't the faith-affirming ones.

I'm not sure what happened today, but somehow, the fear and dread that has kept me company for months on end seems to be dispelled. I feel that the end of my present gamut of trials is near, perhaps already over. Not that I'll never have problems again—though that would be nice. Also there are still several things about which I am concerned and that are still outstanding (including the Interpersonal Crisis), but I feel that a resolution is coming. I haven't given up, and perhaps my tenacity and faith are about to be rewarded. We shall see!

Book Recommendations

From time to time, people ask me about my favorite book. The truth is that I have fifteen favorite books. They're not the only books I recommend to people, but they're often the first ones I recommend.

They are (in no particular order):

Danny the Champion of the World, by Roald Dahl: This might be the only children's book Roald Dahl wrote that has no magical hi-jinks. It's all stuff that conceivably could happen in the real world, including a vivid scene of teacher-child beating taken straight from his own life. (The teacher is basically a more violent version of Severus Snape.) The main plot of the story has nothing to do with teachers; it's about a boy named Danny who lives with his father just outside of a small British village. His father is a very exciting person and, it turns out, secretly a poacher. (Almost everybody in the book is secretly a poacher.) They concoct a mad plan to make a statement by poaching every single pheasant from a nearby wood. The plan involves raisins and a baby carriage. It doesn't involve Danny's friend Sidney, who does almost nothing the entire book except exist unnecessarily. IT'S A GOOD BOOK, THOUGH.

The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, by J. R. R. Tolkien: I know, I know. Cliché, but I do love 'em. They are far, far better than the live-action versions in every conceivable way. The Return of the King might actually be my favorite book of all time. Except that the ending has always been difficult for me to swallow. Although just recently, I've started to accept it.

Harry Potter, books one through seven, by J. K. Rowling: I've talked quite a bit about Harry Potter on this blog, so you should all know my feelings. My favorites are the first and the fifth. The fifth book is amazing. So intricate. So many good jokes. So much Luna.

Romeo and Juliet: Together (and Alive!) at Last, by Avi: I actually kind of hate Avi, but this book is comedic gold. Well, it was before I read it 10,000 times. It's about a group of students who decide that the only way their friends will confess their love for each other is if they star in a production of Romeo and Juliet. Combine all the awkwardness of elementary school crushes with all the cringeyness of student-directed productions, and voilà.

Bloomability, by Sharon Creech: This one's about a girl named Dinnie who has been overlooked her entire life. She ends up studying abroad in Switzerland, and...well...this book has some complex ideas about people and political conflict and language and all sorts of interesting things. It really makes you think.

Sleeping Freshmen Never Lie, by David Lubar: This book is also pretty complex. It features an aspiring teenage writer named Scott Hudson who's just trying to figure out high school. It raises some interesting questions about being true to yourself no matter how much you may not fit in and why treating other people well matters, even (especially) when they have nothing that benefits you. There's also a lot of English language cleverness in general. No one that I've recommended this book to has ever disliked it. After Best Friend Boy read (well, listened to) it, he was inspired enough to take me to see a movie that had a similar story (called Tim Timmerman, Hope of America). Good stuff.

Saturday Is a Special Day

ME, every Friday night: Finally! Tomorrow is Saturday! A day where I can get things done! I'm going to do everything on this big, long to-do list.

ME, every Saturday afternoon: Nope. Can't do it. Not today. My will to accomplish anything is not-so-slowly evaporating. I'm going to call my brothers and waste 6,000 hours with them.

Grace

A few months ago, La Petite turned to me and said something like, "It seems like for you, the last couple of years have been nothing but bad things. I wouldn't blame you if you just felt like giving up."

And Best Friend Boy said, "Something good has to happen to you soon."

But God said, "Haha no." Repeatedly.

I just went to a campout for my stake. At that campout, it seemed like almost every speaker's sermon was for me. One of those speakers was a well-known LDS teacher named Brad Wilcox spoke. He mentioned that my generation may be the most anguished generation to date. Then he talked at length about grace.

He said that grace is a divine power, and it's how God engages with us. He said it's not what we call tender mercies, and it's not when we receive an answer to a prayer (unless, I suppose, we're praying for grace). It is, however, a product of Christ's Atonement.

Then he said a few things that struck me. He said, "Strength too easily won is not strength."

He said, "Change without challenge is not change."

He said, "Time is the medium for the power of the Atonement."

Somehow, right then, I got a tiny flash of what God is up to. Have I not asked for the power of Christ's Atonement in my life? Have I not asked for the circumstances to change? Perhaps the only way is fraught with difficulty and takes time.

Hogwarts Mystery

They finally made it!

A game where you feel like you're attending Hogwarts, that is.

Meet Hogwarts Mystery. In this game, you create a cute avatar of yourself that gets to attend Hogwarts. You start seven years before Harry, so the story line is all-new, but you do see some of the same characters from the books.

First I made a friend named Rowan. (Rowan's gender is the same as the player's avatar's gender, and he/she goes automatically to whatever house the player chooses ['cause the Sorting Hat lets you choose]).Then I found out that my brother Jacob was a crazy person who was expelled from Hogwarts/kidnapped/murdered/a Death Eater/something. Then I found out that there was a mystery in Hogwarts (thus the title) involving something called the Cursed Vaults. Then I had to keep poking my nose in said vaults, despite repeated warnings, punishments, and threats of expulsion.

