things we learned this week

You can NEVER go down the drain.
-Mr Rogers

https://youtu.be/zJmiYNFa1w4

Online restaurant shopping

I like to choose my local restaurants based on how many missionaries I see eating there in google street view. 

Mmm tacos. I'll be seeing you soon my dears. 

The Happy Baby

Everywhere we go, Dean smiles at everyone he sees and tries to catch their eye and get their attention. On Saturday I went to the store and as I was waiting in the checkout line I noticed Dean smiling at the two men behind me. (Checkout lines are the worst. (Says my anti-social self.) He always smiles at the people in line!) When we finally got through the line and were headed out to the car we happened to be walking beside these two guys again, and Dean was still smiling at them, and the guys were smiling at him, and the one guy turns and says, "He a happy baby!" and I said "yep! He loves people." 

The next day at church, we passed a young woman in the hall who let dean play with her braids at the ward christmas party, and when she saw Dean her eyes lit up and she said to her friend, "Aww, It's the happy baby! He's always happy!"

Before christmas I went to the Walmart on 83rd to get some last minute christmas stuff, and I put Dean in his stroller without the carseat (we have a travel system) so that he was facing out and sitting up, which he loves, and at one point in the store every.person.we.passed (for like 10 minutes straight) commented on how cute he was. "He a handsome baby!" "He full of holiday cheer!" "What a cute baby!" Etc, etc. It was great. I couldn't believe it. 

So it's true! He is a happy baby! Not only that, but he is officially "THE happy baby" of the ward now. I think it has something to do with his eyes, he has smiley eyes. 

(*Side note: I am glad that Dean isn't racist. Some white babies are scared of black people. Every person in the above stories was black. I love how little kids are color blind. As long as you have a face and can smile, they'll make friends with you.) and with that, happy MLKj day. We had fried chicken and sweet potatoes and spinach for dinner. 

Spencer turns 28!

Spencer turned 28! I'm sorry to say it wasn't the most exciting birthday, but we are making up for it with 28 straight days of birthday celebrations. From watching the new bond movie, to opening presents that are books, to eating prime rib at Valois, to vitamixing green smoothies every day, to food truck school socials, spencer is bound to be sick of his birthday by the time next month comes around. 

Books of 2015

Apparently I didn't read as much this year as I did last year. I blame Dean. 

Mr. Penumbras 24 hour bookstore (dec) -didn't finish it

Into the wild -John Krakauer (nov)

The heart is a lonely hunter- Carson McCullers (finished oct)

Okay for now - Gary d Schmidt (~may)

The Wednesday wars -Gary Schmidt (April ~may ish)

Trouble -Gary d Schmidt (may)

Spencer keeps trying to get me to read his agricultural history books, but so far that hasn't happened. 

I did volunteer at the library every Thursday for 2 hours for 6 months, does that count for something? I pulled DVDs for patrons and shelved CDs and DVDs. From about January to May I worked with Karen Mancl on the whitewater processing stuff, then dean was born in June, then we moved to Chicago in September, and here we are December already again. Actually January now. 

This year went by really fast.

Now here's Spencer's list:

A handful of noteworthy reads from sept to dec:

The gender of memory (favorite)

Rise of the red engineers

A passion for facts

The 4H harvest

An yuan: mining chinas revolutionary tradition

Guilty of indigence

Maoism at the grassroots

The historians craft

Waiting for Foucault, still...

Science in action

Epistemic cultures

From osu:

The making of a hinterland

The last Confucian

The environment and world history

Worlds apart: Poverty and politics in rural America

Hard tomatoes hard times

The peasant economy and social change in north china

Cotton and cotton goods in china

Fighting famine in north china

Railways and agricultural development

The sociology of spacial inequality

China it's environment and history

The Chinese peasant economy

Geography of the soils of china

The environmental imperative 

Agricultural extension system in china

Controlling the dragon

Culture, power, and the state

Logics of history

+a lot more. Of course. 

