Rejected Fanfiction Chapter Titles

I recently mentioned that Viola and I once spent an entire baseball game working on our Harry Potter fanfiction. I lied. I just came across the notebook we were using that day. It appears that we actually spent most of the game trying to come up with a title for the chapter we were composing.

Here is the fine selection of rejected titles from that evening:
-"The Buffalo Eater's Apprentice"
-"The Naive Mariner"
-"The Foolish Bee Herder"
-"Take Me Out to the Quidditch Game"
-"I Hate Everyone: The Chapter"
-"To Thine Own Self Be True"
-"You Belong With Me"
-"We Knew This Would Happen"
-"The Quibbler's Truth"
-"The Flying Bratwurst"
-"Alack. $3 for Parking."
-"The Fanfiction of Fanfictions: The Fanfiction"
-"The Fanfiction of Fanfictions: The Chapter"
-"How Voldemort Was Defeated and Other Things"
-"Receive a Drink or Slush for Free"
-"The Chapter that Shouldn't Exist"
-"I Object"
-"Hit Her Now, Hit Her"
-"This Chapter Is Not Titled"
-"We Couldn't Think of a Title"
-"The Foolish Flirt"
-"The Dice Dilemma with Dogs"
-"Poor Poor Draco, Whatcha Gonna Do?"
-"I Like Eating Dumplings. & Kisses."
-"Tests, Tricks, and Kisses"
-"The Overzealous Sports Fan"
-"The Annoying Girls Who Couldn't Speak in Coherent Sentences"

A few things: 1) No, I don't remember the context for most of these; 2) In case you were wondering, the titles of the ten preceding chapters in the fanfiction included such delights as "Harry Potter and the Magical Radio Braces," "The World Crashes to the Ground," and "The Escape of the Scented Sticker;" and 3) This is a pretty good representation of how being a writer is like 90% rejection of your own ideas (and 90% of your ideas being rejected by other people, which you might say doesn't make sense mathematically except it does because both of those things are happening simultaneously).

My Funeral

I don't mean to be morbid, but there's something that's been bugging me for a while. I think it started a couple years ago when I bought life insurance, and it was only reinforced when I was promoted and got a ton more life insurance. I started thinking more about how if I suddenly died (which I have no plans to do, but nobody plans to suddenly die; if it were planned, it wouldn't be sudden), then there would probably be a funeral. I have concerns about this funeral. I'm worried that without me there to supervise it, it's going to turn out all wrong.

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but over the past year or so, many of the people around me (and myself, come to think of it) have lost loved ones. It seemed terribly blasé to be giving out funeral plans in the midst of such things, so I've waited, and now I finally think it's a good time. And I'm posting them online, so that everyone knows what I want at my funeral so that everyone can be held accountable for it going off correctly.

Location and Music: These things are tied together, in my opinion. I kind of want music that's not church music at the funeral. Like, there can be some church music, but I really like Jim Henson's memorial where his friends sang a medley of his favorite songs. I'd rather have that. But that would mean that the funeral couldn't be held in an LDS chapel. That would mean extra hassle for my parents, and also my experience with funerals is that another venue might not be large enough. So I guess that's really up to my family and whether they would find church music more comforting. But for the record, my favorite song is probably "Pukka Pukka Squeetily Boink."

Speakers: I've decided that for speakers, Viola, Best Friend Boy, and La Petite should speak, in that order. Following that, a church leader of my parents' choosing should speak.

Other Funeral Requests: Everyone attending the funeral should write a letter and put it in my casket. Please and thank you. I'm going to be at my funeral in spirit, and I'm going to read everyone's letters over their shoulders so that I can find out everything they ever wanted to say to me but didn't. So this is very important.

Headstone: I have especially particular opinions about headstones. Here's what should be on mine: 1) my full name, 2) my exact birth and death dates, and 3) a quote. A good quote that encompasses my life or my personality or something. I know that having words on headstones is expensive, but there's no use having a headstone with no quote so there better be one.

Food: Please, for the love of all that is holy, no funeral potatoes at my funeral. Funeral potatoes are disgusting. You'd think it wouldn't make a difference to me because I'd be dead, but it does.

That's it. Those are the most important things that cannot be messed up. Hopefully, nobody will have to worry about this because I plan to live for a long time. I've never even been kissed, for crying out loud, so I have to at least do that. But just in case, these plans are readily accessible should they be needed.

Take Me Out to the Ballgame

Before this summer, I'd been to two baseball games that I remember.

One was when I was five or six, maybe. I was there with my dad, Older Sister, my uncle, my uncle's older daughter if not his younger one, and possibly my dad's dad. My uncle gave us all peanuts and crackerjacks. That's literally all I remember.

When I was a teenager, I went to see a friend of mine sing the national anthem at a baseball game. I went because he'd offered me and Viola free tickets. He forgot the words to the national anthem and instead sang, "I don't remember this part." After that, Viola and I spent the rest of the game working on our fanfiction. We left early.

This summer, though, I've been to two baseball games. In the space of ten days, I doubled the quantity of my baseball experience.

The first game was for a ward activity. I'm on the activities committee now, so I basically do all kinds of stuff I normally wouldn't do simply because I help plan the activities. Since getting the calling, I've gone on hikes, helped purchase three shopping carts of food at Costco, and gone shotgun shooting. And gone to this baseball game. I had some stuff I needed to catch up on, so I spent a fair portion of the game sending emails and writing in my journal.

The second one was for my dad's work party. His company had secured a private box at a game and provided a delicious barbecue dinner. For the first inning or so, I was doing some research on my phone. But for the rest of the game, Baby Brother, Little Sister, Mr. Little Sister, and I were all staring at the field. (Little Brother would have been there. I even got him to commit to reciting "Casey at the Bat" for us. But then he had to go do an activity for his own ward, so he didn't come.)

And that's when I made a discovery: I can't pay attention to baseball games.

I've watched whole basketball, football, soccer, and even softball games and paid attention most of the time. But with baseball, I can't do it. I don't know why.

Anyway, the whole evening went like this:

BABY BROTHER AND I: We're going to pay attention now.

BABY BROTHER AND I: Wait, it's the third inning?

BABY BROTHER AND I: Wait, we got another run?

BABY BROTHER AND I: Let's talk about something for a minute and then pay attention again!

BABY BROTHER AND I: ...we haven't been paying attention, have we?

Long story short, we left early.

The Fanfiction Life

For my birthday, I put together a trivia game about my life. As soon as I invited my loved ones to play, things got crazy. First Viola declared a determination to win, then Little Sister. They both asked me for study guides. I was gratified by their interest, amused by their competitiveness, and a little taken aback by the whole thing.

Baby Brother and I had a conversation about it along these lines:

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: (to Baby Brother) Viola and Little Sister asked me for study guides for the game.

BABY BROTHER::I need a study guide!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: (now completely taken aback) You don't need a study guide! You know me.

BABY BROTHER: (practically in tears) No, I don't! I don't know you!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Yes, you do!

BABY BROTHER: I know you, but I don't know stuff about you! What's your favorite color? I think it's blue, but I don't know!

And so on and so forth.

One trivia question was loosely related to fanfiction.

Yes, that's right.

I was a fanfiction writer.

I published a few fanfictions on fanfiction.net. Fanfiction.net is like self-publishing. Anyone can post anything they want there. Viola and I published a joint Harry Potter fanfiction there. I also posted half a Tokka fanfiction there.

The real prestige, though, came from publishing fanfictions on sites like mugglenet. mugglenet.com's fanfiction site is heavily moderated. Nothing gets posted there without the okay of a mugglenet employee. I submitted several fanfictions but only ever published one. I still remember the comments from the moderator who okayed my humor fanfiction. She said that my writing was "bubbly and effervescent" and that my style reminded her of Lemony Snicket.

Please note that at mugglenet, you only had to be 13 to publish a fanfiction. The moderator had no idea how old I was. Nor did she have any clue of my educational background or lack thereof. My work was judged solely on my writing skills. It was a proud day that mugglenet finally published one of the five or six fanfictions I'd submitted to the site. I published seven of eight chapters of the fic on the site. Unfortunately, I got severe writer's block for chapter eight and didn't update the fic for about a year. Right around that time, the site made a rule that unfinished fanfictions that hadn't been updated for over a year would start getting deleted. All seven chapters of my fic, the 300+ reviews, and the many, many views all disappeared in the blink of an eye.

It was a sad day.

I'm not much for fanfiction anymore, although occasionally I will still read a good Harry Potter or Avatar the Last Airbender one. However, I do see a lot of value in fanfiction, especially for amateur writers. It's great to practice your writing skills using previously established worlds and characters.

Tell All

Yesterday, as I was perusing my Facebook, I noticed something interesting. A fellow who went to college with me got married a few weeks ago in Taiwan. He was married to his wife in a temple after the normal LDS fashion, but it looked like there was also a huge celebration before or after the temple ceremony...or both.