The game is mobile, and the mechanics are simple. You mostly just click on things repeatedly, but it's actually pretty fun. It really feels like I'm attending Hogwarts! My avatar goes to classes, wears Gryffindor robes and other swag, eats in the Great Hall, plays Gobstones, and drinks butterbeer at the Three Broomsticks. I can win points for my house by performing well in class and by making decisions that align with the Gryffindor way (which is to be daring to the point of stupidity; I actually got house points for daring to ask Snape for some of his hair).

As much of Harry's experience has been incorporated into the game as possible: Snape hates me. Filch hates me. My own Draco Malfoy-type character (Merula Snyde) hates me, and Dumbledore loves me. I'm a bit famous because of my brother's infamy and my own exploits, and I have loads of friends.

Rowan Khanna: Gryffindor. In my year. The first friend. The Ron, if you will. Except in personality, she's more like Hermione. She's very smart, kind of naive, and adores me to a point that's almost creepy.

Ben Copper: Gryffindor. In my year. Neville Longbottom if Neville never developed a personality. But really. GROW A SPINE, BEN.

The back of my avatar's head, Ben, Penny, and Bill.

Penny Haywood: Hufflepuff. In my year. Pretty, nice, smart, super popular, and super good at potions. One of my favorite characters. You're allowed to invite characters on quests with you, and I invite Penny a lot.

Bill Weasley: Gryffindor. Two years above me. Yes, that Bill Weasley. I never cared much for Bill in the books, because long-haired boys with earrings who marry hot French girls are not my type. But in the game, he's a sweetie. He asked my avatar to be the go-between for him and his crush, but his crush ended up being a jerk, and then my avatar had to console him over butterbeer: "Don't worry, Bill; you're going to marry a hot French girl who won't care about your long hair, earring, or your recently acquired werewolf tendencies."

The back of Bill's head and my avatar.

Nymphadora Tonks: Hufflepuff. In my year. You remember Tonks, right? The cheerful Auror who can change her appearance magically at will and who married Lupin and had a baby and died? She's in this game too! Mostly she just hates on the librarian.

Tulip Karasu: Ravenclaw. In my year. If you're wondering what kind of a last name Karasu is, the Internet says it can be either Japanese or Turkish-Jewish. Tulip has red hair but dark eyes, so I wouldn't put it past her to be part Japanese or Turkish-Jewish! Or both! Sadly, she might be the least favorite of my friends. I think they wanted her to be the Luna of the game, but though she's weird enough, she's not likable enough.

Tulip, my avatar, Barnaby, and Tonks. Tonks is about to play a trick on her nemesis, the librarian. And yes, my avatar is wearing pajamas and slippers. I wear what I want.

Barnaby Lee: Slytherin. In my year. At first, Barnaby acted all tough 'n stuff, but it turns out that he's actually really nice, and he loves animals! He's just...not super bright.

Drinking butterbeer with Tulip, Ben, Rowan, Barnaby, Penny, Bill, and Tonks. And Madam Rosmerta, who for some reason won't leave us alone.

Andre Egwu: Ravenclaw. In my year. If Tulip isn't my least favorite, then Andre is. Don't get me wrong; I like him as a person! He's a smooth individual who loves fashion and Quidditch, but he isn't very helpful. While the rest of my friends (even Tulip) are striving to help me find the Cursed Vaults and locate my brother, Andre just shows up, drops fashion or Quidditch advice, and leaves. Er...thanks?

Charlie Weasley: Gryffindor. In my year. I always did have a soft spot for Charlie, even though he's barely in the books. Like Barnaby, he loves animals, and in the game, he's incredibly kind.

The creators of the game have hinted that eventually, your avatar will be able to date your friends. It wouldn't be Hogwarts without crushes, right?! I'm torn between Bill and Charlie, but since I know Bill ends up marrying somebody else, I've landed on Charlie, the perpetual Weasley bachelor.

"Charlie, why don't you love me?"

But really, wouldn't it be amazing to be Harry Potter's sister-in-law? In-law?

"But—" you say.

Shhhh. I know it's not real. But this is everything I've wanted since I started reading Harry Potter nigh on 20 years ago, so I'm just...I'm just gonna enjoy it, 'kay?

Are You Ron Weasley?

Tomorrow is Harry's birthday, and I already have a Harry Potter-related post lined up. But as I was thinking of what to write today, another Harry Potter topic came to mind. So you're getting twice the Harry Potter for the same price! (Which is free. It's all free. But...you know.)

A year ago, someone told me that as they were re-reading the Harry Potter books, they found they were disliking Ron more and more. This person starting listing all the actions and traits of Ronald Bilius Weasley that they disliked. As I listened, I was amused and amazed. Because goldarn it if the actions weren't things that this same person had done and if the traits weren't ones that this same person shared.