Fitting in with the lindon-ites

My mom told me that last year around christmas a neighbor came over and pityingly said, "Oh, did you not have a christmas tree this year?" To which my mom said,"Yes, we do have one." And the lady said, "oh, we'll I didn't see it in your window." (I think she thought they couldn't afford one.) And my mom said, "um that's because we didn't put it in the window, we wanted it in the family room where we could enjoy it..." 

Welcome to Utah. Apparently, if you don't have your house decorated exactly like all your neighbors, (every house lining the street with the tree in the window), people think either you are a Scrooge or destitute. 

*Face palm slap*

The worst part of this story is that this year my mom put the christmas tree in front of their window. As spencer says, "it's a slippery slope."

Compelling reasons why Chicago is like Harry Potter

Hyde Park is like a mix between Harry Potter and Sesame Street: old buildings and friendly people. But let me expound.

10 reasons why Chicago (Hyde Park) is like Harry Potter

1. University of Chicago = Hogwarts. Hands down. You need only visit once to wholeheartedly agree with me. My personal favorite is the Hutchinson dining hall with the moving paintings.

(picture stollen from flickr) - we ate our $1 milkshakes in here for the first time a few weeks ago. It was awesome. 2 middle aged men sat at a table near us playing magic or some other huge crazy board game. 

2. Dean lives in a cupboard under the stairs. Basically. Well ok, technically it's a hallway, but at any rate it's not your standard bedroom. (And to be honest, he still sleeps in our room, so it doesn't get much use anyways, yet. ***update: NOT ANYMORE! Dean sleeps in his own room/cupboard now!)

3. The room of requirement: we have a door that leads to the building basement where everyone stores their stuff. There is stuff all over out there! Anything you need, it's probably out there! Too bad I feel like I'm stealing if I were to take anything. Not that I would... did... Wait, what? 

4. Deans nickname is Dumbledore. When Dean was in-utero, his cousins in Columbus referred to him as Dumbledore. Coincidence? I think not. 

5. Surname "Black." The previous tenant of our apartment has the surname of "Black," so our buzzer button still says "Black" on it. She was an old 86+ year old woman, probably a witch, and I believe to be related to Sirius Black, but one can't be too sure these days. Our apartment doesn't have the best walls, probably from spells gone wrong, rebounding off them. Perhaps she was a squib. I'm glad they haven't changed the name yet. It makes me feel cool. 

6. Hedwig: We scored this little hedwig from someone in Columbus. It makes a chirping owl noise when you squeeze it. Spencer used to play it for Dean when he was growing in me. When we play it for Dean, he smiles at it. If only we had a real snowy owl.

7. Forbidden forest: Hyde Park is safe. Everyone knows. But it is also common knowledge that you shouldn't go south of the midway (or at least 61st street), north of hyde park boulevard/51st, or west of campus. You might get shot. Seriously. I like to think Im more of a rebel though, and weekly go to Aldi on the south side, and I even went to the walmart super center once. (Now i go regularly, its great!) I was literally the only white person in the entire store. (Besides Dean). Everyone is super nice to us always, and I dont often feel unsafe, just out of place a little. It's like when you make friends with the centaurs. Just don't pull a Delores Umbridge and get on their bad side.

Spencer got this picture for me. Chicago shootings in 2015 to date: 2,636.

2015 Shootings in Hyde Park (the light blue area) to date: 3

8. Thestrals: okay okay, I have never seen them, but I've also never seen anyone die. But I know where they are. They stand next to this gate:

9. Lake Michigan = the Great Lake in Harry Potter 4. I even saw some gillyweed laying around last time I went. Or maybe it was just weed.

10. Moaning Myrtle.  One night I was having Spencer move some laundry out back in the room of requirement, and he came back in reporting that there was a problem I needed to come look at. Sure enough, the laundry sink had gotten clogged and had overflown all over the floor. Like All Over. So I had to mop the whole thing up (with a mop, magically summoned and appearing in the other side of the sink). For some reason I don't think the sink clogged itself; I blame moaning myrtle (because she probably died in the cages in the back).

11. "the Dark Mark" of Medici: we might be death eaters. At least we try, with these cool tattoos we scored from Medici.