The cat and the car

I have to record Patrick's cat story, because it is just too weird and funny not to write down!

So Patrick does not work on Fridays, and sometimes he and his friend Chris go climbing or something adventurous on Friday afternoons. Last Friday, they planned to go climbing (the kind with ropes and hooks and stuff) at Rock Canyon.

Patrick was going to meet Chris at Rock Canyon. He got in the car and drove first to Walmart to get some antacids and Dr. Peppers. And then he drove to Rock Canyon. As soon as he stopped the car and got out, he could hear meowing. And it was getting louder and louder.

There was a man and a woman who were about to start a hike, and they said, "Do you have a cat in your car?" Patrick said, "I don't even own a cat. No, I don't have a cat in my car." But they said, "The meowing sounds like it is coming from your engine." (A tiger in the tank?)

Patrick had visions of a dead Lakhi lying under a silver car. He could not stomach looking in the engine to see a mangled up cat! He said, "I just can't look--if I have hurt a cat, I just won't be able to stand it."  They said, "If you open the hood, we will look."

So they opened the hood--and out popped a cat! It walked a ways away, seemingly unhurt, and they watched it go, and then they were like, hey we should stop this cat.

By then Chris arrived, and they read the tag. They called the number of the vet, who could not tell Patrick who the owner was, but he agreed that his phone number could be shared with the owner. 

Soon the owner called him. She said, "My cat ran away last night, and I didn't know where it went! Where do you live? He said, "On, just on 2000 South." She said, "Do you live in those condos?" He said, "Yes." She said, "So do I!" So the cat belonged to our neighbor just a few doors down.

Debby, the cat owner, cares for her disabled mother, so she could not leave to pick up the cat. So Patrick and Chris put the cat inside the car and took it (it is actually a boy cat, though the owner seems to think it is a female, but the vet told him it is a 1.5 year old male cat.)

The cat was very well behaved, and sat very still on the floor of the car while they drove him home.  But he was very, very, very dirty from his ride in the engine.

On Sunday, Debby told me that this is the second time this has happened to one of her cats!

Several years ago, when she lived in Sacramento, CA, the cat took a ride in her then-husband's car--all the way to work AND HOME AGAIN--in the engine, without him being aware she was there. (Maybe Debby just calls all cats she?) He became aware of the cat when it jumped or fell out while he was driving on the freeway, and ran off the freeway and into the fields!

Patrick said, "Wow...so two cats wanted to get away so bad they hitched rides in car engines! I almost feel bad for taking the cat back--I mean, I couldn't ask him why he ran away or if he even wanted to go back!'

This cat picked a much better hiding place for a ride than our Winter, who decided that on top of the car would work--David couldn't even get out of the neighborhood before other people noticed, so that he had to stop and take her home! She could have gone much further had she tried the engine for her ride!

Oh no oh no oh no

Bruce and I went to see Wonder Woman this afternoon. It was good--a bit too dark for me, and I had to hide my eyes a bit--and one time I did a very loud and definitely audible GASP when no one else in the theater made any noise at all. But I can say that all the acting was first rate. There was no character who seemed unbelievable to me.

So...it was over, and we had to walk all the way through the multi-plex and out the other end because I had parked in the back forty. Bruce said, "Where did you park?" and I pointed at a car and said, "Right there. Isn't that the car?" And it was the right color, so it must be it, right?

We got up to the car, and he said, "Someone hit you."  Oh no!! A crack in the bumper! A broken tail light! "It didn't happen here," he said, "because there is no broken glass."

"Where did it happen?!" I moaned, "In the parking garage on campus?"

"Must have," he said.

"What do I do?!!!" I asked in despair.

"You will have to call the insurance company and tell them you had a hit and run."

I went to the door handle, and put my hand on it, and...it didn't open!

IT WAS NOT OUR CAR!!!

I was never so happy to have misplaced a vehicle!  Hurray! Our car was somewhere else, and it was intact! No broken bumper! No broken tail light! (Also...the actual car we drive is a Honda, not a Hyundai. Details, details.)

Music Library Transition plus more

So, every day, a little bit more of a change in the music library:

In this picture, you can see that the missing strip of carpet is exactly the shape of the wall that has been removed.

They took out part of the carpet in hopes that they could just put in new tiles, instead of filling in that 4 inch (ish) strip.

But things were not square.  The line ranged from no (ish) gap to this thin little gap...

To this much wider gap.

They ended up cutting out about half of each new square of carpet, and then cutting one tailor-made for each empty spot. It was time consuming, but they wanted to make it look good. Well, as good as this carpet, which I don't really love, can look.

Carpet all finished, ceiling to go...

