2015 Christmas Card

Dear Family and Friends,

Another year has come and gone, and so have your Christmas cards. I am dismayed to announce that only 6.5% of the Hardy Family card that was sent out to relatives was dedicated to me, but 16% of the card was dedicated to my youngest brother and the fact that he needs to let out the hem on his Sunday pants because he is growing taller. Plans to dominate the Christmas card next year include eating plenty of Big Macs and putting on enough weight so the family picture is essentially me with my brothers and sister peeking out from around my enlarged quadruple chins. Stay tuned.

Christmas cards are an interesting concept to me. Hundreds of our closest friends and family dumped 200-some cards into the mail on December 1st all saying the same thing: 2015 was a good year for our family. We did lots of cool things. (Insert a list of cool things done) Merry Christmas! We hope you have a great New Year! This is sometimes accompanied by a family picture in which everyone is forced into wearing an unflattering yet matching sweater. This is great, and I love looking through cards from people I care about.  However, more often than not I finish reading a card wishing the author had included a bit more about their year instead of the traditional message. As I was only allotted one line in the family card, I have taken the liberty of writing a little more here:

2015 was a good year for me. I started teaching 6^th grade, which I assume is similar to motherhood (mediating playground drama, listening to stories that sometimes don’t make sense, etc.) without the tax benefits. Within the same day I was told that my outfit was “on fleek” by one student and asked if I was pregnant by another. I’ve taught them important things like finding percentages but also things like how to manage a ‘thug life’ while also doing homework.

I did lots of cool things. I convinced my dad to set up a Twitter account. (#prouddaughter) I threw up on the floor of the church hall during Sacrament meeting. For three straight months after I graduated I used the “I don’t know, maybe we should ask someone with a BACHELOR’S OF SCIENCE to answer that question” quip whenever anyone asked a question ranging from what temperature to cook a casserole at to what we should do that evening. I took a total of four passport pictures until the lady at the desk said, “Okay, I think your eyes are open enough in this one.” After she had printed the picture she decided my eyes WEREN’T open enough, so we took it a few more times until she printed out a photo that I think is of me if I was actually an American espionage. I tweeted at Barack Obama and also Donald Trump. (Still awaiting their responses, but I am confident they will reply as soon as their busy schedules permit) I sent a text to someone using the wrong there/they’re/their spelling and was so embarrassed I wanted to burn my phone in a furnace. My annual tradition continued and I made a gingerbread house that collapsed within minutes of making it. 

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Above all, take a little time to remember the true reason for celebrating the Christmas season. This past week I had an unexpected visit from two of my favorite neighbors bringing boxes of books to my classroom as a gift from my old Relief Society. My students were so excited and I was so touched that there are so many good-hearted  people in the world. Nothing brings the Spirit of Christ into someone’s life like sweet selfless service. (I’m not really sure, but does shoveling snow count even though usually half the snow I lift up ends on my sister’s head? Comments welcome.)

Merry Christmas!

Dear Moose: a passive aggressive letter to the world's most annoying animal

Dear Moose,

Let me begin by saying I am overwhelmingly impressed with your tenacity. Your willingness to stand up for what you believe in and never give up your ground exceeds any human I have ever associated with. The persistence and nerve you possess is something the greats of this world have only dreamed about.

Let me explain. Last week, I had Fall Break. Unlike my made-up Fall Breaks that I created for myself at BYU where I ditched class to take my razor scooter down the canyon, this was an actual Fall Break from teaching. Being a teacher is similar to being an astronaut. Astronauts work so hard, yet when you imagine them you just think of a guy spinning around with no gravity eating freeze dried ice cream. Teachers work hard, but most people only think of recess and multiplication tables. (Obviously, I am comparing how the most difficult parts of our profession are overlooked. If I was comparing our pay, I would compare a teacher to an astronaut who was mugged and only got to keep their Famous Footwear stamp card.) So naturally, I was pretty excited for a break. The first night, Emmie and I sat down and planned our whole forty eight extra hours of glory. For Friday, we planned to go to Park City and ride the Alpine coaster.