Immediately, I started composing in my head exactly what I would say to Viola when I told her about it.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Viola, remember so-and-so from Nameless Utah College? The one from Virginia I would have gone out with if he'd asked me? Well, he just got married in Taiwan because apparently his wife is Taiwanese. It looked like they had what I assume was a bunch of traditional Taiwanese wedding traditions. From the pictures it looks like the bride had at least four different special wedding outfits. And it looked like one of the traditions involved so-and-so dressing up as a squid before the wedding. I kid you not, he was wearing a squid headpiece. Now I'm really curious about Taiwanese weddings. I actually read an article a few days ago about how in certain parts of Indonesia, funerals are more expensive, festive, and important than weddings. Isn't the world interesting?

And so on and so forth. It's funny how when we develop a bond with someone, we want to share everything with them. All week, I've been storing up words in my head: descriptions of the cupcakes my mom brought me at work on Wednesday and of my Thursday doctor's appointment. Quick, pointless anecdotes about the four hours I spent today with Little Sister, Mr. Little Sister, and Baby Sister in our grandmother's basement, painting the shelves in the basement so that they're ready when Little Sister and Mr. Little Sister move in after their wedding. A meandering explanation of my psychological reaction to having to plan a party. I store them all up in readiness to give away to the right person. The right person will think they're valuable. The right person will look at me and think how great it is that I want to share with them, even though what I'm saying isn't interesting in the least. If you've ever talked at length to a small child, you might understand what I mean. Small children tend to go on and on, but we find them fascinating and count ourselves lucky that they would trust us enough to share their words.

The Grateful (Not-)Dead

We just had Thanksgiving, so it's time to talk about what we're grateful for! Which is very cliché, no? However, let's start off by talking about some not-grateful things first.

This isn't quite where I imagined being at this point in my life. I really did think that I'd be married by now and maybe have a kid. Now, I don't think that my value is defined by my ability to find a romantic relationship, but the fact of the matter stands that having a family is the most worthwhile thing I can of to do with my life. That's where the sadness at my current circumstances comes in.

Some months ago, it was my birthday. It just so happens that the Seamstress and I have birthdays on consecutive days. I proposed having a joint birthday open house. Not a party, mind you. I didn't want to have any planned activities. I just wanted to be free to talk to people and not have to worry about entertaining them. (Don't worry; we did provide dinner so that our friends got something out of it.) I invited all of my lifelong friends. Most of them were able to come.

At one point during this birthday open house, I paused and looked around at what was happening. There was the Seamstress; there was Pepper, each talking to different guests. A friend from our ward was coloring in coloring books with Etch-a-Sketch while Mr. Etch-a-Sketch tended to his and Etch-a-Sketch's infant. I was chatting with Best Friend Boy while La Petite, curled up around Mr. La Petite, was deep in conversation with Viola. Some of these people had hardly met each other before this evening, but all of them were joined by the common bond of caring about either the Seamstress or about me or about both.

In that moment, I had an epiphany. I have made a family of my own in my adult years. Not a biological family, no. But I have collected all of these people, and they make up an interim family to serve between stepping away from my parents' family and heading a family with my future husband. This interim family is one of the things that I'm most grateful for this year.

That really is cliché, I know! Yet it's also very true.

Why I Shouldn't Be Allowed on Amazon

I recently did some extra work, for which I was paid entirely in Amazon gift cards.

I hate to spend money. I prefer to save it. So being presented with such a prodigious amount of money that I absolutely, positively, have to spend has been quite the experience.

I bought items to Disney bound as the sorcerer's apprentice at Disneyland. I bought Viola's birthday present and several Christmas presents. I bought a book that my ward book club is reading.

My mother had some suggestions on other things I should purchase. She pointed out that I needed new boots and, she said, a new jacket.

I definitely needed new boots, so I ordered some. I didn't really feel like I needed a new jacket, so somehow in my mind I replaced that word "new" with the word "patchwork." I could see how I might need a new, patchwork jacket.

And that, my friends, is the problem with having an excess of money that you absolutely have to spend. I decided it would be a good idea to buy this jacket.

I was sorely mistaken.

This jacket looks much better in pictures than it does in person. It looked perfect in all the pictures but it was something akin to a disaster when actually placed upon my person. I'm returning it tomorrow.

The moral of the story is that apparently I should not be allowed to have Amazon gift cards because this is the kind of thing I buy. Someone intervene before I continue along this vein and end up with a collection of the most absurd stuff.

Meeting Luna Lovegood

I wasn't sure if I would ever have a reason to go to Comic Con.

In August, I told Porch that I might go to Comic Con if certain voice actors or Muppeteers ever came but that I couldn't think of any live-action actors I cared enough about to spend the money on. I've just never been that into movie stars. For example, I would consider going to Comic Con to see Elijah Wood, but only because he did such a fantastic job voicing Wirt in Over the Garden Wall, not because he played one of the leading characters in a critically acclaimed and financially successful film adaptation of one of my favorite book series.

Just days later, I texted Porch.

Awkward Mormon Girl: Looook. Somebody that I would go to Comic Con for: [and then I sent a link to the Comic Con website but I'm not including it here because it will probably be obsolete soon]

If you read the title of the blog post, you might have an inkling of who this person was. If that inkling is any good, then it's pointing you in the direction of Evanna Lynch, Luna Lovegood herself.

Luna Lovegood is my favorite female Harry Potter character. Why? First of all, when I read through the first through fourth books as a child, I found that there weren't many blonde characters that I liked. Petunia Dursley, Dudley Dursley, Gilderoy Lockhart, Rita Skeeter, Draco Malfoy, Fleur Delacour—they weren't exactly sympathetic. I really wanted a character who looked like me but was likable. Lo and behold, the fifth book came out! And Luna was not only blonde, but dirty blonde—the kind that nobody wants to be but most people actually are. By the time the fifth book came out, the white-blonde hair of my childhood had darkened considerably and only got darker from that point. I cherished that similarity between myself and Luna.

Second of all, apart from the looks, I identified with Luna personality-wise. Over the years, a few people have told me, unprompted by me, that I remind them of the book version of Luna Lovegood because I march to the beat of my own drum and don't make decisions based on what everyone else does. And, as I've gotten older and refined aspects of my personality, I find that I, like Luna, am a little too honest and a little too intense.

Last but not least, Luna adds so much to Harry Potter. Before I read the fifth book, I couldn't imagine how another main character could possibly fit into the story. It seemed like it was too late in the game to introduce anyone very significant. I was wrong, obviously. Now when I reread, I wonder how the first four books are as good as they are without Luna.

Having sufficiently proven my love for Luna Lovegood, I have to warn you that I'm no huge Evanna Lynch fan. Not that there's anything wrong with her, personally. It's just that when I saw the first photo of her ten or eleven years ago, I was disappointed. Luna Lovegood, champion of dirty blondes, was going to be played by someone with white-blonde hair? I told Viola that I thought she looked too much like Tom Felton, that people who hadn't read the books were going to think that Luna and Draco were secretly related, and that everyone would be confused.

I believe this was the first photo of her that I saw.

When I saw the movie, I found that the variation of vague and serene that the director had chosen for Luna was not the same variation that I'd pictured in my head. However, Evanna did a really good job of portraying what they'd decided to go with. I had to respect that. And, in later years, I followed her on Twitter, and she seemed cool and everything, but I cared more about the fact that she was the face of Luna than about her personally.

After that initial text to Porch, I spent a few weeks in debate.

On the one hand, it seemed like it would be cool to meet her.

On the other hand, it would be expensive.

On the other other hand, I have money to spare.

On the other other other hand, I try to save a lot of that money for the future.

On the other other other other hand, nobody is financially reliant on me but me. I can spend my money on whatever the huckleberry I want.

On another hand, I had no one to go with.

On another another hand, Favorite Cousin showed an interest in going when asked.

Round and round I went in my decision making. Finally, two things decided the question for me.

The first is the connections game. In the connections game, you pick a person and try to connect yourself to them through association. For example, Jim Henson. Here's my connection to him: I know my grandmother. As a child, my grandmother met Walt Disney. Walt Disney worked with Julie Andrews on Mary Poppins. Julie Andrews appeared on The Muppet Show, which meant that she would have met Jim Henson. Or we could do it this way: Runner Bean and his family once appeared on Extreme Home Makeover. The host of Extreme Home Makeover, Ty Pennington, later appeared in a Sesame Street video with Count von Count. At the time, Count von Count was played by none other than the incomparable Muppeteer Jerry Nelson, who worked for years with Jim Henson. Bonus: no matter how you connect me to Jim Henson—and this may be the best part—from Jim Henson it's just one connection to my favorite Muppeteer, Steve Whitmire!!!

