Sorry, Plane Buddy

Yesterday I bid my family a tearful farewell and got on a jet plane back to P-town. Nicole and I were travel buddies and I've never had such an enjoyable flight!

I'm sure the guy sitting next to us has had many more enjoyable flights.

His flight started with security and checking in, which no one enjoys. Then he boarded with the C group. Also not ideal. Then he walked all the way to the back of the plane. He saw two cute girls. He thought his day was looking up. He asked if he could sit with them. They said sure. His heart rejoiced.

Then one of them stood on his seat for 5 minutes looking for Ibuprofen and headphones for the other one.

Then they pulled out a 5-course meal.

He opened his Southwest-provided magazine. He browsed through, looking for a conversation-starter. He found it. He nudged the girl sitting next to him. He said, "Are you girls freshmen in college?"

The girl next to him got a sour look on her face. She said, "Senior." And turned back to her phone. The one by the window said, "Sophomore," in a little bit nicer of a voice.

This conversation wasn't going exactly how he had planned. He didn't know what to do. He tried to just jump back in. He pointed at the picture. It said, "On average, college freshmen girls gain 3.1 lbs in their first semester of school."

The girls looked at the picture. They read the words. They looked at him. His heart sank at their confused (and mildly insulted) expressions. The girls said, "Hmmm."

Then they jammed headphones in their ears and proceeded to fall asleep, lounging all over each other. When they woke up, they giggled and chattered. How was the poor boy supposed to know they weren't freshmen in college?

He thought about making amends. He offered them his peanuts. They politely declined. He ate them all. The girls ate some more of their 5-course meal.

When they landed, he tried one more time. The conversation quickly fell flat. And when they saw each other again at the baggage claim, one of the girls was chattering with her friend and the other was kissing her boyfriend.

Pockets can be Hazardous

And in some cases, they can be downright malicious. How, you might be wondering?

This morning, I had a final at 8:30. Jacob txtd me at about 8:15 to make sure I was awake. He said, "Did you wake up?"

Rhett and Aimee drove me to school today in Rhett's dad's beautiful beautiful beautiful truck. I started to txt Jacob back while I was in the car. I was actually running a little late this morning so I didn't have a lot of time to get ready, so I said, "Yes! I am gross this morning :/ did -"

I meant to say, "Did you wake up in time for work?" but we got to campus right then, so I had to close my phone and put it in my pocket and get my stuff and get of the beautiful truck. I figured I would finish the txt later, when I wouldn't be in danger of losing my hands to frostbite.

I got to my classroom just in time to take my final and completely forgot about finishing the txt to Jacob. When I got out of my final, I saw that I had a new txt from Jacob. It said, "On that note, I just walked into the break room with the food stuff and some dude ripped a fart! 60 yr old bald guy."

I thought: Jacob is in 3rd grade. Then I thought, Oh well. I can humor him. So I replied really nicely in a way that showed I accept his fart humor.

Then I thought, On what note? I looked back in my txts and realized I had missed one. It was from Jacob, and it said: "You pooped?"

I thought: Okay, there is a line! Why is he asking me if I pooped??

I looked back through my txts from the whole day. Apparently, my pocket helpfully finished my txt from this morning and sent it on its merry way. The txt that Jacob got said: "Yes! I am gross this morning :/ did P000000"

And that is why you really need to be careful when pairing phones with pockets.

Cutting Corners

I don't know if I've ever mentioned how much I love the sun (1, 2, 3 times at least) but let me just reiterate: I love the sun. I do not like it when I leave work at 6 and it's already completely gone down for the night.

It also hurts my feelings that Provo is apparently participating in the Great Freeze-out of 2011. Last night, I went to see the Zoolights at the Hogle Zoo with Jacob, Kelly and Dahl. I was wearing a ten-ta, a long-sleeved shirt, a fleece jacket, my blue pea coat, a huge big beige marshmallow coat, and gloves. I ran through the zoo, dashing from one heater to the next. I spent my time in the Reptile House thawing out. I was a little bit cold, and I feel like that's weird since I was wearing so many clothes.

Today, I left the Writing Center. It was 26* outside. The sun was gone. I walked through the barren wasteland that our campus has turned into, darting into buildings whenever I could to cut a jagged (but slightly warmer) path home. I left one building and crossed the sidewalk. I was about to step onto the frosted mulch when something stopped me.

