Yeesh

The only thing worse than this poll's existence is the fact that people voted "worse." What kind of selfish attitude is that? I mean, I know it's hard. But honestly. Sheesh.

to musical wit:

I think that the majority of the hymnal is grossly underused. Is it bad to say that I'm tired of some hymns and that I think they're oversung? Does anyone else feel that there is a pool of about 25 hymns that we sing?

I wanted to start a facebook group titled, "Mormons for hymn variety," but I held back. What do FB groups accomplish in the end anyway?

But who's with me?

What barely-used hymns should we add to our repertoire?

Personally I think we should add, Father This Hour Has Been One of Joy. My reasons are, however, irreverent in this case.

Seriously, what are some lesser-sung hymns that you want to add to church services?

Loosely connected to the 24th of July

The only real connection that this post has to Pioneer Day is that both things are sorta Mormony. Mostly I'm just getting all mythological. The thing that I'm posting about is Aztecy and a bit more Hopi-y, though. There's a common thread of mythology that goes throughout the Americas. The Hopi story is the one I find most fascinating, but I'm gonna save that one for last.

A lot of people have heard of Quetzalcoatl. Such a fun word to say. Anyway, Quetzalcoatl is a deity from Mesoamerican environs. The myths about him are varied; sometimes he's a man, sometimes it's a serpent. Probably my favorite iteration of the myth is that Quetzalcoatl was a priest in the Aztec religion who was loved by the people and fought for the idea that human sacrifice was wrong. Another priest was jealous of his influence over the people, so he decided to knock out Quetzalcoatl and sacrifice Q's personal helper in an effort to stop a drought. Q came to just in time, made it to the top of the pyramid and jumped in front of the knife to protect his helper. Q died and a pall came over the gathered crowd. At this point Q returns as a ghost or a being of some sort to speak with the people and preach to them about the evils of human sacrifice. Once he's done, he's taken into the heavens and becomes what we call the Pleiades. This was done so that the people would always remember Quetzalcoatl's teachings. So now when I see the Pleiades, I think of Quetzalcoatl.
Of course, there's the LDS interpretation, too.

So, the Hopi. In the Hopi version of this story they reference the Lost White Brother, who they call Pahana. The basics of the story reference an Elder Brother who left toward the east. He is to return and when he comes back the wicked will be destroyed and peace will return to the land. He'll bring with him a portion of the Hopi's sacred stone that is now with the "Fire Clan." Oh, and when he comes back, he'll be wearing red.
It's fascinating stuff, no?

Recap and intro of polling

So what's your favorite team sport? I know that I left some off, but seriously, there are like a billion. But if you have major complaints, you can always comment.

And what about your favorite of the bigger rides at Disneyland?


I was very pleased that HP2 didn't get any votes. This makes me think that I'm not alone in my wishy-washiness of this book. But I was surprised that other than that, everything was a wash:I also wasn't surprised the Umbridge totally beat Voldemort at most annoying. My guess is that she bugs b/c we still see her as a human that has a choice to be cruel and the ultimate hoser. Voldemort's just a lost cause.


Purple beat out white in the end for ugliest car. I almost didn't add purple, b/c I have a distinct fondness for one purple car in particular, Melissa Schlegel's old car that we called the Purple Demon Grandma Car. It was awesome.
Food polls:
No surprise on the hamburger vote--it was mine, too. However, lately I'm thinking I don't care as long as it has dry rub on it.
My egg vote just barely eeked out the win. yum yum over easy
Vowels, my weirdest poll:

And I guess I should be polling more often:




I have to admit, I really like polls.

Captcha

I was leaving a comment on a blog entry that has a word verification requirement. It's my favorite one that I've ever seen:

caught at kneaders

First, my Protegé (what a silly accent mark) is rated at a combined highway and city at about 24mpg (22 city, 28 highway). When I filled up today, my last tank ran at 35mpg. How sweet is that?

We had a softball game this morning at 8:15, which we lost by 1 run, but I'm okay with that, because maybe we'll end up in a lower tournament bracket. After the game I went to Kneaders to wait for Shannon because you know their french toast is so good for breakfast. While I'm sitting there waiting, three players from the other team walked in and over to the table next to me. The conversation went as follows:

Guy at table, "Hey did you guys win?"

Player in Mickey Mantle T-shirt, "Yeah...but the other team sucked, so..."

Me, after a pause, "Hey, uh...?" Then I looked right at him with my eyebrow raised in a "are you serious" sorta way.

Anyway, he backtracked and said, "Oh, we sucked, too." [awkward]

Then the girls that he was with started talking to me about where we'd all fit into the tournament brackets and how losing can actually be beneficial. Then Shannon walked in and it was a lot better. We sat on the other side of Kneaders.

