They’re Back

~ Jeff Andersen ~ 1 Comment

I guess I’m sort of like Georges Hautecort these days.

My back is still in as awesome a shape as ever.
Sometimes I have to wear glasses for the day.
And I get excited when I hear cats around the place.

But I’ll rewind first since it’s been a while.

Well, actually the first thing isn’t that far off topic. For the first week I was back I didn’t venture into my back yard; arrived back from work while it was too dark to see anything, left without peeking back there. But on Thursday I noticed this little doo-dad just chilling.

How long had she been there? What was her purpose? These thoughts consumed me until I got it out of Mary that it had been her, Beth, and Annabel who’d picked her up from a thrift store while out on a night on the town, over the holiday break. Pranksters all. I think I’ll name it Clarence or Chessie. And yes it’s still out there.

On Saturday last week I hosted my old roommate’s bachelor party. We’d laid careful plans to surprise him when he walked up thinking it was just gonna be a chill dinner with me, but half the groomsmen didn’t show up on time. Wasn’t that big a deal though, since the groom himself showed up almost an hour later than he should’ve, so whatevs.

On Sunday I woke up and checked Facebook to see it was the first Sunday School of the New World Order, and I had neglected to arrange for anyone to teach. Oopsie. I slapped together a lesson plan, which came together fabulously thanks to some great audience participation. Even got thanked in the closing prayer for all the time I’d put into preparing the lesson 🙂

Ran into one of Mattie’s old TAs, who’s up here starting a job at Microsoft. She may end up taking my old couch off my hands.

That evening was a nice dinner with friends I hadn’t caught up with in a while.

On Monday we had the first of our quarterly “Sam Valley Talks”, mini-TED-talks by members of the ward on whatever they’re passionate about. We heard about behavioral psychology, curing cancer with modified T-cells, and I gave a picture-laden talk on how the Internet works. Good fun.

On Tuesday I went to a local gun range as a good-bye party of sorts for a friend from work who’s heading out to Utah to work for a start-up that offers Internet-connected baby monitoring solutions, including a sock that monitors heart-rate and other metrics. She’s the one whose cats I had over a few months ago.

It was Ladies’ Night, so her rentals were free. Gotta keep that in mind for later.

And given that she doesn’t yet have long-term accommodations arranged in Utah yet, she’s elected to leave her cats up here while she scouts ahead. I volunteered to take care of them again. They’re still adjusting, but they aren’t cowering in fear like last time so I think they recognize the house layout, even if they haven’t yet recognized me.

  • Clearly still adjusting.
  • I wasn’t feeling too charitable after a few bats to my face.

I don’t think I’ll be keeping them terribly long, maybe a couple weeks or so. Just enough time for them to settle in before being shipped off to Timbuktu Lehi.

A Lovely Interlude

~ Jeff Andersen ~ Leave a comment

I think my new favorite time to go shopping at Costco is at 8:15pm on a Wednesday. Fantastically few shoppers around.

The time spent at home was just delightful. From Night Before Christmas exchanges to movies to burning holes in clothes to games to doing nothing at all.

And now I’m back. Got a few fun things on the docket to keep my mind off the fact that I’d rather be seeing the Utah mountains out the window right about now 🙂

Chaperoning an Arabian Reunion

~ Jeff Andersen ~ Leave a comment

It’s a complete non sequitur title, but there’s Arabian Nights, chaperoning for a choir, and a fun reunion, so there ya go.

The latest game night at my place featured Tales of the Arabian Nights, a fantastic storytelling game with thousands of scenarios and decision points to play through. I ended up fulfilling my father’s wish that I travel the world and study all I could, then ended up successfully defeating a mythic beast that threatened an underwater civilization of mer-people. Losing the game never felt so fun.

I was asked to help chaperone some kids as part of the youth section of the Ensign Symphony Choir. It was fun being back-stage for a change, instead of in the audience. And the kids were cool too.

  • Big tree was big.

After the show I wandered around the area on foot looking for something to eat and somewhere to read. Slim pickings at that hour. Found a bar, had neither good food nor good atmosphere for reading, ended up just heading back home and heating up some chicken patties.

  • Neato art gallery I passed.

Yesterday at work some people went out to a local bar to chillax ahead of the break; it was a welcome respite from the crazy amount of work I’ve been having to do over the last while.

I’d originally planned to fly back Saturday night, and got tickets all arranged. Then an old mission buddy who works for an airline asked me if I wanted a pair of “guest passes,” perks given to employees where friends of theirs can fly standby for essentially free (modulo taxes). Though the cancellation fee would be steep I’d still come out ahead if I could hop on a flight with the passes, so I kept my eye open as the weekend neared. One by one the flights filled up past capacity, so I regretfully notified home base that I wouldn’t be home till late Saturday, as originally planned.

But today was very nice. I packed in the morning, then hitched a ride with Mary down to the temple where we did initiatories with Annabel, who’d just arrived from Logan. Then we went off to a chocolate factory for some grub, before I got dropped off at the airport.

  • Hadn’t seen each other in about six months. D’aww.
  • Mary was very excited with Annabel’s hair.
  • Annabel hates puns.
  • Caught my eye at the airport, too funny.

Aaand now it’s time to board! See ya soon!.