We arrived at Park City on the perfect October afternoon. The sun was shining, the leaves were turning gold, and no 12 year olds had asked for my permission to go to the bathroom in more than a day and a half. We stood in line to buy our tickets for the coaster. After 40 minutes of waiting, we were about to walk up to the window when an employee in a forest green vest started announcing loudly, “Excuse me, but we are having a MOOSE DELAY on the coaster. I repeat, we are having a MOOSE DELAY.” It took me awhile (obviously I thought the employee was saying that there was a mousse delay. I assumed the operation of the coaster was being delayed because each paying customer was taking a short break from coaster riding and instead eating a large bowl of chocolate mousse, hopefully with oreos on top.) but once I finally got over my disappointment, I realized they were talking about you, dear moose.

Guess what? I was pretty thrilled at my chance to meet you! I imagined myself riding down the coaster and patting your muzzle as I whizzed by, throwing you a carrot on my way down. (Do moose like you eat carrots? Maybe I’d simply throw you a bowl of mousse.) My daydreams were quickly thrashed when the employee informed us the coaster would be CLOSED until you moved. We asked the woman at the ticket window if it would still be worth it to buy tickets. She said yes, and we figured you could be a good friend and simply move a few yards.

Emmie and I stood in line, waiting for you to move. At first we merely stood there laughing: who else had been part of a moose delay before? Was this the kind of event that would end up being one of those little known trivia facts on Balderdash in 40 years? Oh moose, you kept us laughing. After 20 minutes, the group of 50 or so people started to get restless. People started checking their watches and looking around at the other attraction lines. 30 minutes. 40 minutes. By then, each person had exclaimed at least once, “It’s a MOOSE! I could move it!” The long line of agitated people then took the next half hour to each walk up to the park employees and ask, “Hey, so have you ever tried scaring the moose away? Why don't you make a loud noise?” and pretending like they were the only ones smart enough to think about this. What a good practical jokester you are, Moose. You didn’t even budge an inch after more than an hour. After the park employees got tired of hearing complaints, they informed us you were getting aggressive. You REFUSED to move. Way to stand your ground. (Sidenote: could really NOBODY move you? I mean, who exactly tried to move you, anyway? Were they using a dog toy or something? I’m no Einstein, but couldn’t we have used a tranquilizer? Or at the very least, a moose leash? Emmie pointed out that if you really are that strong, shouldn’t you be part of our army? Wouldn’t America truly establish world domination if we invested in more moose?)

The next hour you were generous enough to help foster my creativity. I made multiple plans to make you move, which include but are not limited to:

·      Riding down the coaster and try to outrun you if you chased me

·      Bringing a bear from the nearest zoo and have you both fight for the right to be king of the Alpine coaster

·      Make the sacrifice myself and dress up as a bear, luring you away from the track. I only promised to do this if the next day’s headlines in the Park City paper would read, “Local girl becomes Moose Mousse”

Oh, but your kindness did not stop there. Not only did you foster my creativity, but you helped me manage my time. After waiting for an hour and a half, I realized I had better things to do, so I pulled out my phone and went to work on ordering my Halloween costume on  Amazon. There’s nothing like truly enjoying the outdoors by spending 30 minutes on your phone looking for the neatest Pokeball.

After two long hours, Emmie and I decided our stomachs were grumbling much too loud for acceptance from the public, so we left our spot in line and went to dinner. Just as we were exiting the restaurant, you finally moved. Excellent lesson in comedic timing. We were informed it would be another hour wait, so we made the executive decision to go home.  

I never got to ride the coaster that autumn afternoon. I never got to have chocolate mousse. However, we did come up with a way to take over the world, which of course includes an army of you and the rest of the moose the Alpine coaster has to offer. We also established Moose Awareness Day, to be celebrated next year by standing in a line for three hours and then going home. So, all in all, a successful day. For that, I thank you.