I think that people can't appreciate Ron if they don't believe in redemption. Ron reminds us of all the thoughtless things we've done to people or that they've done to us, so it's easy to just say he's a jerk and be done with it. To see Ron clearly, you have to measure him not by what he failed to do for Harry (and Hermione) but by what he did do for Harry (and Hermione). He would do anything for them, and he pretty darned well did. It's not just lip service when during the Tri-Wizard Tournament, Ron is the "thing Harry would miss most."

"But Ron screwed up!" Yeah. Ron screwed up. So what? Are you really going to say that a lifetime of loyalty and love and friendship means nothing because of a few bumps? Please note that every time Ron screws up, he admits his mistakes and tries harder and does better. Ron gets the second chances we all wish we could have, and he doesn't take them for granted. We should all want to be more like Ron.

Of course, you can't be Ron if the people in your life aren't Harrys and Hermiones. In a word: forgiving. Most people are, though. Most people don't want to throw cherished relationships away with both hands, and they're more likely to greet you as a prodigal than they are to cast you aside.

If you feel like a Ron right now—if you hurt someone and regret it and want a second (pr third or fourth or fifth) chance, try to get one. Tell the person that you hurt that you're a Ron. I mean, don't tell literally them that. (Unless the person is me. I'll understand what you mean.) But tell them that you did something stupid and you're sorry and you want to try again. You'll have to humble yourself first. Do it anyway.

And always remember:

"Dumbledore knew what he was doing when he gave me the Deluminator, didn’t he? He—well," Ron’s ears turned bright red and he became engrossed in a tuft of grass at his feet, which he prodded with his toe, "he must’ve known I’d run out on you."

"No," Harry corrected him. "He must’ve known you’d always want to come back."

Flying a Kite in the Dark

I decided I wanted to fly a kite in the dark.

My parents were freaking out, saying, "That's dangerous!" Here's the thing though...there are streetlights everywhere, so we can see everything even when it's technically dark, so how is it dangerous?

I guess I won the argument, because I was allowed to fly a kite around 10:00 p.m. in the front yard with my brothers.

It was everything I'd hoped and dreamed it would be.

That's all.

Serendipitous

Context: This post is about the fifth and sixth days (and fourth and fifth days in the city) of my third New York City trip.

A few things come to mind about Little Brother's first experience in New York City.

Before we left for the Big Apple, he started his Instagram account, but he posted no photos. He explained that his first post would be a photo of him brushing his teeth on the streets of New York City. Okaaaay—?

Little Brother hated New York pigeons but rapidly became obsessed with the sparrows. At one point, a sparrow flitted past, and he yelled, "Oh my gosh. Marry me!" He added, "If I married a New York sparrow, I'd be happier than most people."

The final thing he really wanted from the trip was for me to take him for dim sum in Chinatown. On our last day (Monday), that's what we did. Bagels at Broadway Bagels, shopping for souvenirs (including at the Disney store and at this wild Japanese Line store), cookies at Levain Bakery, and dim sum at Shanghai Cafe. They had the best soup dumplings (dumplings filled with soup, not that you put in soup). Then we said goodbye to our sister, and then we left.

But that was Monday. Before that, Sunday.

Sunday morning we ate protein bars in Older Sister's apartment for our breakfast (we wanted to not eat out for at least one meal since Sabbath) and then attended sacrament meeting in the Manhattan temple chapel. Afterward, Central Park.

This entire trip, Little Brother and I had a devil of a time getting our phones to tell us anything other than the best subway trains to take. I guess the data in the city is over-saturated with users, because our phones just didn't seem able to pick up on basic navigation. However, they did pretty well in Central Park, which is ironic because it has traditionally been the most difficult part of the city to navigate.

Everything we wanted to see was happily located within a fairly small radius: the carousel, the Hans Christian Anderson statue, the Alice in Wonderland statue, the Balto statue. Along one of the walkways, we ran into delightful performers dressed as disembodied clothing/headless people. We stumbled across this beautiful fountain and square I don't recall seeing the last couple of times (Bethesda Fountain). It had a nice underground walkway with beautiful murals and acoustics emphasized by a musical group performing there. We also exited the park through the zoo, where we saw the famous animal clock.

Lunch was at one of the Central Park boathouses.

However, lunch was light and not that great, so after leaving the park, we partook of second lunch at Serendipity. (Serendipity 1 if you want to get snooty about it. I don't.)

If Tonn Ramen is designed to make patrons feel slightly uncomfortable, Serendipity is designed to make patrons feel...hmm. The bright pink paint, reflective surfaces, quirky signage, crowded tables, and rushed waiters kind of gave me an urge that I must have something better to do than being squashed with a bunch of strangers in a restaurant reflecting this level of inanity. Like, it was charming. But it also made me feel stupid and impatient.

We mostly went there for the frozen hot chocolate, which I'd been told was amazing. Sadly, it was merely adequate.

Our waiter, too, was rather touch-and-go. I could barely hear him over the din of the restaurant, and while he might have heard us, I don't think he was really listening. He forgot that I'd ordered a frozen hot chocolate, so I had to wait much longer than for mine than Little Brother did for his.