 

In other news, Rosie received a picture of her twin sisters! Wowsers! Thing One is so very tall compared to Thing Two! They are both eleven years old, but I think Thing One could pass for 13-14, and Thing Two anywhere from 9-11. So nice to see them!

MHA Finale

So, the Saturday of MHA, June 3, consisted of going to various sessions. Here are some pictures so you can see what I saw, although you cannot hear what I heard:

My friend Heidi was the commentator/moderator for a session with these guys: Andrew and Nancy's friend Patrick Mason (left), the guy with the beard is a Crow from Tennessee, Ryan Combs who used to work at the HBLL but now at the Church History Library (no jacket), and I can't remember the other guy's name.

Here is Heidi introducing the speakers.

Megan Sandborn Jones, who is a BYU theatre professor, was the commentator for a session on literature which was very interesting.

The speakers in Megan's session included the guy who talked about dime novels, Heidi's s-i-l Sarah who talked about a German writer named May, and the lady from Australia who talked about Mormons in Australian fiction novels.

Sarah speaking.

Heidi and Sarah and some art that Heidi got at the silent auction table. Also Heidi drove to and from the conference so she could take home some chairs she bought on e-bay!

This is Alex Baugh, my student Amanda's dad. He wanted a picture of us together at MHA to send to Amanda. We share a mutual admiration for his daughter!

 After all the sessions were over, since we were too cheap to fork out big bucks for the closing dinner, Janet asked Elizabeth what she would like to do, because it was her birthday! Elizabeth wanted to go to the famous St. Louis arch, so that she would feel like she had been to St. Louis. So that is what we did.  Pictures follow.

From just the wrong angle, the arch looks like just a tall pointy tower.

This is more like it.

Elizabeth and Janet at the base of one of the legs. We could not go up into the tower because they had sold out all the tickets before we got there. I am not convinced that I wanted to go up into it, so I was fine with keeping my feet on the ground.

A closer up shot. (Elizabeth broke her foot while on vacation in Spain a couple of months ago.)

Shot from below the arch.

A selfie of all three of us. I am not great at taking selfies.

Diorama that explains about the building of the arch. It is like the gateway to the west--Lewis and Clark and all that.

Another angle.

Then we found an outdoor restaurant to buy a nice birthday dinner. Janet told me to lean in, and so I leaned. I don't think I really needed to, honestly, but I did follow directions!

And then it was back to the hotel, to bed, and up in the morning, Elizabeth to an early morning flight that would get her back to Utah in time to teach the Relief Society lesson. Janet and I attended the closing MHA devotional which featured a speaker from the Community of Christ. And then I was off to the airport, to spend all my time in one airport or another until pretty much midnight. Janet and our colleague Gerrit spent the day seeing St. Louis sights and had an evening flight home. And we were all done with MHA 2017!

Another MDML Update

While the cat's away, the mice will play...and look how much better things are looking already....courtesy of my coworker Mary who took pictures and sent them to me...

MHA 2017 (Friday)

This is my first time to attend the Mormon History Association conference, which is being held in St. Louis, MO this year.  A group of us from the HBLL submitted a panel proposal, and got accepted. Janet Bradford, Connie Lamb and Elizabeth Smart and me.  It was today at 1:30. We did it and it is over, and it was good. Between 30 and 40 people were there. So, that is awesome!

Here are some pictures from today:

Connie and Janet were in charge of making a display for the Harold B. Lee Library

Here they are, portrait instead of landscape style.

My friend Heidi took a picture of me presenting. And I just remembered that I did not do the same for her! I didn't even think of it until now.

Megan Sandborn Jones (a TMA professor at BYU) took a picture of the four of us: Elizabeth, Connie, me, Janet. She sent it to her husband, and he said, "So, was there a dress code? You had to wear a black skirt with a flower pattern and either a black or white top?" Seriously, we did not plan it!

Then, Janet and I and Connie, with Connie's sister Carolyn, and Karen Griggs who retired from the HBLL a few years ago went to the St. Louis Temple.

I thought I was so clever taking this selfie--and then Connie reminded me that this is the back of the temple, not the front.

I caught Carolyn walking towards the parking lot.

And I caught Connie walking towards the parking lot.

Connie, Carolyn and I went around to the actual front of the temple, and I got this shot.

Connie took a picture of me in front of the temple.

I sort of liked getting the moon and the spire of the temple in the same shot.

Carolyn and Connie in front of the temple. All the way up to the spire.

I miraculously got a pretty got shot as we were driving by on the freeway on our way back to the hotel.

Making progress

In the library's effort to make the Music and Dance Desk more visible by first making it more invisible, we now have another wall removed, but shrouded in white plastic.  Later in the day, plywood went up--but I have no pictures of that. (Pictures are from May 31, 2017.)