In the utmost sincerity,

Rachel

Snuff Boxes and New Experiences

A few years ago, my dad decided he wanted to bike the 20 miles to work instead of driving. When I pointed out that he’d been driving to work since before I was born, he told me, “When I get tired of trying new things, I think I’ll be ready to die.” I’ve taken this to heart. Here’s a list of new things I have tried in the past year:

•          Indian food (2 out of 5 stars because it didn't taste like Italian food)
•         Actually answering my phone when someone calls  (This only lasted for 27 minutes, until someone called me)
•         Being assertive (Sorry to the sales associate at the AT&T store, I didn’t realize that you could be assertive WITHOUT talking at the same volume as a whale yelling into a megaphone) 

Clearly I am dare devil when it comes to trying new things. So when a local chocolate shop was having a chocolate tasting, my friends, Emmie and Maddy, and I decided to go. I signed up not really sure what a chocolate tasting entailed, but assumed there would a pool full of bubbling chocolate with people wearing crowns made out of Kit Kat bars and trained monkeys who wore chocolate aprons and served the finest chocolates from all over the world.   

We arrived and sat down at our table, where each place setting had a plate with nine bite-sized pieces of chocolate on it. Judging from the size of each piece, I calculated that the tasting would either be done in 17 seconds, or this was merely an appetizer. I then wondered if perhaps I had walked into the wrong building, and it was a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Museum featuring the smallest chocolate pieces. I tried to portray these feelings to the man in charge who stood in the front, but he started the class without informing me that yes, the chocolate serving monkeys were just waiting in the back room. Instead, the guy in charge started yelling. I looked around to see if there was a robber in the streets, or perhaps someone had used the incorrect spelling of ‘their’ on a store sign, but eventually realized he was yelling about chocolate because he was obsessed. There he was, standing in the front of the room, spewing off facts about French chocolatiers (Side note: pretty sure ‘chocolatier’ is a fake job. Why would there be accountants in the world if chocolatier was actually a real job?) and cacao, which is different from cocoa. (Every time he said ‘cacao’ it made him sound ultra-sophisticated in the chocolate world, but all I could think about is birds making a ‘caCAW!’ noise, and cows making a ‘caCAO!’ noise.) Spoiler alert: I was not able to ask the chocolate-crazed man why he gets to call it cacao, but I have to call it cocoa like an uncivilized moron. (In reality, this guy was seriously the coolest. He knew tons about chocolate and EATS CHOCOLATE FOR A LIVING.) 

            After giving his background on big fancy cacao words and using them cacao whenever he cacao wanted to, he told us that chocolate tasting is an art. He told us that before we even tasted the chocolate, we needed to rub our finger frantically across the chocolate and then inhale the chocolate before tasting. Super cool and sophisticated and cacao and all that, right? WRONG. This chocolatier had everyone classily rubbing their chocolate and wafting in the aroma, but there I was with chocolate ALL OVER MY HANDS. So with half the piece of chocolate melted all over my hands, I stuck the rest of the piece into my mouth. The king chocolatier guy continued yelling instructions: Soak in the chocolate!!! Become intoxicated by its fumes! Let it simmer on the roof of your mouth!! After tasting the piece of chocolate, we had to write down our own chocolate tasting journeys: what did it look like, smell like, and taste like?  The sophisticated chocolate tasters around me wrote descriptions beautifully telling the plot of their chocolate tasting: A scent of raspberry and lavender wafted into my nostrils as I breathed in the rich, birchwood colored chocolate. The bitter taste of raspberries tingled my taste buds as I let the chocolate simmer on my tongue, with a strong aftertaste of generosity. After much thought and deliberation, I wrote down exactly what I thought it tasted like.

            

      Each piece of chocolate went exactly like that. Rub it, smell it, taste it. I learned that not all chocolates taste the same. I made sure to note on my card that the Chocolate Naïve Porcini, which was made with mushrooms, tasted exactly like the mushroom spaghetti sauce I used the night before, and Friis Holm Rugoso tasted exactly like eating a park bench.  Someone in the class asked the man how he felt about Hershey’s, to which he informed us that Hershey’s was offensive to him. He then got on his Hershey’s soap box, where every other word was “FRAUD!!” or “Offensive!” (Side note: this is when I began to question whether this guy thought that fraud meant ‘tasty’ or ‘delicious’. After all, the chocolate tasting was really getting me in the mood for a Kit Kat bar.) We did our special art of chocolate tasting on a Hershey’s bar, and a group discussion followed where everyone hated on American chocolate and how disgusting it is. (I stayed at my own American chocolate tasting table and ate Reeses and reread the Declaration of Independence.)