Now, I already had a fairly direct connection to J. K. Rowling. A classmate of mine from college has a cousin who is married to Broadway star Audra McDonald, who is playing the wardrobe in the upcoming adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. As all humans and maybe some inhumans know, Emma Watson is playing Belle in said adaptation, and obviously Emma Watson knows J. K. Rowling. So I can trace myself to J. K. Rowling easily. Yet the idea of meeting someone who was just one connection away from one of my favorite writers—well. That was even better.

And the second deciding factor? It seemed like maybe I should live a little. Meet Evanna Lynch? Why the heck not? Why not do something expensive and unnecessary and oh-so-cool every now and again? Ya know? There are so many things that I want to do with my life that I haven't been able to. I hope that they will come, in time, but I can't put off living a fun and rewarding life until then.

And thus it was decided. And thus Favorite Cousin and I bought tickets to the last day of Comic Con and to the Evanna Lynch photo op.

On the day we were going, I was bouncing off the walls. I wore my Gryffindor/Mulan t-shirt and golden teacup earrings. I'd brought my Luna Lovegood wand and a notebook to take notes at panels. I was rearing to go!

Here are some impressions of Comic Con:

1. There were so many creative costumes! I saw Pacha, Chicha, and Kuzco. I saw Disney princesses galore and Meg from Hercules. I saw Bert and Mary Poppins. I saw Finn the Human. I saw so many Avatar: The Last Airbender characters:Toph, Aang, Katara, Ty Lee, Azula, and Sokka. I saw Wirt and Greg, Astrid and Hiccup, and Schmendrick and Amalthea from The Last Unicorn.

2. Comic Con needs more pens. I usually carry a pen in my purse, but when I arrived at the convention I realized I didn't have one. Favorite Cousin and I scoured the booths, looking for pens for sale. We saw some specialty pens that cost $65, $35, but nothing at a more...reasonable price. Get rich quick scheme: bring a box of Bic pens to Comic Con, sell them for a buck apiece to people who want to take notes at the panels.

3. It was really cool to see so many famous people! I saw the girls from The Hillywood Show. They had a booth selling merchandise, and they were actually selling the merchandise themselves rather than having others do it. Favorite Cousin and I did a walk-by of Billy Boyd's autograph booth and were able to see him from afar! I tried to catch glimpses of Jeremy Shada and Jess Harnell, too, but was unable to.

Now here's the thing. I found the atmosphere at Comic Con to be very strange. Overall, it just...wasn't uplifting. I don't know why that was, because I've heard nothing but good things about it in the past. Yet the overall spiritual impression I got from Comic Con was a dark one.

When we saw Billy Boyd, I was drawn to him immediately. He just...he really stood out, and not just because he's famous. It's hard to describe, but he was really...full of light.

I had a similar experience with Evanna Lynch. We waited in line for a long time for our photo op. Favorite Cousin and I were exhausted at that point; we left shortly after, even though we'd been planning to stay longer.

Now, Evanna's photo op was running late. We always knew that we weren't going to get much of a chance to talk to her, but Favorite Cousin's experience at conventions in the past was that during a photo op, you got to shake hands and at least say hello. As we drew near to the photo area, however, the security people announced that Evanna had to catch a plane. They instructed us to dash up as soon as the flash for the photo before us went off and get into place quickly. We'd take the photo and exit immediately. No talking, no handshakes, no nothing.

As we drew closer, I studied Evanna. She was wearing a Mickey Mouse shirt and a pencil skirt. I noticed that she was even shorter than I am, and (with some amusement) that her white-blonde hair was showing dirty blonde at the roots. She looked exhausted, but she was still smiling for every picture.

It was almost time for our photo. The girl before us stepped forward swiftly. The flash went off. Favorite Cousin and I, tensed to move, started towards Evanna, but she cried, "Stop! Stop! Can we do that again? I wasn't looking at the camera."

It was a little thing, but it impressed me deeply. It told me that she really cared about her fans getting their money's worth. I was drawn to her the same way that I was drawn to Billy Boyd. Even in just a few seconds, I got the feeling that she was a good person worth admiring. Which was so strange...because I'm usually not the kind of person who takes to people instantly.

They did the photo over. Then it was our turn. We said a quick hello as we got into place for the picture. The cameraman snapped the photo; the light flashed. And I said, "Thank you!" to Evanna, and she said, "Thank you," back, and now I have an experience that I will always remember.

The photo turned out great. I was practically crying, I was so happy. Favorite Cousin seemed to share the deep thumbprint that had been pressed in my heart by the brief experience, because he, too, was nothing but giddy as we rehashed it through conversation over sushi.

Later, I went to visit Porch. I tried to explain how great Evanna was, but it was difficult. I felt like I sounded completely ridiculous; after all, I'd only been in her presence for a few seconds. However, Porch's face lit up, and he started gushing about Evanna. He'd gone to her panel the day before, and he seemed to share my sentiments exactly.

So that was my experience meeting Luna Lovegood. I'm not sorry I did it, in fact I'm very very glad, but I don't think Comic Con is going to become a regular haunt of mine. Unless Steve Whitmire comes. In which case I am going to buy all the tickets and go all the days and follow Steve Whitmire around and probably get arrested.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

I told, I told you three years ago that JULY was still a magical Harry Potter month. I held onto hope, and that hope was rewarded with more fun Harry Potter times.

You know what I'm talking about, right? Last week, at midnight on Harry Potter's birthday (also technically midnight on Neville Longbottom's birthday, Baby Brother pointed out, if you count midnight as the bridge between days), a new play called Harry Potter and the Cursed Child was released.

I had mixed feelings about this play. I couldn't decide if I was going to buy it. I knew that I would read it at some point, but I couldn't decide when that would be. See, next-generation stories are so hard to do, and when the original author isn't the one doing most of the work—well. It's dangerous, that's all.

But all of my reasonable reasonings went out the window when I saw that Barnes and Noble was having a midnight release party. I texted the link to Viola.

Awkward Mormon Girl: Would you ever consider...

She considered it. We decided to go.

See, midnight releases for Harry Potter books are sort of our thing. Viola and I went to the Barnes and Noble release parties for Half-Blood Prince and Deathly Hallows. The Half-Blood Prince party was the year of the treacle incident. Incident recap: we tried to make treacle. We didn't follow the instructions. The treacle was terrible. Yet we maintained a fascination with the stuff and a desire to try some that had been properly made. You could say that we had unfinished business with treacle. Unfortunately, we were not able to finish up the unfinished business during the Deathly Hallows release party due to going with a large group of people who had no interest in helping us make a dessert of murky British origin. We ended up talking about Twilight with them and quoting Harry Potter Puppet Pals instead.

Finally, on July 30th, 2016, we were able to finish our unfinished treacle business.

For my birthday, La Petite and her husband gave me The Unofficial Harry Potter Cookbook. It contains a treacle recipe, which Viola and I followed to a T.

The result? A caramel-ish fudge.

We tried it. We were all, "Oh, that's what treacle is. Well, let's go to the party now."

It was pretty anticlimactic, really.

The party was fine and everything. Astoundingly, I won a drawing for a t-shirt. Viola and I talked some good talks and ran amok in the Barnes and Noble. (Running amok in a Barnes and Noble consists of sitting on the floor in whatever aisle you choose and eating gummy worms. And if you decide to get up and move to another aisle for no reason, then you just do that, son. It's wild.)

All of that was good and fine, but it was really all just a way to pass the time until they let me get my copy of the play at midnight.

I was maybe the fourth person to get a copy. I really wanted to read all night, the way I did with the sixth and seventh books, but adulthood got in the way and I didn't.

But I read it all in one sitting the next day. And here are my thoughts:

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is no Harry Potter book. But it was also fun. Here are some things that stood out... (Minor, vague spoilers ahead.)

I know a person whose main criticism of the Harry Potter books is that someone should have just used a time-turner to kill Voldemort or save some of his victims. He thinks that's a plot hole. I don't think it's a plot hole, because a) the Ministry of Magic clearly has strict rules and regulations about time-turners, b) using a time-turner to save the life of a hippogriff and help a man escape from jail is much different from using a time-turner to save the life of a person; as lovely as Buckbeak is, he doesn't have the same agency as one of the series' more sentient species, and his death or lack thereof would not affect a timeline the same way a person's death or lack thereof might, and finally c) using a time-turner to go back a few hours to change time is not anywhere near as dangerous as using a time-turner to go back multiple years to change time. More things in a timeline would be affected by changing an event that took place years ago and has had time to compound. For example, if someone went back in time to kill Voldemort before his rise to power, who's to guarantee that his absence wouldn't allow someone even worse to take his place? All of this has always seemed obvious to me, but in any case, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child goes to the trouble of spelling it out: wizards should rarely, if ever, use time travel to fix problems, no matter how good of an idea it may seem.