"Cougars don't cut corners," trilled a self-righteous voice in my head. I started to turn, intending to follow the sidewalk instead of cutting across the grass. Then, another thought occurred to me. I jerked back around and stepped defiantly on the frozen patch of brown.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" I thought snappishly. "Was something about to grow here? Did I ruin a poor defenseless flower's lifelong dream of growing up in the Ice Age?"

I'm not the only one who's being affected by the drop in temperature, either. Today in the Writing Center, Bryce the Grammar Tutor said to me: "I just tutored the most stressed-out girl ever. She was constantly checking the time, and taking off her glasses and then putting them back on, and just fidgeting and sighing....it was stressing me out just sitting by her!" I thought to myself, Hmmm. I wonder how that would be. I've never tutored someone who was that stressed out. I wonder how I would react? Would I be patient and nice? Or would I get snappy?

Lucky for me, the very next person on the list would have made Bryce's tutee look like Colbie Caillat - the picture of calm and unruffled. Meaning I didn't have long to wait before all of these questions were answered. I would be patient and nice in such a situation! I would have the patience of Job! I would not snap. I would be encouraging throughout the entire thing. I would even invite the drama queen back for more.

This was a boy in desperate need of some Vitamin D. As we talked, he ran his fingers through his hair, dropped his face into his hands, and reassured me multiple times that he hadn't been putting off the paper and it was just a really hard assignment for him. I wanted to tell him that it was a hard assignment because he was trying to write an opinion editorial and his teacher wanted him to write an issues paper, but I honestly thought he was going to cry if I told him that. I suggested he add some statistics to support some of his ideas.

"WHAT!?" he screamed, flipping the desk over. "You want me to bounce on my head all the way to China and back?"

"No," I calmly replied. "I am simply suggesting that you add some support from outside sources. Please, have a seat. Can I get you a cushion? No? Well how about I just write your conclusion?"

Okay so maybe that's not exactly how the conversation went, but you get the idea.

And all because the sun couldn't be bothered to bless us with its kiss for more than 5 hours a day.

Black Friday, Black Friday

So I wanted to include a funny video in this post, maybe of someone getting trampled on Black Friday or someone snatching something else out of someone's hands and in turn getting punched in the face......but unfortunately there's this viral video going around and it's kind of screwing up my search results. So here you go instead.

Anyway, I actually celebrated Black Friday on Thursday, right after Thanksgiving dinner. I spent it in the magazine / book section of the Walmart in Cedar Hills with Kelly, Amy, and Jacob. We got chairs from the camping section, grabbed some books and magazines, and hung out there from 4pm - 12 midnight, when we got our 40-inch TV's for $250. Worth it!!

Twihards

Jacob and I are not Twihards.

But we tried to be satirical and clever and hot all at once for Halloween this year when, at the suggestion of Kelly, we dressed up like Jacob Black and a Jacob Black fan.

Please notice the detail in my costume. The teeny-bopper pink boots. The floofy headband. The lopsided pigtails. And you can't see it, but my shirt says "Team Jacob!" and has hearts all over it. There are also other phrases, such as "I run with wolves," "Mrs. Jacob Black," and "I wanna bake cookies on your stomach."

Jacob also got really into his role and even went tanning. But unfortunately, instead of coming back all sunkissed and pleasantly bronzed, he came back with a bad sunburn. To accommodate his bright pink pigmentation, we threw together sunburned tourist costumes for the first night of Halloween.

Twenty-One

I know last year I turned 19, but somewhere between then and now, I turned 20. And this year on October 9, I turned 21.

My birthday this year included:

1. Lunch at Tucano's (obviously, we couldn't break the tradition!) with Winnie, Aimee, Christine, Kristen, and Jacob. Very different group than last year's, but I loved it just as much :)

2. a delicious dinner at Mimi's Cafe with Jacob. Sooo good!

3. a movie in the Water Gardens theater with Jacob.

4. a surprise waiting for me when I got home! Complete with cake, ice cream, friends, streamers, and handmade surprise signs. I have the best friends!

5. pancake breakfast made by Jacob on Sunday morning, my actual birthday.

6. church in my own ward.....weirdly, since I haven't been there since the first Sunday of the semester. Still, it was a lovely day at church and Kelly and Dahl came, too.