           In just over an hour, all 9 beautiful pieces of chocolate were taken from my plate, and I was frantically licking the rubbed chocolate off my fingers, while the rest of the sophisticated chocolate tasters were listening attentively to more cacao facts. I looked up in time for the chocolatier to ask, “Who’s ready for ROUND TWO?!” FINALLY. TIME FOR THE CHOCOLATE SERVING MONKEYS. I sighed happily as I looked around the store for a good chocolate bar to dip into the chocolate pool, but the only thing that could be found was balsamic vinegar. “It’s time for the balsamic vinegar tasting,” the chocolatier yelled. (So now is he technically a balsamic vinegartier? Whatever.)

Balsamic vinegar is great. It’s great on my roommate’s salads. It’s great on my sister’s pizzas. It’s great on Barack Obama’s chicken dinners. It is NOT great on any food that I eat. Similar to bananas, balsamic vinegar is on my “only eat if you are starving in the middle of nowhere” list. But since I was there, I decided I might as well become a balsamic vinegartier. I waited patiently as he brought it around to each person. Maddy said it would be perfect on bread, but as soon as the guy reached our table there was no bread in his hands. “Hold out your snuff box, please,” he said. He explained that your “snuff box” is the side of your hand that dips down to the thumb. (I use the parentheses around “snuff box” because if you put it into Google, the first thing that comes up is NOT a part of your hand, but a tv show. He might as well have told me to pull out my "Parks and Recreation.") Literally he was just pouring this vinegar STRAIGHT INTO OUR HANDS. He used lots of phrases like, “I do this all the time” and “When I was doing this balsamic tasting in Europe…..” to make things sound legit, but inside I bet he was laughing at us as he poured vinegar onto our “snuff boxes” and we had to lick it off like cats. I vowed then and there that when I grow up and have a famous bakery, I will make people taste my delicious treats off their elbows. If he can pull off this “snuff box” charade, surely I could do that. 

Once the entire tasting event was over (not before a few more “FRAUD!!” cries and use of the word ‘cacao’, of course) Maddy, Emmie, and I classily departed the chic establishment and headed off to our favorite upscale eatery: McDonald’s. Truly the art of food tasting was not wasted on neither me, or the salty French fries. I placed a fry on my snuff box, inhaled the aromas of the salt, greasy food, and the sweaty high school football players sitting around us, and took a mental note of my food journey. Truly this new experience will take me for many wild rides to come. (And accidentally getting salt up my nose, but whatever.)       

This is Stupid: A Family Vacation

If for some reason I decided to leave my lucrative job as a teacher, I would like to be a golf caddy. Not the kind of caddy that carries around golf clubs and gives advice on shots, but the kind of golf caddy that drives around a golf cart and is really rich. If that job doesn’t pan out for me, I have an entire list of jobs I would love to have, ranging from movie critic to construction worker. (Not the kind of construction worker that actually does construction, but the kind of construction worker that gets to put up all the ‘Detour’ signs and sends everybody in the wrong direction) On this job list is also a world-famous family counselor. I would get rich by telling each family one simple secret: go on vacation. Every summer my family and I cram into our car and drive to our heart’s content, and it is what I live for. When I think about why I love vacation so much, it’s not simply because of the warm sand and salty water. Those are great moments, but the best parts of vacation are the crazy moments: the car breaks down or one family member has FINALLY HAD IT with everyone else in the car. Rarely does my family laugh together when reminiscing of beautiful beaches, but we certainly laugh when we talk about how things didn’t go perfectly.

When I was 14, my family took a trip to Glacier. Although we had enough seats for everyone in one car, we drove in two so we could fit all our bags. On the drive, one of the cars broke down. Luckily we were able to get it to the nearest city, Lima, which has the population of 8.473 million people. What a relief, right? WRONG. The city of Lima in Peru has millions of people. The city of Lima in Montana is 226 people. TWO HUNDRED AND TWENTY SIX. If you were driving on the freeway and sneezed YOU WOULD NOT EVEN SEE THE TOWN. So there we were, at a “car mechanics” in Lima, Montana. (Quotations used for the obvious reason that although they claimed to be a car shop, they did not have complimentary popcorn in their lobby like JiffyLube. Also, they did not have a lobby.) We were told the part needed for the car wouldn’t come for a few days, so we decided to consolidate our belongings, leave most of our things in Lima, and leave in our first car. This meant the entire family of 8 unpacking their bags on the dirt road and saying, “I can wear one shirt for the entire vacation, right?” or “I’d rather have my matchbox car collection than my toothpaste, so I’m leaving the toothpaste in Lima.”