On the other hand, while the basic premise of the plot made sense, the details were not quite clever enough. At one point, all of the characters were operating under an assumption that I felt would turn out to be false. However, apparently the assumption was true, which threw me for a loop. It just seemed like something that couldn't be true without a lot of explanation.

I have to say that I loved the way Ron and Hermione were portrayed. Now, I don't think this play got the characters quite right. Harry needs to be a little more sassy; Hermione needs to get flustered and start talking in that "shrill" voice that she uses when she's upset; Ron needs to be more clever, more sharply sarcastic, and less vaguely goofy. Yeah, I get that they're adults now, but that doesn't mean they should lose all of their character traits.

That being said, I thought the overall treatment of the characters was way better than the movies. There's a scene in Cursed Child where Ron is the first to volunteer himself for danger to spare Hermione and Harry. It was "If you want to kill Harry, you'll have to kill us, too!" all over again. It was a great way to highlight Ron's key character trait: his deep love for and devotion to the people he cares about. The movies pretty much ignored that part of Ron, leaving him as nothing but the comic relief. And the more they took away from Ron, the more they added to Hermione, until movie Hermione became a sort of perfect goddess who can do nothing wrong. In Cursed Child, though, they showed that Hermione is flawed! They reminded us that without Harry and Ron to mellow her out, Hermione is uptight and humorless.

The kids were fun. Some of them (Rose) were just like one of their parents, while others (Scorpius) were delightfully different. I was disappointed that there wasn't really room in the story for Teddy Lupin, for Albus's siblings, or for the many Weasley cousins. I would have liked some Weasley cousin shenanigans. Maybe they should write another play that is just Weasley cousin shenanigans. Maybe I could write another play that is just Weasley cousin shenanigans. All I have to do is become a famous playwright, and soon.

Anyways, if you're wondering whether you should read this play, I give you a hearty, "Yes!" Just take it with a grain of salt. It's far from perfect, but it's still enjoyable.

Touched by a Dog

Context: This post is about the last day of my second New York City trip.

Sunday morning marked the last day of our trip, our farewell to 35 Fifth Avenue, and our return to Utah. As Older Sister prepared for church, we prepared for LaGuardia by rolling up the many sleeping bags and sleeping pads, reassembling our gigantic shared suitcase, and, in my case, repacking a pillow/Urban Outfitter bag combination carry-on.

There were three interesting things about the trip home.

Thing #1: We took an Uber to the airport! First time using Uber, everybody. It cost 1/5 of what the taxi had cost. Not a bad deal.

Thing #2: Our layover was in Philly! I've always wanted to go to the City of Brotherly Love. We didn't get to see anything outside of the airport, but at least I ate this Philly roll while there:

Thing #3: I almost died!!!!!1!

The little sisters and I were separated on our flight home. They had seats together; I was all alone. At least, I was all alone for a few minutes until my seatmate boarded.

When you sit next to a stranger on an airplane, you always wonder if your seatmate is going to be, like, your new best friend. It became clear within about fifteen seconds that my seatmate did not want to be my new best friend. She seemed way more interested in shoving a humongous duffel bag under the seat in front of her than in me.

I wondered why she didn't put the duffel bag in the overhead compartment, where it would fit a lot better. I was even more bewildered when she told me that she needed me to move so that she could get the bag under the seat more easily.

As soon I stood up, I got a better look at the bag. It was not a bag. It was a kennel.

All I could say was, "Uhhh..." Because I was surprised to see that a dog would be sitting next to me on an airplane. I guess I assumed that if someone brought a dog onto a plane, the airline would let the other passengers know. Or at least let the person sitting next to the dog (me) know. But this, apparently, was not the case.

"Are you allergic to dogs?" the lady asked.

I said "Yes," which was easier but less accurate than saying, "Sometimes."

As a kid, I got mildly itchy eyes around cats and dogs. Then, when I was a teenager, I stopped reacting. I would go to Etch-a-Sketch's house and be near the her family's pets, or I would go to Best Friend Boy's house and sit on furniture that had cat hair on it, and I would not react at all. I still had to change my clothes as soon as I got home—Mom and Little Brother had allergies so severe that they would get a reaction just from being near someone who'd even looked at a cat or dog recently. I, on the other hand, stayed hale and whole no matter how many canines and felines I looked at or was exposed to.

If I thought I'd outgrown my allergies, though, I assumed too much too soon. When I hit my twenties, I started to react to cats and dogs again...only the reactions were more like Mom's and Little Brother's. My throat would swell up, and I would have a hard time breathing.

The lady said, "My sister is sitting in seat __." She told me that I could trade seats with her sister.

I agreed, mainly because I couldn't see another solution. I walked up the aisle, found the sister, and explained the situation to her. She gave me her seat and with it her seatmate. Hello, possible new best friend. I sat down.

The frustrating thing about having pet allergies is that most people who own pets don't have pet allergies, and people who don't have pet allergies don't really understand the danger their pets might pose to other people. They'll tell you that their pet doesn't shed, or that they always vacuum up all the fur, or something. Unfortunately, that's not really how it works. A person who's allergic to an animal can have an allergic reaction to allergens in animal dandruff or saliva, which is regularly but not only found in fur. Pets who spend time with their owners regularly leave animal dandruff or saliva on said owners. Those owners might, blissfully ignorant, go to a movie theatre and sit in a cushy red chair. If the next person who sits in the cushy red chair has a pet allergy, that person could easily have an allergic reaction to the allergens that the pet owner left behind. And that's just one example. I'm not saying that it's necessarily a pet owner's job to strip their body of allergens whenever they leave the house, but I am saying that most pet owners seem to be totally unaware that it's that easy for their pet's allergens to spread. These owners also seem to be totally unaware that some people have severe enough allergies that they could die if they don't receive treatment quickly enough.

I remembered this too late.

Not long after I sat down, my eyes started itching. And I started thinking about how, if I were a person who had a dog, and if I had that dog with me in an airport during a layover, I would probably play with said dog during said layover. And, if my sister were on said layover at said airport, I would most likely invite said sister to play with me and said dog during said layover at said airport. And then said sister would probably have said dog's fur...and dandruff...and saliva all over her person. And then, if I were a person who owned a dog and had no allergies and therefore was not aware of how allergies work, I might send my allergic-to-dogs seatmate to trade seats with my sister, and then my allergic-to-dogs seatmate would sit right down on the seat covered with traces of dog hair and touch the armrests that bore traces of dandruff and saliva and then...and then...

And then what???

Once, Pepper and I talked about a theoretical series called Touched by a Dog, where people with dog allergies are forced to interact with dogs because the dog owners don't take others' allergies seriously. Unable to reach their medicine in time, these allergic people die tragic and untimely deaths. I felt like this could be a follow-up to Over the Garden Wall; Wirt seems like the kind of person who would be cursed with severe allergies. Each episode would be a PSA written by Wirt as an effort to alert the general public to the plight of the average person with allergies. Wirt would always play the person with the allergy who dies and his brother, Greg, would always play the dog.

We decided early on that one of the episodes would take place on a plane. Because, I theorized, what could be a more unfortunate circumstance than to be stuck on a plane with a dog but no allergy medicine?

I soon discovered just how unfortunate a circumstance it was.

Like I said, I went for years without having any allergic reactions. My mom (who is one of the people who easily could die if she sat in a cushy red seat recently used by a pet owner) carries allergy medicine, inhalers, and EpiPens with her everywhere she goes; I've never felt the need. So I was wholly unprepared for my own personal episode of Touched by a Dog.

"Your eyes aren't really itching," I told myself sternly.

"Your throat isn't really swelling up," I told myself strictly. "You have an overactive imagination."

"You're being ridiculous," I told myself firmly. "Even if you are having an allergic reaction, it's probably very mild, and you will be just fine for this five-hour flight."

At this point, we were about half an hour in. I'd never reacted so quickly after being exposed to an animal before.

I shuddered to think where I would be in five hours.

I was starting to worry.

I needed to take some kind of action.

I definitely couldn't ask my new seatmate for help. Shortly after takeoff, a flight attendant had told us that since the third person in our row hadn't showed, we didn't need to sit right next to each other. Immediately, my seatmate moved to the aisle seat. "I'll make this easier on both of us," she said, but she didn't sound like she was making a joke. She sounded like she didn't like me, and she thought I didn't like her.

Apparently, she would not become my new best friend, either. But that was okay because come to think of it, I had Viola and wasn't really in the market for a new best friend.