Little Brother overheard a patron at an adjacent table complaining that he'd received the wrong order. According to Little Brother, it went something like this:

PATRON: Oh, I didn't order this burger. I ordered the chicken basket with fries.

WAITER: What?

PATRON: I ordered the chicken basket with fries. I mean, this burger looks good. I'll eat it. But I'd also like a chicken basket to go if you could add that to my order.

WAITER: Okay. (picks up burger and walks away with it)

PATRON: What? What? Did you guys just see that?!

PATRON'S FRIENDS: Dude, calm down.

WAITER: I'm not going to calm down! I'm going to COMPLAIN. (heads off in search of manager)

Apparently whether you ever receive your food in this restaurant is a matter of serendipity. Ha. Ha ha. (Pretty sure this guy's friends were cracking similar jokes.)

Around this time, I headed off in search of the bathroom. Which was ridiculously hard to get to and required weaving between the many cramped tables.

Remember how we took tons of photos of ourselves on the Brooklyn Bridge two days before? Older Sister's phone has a setting for photo shoots, so the shots turned out looking weirdly professional. Little Brother had taken advantage of the situation by producing his toothbrush and snagging a photo of himself brushing his teeth on the bridge.

The photo looked ridiculous. In a good way. It looked like he was doing some kind of toothbrush modeling campaign. And now that Little Brother had the photo, he was determining the best way to present it on his Instagram account. Among other things, he toyed with it by assembling a Got Milk?-type image emblazoned with the word "Brush."

The Angry Chicken Basket Patron caught Little Brother's eye, so as I went to the restroom, he tried to figure out which phone in the room belonged to the Angry Chicken Basket Patron so that he could anonymously airdrop the "Brush." photo to him. Like you do.

When I returned from the restroom, the whole dining floor was abuzz with people who kept repeating the same thing over and over. I didn't think too much of it until I sat down at our table and we were approached by a random man.

RANDOM MAN: Is this you? (shows phone to Little Brother)

LITTLE BROTHER: Oh. sorry, that was an accident.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: What?

LITTLE BROTHER: Well...

Turned out that Little Brother had accidentally airdropped his photo not to the Angry Chicken Basket Patron but to every iPhone user in Serendipity. That repeated word I kept hearing over and over? Little Brother's name. Because his iPhone name is simply "Little Brother's iPhone." He'd been slightly hunched over the table, trying to keep his face turned away so that nobody would recognize him as the odd kid brushing his teeth on the Brooklyn Bridge in the weirdly professional photo they'd just had airdropped to them by a stranger.

As we hustled out of there, the room was still abuzz with his name, but we escaped without any more encounters.

The rest of the day passed rather uneventfully. We took a train downtown to stroll in Greenwich's Washington Square Park, where Little Brother once again tried to airdrop his photo to strangers because I don't know why, exactly. 'Twas amusing, though.

(Slight tangent: I'd mentioned to Little Brother that during this trip, I wasn't opposed to going to the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. He said he didn't really want to do that, so I never investigated the possibility further. I didn't realize until just last week that we'd been mere blocks from it at this point and possibly even walked past it! I'm very annoyed with myself for not catching that.)

We then attended the charity event Older Sister was working on all weekend. Following that, we called our dad to wish him a happy Father's Day while we waited to be seated at Jacob's Pickle.

I don't even like pickles, but I was willing to endure them in the name of trying new things. The pickles that came on my chicken biscuit sandwich weren't bad, but they still weren't my favorite. The honey-drizzled chicken was my favorite. So was the chocolate banana biscuit we got on the side. You'll see below that my meal also came with mashed potatoes with mushroom gravy. The mushroom gravy almost made me sick because it was waaaaay too rich.

It was super dark in there.

Then, like I said, the next day was the last day. Bagels. Shopping. (Little Brother loooooved the Line store, which apparently is the first of its kind in the U.S. I liked it okay, but I was mostly amused by animations with subtitles translated into poor English that played on the wall behind the checkout counter. One of them showed an ugly human living his best life and said, "James is a narcissist. He's in love with himself." I laughed way harder than I should have.)

Levain's. Chinatown.

I wish I was eating one of these chocolate chip walnut cookies right now!

Cute soup dumplings. They were filled with crab and pork.

Then, home. Nothing of note happened on the way home, so I won't tell you about it. Suffice it to say that we were pretty excited (about the souvenirs we got our family) and pretty exhausted (for obvious reasons) by the time we landed back in good old Utah.

Ever Onward

We're celebrating Pioneer Day (aka the Twenty-Fourth of July) a little early around here. The Hometown annual carnival was yesterday and today because weekend. We enjoyed the works: the fried bread, the fishing pond, and the erstwhile photo booth.

We also went to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's Pioneer Day concert. The stars were Matthew Morrison and Laura Michelle Kelly, both of whom I saw in Finding Neverland on Broadway. Also, since the concert focused on the works of Rodgers and Hammerstein, Oscar Hammerstein's grandson was there to narrate. I was skeptical of his presence at first, but he was actually really, really good at narrating.

The concert kicked off with more traditional Pioneer Day fare, including one of my favorite hymns, "Come Come Ye Saints." A couple of lines hit me hard tonight: "Why should we mourn or think our lot is hard? 'Tis not so; all is right."

