Perchance to Dream
Last weekend (July 23-25)o was another busy weekend in Michael's world. July 24th is a state holiday here in Utah. Pioneer Day celebrates the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in the Salt Lake valley on July 24th, 1847. That meant no classes for me on Monday. And since I don't work on Mondays anyway, it meant that I found myself with a three day weekend. Woo-hoo!
After a quick run to the bank to deposit my paycheck, Saturday morning started with trip to the Salt Lake temple with Nancy.i (No, not that kind of a trip.) I love spending time in the temple. It's quiet and peaceful and beautiful, fully conducive to pondering the things that really matter in life. It's also nice to have a close friend there to talk to about some of those things. The whole experience was uplifting and cleansing. I should make a point to do it more often.
From there we went to lunch, then back to the house for a little quiet time together. We got a call/text message from one of her friends about going to a sneak preview of Must Love Dogs. So we went and met two of her friends there. It was a fun show, even for a gender-specific film.ii The reviews I've seen are average to bad, but I enjoyed it. Ice cream at Baskin Robbins followed thereafter, with the four of us sitting on the tailgate of the Dreadnought in the parking lot and enjoying the music of Crenshaw on the stereo. And we began making plans for the following evening.
Sunday morning was rather uneventful, meaning that I went to church without having to worry about giving a lesson.iii I've already written about the rather disturbing experience I had Sunday afternoon. And Sunday night was spent at Nancy's house getting ready for Monday's festivities.
I've lived in Utah for most of my adult life, but in that time I've never been to the Days of '47 Parade. So the same gang of four from the previous night's movie decided we'd go downtown and camp out so that we could get a really good spot. We had the built-in advantage that Nancy's brother-in-law's parents had already staked out a place. The four of us arrived just after 10:00 p.m. and started setting up blankets and such.
We all played games and talked well into the small hours, at which time we variously determined to try to get some sleep. It was not an easy thing to accomplish. The night was filled with annoyances such as drag-racing bullet bikes, drunken hecklers, and idiots on walkie-talkie phones. Seriously, what could possibly be so important that you have to talk about it on a walkie-talkie phone at two-thirty in the bloody morning? Okay, I'm done ranting now.
So those in the group finally got to sleep somewhere between two and four o'clock. It was a beautiful night—not too warm with a pleasant breeze, and once you got past all the noise, it wasn't too hard to get some rest.
Until the sprinklers came on at a quarter to five.
Everybody else panicked and tried to get everything off the grass. Me? I was so out of it that I just grabbed someone else's blanket and pulled it over me. No more irritating water on my face, problem solved. Well, maybe not so much.
The sprinklers stayed on for less than a minute iv, but that was enough to give everything (and everyone) a pretty good soaking. It also meant that we were all wide awake now. I managed to get a little more rest before sunup, but I never really got back to sleep.
Sometime around 6:00 they started blocking off the street. People had set up some chairs in front of the driveway to the parking lot. So I backed the Dreadnought into the driveway and dropped the tailgate. Víola! Instant seating for the parade.
Before the parade started, though, there were a couple of races. The first of the runners came by just after 6:00. (Or was it 6:30? I can't remember.) There weren't a lot of people lining the street at that time, and the ones that were there weren't making much noise. So we did. We clapped and shouted and cheered and got a lot of smiles from the runners. One of the ladies sitting near us had brought a spray bottle with her and spent most of the next 45 minutes running out into the street and misting the runners as they went by. She was exceptionally well received.
The parade started at 9:00 as advertised. The festivities started with a Blackhawk helicopter flyover, courtesy of the Utah Air National Guard. President Gordon B. Hinckley of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was one of the dignitaries. Others included the governor and vice governor of Utah, both of the state's Senators, two of the three Representatives, the mayor of Salt Lake county, and most of the city council. In fact, about the only significant Utah political figure absent was Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. He has had some problems getting along with most of the above-mentioned persons and/or entities, so I wondered whose decision it had been not to include him: his, or theirs.
The parade also included motorcycle cops riding in formation, horsemen (horsepersons?), floats, and of course, marching bands. I have a soft spot in my heart for marching bands, having played tuba in both high school and college. I looked and listened for the tuba players specifically, I'll admit. Some of them did a pretty good job.
Once the parade ended, we came back to my place for a little rest. We each took a few minutes to get cleaned up, after which we had a little lunch and crashed in the front room on the couches. There were fireworks to be seen that night, but not by me. I was beat.
All in all it was a good weekend, if a little tiring. It only took me until Friday to recover, really. And now I have another weekend's experiences to write about. More on that later. For now, I must rest.
Can't...keep...eyes...open...
ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
--
oYes, it's taken me a week to blog this. Finals are coming. Get off me.
iNancy has previously been known here only as The Girl.
ii'Gender-specific film' is the politically-correct term for a 'chick flick', or so I'm led to believe.
iiiOf course, I taught Sunday school this morning.
ivWhich made me wonder why they had been turned on at all. When you've lived in Utah for a while, you learn not to question these sorts of things.