I also didn't feel like I could ask the flight attendants for help. I thought that they probably had allergy medicine somewhere, but I had no idea had to handle this kind of social situation. First of all, I have issues with asking people for help because when I ask people for help, I feel like I've failed or done something wrong. Knowing that I didn't have very much experience with my own allergies, that I had no idea what might happen if I didn't get medicine, that I didn't know how severe my reaction might get or how difficult it might become for me to breathe, definitely spurred me to disregard that particular barrier. But on the other hand, I couldn't figure out how to ask the question...logistically. The flight attendants were all coming up and down the aisle with little carts. How could I possibly talk to one? Walk up behind one and say "Can you help me?" in her ear like a creeper? Wait until they came by with the carts and, when they asked me what I wanted to drink, say, "I'd like a ginger ale, and also some allergy medicine if you have it, and please hurry because I am in some kind of respiratory distress?"

No, there was no way. There was no way. I was never going to work up the courage to ask for allergy medicine. Maybe I would be fine, but maybe I wouldn't be. Maybe my throat would keep swelling. If it kept up, I might not be able to breathe. Traditionally, when you're unable to breathe, you die.

What dumb luck! What a stupid way to go.

As is my habit, I started to pray. Sometimes, in situations like this, God tells me to suck it up and get over myself and do the difficult social thing. But sometimes, He provides a path that is more aligned with my personality.

After praying, I had an instant idea. Baby Sister had a cold at the beginning of the trip, remember? My mother the RN gave her a bag of cold medicine to take on the trip. I was pretty sure that I'd seen allergy medicine in there, too. I felt like I should go ask Baby Sister if she had any allergy medicine.

It took me a while to work up the courage to ask my own sister for help. By the time I stepped past my surly seatmate as politely as I could and headed to my sisters' seats, we were an hour and a half into the flight.

I don't remember exactly what I said, but as I was distressed and on the verge of tears it was not particularly eloquent.

Baby Sister said that she didn't think she had any medicine left in her carry-on, allergy or otherwise. "I'll check," she said. She rummaged around and came up with a single adult multi-allergy symptom pill.

Hallelujah.

I took the pill back to my seat. All I needed was some liquid to wash the pill down, and everything would be fine. Luckily, the flight attendants were still (slowly) making their trips with the little carts.

A flight attendant with a cart soon came. I was all geared up to order my ginger ale, but this flight attendant only had biscotti. There was another cart still coming with the drinks.

I choked down the biscotti. Traditionally, biscotti are dry, but these ones seemed particularly hard to swallow. I hoped it was just my imagination and not a symptom of my swelling throat.

I waited for the drink cart...and waited. About half an hour had passed since I'd gotten the allergy pill from Baby Sister.

The only thing I could think of that would be sadder than dying of allergies on a plane because I wouldn't ask for allergy medicine would be dying of allergies on a plane while holding an allergy pill in my hand.

I swallowed, checking the tightness of my throat. Should I try to take the pill without liquid? Plot twist: I choke to death on the pill. Maybe that was a bad plan.

Just as I was about to panic, the drink cart finally showed up. I finally got my ginger ale. I stuffed the pill in my mouth and washed it down into my esophagus. Within five minutes, my throat had loosened, and my eyes were no longer itching. The rest of the flight passed without event.

And so I returned to Utah safe and sound.

Thus ended my second New York City trip. Like I said in the post before this one, I don't know if I should hope I'll have time for more travel or if I should hope to have other preoccupations. But either way, Older Sister has made an executive decision that she's not coming home to Utah at the end of the summer; she's going to stay in New York if she can find a job. So even if I find myself with other life commitments, I may still have to go back if I want to see my sister. We'll see what happens.

In Which Nothing Goes as Planned

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

According to Wikipedia, Joe Biden likes to refer to LaGuardia Airport as a “third world country.” Also, apparently the airport is ranked as the worst in the nation.

I don't know that I could confidently say that LaGuardia is either comparable to a third-world country or the worst airport in the nation. I can say for sure that it was a little crowded. I can also say for sure that, unlike at JFK, there was no convenient airtrain that would get us to the subway system. There was only a rather expensive bus. Little Sister researched our options and determined that taking a taxi from LaGuardia to the Times Square area would likely be less expensive per capita than it would be to pay for the bus.

The plan for the day went as such:

1. Freshen up in the airport bathrooms.

2. Take a taxi to our hotel. Because Older Sister would be at work when we arrived, there was nobody to let us into her internship dormitory, not even for a hot second so we could drop off our luggage. We'd therefore had to engage a hotel room for the first night.

3. Leave our luggage with the concierge/bellhops/whoever while we went out into the city.

4. Race to Ham4Ham in front of the Richard Rodgers Theatre. During the afternoon, cast members from Hamilton stand outside the theatre and did short performances. Little Sister really wanted to go, and Older Sister really wanted us to go. If we hurried, we'd make it.

5. Have lunch at the Shake Shack.

6. Go to the American Girl Place. Get our dolls' hair done.

7. Take a nap (because red eye flights).

8. Meet up with Older Sister in Times Square for cheesecake at Junior's.

9. Go to The Color Purple.

10. Have dinner after the show at Carmine's. Little Sister had made us a reservation.

'Twas a fairly simple, ten-step plan. But it did not come together as we'd thought it would.

First, the bathroom lines at LaGuardia were quite long. Baby Sister sallied forth to change, brush her teeth and hair, and put on makeup. Because the lines were so long, and because someone had to stay behind to watch the carry-ons, we decided that we'd make better time if Little Sister and I freshened up after we claimed our luggage.

I should explain the luggage situation to you. American Airlines, unlike every other airline I've ever traveled with, does not allow you to have a complimentary checked bag. You can have one carry-on, one personal item, and that's it. If you want to check a bag, you have to pay $25.

Since we had a hard financial limit for this trip, we'd bought American Airlines tickets because they were cheaper. Then, we decided, we would check only one large suitcase containing only toiletries.

"Only toiletries" somehow turned into toiletries and three American Girl dolls and some jelly shoes for Older Sister and granola bars and fruit to eat for breakfast. And then, since we were going to be sleeping on the floor in Older Sister's place, we had to add some sleeping pads and sleeping bags and some other things. And then, since our individual suitcases could only be carry-on size, each of us ended up shifting a certain amount of personal luggage into the big suitcase.

Getting that thing zipped up was a miracle. That they didn't charge us extra for it was another miracle. As it was, my carry-on ended up being slightly too fat so they checked that one, too, as a courtesy.

So, in short, we had four suitcases: three smaller but very packed ones and one ginormous and even more packed one. We also had Little Sister's backpack, Baby Sister's pillow, and my pillow-stuffed-into-an-Urban Outfitters-bag creation that held my journal, electronics, scriptures, and other necessities for flying overnight.

We hauled our carry-ons down to the baggage claim, where we picked up the large suitcase and my intended carry-on. Because there were no nearby bathrooms, Little Sister and I once again delayed our freshening up. We supposed we'd take care of that when we reached the hotel. So we went to get a taxi.

Yes, a taxi! I was very excited to ride in a taxi for the first time. Maybe it was the exhaustion from the flight or maybe it was the unpleasantness of being icky from 36 hours of no bathing, but the taxi ride turned out to not be that exciting. My sisters and I all sat in a stilted and tired silence while the driver expertly guided the cab around the outskirts of the city. There was a little TV that played the same six minutes of programming on an endless loop, which was annoying, but the real nemesis of Fun Times in a Taxi turned out to be the taxi's meter.

My understanding of the taxi was that we were charged, not by distance, but by time spent in the taxi and by tolls on the road. All that was well and good, but traffic was such that we ended up taking 50% longer than Little Sister's estimates had suggested. That meant paying 50% more, which meant staring at the meter in horror as the price climbed and climbed and climbed. By the time we reached our hotel near Times Square, we'd reached what seemed practically the Everest of taxi fares!

As we prepared to exit the taxi, Little Sister tried to pay using the little card machine in the back seat. Notice the operative word tried...because this was how we discovered that Little Sister's credit card was not working.

In the end, I paid for the taxi, and our driver helped us get our oodles of luggage out of his taxi. He probably drove away wondering how we would manage in this city, since I think we appeared to be a lot more incompetent than we liked to think that we were.

Gathering together our luggage, we entered the doors of the Manhattan at Times Square hotel.

The lobby of this hotel was nice. It smelled similarly to the hotel we'd stayed in last time (cigarette smoke covered by the scent of cleaners) except the cigarette smoke undertones were much, much stronger. And the line of people waiting in the lobby was much, much longer. Everyone was trying to check in, even thought check-in time wasn't for several hours.

Little Sister asked the concierge where we could leave our luggage. She pointed us to some bellhop-type workers who were loading luggage onto carts and taking the carts away. We approached one of these workers, a man whose nametag read Hector. Hector had a thick Brooklyn accent.

Little Sister said that we wanted to leave our luggage. Hector asked us what room we were in, and Little Sister said that we hadn't checked in.

"Oh, no," Hector said. "I'm not putting your luggage in storage if you haven't tried to check in yet. If they have a room ready, I'll have to get your luggage out again and take it to your room. That's double the work. And I refuse to do double the work."