7. presents :)

8. dinner at the Salmons, which was delicious as always.

9. phone calls from my Grandma Connor, my siblings, and my mom.

10. a birthday package from my family! Nice-os :)

It was a wonderful birthday and I hope next year's is just as good!

T Swizzle

One day in August, Jacob and I went to the Awful Waffle for a little snack. He said he had a question to ask me before we came to pick me up, so I asked him while we were enjoying our crepes, "What did you want to ask me?"

He said, "What are you doing on September 28th?"

I thought that was kind of a weird question. I said, "Um....well I can check my schedule? I think I have plans...what am I doing then?"

He said, "Do you want to go to Taylor Swift's concert with me?"

You guys, I came this close to peeing my pants when he said that. Do you know how much I love Taylor Swift?? If I could only go to one concert in my life, that's the one I would want to go to. I love her songs, know the words to almost all of them, love her clothes, and kind of want to be her sometimes - or at least be as awesome as her. That would be cool.

Obviously I said yes.

This week, I was a little sicky, but I was determined to be better in time for T-Swift. Jacob and I tried to prepare by listening to only Taylor Swift songs in the car, watching her music videos, and watching some SNL skits from when she hosted it.

On Wednesday, September 28th, Jacob picked me up from my class at 4. We stopped by my apartment so I could change and eat a little bit, and then we set off for Salt Lake!

We got there at about 5:30, which was perfect because then we had time to look around and take some pictures. There were at least 15 or 20 trucks with Taylor's Covergirl pictures on them. There were also different stages for radio stations giving out pit passes and autographed guitars and cool things like that. Jacob caught some mascara for me so I was pretty pumped about that!




At about 6:45 we got in line to get in. While we were standing there, Jacob said, "I think that girl just took a picture of you!" I looked where he was looking and there were 5 or 6 middle-school girls all looking from a cell phone to me and then at each other. Hmmmm.

"WHY?" I asked Jacob, looking straight at the girls.

Jacob didn't know. We stood there looking at the girls, very confused, until the mom with them leaned out of their line and said, laughing, "I'm sorry! She just thought you two made the CUTEST couple so she had to take a picture."

"I....! Well they....just look! I didn't get....okay well now I'll just take it obviously," the girl with the cell phone sputtered. We laughed and felt flattered and posed for a picture.

After that, we were in! We found our seats, way up in the top and to the left of the stage. There were screens on either side of the stage but our seats were too far to the left of the stage, so we couldn't see it very well. Until we scooted down to some empty seats and took them for ourselves. Oops....

As we sat there, waiting for the concert to begin, we tried taking a picture of ourselves, but it just wasn't working out. The lady behind us kindly asked if we wanted her to take one. We kindly thanked her. She kindly told us that we were just so cute, she had to offer! Apparently people who go to T-Swift concerts are all super nice :)

After the opening acts, Taylor came out onstage! She opened with "Sparks Fly," one of my favorites, and I'm pretty sure everyone in the Energy Solutions Arena was singing along. The music ended, but the cheering didn't even slow down.

"Hello Salt Lake City!" Taylor said, waving. We cheered. "I'm Taylor," she said, placing one hand on her chest. I wish people would get as excited when I introduce myself as we all did then!

The rest of the night was absolutely amazing. She sang almost every song from her "Speak Now" album and some from "Fearless." She changed her outfit and hair several times. There was smoke, confetti, a violin sextet, and a fake wedding. Fireworks shot from the ceiling, sparks showered down on the stage, ballerinas tiptoed around each other, and the set changed as often as the song. Taylor ran off the stage and walked through the audience, giving hugs to all the lucky pit pass holders. She played the piano, guitar, ukelele, and banjo. She did a cover of Neon Trees' "Animal" and played a little "I'm Yours" (Jason Mraz) and "Apologize" (Timbaland) with her other songs.

And in the end, after we all thought she was done, this happened:

Dear Taylor,

I had the best day with you today.

Love,

Heather

Cute?

The other day, some guy with great pecs picked me up from working at Coldstone.

We went to Cafe West, which is in the hospital and has amazing food that is also super-cheap. While we were in line trying to decide what to order, the lady at the register (named Karma) said, "You guys just look so cute together! You're both just so blonde and cute."


We thought that was sweet of her. Then I looked at our friendship on facebook. This is what I found:

Yep. We're super-cute.


:)