After a quick run to the bank to deposit my paycheck, Saturday morning started with trip to the Salt Lake temple with Nancy.i (No, not that kind of a trip.) I love spending time in the temple. It's quiet and peaceful and beautiful, fully conducive to pondering the things that really matter in life. It's also nice to have a close friend there to talk to about some of those things. The whole experience was uplifting and cleansing. I should make a point to do it more often.
From there we went to lunch, then back to the house for a little quiet time together. We got a call/text message from one of her friends about going to a sneak preview of Must Love Dogs. So we went and met two of her friends there. It was a fun show, even for a gender-specific film.ii The reviews I've seen are average to bad, but I enjoyed it. Ice cream at Baskin Robbins followed thereafter, with the four of us sitting on the tailgate of the Dreadnought in the parking lot and enjoying the music of Crenshaw on the stereo. And we began making plans for the following evening.
Sunday morning was rather uneventful, meaning that I went to church without having to worry about giving a lesson.iii I've already written about the rather disturbing experience I had Sunday afternoon. And Sunday night was spent at Nancy's house getting ready for Monday's festivities.
I've lived in Utah for most of my adult life, but in that time I've never been to the Days of '47 Parade. So the same gang of four from the previous night's movie decided we'd go downtown and camp out so that we could get a really good spot. We had the built-in advantage that Nancy's brother-in-law's parents had already staked out a place. The four of us arrived just after 10:00 p.m. and started setting up blankets and such.
We all played games and talked well into the small hours, at which time we variously determined to try to get some sleep. It was not an easy thing to accomplish. The night was filled with annoyances such as drag-racing bullet bikes, drunken hecklers, and idiots on walkie-talkie phones. Seriously, what could possibly be so important that you have to talk about it on a walkie-talkie phone at two-thirty in the bloody morning? Okay, I'm done ranting now.
So those in the group finally got to sleep somewhere between two and four o'clock. It was a beautiful night—not too warm with a pleasant breeze, and once you got past all the noise, it wasn't too hard to get some rest.
Until the sprinklers came on at a quarter to five.
Everybody else panicked and tried to get everything off the grass. Me? I was so out of it that I just grabbed someone else's blanket and pulled it over me. No more irritating water on my face, problem solved. Well, maybe not so much.
The sprinklers stayed on for less than a minute iv, but that was enough to give everything (and everyone) a pretty good soaking. It also meant that we were all wide awake now. I managed to get a little more rest before sunup, but I never really got back to sleep.
Sometime around 6:00 they started blocking off the street. People had set up some chairs in front of the driveway to the parking lot. So I backed the Dreadnought into the driveway and dropped the tailgate. Víola! Instant seating for the parade.
Before the parade started, though, there were a couple of races. The first of the runners came by just after 6:00. (Or was it 6:30? I can't remember.) There weren't a lot of people lining the street at that time, and the ones that were there weren't making much noise. So we did. We clapped and shouted and cheered and got a lot of smiles from the runners. One of the ladies sitting near us had brought a spray bottle with her and spent most of the next 45 minutes running out into the street and misting the runners as they went by. She was exceptionally well received.
The parade started at 9:00 as advertised. The festivities started with a Blackhawk helicopter flyover, courtesy of the Utah Air National Guard. President Gordon B. Hinckley of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was one of the dignitaries. Others included the governor and vice governor of Utah, both of the state's Senators, two of the three Representatives, the mayor of Salt Lake county, and most of the city council. In fact, about the only significant Utah political figure absent was Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson. He has had some problems getting along with most of the above-mentioned persons and/or entities, so I wondered whose decision it had been not to include him: his, or theirs.
The parade also included motorcycle cops riding in formation, horsemen (horsepersons?), floats, and of course, marching bands. I have a soft spot in my heart for marching bands, having played tuba in both high school and college. I looked and listened for the tuba players specifically, I'll admit. Some of them did a pretty good job.
Once the parade ended, we came back to my place for a little rest. We each took a few minutes to get cleaned up, after which we had a little lunch and crashed in the front room on the couches. There were fireworks to be seen that night, but not by me. I was beat.
All in all it was a good weekend, if a little tiring. It only took me until Friday to recover, really. And now I have another weekend's experiences to write about. More on that later. For now, I must rest.
Can't...keep...eyes...open...
ZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
--
oYes, it's taken me a week to blog this. Finals are coming. Get off me.
iNancy has previously been known here only as The Girl.
ii'Gender-specific film' is the politically-correct term for a 'chick flick', or so I'm led to believe.
iiiOf course, I taught Sunday school this morning.
ivWhich made me wonder why they had been turned on at all. When you've lived in Utah for a while, you learn not to question these sorts of things.
posted by Michael at
11:00 PM
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