The rest of vacation went off without a hitch. (wrong) I enjoyed everything we did. (wrong) I never said anything mean. (wrong) The next week and a half was spent with us crammed in the car seeing the beautiful sights of Glacier National Park. We would drive for a few hours, get out and hike, get back in the stuffy car and drive for a bit, hike, get back in the stuffy car, hike, etc. Eventually I got pretty tired of my brother’s feet stretching out into my face and the hikes my dad insisted were “almost done.” I finally snapped. Fortunately the only people that witnessed my meltdown were 50 trillion tourists and my mother who managed to film me snarling, “This is STUPID.” Luckily the video clip is still alive and well and is played on repeat when I visit home.

After that, we’ve all had our “this is stupid” moments. The time that we drove all the way out to the Hershey’s Chocolate Factory while we were in California, only to find out that we couldn’t even go into the factory was certainly a “this is stupid” moment. The time my dad made us go to Lewis and Clark’s Fort Clatsop and role play as Lewis, Clark, and Sacagawea was also a “this is stupid” moment. (For the record, I did not participate and also refuse to call it anything besides ‘Fort Ketchup.’) The family certainly had a “this is stupid” moment when we drove to Washington to hike, only to have it rain.

Our most recent trip was no different. On our second day we were driving through Oregon when the gas light turned on. My dad assured us that we would have plenty of gas until the next stop, but the next stop seemed to be getting further and further away. Finally we found a sign pointing us to a gas station, so we turned up that road. The road was getting steeper and steeper. There were no homes, no businesses, and my family and I were practically SCALING MOUNT EVEREST IN OUR HONDA. After informing my family that I did not think there was a gas station on the moon, which is where we were surely headed, we rolled up to a lonely looking “gas station.” (Gas station is in quotations because my dad said, “Well, we’re here” and I looked out and just saw a metal box with a nozzle. Apparently Lewis and Clark built this gas station in the middle of nowhere before logic was invented. I assume the gas was a lot more expensive since I’m guessing they had to have Air Force One deliver gasoline to the top of this peak.)

The rest of the trip went swimmingly. We got sunburns that turned into blisters. We attempted to have “Kite Wars” on the beach. (This is when you fly a kite next someone and try to knock their kite to the ground. After we accidentally severed the strings on one of the kites my twelve-year-old brother was named champion and the game was retired.) We visited the Tillamook Cheese Factory where my brothers told lots of “cutting the cheese” jokes and whenever I took a picture I hollered “Say CHEESE!!” and then forced everyone to laugh at my pun. I also learned that there’s a profession called “the Cheddar Master” who apparently bosses everyone around at the cheese factory, so I added it to my list of possible job options. My younger brother won an honorary award because he was able to snag the most cheese cubes in cheese sampling line. (Two more trips to the sampling line were made after an attempt to beat him, but came up short. My mother informed me that upstanding citizens do NOT go back through the cheese sampling line more than once, but I deftly escaped the wrath of the Cheddar Master.)

At the end of the trip, my dad found a sand dollar on the beach and we labeled it with our name for the next family to find. My youngest brother came up with the quote for it, so we look like the kind of put-together family that has family reunion mottos and matching shirts instead of the kind of family that runs out of gas and goes through the cheese line an unspeakable amount of times. Apparently “This is stupid” isn’t a good enough family vacation motto, but I disagree. As a family we’ve seen great cities and rolling fields and endless oceans, but it’s truly the “this is stupid” moments that make us laugh (eventually) and bring us closer together. I’m glad when things go according to plan, but when things don’t, I’m more than happy to announce, “This is stupid!”