"The lady over there told us we could leave our luggage here," Little Sister said. Little Sister tends to be all giggly and sweet with strangers; this was the first time I'd seen her visibly annoyed with someone she didn't know.

But Hector refused to listen to us. Giving up on explaining that we had no intention of checking in right now, that we only wanted to drop our luggage off and rush to Ham4Ham, Little Sister got into the very long line for check in while Baby Sister and I extricated our American Girl dolls from the big suitcase. I also looked for a bathroom in the lobby where we could freshen up. I found one but, unfortunately, it could only be entered by using a room key.

After some twenty minutes or so of waiting, Little Sister returned to us with the news that there were no rooms available for checking in. We'd suspected as much, which was one of the reasons we had decided it would be best to merely drop the luggage off. So we went back to the bellhop area.

Hector was no longer there; it was another fellow now. We asked if we could put our luggage in storage. He said yes, then asked if there was anything else we needed.

"No, we're fine," we said.

The bellhop looked at us with pursed lips and raised eyebrow. His expression seemed to say, "I don't buy that for an instant."

After a moment of hesitation, I ventured, "Well, we wanted to change, but it looks like the bathroom needs a room key to get into it, so..."

"I can get you a bathroom key," he said.

Quickly, and at long last, Little Sister and I were able to brush our teeth, change our clothes, and put on our sunscreen. We left our luggage to be put into storage. Then, with Samantha, Kit, and Molly in tow, we headed to Ham4Ham.

How was New York City? About the same as it was the last time I saw it. Loud, crowded, too many people surging across the street at green lights. Part of me was all, "Oh, hello, I've been here before, and I sort of belong, and I'm not fazed by any of this." Part of me was all, "Ahhh! I'm back! I can't believe I'm back!"

We'd planned to be at Ham4Ham at least half an hour early, but the delayed taxi and the checking in and all had conspired against us. We got there right before the show began, and the place was packed. Barriers had been set up in the street. Cops were yelling and herding people off the sidewalks, but a lot of the people they were herding weren't moving simply because there was nowhere to go. We ended up pressed into a mass of strangers.

Behind us, I could hear passersby struggling to get through. I heard some people say things like, "Oh, it looks like we've gone the wrong way! We'd better turn around." I think those people were tourists. I also heard somebody yell as they passed, "Get used to it! It only gets worse!" I think that was a local.

Then Lin-Manuel Miranda came out of the Richard Rodgers Theatre, and the crowd went nuts.

I find the Hamilton craze both bewildering and amusing. Last year, on our tour of SoHo, Chinatown, and Little Italy, the tour guide mentioned how during the first recorded murder trial in U.S. history, both Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton were present. I said, "Oooh," but no one else in the group seemed to understand the soap opera melodrama of this circumstance. Yet now, some people would probably consider that tidbit one of the most interesting parts of the tour—but only because of Hamilton, not because they've suddenly gained more interest in important U.S. historical figures in general. As for me, I wouldn't call myself a Hamilton fan; I know some things about Hamilton that make me want to see it and some things that make me not want to see it. We'll see. And although I like some of the songs from other musicals Lin-Manuel Miranda has done, I wouldn't consider myself a particular fan of his, either.

The point is, the crowd went nuts, but I didn't. Even so, I jumped up and down a little so that I was able to see the famed composer and Broadway star. Yes, I got to see Lin-Manuel Miranda with my own two eyes! How many people get that opportunity? I wasn't so apathetic that I didn't realize that this was a rare chance. I know a lot of people who would have loved to be in my place.

Anyways, Ham4Ham lasted around twenty minutes. We could see and hear almost nothing, but Little Sister seemed happy just to be there. Afterward, we briefly met up with Older Sister, who was on her lunch break. Then we ventured off to Shake Shack.

By this point, Baby Sister had been becoming acquainted with the city for a few hours. I felt bad that she'd only seen the bad parts of the city, like driving in the the traffic and being squished in the massive crowd outside the Richard Rodgers Theatre. She also seemed pretty horrified by the way none of the New York pedestrians actually seemed to pay attention to the lights at the crosswalks. Now that we'd gotten the uncertainty of the first few hours behind us, however, Little Sister and I were determined that she should enjoy herself. After all, we had really good plans for the rest of the day!

Having lunch at Shake Shack would be a good pick-me-up, I thought. I admit, I'm not the most ardent of Shake Shack fans. I like their concretes far more than I like their burgers. Still, it's not half bad.

This time, the line outside was not as long. We ordered, waited for our food, and found a place to sit. Last time we were there, it was crowded inside. This time...it was just as crowded inside. Maybe more so. We struggled to find a way to eat while keeping our American Girl dolls safe. We ended up eating while standing. At one point, I noticed a sign that said that if the building exceeded more than 100 people, it was violating the NYC fire code. Shake Shack must violate the fire code routinely. Both times I've visited there had to be 100 people in there and, probably, more.

Instead of getting a burger, I got the Chicken Shack, which was delicious, and a chocolate concrete with chocolate truffle cookie dough, which defied description (in a good way). Unfortunately, Baby Sister had some complications in ordering her burger, so it turned up without basic things like lettuce and mayonnaise. She was visibly disappointed.

Not even Shake Shack was showing itself to Baby Sister at its best advantage. I began to wonder if Baby Sister was even going to like her graduation trip or if we would have been better off going to, say, Disneyland.

With lunch out of the way, we proceeded to the American Girl Place.

Please remember that we'd been carrying our dolls around all day. We took them with us to Ham4Ham and Shake Shack. A lady squished against us at Ham4Ham had commented on them, joking that if we lifted our dolls up high enough, they, at least, would be able to see what was going on. Other than that, though, people had mostly just ignored them. There are way more interesting things to see in New York City than three grown women carrying around 18-inch dolls.

But when we arrived at the American Girl place, we pretty much became an instant attraction. Little girls who were carrying their own dolls seemed fascinated by ours.

"Is that your baby?" one little girl in the bathroom asked me. I introduced Molly to her. She and her friends seemed really excited and told me about their own dolls. One of their mothers said that she remembered Molly, Kit, and Samantha from when she was a little girl.

Baby Sister was finally starting to get excited. The doll holders in the bathroom, the displays of the dolls and their accessories, the station for doll ear piercing—it was her inner child's dream come true!

Miss Molly McIntire in the American Girl Place bathroom.

We went to the hair station to make hair appointments for our dolls.

"Our next appointment is at 7:30," the lady said. Which was in the middle of The Color Purple.

We were dismayed, because we weren't sure if we'd have time to come back on another day. The only time we could maybe come back was on Saturday morning. We asked if we could make appointments for then.

"You have to be here the day of to make appointments," the lady said. "We open at nine at Saturday. The sooner you can get here, the better."

Our dreams of getting our dolls' hair done crushed, we left the American Girl Place in lowish spirits. We were able to pick them up slightly by picking up chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream frosting from Magnolia Bakery, but just slightly.

Little Sister seemed bent on reassuring Baby Sister that the day's experiences didn't necessarily represent what the rest of the trip would be like. "When we were here last year," she said, "the first day was the worst day." Implicit in her statement was a promise: it will get better.We went back to the hotel, claimed our luggage, napped, and then changed for Baby Sister's first Broadway musical.

We met Older Sister at Times Square, had cheesecake at Junior's, showed Baby Sister our favorite Broadway souvenir shops, took some photos, and went to The Color Purple. 

Chocolate mousse cheesecake at Junior's!

We were divided in our opinions about The Color Purple. I hadn't actually wanted to see it; Viola had read the book in high school and found it to be really disturbing. "I mean, there are some beautiful parts," she said, "but-" But the sexual and physical abuse was too graphic and too prevalent for the beautiful parts to really shine through, she seemed to imply.

Older Sister, though, saw it a few weeks before we came to visit. She assured me that the musical version was very appropriate, that we wouldn't have to witness any of that stuff. Thus we bought tickets.

Well. In a way, Older Sister was right. Not much disturbing stuff happened onstage. At the same time, though, the entire musical was about the main character having unhealthy relationships with everyone she met. Almost every song, every line, seemed to be sexual in one way or another. Now, maybe that's an accurate representation of how it is for someone who's been sexually abused. Maybe the point is that, until the redemption at the end, all that Celie was capable of knowing was unhealthy relationships. Fine. But in my opinion, it didn't make for a very good musical. I wasn't uplifted. I didn't enjoy myself. I was just depressed.

So although the actors were amazing (Heather Headley, the original Aida, was costarring), I just didn't like it. Baby Sister didn't like it much, either. Older Sister and Little Sister really liked it, though; I guess they look for different things in their entertainment than I do.