I'm guilty of thinking my lot is hard. Which, honestly, it kinda is. Remember how I was rereading The Work and the Glory? I think one of the purposes of a story like that is to lead you down the path of, "Oh my gosh, the pioneers had it so rough! I could never do that!"

I'll level with you, though—except for the parts involving snow and frostbite (which many a pioneer didn't have to deal with), coming West sounds like something I totally could have done. I'd be tired, yes, and uncertain, and I'd probably experience some fear and anxiety over not knowing exactly what was in store for me. But it would be a delight to be given a task so cut-and-dry: Take this wagon. Go West until you reach the Salt Lake Valley. No matter how tedious that would get or how hot the sun would beat or how much my feet would hurt, it sounds so much easier than what I'm facing now.

If I were a wagon-toting pioneer, I wouldn't have to try to figure out my career. I wouldn't have to figure out where God wants me. I wouldn't have to strain under the struggle of trying to make time for family, friends, work, church callings, and me time. I possibly wouldn't have to worry about boys in any form at all; I would be too busy staying alive to care about confusing men who say one thing but do other things that don't match their words at all. I'd keep my eye on the western horizon and keep moving toward it, and with that sure direction I wouldn't feel so rudderless and discouraged.

But pioneerdom didn't happen for me. Either I wouldn't have been as good at pioneering as I think I would be or God had something else in mind. Sometimes that's hard to swallow. But as Matthew Morrison and Laura Michelle Kelly and Oscar Hammerstein III pointed out during the concert, difficult things usually aren't as difficult as they appear to be, and even if they are, they can be persevered through.

Meet Marco

Remember how I impulse-bought a car?!

Well, okay, back up. I told you about how I impulse-declared my intention to buy a new car. I didn't tell you what went down after that.

My dad got on board immediately. He texted me to ask what I was looking for in a new car.

I'd been thinking about this. I told him that I wanted another Honda. Five years old or less. $X,000 or less.

Dad hedged a bit. He was kind of all, "Honey, that's unrealistic." But he took it upon himself to search the world wide web, and he quickly found a beautiful, beautiful 2014 Honda Civic EX. It was a salvage title, so it fell perfectly within my price range, even though it was technically worth more.

Anyway, long story short, I decided to get a new car on a Monday. That Saturday, Dad and I drove through light snow and deep slush to test-drive the Honda Civic. I hated driving a car that didn't belong to me in the snow, but even I had to admit it handled like a dream. It had all-weather tires and a backup camera and a right-signal camera, things that made driving in the snow much less scary.

It quickly became clear that this new Honda was the one for me, so I bought it. Bought him!

Meet Marco!

He's named for Marco Ubaldo Diaz of Star vs. the Forces of Evil fame. Since Marco has a red hoodie and all!

I miss these things about Bernard:

• Sunglasses holder
• Low dashboard
• Actual speedometer (Marco doesn't have a speedometer needle, just a digital MPH reading, so it's difficult for me to gauge speeding up and slowing down)
• His personality
• Not having to worry about ruining his paint job

I love these things about Marco:

• Backup/right turn signal camera
• Bluetooth speakers (I can play music from my phone and get directions broadcast, too)
• Radio volume control built into the steering wheel
• Sporty, nice look
• Significantly fewer interior stains
• Significantly fewer exterior scratches, dents, and dings
• Temperature reading
• Estimated miles per gallon reading
• Takes less gas than Bernard but goes the same distance per tank

Both my Hondas had/have moon roofs. And the interfaces and warning lights are very similar since they are the same manufacturer! Marco did have a couple issues off the bat, and I worried that I'd made a bad decision. But I kept feeling like everything would be fine, and it has been. Overall, very satisfied with my choice. Although Marco can never replace Bernard, I'm super into him, and we're having a great time.

Blue Apron vs HelloFresh

Now that I've tried both Blue Apron and HelloFresh, I can give you the ultimate comparison!

This may sound like a cop out, but I liked them both. The biggest difference is that HelloFresh's recipes are fancier while Blue Apron's are more adventurous. (That probably isn't evident from my review because I only chose tame recipes from Blue Apron; ha ha. But they offer a lot of food based in other cultures and with unusual ingredients.) Oh, and Blue Apron seems like it's more about teaching amateur cooks while HelloFresh seems like it's more about getting a mostly-homemade meal on the table in record time.

In terms of ease, Blue Apron's recipes were better-written and easier to follow, while HelloFresh's individual recipe bags made it easier to find ingredients. Both came with multiple ice packs and other packaging that were a real time suck to recycle and throw away, although Blue Apron's was marginally less of a hassle.

HelloFresh had more recipes I was excited about during their two weeks than Blue Apron did. Though I've checked the Blue Apron menu since then, and it looks like they're offering things I really like right now. So maybe my Blue Apron recipe weeks were just duds. It's unclear. Both had delicious food, though! Even when a dish wasn't my favorite, I was still able to consume it.

