I'm so proud of our Patrick!

The title of this blog derives from a funny thing that happened when Josie was little. She and I were driving along in the van listening to CBC radio, which generally plays classical music. A symphony was playing. When it finished, the announcer said, "That was David Layton, conducting the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, playing symphony (whatever: that part is forgotten!)". Josie gave a long, contented sigh and said, "I'm so proud of our David!" I said, confused, and not even connecting what she said to what we had just heard, because David was like 14 or 15 years old, "Why?" And she said proudly "Conducting that orchestra!"

Well, this time I am saying it, only about Patrick. "I'm so proud of our Patrick!" He just forwarded this e-mail to me, and I want to sing his praises, because he won't really sing his own:

Patrick,

I am very excited to tell you that you were selected for the Central Utah Recreation and Parks (CURPA) Citizen Volunteer Award!  Everyone here at The Center is really proud to have you represent all of our 850 volunteers, and we're really happy to be able to recognize you for all the hard work you've put into our events.  The CURPA BBQ is on Thursday, June 23, 2011 at 6:00 p.m. at the North Park Grand Pavilion, 1185 North 400 East, Spanish Fork, Utah.  You are invited to attend and may bring one guest if you desire.  If you could let me know as soon as possible whether you plan to attend, that would be great.

Again, congratulations Patrick! We're very excited to have you as one of our volunteers and receiving this award.

Thanks for all you do!

Eric Layland Recreation Leader
Provo Parks and Recreation

Warning: Acting may be dangerous to your clothing

Yesterday, Josie spent the day acting in a commercial. The commercial is for Hertz--they have this new idea about renting cars called "car-sharing." They partner with university campuses to let students make reservations to use a car, much like they make reservations to use a group study room in the library, only of course there is a fee involved. So, Hertz and BYU asked the HBLL Multimedia Unit, famous for the "New Spice" youtube spot that went viral, to film a commercial for them.

The premise will be that if you sign up to car-share, you can get away when you need to. In the commercial, the zombies come to take over, and only those students who are car-sharing can get away safely.

At first, Josie was supposed to be a zombie, and this, courtesy of the multimedia unit's blog, is what a zombie's clothes are supposed to look like, more or less (only within BYU honor code, if you think that is even possible...)
So, Tuesday evening was dedicated to trying to ruin some clothes. We chose a pair of pants and a shirt that we could do without and ripped and stained the night away. At the end of the night, I threw them in the washer and then the dryer--and all our efforts at creating stains were to no avail--the clothes looked raggedy, but super-clean.

So, we got out the mustard and the barbecue sauce and everything else we could think of, and really went to town on those clothes. In the morning, I even ran over them with the car about six times, and then left them in the sun to possibly fade during the day.

But then, Josie's assignment was changed. They needed her to be a victim instead of a zombie, so she would just need to wear normal clothes. I was actually relieved, because I thought it would take another night of effort to sufficiently destroy her clothing, and seriously—there are better ways to spend the time!

Josie would need to be a victim who is trying to escape the zombies either on roller blades or a pogo stick—she has both, randomly enough, because let’s face it, not everyone has a pogo stick. So this is what she looked like on the set today:

That was BEFORE the zombies attacked her, though! Because when I picked her up from the set at 4 pm, she was one dirty and stained individual. Downside: she was wearing one of her favorite shirts!

So, last night, instead of ruining clothes, I was desperately trying to clean her shirt. I looked it up on the internet, and a lovely British site recommended that I soak her dirt-via-brown-makeup covered shirt in glycerin. So I had to go and buy some—first I looked to see if possibly I could just find another shirt exactly the same, which would cost about the same amount but be way less work. No such luck—so with the soaking completed, I put the clothes in the washer, and hoped for the best...

Yeah!! Almost all the stains out--I will soak a few spots in glycerin overnight, and wash it again with another load later today--should be good!