In any case, it was a good thing we ate at Carmine's afterwards, because that totally made up for the stress and disappointments of the day. Carmine's is probably my favorite restaurant in New York City. It's like Buca di Beppo, but better. Older Sister actually got me a Carmine's cookbook for Christmas (and a pasta strainer, because how can you make Italian food without a pasta strainer?).

This time, we got to sit on one of the upper floors. We feasted on cheesy garlic bread, angel hair pasta with garlic and oil, and chicken scallopine with lemon and butter. Deeelicious. I soon became a lot happier and quite content. And score! Baby Sister was enjoying herself, too, if the fact that she was taking second helpings of everything was any indication.

Filled to the brim with good food and very sleepy, we said good-bye to Older Sister and walked back to the Manhattan at Times Square. We needed to get a good night's rest so that we could get up early the next morning to get to Older Sister's dorm before she left for work.

Over the Garden Wall

I'm in love, I'm in love, and I don't care who knows it!

I saw Over the Garden Wall on a Sunday night. By the next Sunday night, I had purchased it on DVD.

I know, I know, it's crazy! It's like those people who suddenly become engaged after dating for only like five minutes. I'm never like that. I don't just buy DVDs willy-nilly. I don't really buy DVDs at all. I don't own my favorite movie (How to Train Your Dragon) or my second-favorite movie (Muppet Treasure Island). And don't even get me started on how long it takes me to to become invested in people. I usually know people for months, sometimes even years, before I decide I want to invest any time or emotions or stuff in them.

But I looked on Over the Garden Wall, and I loved it. I loved everything about it. It has a fascinating premise, and great characters, and even some fun musical numbers. So I bought it, and it is mine, and someday I shall show it to my children and force them to hope that they love it, too.

*plays the clarinet and recites poetry*

Now I'll tell you about this thing which I love so much. Over the Garden Wall is a miniseries by Cartoon Network. The premise is that two brothers, Wirt and Gregory, find themselves lost in the woods. In the first episode, they meet a depressed woodsman who warns them to beware the Beast. What does this mean? They don't know. And I can't tell you without giving everything away (yes, it's one of those shows). But it suffices me to say that shenanigans ensue, songs are sung, and black turtles are seen everywhere.

I mentioned that the characters are great. They are so great. I am particularly fond of Wirt, who is played by Elijah Wood. While Greg is an incurable optimist who would make a Shirley Temple character look like Oscar the Grouch, Wirt is a passive, insecure realist. If you're wondering what that combination looks like, I can only tell you that it involves playing the clarinet and reciting overwrought poetry and that it is hilarious.

Are you wondering why I'm telling you this? I'm telling you this because I believe you need to watch Over the Garden Wall. Yes, you. I have seriously spent the last several weeks trying to make everyone watch it. "Everyone" includes my roommates, people in my improv troupe, and an attractive coworker that I enjoy conversing with. It doesn't include Viola, but only because I'm in the process of forcing her to watch Avatar: The Last Airbender. After she's done with that, I'll probably force her to watch this, too.

Over the Garden Wall can be found on Hulu, iTunes, and DVDs that can be purchased via the internet. It's only ten ten-minute episodes, so I recommend watching it in one sitting, like a movie.

Go forth! Go find it! And enjoy.

It's All In the Cards

Hi everybody!

Y'all know my obsession with February 3rd. Well, once again, not a lot happened on this year's February 3rd, but I'm hopeful for next year.

Tonight I was looking for a comedic monologue I wrote in high school. Baby Sister wants to use it for an audition, but due to a mishap with the family computer there are no digital copies of it in existence. I have only one print copy, but I'm not sure where it is. So I pulled out my boxes of special things and started looking.

I started keeping a box of special things when I was, oh, maybe four years old. Since my love language is gifts, stuff is important to me, and some stuff I've kept practically my whole life. Inside are pictures from the program when I saw Toy Story on Ice eighteen or nineteen years ago, some notes Viola and I wrote during Anne of Green Gables, letters that Best Friend Boy sent me on his mission, a picture that Shutterbug once drew for me during class, my high school and college graduation announcements, minutes from Relief Society presidency meetings, and these Phineas and Ferb cards, among other things.

Yes, the one on the right does say "nephew" on it. Little Sister gave it to me for my birthday last year. Inside, it begins, "Thanks for being the best nephew I could have ever asked for!!!! You have exceeded my expectations of you." 

Digging a little deeper, I found more store bought cards from various loved ones, but I also found a ton of homemade cards. I found at least one homemade birthday card from each of my younger siblings. There was a hand-drawn Phineas and Ferb card from Baby Brother. A card from Little Sister with a drawing of a birthday cake on it that was probably from when we were both in elementary school. A card from Baby Sister cut in the shape of a dragon egg, from the year that the two of us were into this site where we could hatch virtual dragons. A card made by the notoriously grumpy Little Brother that says, "You are my sunshine!"

And these cards reminded me of something that I sometimes forget. Which is to say, life is hard and it's not fun fifty-two percent of the time. But regardless of those facts, I'm pretty lucky.

Caroll Spinney: The Man, The Myth, The Legend

For Christmas, Little Sister and Baby Sister got tickets for Little Brother and me to a live showing of I Am Big Bird, followed by a question-and-answer session with Caroll Spinney. Caroll Spinney, for all you non-Muppet people, is the original performer of Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch.

Now, there are Muppet fans crazier than me. I know of some people who are so obsessed with Muppets that they would spend their life savings on a clipping from Jim Henson's ficus plant. Not that Jim Henson had a ficus plant. That I know of.

Anyways, I'm not as into Muppets as some people. But they do have a special place in my heart and life. Muppet Treasure Island is my second-favorite movie; MuppetVision 3-D is one of my favorite non-roller coaster attractions at Disneyland and Disney World; I have my share of Muppet merchandise. This love of Muppets has led me to want to know more about the amazing men who perform them. So getting to see Caroll Spinney, the man behind characters that have been beloved to me since I was a kid? Priceless. A great gift. Little Brother and I were very excited.

Yesterday, January 29th, was the long-awaited day. The night before, I kind of freaking out. Getting from my workplace to Kingsbury Hall before the performance started was going to be pretty stressful, even if everything went as planned. But if things didn't go as planned...well, let's just say I filled my purse with all kinds of things. My glasses, in case one of my contacts ripped or was irritating my eye. My phone charger, in case my phone died. A piece of paper with the addresses of Kingsbury Hall and the parking lot, in case my phone navigation went crazy like it did at Viola's wedding. Nothing would come between us and Caroll Spinney. No, nothing.

Except bad snow. Or if my car had another problem. I couldn't prepare for those things except to pray that they wouldn't happen. By the time we were supposed to go, I was really stressed out.

Stressfully, I drove Little Brother and myself to get sushi at the Happy Sumo. Stressfully, I paid for the sushi. Stressfully, I drove us out of the parking garage. And stressfully, I dropped my parking garage ticket under my seat.

I almost had a heart attack and died, right there in the parking garage. But I managed to recover the ticket and remain alive. Until I couldn't find the parking garage exit and almost had another heart attack. And so on and so forth. With lots of incidents of almost-cardiac arrest, we inched through the dark, rainy streets of Salt Lake City until we reached Kingsbury Hall.

By the time we got there, I was so stressed out, I wasn't sure if I was going to be able to enjoy myself. But despite my misgivings, I parked Bernard in a parking space where we were joined by a lime-green car with a Kermit the Frog sticker in the window. I suspected the driver of this car was the kind of diehard Muppet fan I was describing earlier. There was probably a clipping of Jim Henson's ficus plant in the front seat.

We picked our tickets up from will call, went into the theatre, and sat down. And so the evening commenced.

First, there was the showing of the movie. It was a beautiful movie. Caroll Spinney is also a sort of artist-animator-cartoonist, and it looked like that either he had animated segments of the movie or someone else had animated them after his style. So it was a neat combination of home video, footage of Muppet productions, interviews, and animations of stories from Caroll's past.

My only complaint about the movie...well, I love Steve Whitmire. He is my favorite Muppeteer. Caroll Spinney actually discovered him. So at the portion of the movie when Jim Henson died and Steve Whitmire was chosen to play Kermit the Frog, Caroll started talking about Steve. I was excited because I thought I might hear some cool Steve stories. Caroll Spinney said something like, "He was a talented young puppeteer." Then they showed a clip of Steve Whitmire waving at the camera on a Muppet set or something. Aaaand that was the end of the Steve Whitmire portion of the movie. Boo.

But anyways, great movie. I laughed a lot and cried a lot and even coughed a lot after choking on my own tears. By the end of it, my stress had almost completely melted away. Although I already knew a lot of the things they mentioned in the movie, I learned a lot I'd never heard before. Also, in the words of Little Brother, "Caroll Spinney and his wife are the cutest couple ever!"

The movie ended. Everybody applauded. And then from the back of the theatre, Caroll Spinney and his wife Debra began to walk down the aisle, and everybody leapt to their feet and applauded some more.