It has me thinking, I bet I've done that a lot, said stupid stuff like that but never been called on it. Sigh...something to check myself on.

In my soul

I go through musical obsession stages, where I get stuck on a genre or a few musicians. I eventually mellow out and my music gets more shuffled again. For months now I've been stuck on soul music and Motown, with Van Morrison thrown in for pure pleasure. I think I've been in the mood to rock my head around with some attitude.
To give you a bit of the flava of what I'm talking about:

Marvin Gaye:
Ain't No Mountain High Enough.
Got to Give it Up.
And we know who's dedicating this song to whom:


Gladys Knight and the Pips: (addendum at bottom)
If I Were Your Woman.
I Don't Want To Do Wrong.
And the best one:


Aretha:


Staple Singers:


Curtis Mayfield:
Move on up.


Temptations/Smokey Robinson:


Al Green:
Love and Happiness.

Van Morrison:
Moondance.
Caravan:




I hope everyone enjoyed that as much as I did. mmmmhmmmmmmm


For Emily:

Every once in a while you see something that leaves you shocked

You know, you're just sitting there, watching the television, then you hear something that you can't believe. Then you sit there for a few minutes in stunned silence:


Other species and ethnics?
Just in case.

For the Swenson-ish cousins: 4 Gens

L-->R: Grandma Margaret Bell Malcolm, her daughter Mary Malcolm Snell, Mary's daughter Blanche Snell Swenson, Blanche's son Garland Snell Swenson.
The picture was taken in 1923 somewhere in Spanish Fork.
Grandma Malcolm is my great great great grandma. The baby is Grandpa Swenson.

I know the picture's ripped and is missing G G G Grandma Malcolm's left foot, but I'm going to try to restore it some.
G G G Grandma Malcolm was one of the earlier births in Spanish Fork, April 22, 1860. Her husband, David Thomas Bell was one of the first, September 7, 1854.

Safety Dance

I bet you weren't expecting a Scandinavian renaissance Maypole party with a token lute-playing midget for a classic 1980s New Wave video.


Then again, for a 1980s New Wave classic, we probably shouldn't expect anything less.

Desserts, bungee jumping and ironing

There's this show on the Food Network called The Best Thing I Ever Ate. The last episode was about dessert.
Question: What's your best dessert ever?

It got me thinking, what would my best dessert ever be? I'm not a dessertmonger, but I do love a good pie. But thinking about it, I'm fairly certain that my favorite dessert is Gretchen's Gateau Basque. Many of you have had the pleasure of eating this lemon cream and almond filled circular piece of joy. (recipe on the bottom of the blog)

Okay, MO, there's this wonderful picture that you took that has my favorite dessert and three of my favorite people in it. I hope you don't hate me for showing off your photography. I can pay you in feijoada if you want remuneration for my thievery. But I wanna show off the gateau basque:
**If you want me to remove it, MO, I will.


Also, I love ironing, probably more than someone should. Although, I don't know how I feeling about this.



Here's Gretchen's recipe from her cookbook. Man, I've gone all plagiarizy in this blog entry.

Laurel murmured at breakfast this morning

Laurel complained that I hadn't had a poll in a while, so there are a few up now.
My mom's curious about the eggs.

What else do people regularly BBQ that I didn't put on the poll?



When I was a kid, like in kindergarten, I started to have this idea that the vowels a, o and u were girl vowels and e and i were boy vowels. I have no idea where it came from, but it's still like this innate idea that I have, even though the vowels o and u in Portuguese turn a word masculine.

Religion not vs. Science

I sit around and ponder. Sometimes it's all I do, so I don't get a lot done at those moments.

One thing that I've been pondering for years is the fear I've seen of scientific discovery, that somehow the Big Bang, for example, is this whole conspiracy on the part of scientists to disprove Divine existence.

I think, rather, that it's pretty cool that Heavenly Father has let us in on a wee bit of how He did it all. I mean, we're here to learn and progress, why wouldn't part of that be about how some things were done?

Henry Eyring, Elder Eyring's dad and renowned chemist, said something I think is spot on:

"Is there any conflict between science and religion? There is no conflict in the mind of God, but often there is conflict in the minds of men."

I admit it, I really don't understand the disdain for science and the truths that we learn from it. We're going to have to learn how to do it all eventually, right? Why not attain to some of the principles of natural law right now?

Sometimes I get hung up a bit on how it all fits together, but I always come back to the idea that some day I will understand how it all played/will play out.

The coolest thing? Sometimes I've learned in this earthly existence the why of something when I was expecting to have to wait until the next stage of my eternal journey.