The Perfect Heist

     When my family moved states this past year, we discussed the idea of a clean slate. No one in our new neighborhood would know about the time when my family was convinced to do a musical number in church, which ended up being my dad singing a solo and the rest of us making impeccable eye contact with the 'Exit' sign. No one would know about our beloved family car, which was taken to the junk yard a year before. (It was only taken after I read the eulogy, obviously.) No one there would know about the time I walked into a tree and scratched up my face right before picture day, and no one would know me as the 14 year old who decided it would be fashionable to wear a different solid colored polo paired with dangly penguin earrings each day to school. We could be anyone we wanted. My little brother could show up to school, the newest student in the class, and introduce himself with an Australian accent claiming to be the world champion in tetherball. My sister could pretend to be a retired world chef, and my parents could claim to be working for the CIA. Unfortunately I stayed at college instead of making the move with the fam, but I still brainstormed ideas of my new identity as a world renowned cellist who never wears polo shirts or penguin earrings.

The whole idea about pretending to be someone you’re not is fascinating to me. When I was in high school, I was sitting in class when the woman over the intercom called for Rachel Hardy to please come to the principal’s office. Did I do something bad? Was this for something good? Maybe he just wanted to congratulate me on my flawless attendance. Doubtful, as my attendance record was actually sub-par. Maybe he found out I cut in line at the cafeteria three weeks ago? Had he finally gotten sick of my classy yet casual polo selection? I hurried to the office in my periwinkle polo, which was reserved for Thursdays. As I was walked into the office, I realized what had happened. There stood one of my teachers, Mrs. Rachel Hardy. This was the first of many miscommunications that occurred as I attended a school with a teacher who had the same name as me. The next three years in high school included the lunch ladies thinking I didn’t exist and putting all of my lunch money into my teacher’s account and me receiving countless emails regarding creating new curriculum for AP classes.

That’s not the only problem I’ve had where my identity has been called into question. A few months ago, I received an email from my brother. It read, “Thank you Rachel!! You are so kind!” I read it over a few times, trying to remember what exactly he was thanking me for. I clicked on the previous messages, and read the one that had been sent from me.

     I read the words over and over again. Sent from Rachel Hardy. When did I send that? Did I send that? How could have I sent that? Was I losing my mind? Clearly it said it was sent from me, but when in my life did I ever give up my dream of vacationing in Hawaii? Was I on one of those pranking TV shows? Did average, non-celebrities get to be on those shows anyway? Was I actually a celebrity and just forgot?! WAS I ACTUALLY SUPER RICH AND FAMOUS AND THE PEOPLE THAT MADE FUN OF MY POLOS WERE ACTUALLY MY HATERS?! Was Ashton Kutcher going to jump out of my pantry exclaiming that “You’ve been PUNK’D!!!”?!  I was disappointed to find out I am still not rich enough to build a moat equipped with alligators and drawbridge around my apartment, but impressed to learn my brother is smart enough about coding that he could figure out how to make it look like I sent that email from my account.

     When I went on a cruise for the first time this summer, I immediately recognized the scenery. Upon seeing the big casinos, the flashy paintings on the wall, and the chandelier-lit dining rooms, I knew that this was exactly the type of scene that heists take place in the movies. The bad guys come up with a clever yet dangerous plan to steal all the money, their plan goes off without a hitch, and they’re drinking champagne as the end credits roll. These are my favorite types of movies, so as soon as we boarded the ship I informed my friends Emmie and Dan that we would certainly be pulling off a heist during our stay, minus the alcohol. They suggested we go the ‘steal all the money from the slot machines’ route, but I decided that was much too cliché. I spent the next four days brainstorming different ideas for the perfect heist. Ideas included but were not limited to stealing all the tiny lights that lit up the stairways (because buying Christmas lights every year is the worst thing in the world), stealing all the towels from the ship (not just a couple, because that is the most boring heist ever. Also, I could give out extra towels to the poor. I would be like the Robin Hood of Bed, Bath, and Beyond), and taking every fifth tile out of the flooring so that I could tile my own house someday. All my suggestions were nixed because they were “lame”. (I put ‘lame’ in quotes because that is what Dan thought about them, but I expect a call from him this Christmas season when he has to go to the store once again for holiday lights.) Aside from us not agreeing on a great heist idea, the other major flaw in our plans is that we aren’t criminals, nor do we want to be. As much as I love those crime movies, the only thing I wanted to take from that ship was ice cream, which I actually paid for. There I was, pretending to be a criminal when I really am the girl who, upon receiving her first speeding ticket, started babbling, “Wait!! But I really am an upstanding citizen!! I vote! I never use the carpool lane when I’m driving by myself! I always made sure to rewind VHS’s before I returned them to the library!!” It is clear the criminal life is not cut out for me.     