The biggest problem that I have with both these services is their business model. Not the subscription box aspect! I love that. It's that while Stitch Fix is opt-in (I only get a box when I schedule one), these services are opt-out. Both of them will automatically charge your credit card for a box each week unless you manually choose to skip the shipment. I want to keep both my accounts in case of future windfall or time necessity, but they make that reeeeaaaally hard by being so inconvenient about it! I know in my heart that eventually I'll just straight-up cancel them both, but right now I'm dragging my feet about it.

Okay, now that I've said all that, I'd have to say that overall I enjoyed Blue Apron just a smidge more. I'm just a sucker for a well-written recipe, I guess!

A fun thing is that both Blue Apron and HelloFresh let you send a certain number of free boxes with food to other people. (They're free for the recipient—except for about $10 in shipping—or so I've been told by people who've received them. I felt scammy about offering them to my friends and family, like I was tricking them somehow! But it ended up being legit...just awkward.) I have a few more HelloFresh ones right now, but apparently they're available at random intervals, so there's not much rhyme or reason to sharing them.

I also have a referral code for HelloFresh that allows the user $40 off a first box (which should be the cost of a box of two meals for two people; it just doesn't cover shipping) and gives me $30 in referral credit. If you're tempted to try HelloFresh for yourself, I'd love it if you use my link.

Blue Apron doesn't do referral links. However, for reasons I'm not quite sure of, they gave me an okay discount on three more weeks of boxes. So later this summer, I'm getting three more weeks of Blue Apron. Most of the recipes I chose are pretty unusual, and I'll probably tell you all about them afterward!

I'm curious now, and I want to try more food subscription box services, but cooking multiple times a week gets pretty tiring, so I'm not trying any new services for a couple of months. I have my eye on a few, though: an Indian food subscription box and an "exotic" meal subscription box with recipes you'd more likely find at a restaurant. I'm hoping these will help in my quest to make the ultimate homemade curry recipe. Also a Southern food subscription box (that one just sounds fun!).

Anyway, I'm set to recreate a food box recipe for the first time next week. I'm making the chicken with mushroom gravy and couscous from HelloFresh. With broccoli instead of arugula, of course. Can't wait!

Eating and Watching Bernadette Peters Eat

Context: This post is about the fourth day (and third day in the city) of my third New York City trip.

Are you wondering about the title of this post?

It's pretty simple, really. On the Saturday of our trip, we ate a lot of delicious food. Older Sister had signed us up for a morning walking tour of Greenwich Village (a cute place). We grabbed breakfast at Lenny's Bagels on the way. I had a delicious bagel with cream cheese and lox, which I sadly do not have a picture of.

Lunch: After the tour, Older Sister had to rush off to an event her work was putting on, but Little Brother and I had a nice sit-down lunch. Turns out that Greenwich Village has an abundance of good Italian food, so I enjoyed tasty chicken piccata, my favorite Italian dish, at Trattoria Spaghetti. My chicken came with a piece of...what seemed to be...cornbread? But not exactly cornbread. Polenta?

Chicken piccata with potatoes and some cornbread-y stuff. There was also some garlicky spinach, not shown here. All very good!

We then grabbed gelato at a place called Grom. I had a flavor called crema di grom, which included chunks of cookies made from corn. Which also tasted like cornbread. Seriously, I'm not making this stuff up. Never have I ever had Italian food with so much corn!

Dinner: After Older Sister's work events and our matinee of Hello Dolly (more on that in a minute), we met up at Bann Restaurant, where we had a reservation. Guess what? Bann Restaurant serves Korean food! That's right. Older Sister, who has hated all "Asian food" her entire life, took us to not one but two Asian restaurants while we were visiting her! And they say people never change.

Older Sister ordered us a barbecue meal that we cooked ourselves over a tiny little grill.

Pork bun appetizer!

Rice and veggies and grilled beef, salmon, and shrimp! The meat was pre-marinated and so flavorful and good!

Older Sister grilling up some beef.

We ordered these pretty chocolate molten cakes for dessert! One for Little Brother and one for Older Sister and I to share.

What I'm trying to say is that we ate very well on Saturday.

And the Bernadette Peters part? Well, she ate very well on Saturday, too.

See, Little Brother and I had decided that our second Broadway musical for the trip would be Hello, Dolly. It featured Victor Garber (whom I knew from several made-for-TV musicals) as Horace Vandergelder, Gavin Creel (who was the original Jimmy in Thoroughly Modern Millie) as Cornelius Hackl, Charlie Stemp (a Broadway newcomer) as Barnaby Tucker, and Kate Baldwin and Molly Griggs (both of whom I know nothing about) as Irene Molloy and Minnie Fay. It also featured an actress named Melanie Moore as Ermengarde. Upon reading the playbill, I discovered that I have accidentally seen Melanie Moore in every one of her Broadway roles! She was Peter Pen in Finding Neverland and Chava in the revival of Fiddler on the Roof. I guess I'm her biggest fan or something?