"That was so weird!" Little Brother said during the brief intermission between the movie and the question-and-answer. "We just saw them on the screen, and then they were in the theatre!"

"Like MuppetVision 3D," I suggested.

"Caroll Spinney 3D."

Around us, everybody was chatting excitedly about the movie. I saw people raising their hands in the air and opening and closing their fingers in an imitation of the way Caroll puppeteered Big Bird, marveling at the skill and talent it takes to make a Muppet come to life. I knew that's what they were doing because I've often done it myself. The Muppeteers are among some of the greatest actors in the world. They not only do amazing acting, but they do it through a body that doesn't even belong to them. Acting is hard enough without going through an additional medium!

Then it was time for the Q&A. The mediator (who was some guy from KUED named Ken Verdoia who is probably famous but whom I don't care about) invited those of us with the not-so-good seats in the back to move closer, which we did with pleasure. Then Caroll and Debra came out, and everybody stood and applauded again. We would have stood and applauded for Caroll Spinney all day because Caroll Spinney.

So, they all sat down onstage. Debra Spinney had a gigantic purse, like maybe she had a phone charger and her extra glasses in there. But the gigantic purse was quickly forgotten as Ken Verdoia (whoever he is) started asking questions.

First, he asked a broad, sweeping question about Caroll Spinney's career.

Now, the movie talked about how Caroll met Jim Henson and ended up working for him. Caroll was performing at a puppetry festival in Salt Lake City. His act was a disaster, but Jim, who was watching, thought he handled it well, so he offered Caroll a job working on Sesame Street.

This was one of the animated portions of the movie. While we were watching it, I noticed that the animation of the theatre looked like Kingsbury Hall, right down to the murals on the wall. But my suspicions weren't confirmed until during the Q&A when Caroll said something like, "Well, the story begins here." He said that the performance had happened in Kingsbury Hall. "Jim was sitting right over there." He pointed.

And then I almost had a heart attack again because Jim Henson, one of my heroes, had been in this building! Wow!!!

I studied Caroll as he talked. He was wearing a green pants, a brown shirt, and a tan jacket. As for the rest of him...I don't have a picture, but this random picture from the Internet suffices.

I think that's even the same jacket!

He's about the same age as my grandmother, and he had the same tendency to start telling a story in the middle of another story. But never mind that; the audience ate up everything he said. He would occasionally go into Big Bird's voice as he talked, and the audience just couldn't get enough of that. There was more applause every time. Also, he had a very little-kiddish air about him. He talked about Snuffy as if he were real; he talked about all the puppets as if they were real. Which, you know, they are to so many people. But he had no self-consciousness about it whatsoever.

Ken Verdoia also took questions from the audience. There were two little kids who had brought puppets who asked questions. At their age, I probably would have asked dumb questions, or used my puppet to ask the questions. But these kids were way smarter than I was. One asked if Caroll had any advice for young puppeteers.

Caroll gave a pragmatic answer. Then Ken Verdoia started rambling on, saying something like, "Hold onto your dream...people will tell you you're crazy...and then when you become a puppeteer, hold onto something special..."

And I was like, "What are you talking about, Ken Verdoia? Nobody wants your advice. Nobody's even here to see you!" But then I realized he was trying to work up a bit of an intro segue thing, because out of Debra Spinney's gigantic purse came Oscar the Grouch!

Another random picture from the Internet.

I've heard a lot about the relationship between the Muppet and the Muppeteer, but this was my first time seeing it in action. As soon as he was out of the bag, Oscar said something grumpy. Caroll chided him, and Oscar turned around to Caroll and said, "Who are you?"

Later, somebody mentioned puppets.

OSCAR: I hate puppets!

CAROLL: He doesn't mean that.

The other little kid asked, "What makes an act funny?"

Being an improv comedian myself, I was especially interested in Caroll's response. Here's what he said: "You gain a lot from the audience. The audience is part of the show."

Anyways, Caroll and Debra shared stories with us. They talked about the work and some of the performers Caroll worked with. They answered some more questions from the audience and from Ken Verdoia. Soon, regrettably, the evening was over.

Ken Verdoia, I guess trying the whole thing altogether, was all, "That's the great thing about Big Bird. A bird teaches us how to be better people." And then Caroll and Debra left the theatre, and everybody stood up and applauded again.

So Little Brother and I left, awash in the magic of an amazing performer from an amazing tradition. We have no photos of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so the way I'm trying to preserve this amazing experience is by turning it into this story. Memories fade, but stories can be read over and over. And better yet, they can be shared. So now that you've read this, it's kind of like you, too, got to go see Caroll Spinney: the man, the myth, the legend.

My Fourth Stitch Fix Experience

Okay, everybody. First off, this is my three hundredth and first post, so kudos to me for that.

Secondly, I got a Fix the week before Christmas, so I suppose I should tell you all about that thing. Get ready for badly lit photographs of clothing and my professionally baseless, unfounded opinions about them.

Last time I talked about Stitch Fix, I mentioned how my Fixes never ever come on Thursdays but I desperately want them to come on Thursdays. Well, this Fix actually came on a Thursday...probably because it was the week of that huge snowstorm. The storm undoubtedly slowed down the mail. So...yay storm?

For this Fix, I asked for something festive to wear to Christmas Eve lunch with my younger sisters. Here's what my cute little note said:

Hi Awkward Mormon Girl! I can't believe it's already December, this year has flown by! For a festive Christmas Eve outfit I thought you could wear the Amy Matto Swing Skirt paired with the Market & Spruce Sweater- I am assuming it might be chilly around then so wear this look with tights and a pair of boots. Still no luck on the polka dot jeans but I did have the Margaret M Pant with the polka dot print, these pants are great for work and can be dressed up for the holidays. Since you loved that cobalt blue color from the skirt in a past Fix I thought you would love the Collective Concepts blouse for a bold colored piece to wear with the Margaret M pants along with the Bay to Baubles Necklace- you can never have enough sparkle! I am looking forward to styling you in the New Year! Have a great holiday! -Jessica V

No Xo??? That's new.

My first reaction when looking at the stack of clothes was that none of it looked very festive. When I said "festive," I was thinking more along the lines of "red and gold and sparkly." Which means, therefore, that in the future when I'm looking for red and gold and sparkly, that's what I should specifically ask for. Lesson learned.

Amy Matto Bonnie Lace Detail Swing Skirt: The moment I pulled this skirt out of the box, I was like, "Hey, wait a minute!" The Seamstress got a Fix of her own back in November, and I was pretty sure that this exact same skirt was in her Fix. The Seamstress found this skirt to be a) not flattering, as the waistband was extremely tight and stretchy, as well as b) a little bit short for comfort as well as c) vastly overpriced for the quality. I concurred with her findings. I suspect this was a skirt that had been hanging out in Stitch Fix's inventory for a long time which they were desperate to get rid of, which made me feel like this Fix was less tailored to my taste and more impersonal. Verdict: Send back.

Market & Spruce Fierro Elbow Patch Crew Neck Sweater: This sweater did not go well with the skirt as suggested by Jessica V, mainly because of the way the skirt waistband settled. However, it had fun teal elbow patches, and I really liked the color, and it was super comfy. Plus, it was green, which is festive. Verdict: Keep.

Margaret M Emer Printed Knit Straight Leg Pant: First off, I still think saying "pant" instead of "pants" is pretentious. Secondly, I already have blue polka dot work pants. Thirdly, even if I didn't, I didn't like these enough to buy. Verdict: Send back.

Bay to Baubles Brinley Flower Gemstone Necklace: I really liked this necklace with the sweater. However, I knew I would never wear it with anything else. In the end, I decided I could find something just as good or better at Target. Verdict: Send back.

Collective Concepts Albert Button Down Blouse:: Pretty color, strange fit. I have a similar (red) blouse that I got at Ross for ten dollars, which made me less-than-eager to buy another, more pricey one. Verdict: Send back.

All in all, this Fix was a little disappointing. On the other hand, I got what I needed, which was something festive to wear on Christmas Eve. I wore some red jewelry with the green sweater, and it turned out to be a really fun look.

In other fun Stitch Fix news...over the weekend we had another storm around Hometown. On Saturday night, I had to cut short a fun evening with Viola so that I could make it home before the storm got too crazy. Getting home proved to be more difficult than I thought, and in the middle of making phone calls to family members I noticed an email from Stitch Fix that said, "$25 Credit is Yours!"

At first I didn't pay much attention to it, but when I opened it up later it said inside, "Haley's first Fix just shipped, so you've received $25 in credit!"

Then I realized that some delightful blog reader named Haley must have used my referral link to sign up for Stitch Fix! Thanks, Haley! When I get my springtime Fix in March, I'll think of you! As well as I can, anyways, since I don't think I actually know you.