But above and beyond all that, the show featured the one, the only Bernadette Peters as Dolly Levi herself! If you think you don't know who Bernadette Peters is, I promise you that you do. Find a clip of her voice on YouTube, and you'll likely recognize it. She's a mega star. Among all the other things she's done, she was a guest star in the first season of The Muppet Show and she played the voice of Sophie (the lady who sings "Paris Hold the Key to Your Heart") in the movie version of Anastasia. What a fun tie-in to the previous two days of our trip! In short, we were feeling pretty good about our choices because wouldn't seeing Bernadette Peters perform live be so fun?!

Yes, it would be! The show was great. The costuming was delightful. I thought the actors did a great job. Barnaby and Cornelius were classic Barnaby and Cornelius while Mrs. Molloy and Minnie were played as less uptight and less stupid, respectfully, than usual. Bernadette Peters and Victor Garber did a good job with their characters as well. My only real complaint was that apparently the director had asked them to be over-the-top and campy in places where it wasn't really needed. A funny line should be funny without too much of an affect.

The worst offender was a scene toward the end of the show. Dolly and Horace are eating in a a restaurant when a brawl breaks out. Horace leaves the table and joins the rest of the cast in a transition to a courtroom, but Dolly aka Bernadette Peters remained seated at the table and kept eating the stage food. I'd assumed the food was made out of plastic or cotton or something (some bits seriously looked like cotton balls), but she devoured every scrap while the rest of the scene went on behind her. Midway through the scene, Dolly is supposed to offer her services as a lawyer and join the rest of the characters, but even after the judge called for a lawyer, Bernadette Peters kept eating for, like, seven to ten minutes while the other actors waited.

It was one of the most uncomfortable moments of my life (and that's saying something). Some folks in the theatre were laughing hysterically, but I didn't find it funny, just odd. I found myself thinking things like, "Did something go wrong?" "Is Bernadette Peters messing with the rest of the cast?" and "Does Bernadette Peters have it in her contract that she has to eat a certain time?" and "Did we really pay $49 to watch Bernadette Peters eat lunch?" Finally, though, she finished eating to thunderous applause, and the scene continued.

Little Brother looked this up and confirmed that it was a director's choice and not some kind of mishap or joke. Ummmm okaaaaay director person!

The last thing about Saturday that needs to be discussed is the shower at Older Sister's apartment. Remember how we went on a tour of Greenwich Village that morning? We saw lots of interesting things on the tour, like the theatre where Barbra Streisand got started, New York City's skinniest house, the apartment building where Benedict Cumberbatch stayed when he was on Broadway, and the Stonewall Inn. One of the most intriguing, things, though, was the Hess Triangle.

When the city wanted to widen the streets, this fellow Hess, who owned an apartment building on one of the streets in question, refused to cooperate, so the government ended up seizing his land for the public good. However, Hess retained a tiny triangle of land. Being the Saltiest Person on Earth™, he decided that the only appropriate course of action was to put a plaque on the tiny triangle stating he never donated his land to the public. (At least, the tour guide said it was him. The Internet disputes this by saying it was his heirs. Who I guess would then be the Saltiest People on Earth™.)

This thing is tiny. One person can stand on it comfortably, and that's it. It's probably the most American thing I've ever seen (I say with affection).

Guess what? There were two showers in Older Sister's apartment, and one was the size of the Hess Triangle!

Well, I'm exaggerating. Slightly. It was about the size of three Hess Triangles put together. There were no walls or anything; just a shower curtain. I couldn't even have the shampoo bottle in the shower with me because there was no room.

The Hess Shower was the only shower available after 11 p.m. by the agreement of the apartment tenants. (The other shower, which was a more normal size, activated pipes that were too loud for people to sleep through.) Apart from that, because it was the less-preferred shower, it was more likely to be free in general during target shower times.

I first used it on Friday after we got back from Brooklyn. I was careful to keep the shower curtain tucked, but imagine my dismay when I exited it and discovered that I hadn't done a good enough job and the entire bathroom was flooded.

Granted, the bathroom was tiny, but there was still a couple inches of water spread uniformly across the floor. I did my best to mop it up with my towel and all of my clothing before humbling myself enough to leave the bathroom, trek past one of Older Sister's oblivious roommates who was doing laundry right outside the bathroom door, and approach Older Sister.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: So...the bathroom is flooded...

Older Sister was gracious in not hating me and in letting me take another of her three towels to mop up the floor.

So on Saturday when I had to use the shower again, I kept my body completely vertical so that I didn't nudge any of the curtains out of place! When I dropped something and had to pick it up, I was forced to do a very careful squat to recover it.

I made sure to nab the big shower on Sunday night.

My Other Week with HelloFresh

My final two recipes with HelloFresh were Crab Cakes Under a Lemon-Dressed Salad with Fingerling Potatoes and Lemon Aioli and Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Cucumber Tomato Salad. Once again, one of the recipes I'd chosen (the crab cakes) was premium, so I paid $10 extra for the privilege of trying it.

After several days of lollygagging about in New York, cooking for myself again was a little intimidating, so I was pleased I had HelloFresh to ease back into it. No grocery shopping or meal planning required. Huzzah!

The first meal I prepared was the Crab Cakes Under a Lemon-Dressed Salad with Fingerling Potatoes and Lemon Aioli. I've been wanting to learn to make my own crab cakes for a while, so I was annoyed (but in retrospect, should not have been surprised) to see that the crab cakes were pre-assembled. They just wanted pan-cooking. Great for speediness, but not so great for learning crab cake skillz. Boo.

I was also sad to see that "lemon-dressed salad" was actually code for "lemony arugula from a previous recipe but now it's disguised as a salad through the addition of grape tomatoes and chopped scallions." You can't fool me, HelloFresh! Not even for a minute.

Also, I do want to note that while I've never had a problem with ingredient quality in my other food subscription box deliveries, the produce for this recipe was a bit sad. I made the crab cakes the day after receiving the box. The arugula and scallions were already wilty, and the tomatoes appeared to be not long for this world.

As with previous HelloFresh recipes, every recipe step was kind of meshed together into a weird simultaneous rush. I was washing and drying and chopping produce, roasting the fingerling potatoes, cooking the crab cakes, mixing the aioli, and assembling the salad at essentially the same time.

The potatoes were essentially the same as the three varieties of potato I made with Blue Apron except they were fingerlings, not Yukon golds, and the spice blend was just a packet of pure smoked paprika. Smoked paprika was one of the many ingredients in the salmon burger spice blend. I'd enjoyed that spice blend, so I was curious to see how smoked paprika did on its own.

Also like the salmon burgers, the crab cakes were ridiculous to cook. Very difficult to flip over without breaking in half!

Finally, I was dismayed to see that the lemon-dressed salad called for only half the packet of arugula. I didn't want to waste half a packet of arugula! And I don't even like arugula! (I ended up giving the rest to my mom and telling her the recipe for the lemony arugula. She's the kind of person who would think lemony arugula is a treat.)

In spite of my little gripes and the hectic nature of everything, the preparations themselves weren't complex. When all was done (it's been a few weeks, so I forget the exact cook time, but I think it took about forty-five minutes), I plated everything, even following the instructions to put the crab cakes under the salad.

I forgot to garnish the plate with the remaining scallions, but nobody cares because topping food with scallions for no reason is stupid.

The Verdict: Very tasty! The crab cakes were great, I loved the potatoes seasoned with spiced paprika, and the arugula was much more palatable as a lemon-dressed salad. I ended up eating most of it this time around. The lemon aioli was great on the cakes, the potatoes, and the salad. Also, putting the salad on top of the crab cakes did let the lemon and tomato juices soak into the crab cakes, which believe you me was a wonderful thing. The recipe did only make two servings, which were light enough that I had room for dessert after.

What I'd Do Differently: I still want to learn to make crab cakes on my own; I don't want to be reliant on pre-packaged crab cakes (quality ones are $$$). But I would definitely serve them with these potatoes, the aoili, and a salad with tomatoes and lemon (though possibly with lettuce or another viable arugula substitute).

My second choice for the week was Pulled Pork Grilled Cheese Sandwiches with Cucumber Tomato Salad.

I'm really not a big pork person, especially when it comes to pulled pork. I am, however, a secret lover of fun grilled cheese recipes. And one of the great things about these subscription boxes is that it's easier to get out of your comfort zone when you're only cooking a few servings of food at a time.

I was therefore pretty excited to try these sandwiches, but the day I got my box, Little Sister told me that she and Mr. Little Sister had also ordered this recipe (in a complimentary box I sent them because HelloFresh does that), and it was disappointing. Little Sister loves pulled pork, so I figured that if she didn't like the sandwiches, I wouldn't like them either.

Once again, the produce was sketch. I made the sandwiches three days after I made the crab cakes, and by that point, the tomato and the cucumber were disconcertingly soft.

As I looked at the recipe, I understood Little Sister's disappointment. First of all, I'd been imagining cooking pork in some kind of sweet sauce, like Cafe Rio pork. The pork was actually pre-cooked and pre-shredded with no apparent sauce whatsoever. Also, I was supposed to make an "onion jam" to go with it. What?! Onion on my grilled cheese? No, thank you! Onions in a jam? Definitely no, thank you! Onions do not go in jam.

Regardless of my personal feelings, I felt duty-bound to try the recipe out, so I prepared the produce as usual. I made the onion jam with the onion, olive oil, sugar, vinegar, and salt and pepper. I also crisped up the pork in a pan with more oil and salt and pepper. I then filled the big slices of bread with cheddar cheese, the pork, and the onion jam. Happily, grilling the sandwiches without them coming all apart was not as big of a challenge as I expected.

While all of this was going on, I was also making the salad. Which took like two seconds. Chopped cucumber and tomato in a bowl with more vinegar, oil, and salt and pepper. Done. Again, it's been a little while, but I believe the whole process lasted about fifty-five minutes.

The Verdict: Ummmm wow. This was actually really good! Well, the salad was nothing special. The sandwiches, though! The pork was crispy and salty while the onions were a little sweet and a little tart. I couldn't get enough. While there was only enough bread and salad for two servings, I ended up having enough filling for four sandwiches (I made the final two using bread from the store). If you average that out, this was another three-serving meal.

What I'd Do Differently: I'm just hoping I can find similarly packaged pork to make these again some day! So good! I'd serve them with the salad, too...just with fresher veggies.