     So as much as I wanted to change my identity when my parents moved, I decided to simply stick with being me. The world renowned cellist version of me may have a moat around her mansion, but I bet she is pretty boring. The other day I was checking my email when one came in with the title ‘Serve better within minutes.’

     Yes, my youngest brother thought it would be a great idea to sign me up for a weekly newsletter about ping pong under the alias of Bob the Builder. Every week since 2011 I have been receiving ‘Great tips to improve your footwork’ and ‘Bob, it’s time to perfect your topspin’. So really, I enjoy being Rachel Hardy. But sometimes, I am Bob the Builder.

     Can I do that?

     Yes, I can.  

Setting Sail (and vomiting in the ocean)

In January, with our college graduations in sight, I decided with my friends Emmie and Dan that a celebration was in order, so we booked a cruise to Mexico. This would be my first time on a cruise and out of the country, so I spent the next five months giddy with excitement, getting a passport, booking flights, practicing my Spanish (‘huevos verdes con jamón’ is always my go-to phrase. It means ‘green eggs and ham’ and is helpful in almost any setting.) and googling the weather for Ensenada. The trip did not disappoint.

 

Ty Burrell insulted me and I was thrilled: As Emmie and I boarded our flight out of Salt Lake, she stopped three rows into the place and hissed to me, “Rachel. Phil Dunphy is on this plane. TY BURRELL IS ON THIS PLANE.” Ty Burrell is the main character, Phil Dunphy, in one of my favorite sitcoms, Modern Family. I looked to the place she was pointing, where a bearded man sat. He was wearing headphones and his face was in a newspaper. Emmie had made eye contact with him, but as soon as he realized she recognized him he suddenly became very engrossed in the banana bread recipe in the Deseret News. There I was, standing inches away from a COMEDIC GENIUS. We waited as another 25 or so people pushed past us until there was a break in the flow, and then I tapped on his shoulder and asked him if he would please take his picture with us. As he started to talk to us, we immediately recognized his deep rumbly voice and I wanted to shake his shoulders and say, “You sound exactly like Ty Burrell! You ARE Ty Burrell.” But instead we just took our picture with him and I told him it was the best day of my life, to which he responded, “You must have a pretty boring life then.” And then we all laughed, and I wanted to say, “You should be a comedian! Oh wait!! Hahahaha!” but really all I could focus on was how excited I was that Ty thought that my life was boring. After the other fliers and the flight attendants were sufficiently angry, we thanked him for the picture and he wished us a good flight. The next two hours to Los Angeles were spent watching Ty from a few rows back and saying things like, “Ty Burrell just adjusted his glasses. I adjust my glasses!” and also trying to convince the woman next to us that we had actually just graduated college instead of the 5^th grade.

We explored Catalina Island: In the morning we zip lined through Catalina Island, and I decided my new career choice is tour guide, because they get to say whatever they want. Our tour guide would go on and on about squirrels roaming around that were the size of bears, only at the end to say “Just kidding! Those actually don’t exist.” Half the group had already stopped listening to the guide and were pushing their faces to the window in order to find the monster the guide had described, while parents were frantically looking in their bags for squirrel spray. We had lunch and then rented beach cruisers to ride around the island. We decided to bike to the botanical gardens at the top of the hills, which I immediately regretted because it WAS on the top of a hill. At the end of our journey was not actually a gorgeous garden, but a boring stone gate that said there were no bikes allowed. Nonetheless, biking was my favorite part of the trip.

I threw up in the Pacific Ocean: Emmie, Dan, and I decided we would go kayaking when we got to Ensenada, Mexico. Emmie and I laughed but were also terrified at the thought of tipping over our tandem kayak or getting it stuck in the middle of nowhere. Dan was paired up with random kid from the cruise, who I tried to congratulate, telling him that Dan was an expert kayaker. The 13 year old just raised an eyebrow and told me, “I kayak all the time.” Apparently he was not impressed that I guided Emmie and me into a patch of kelp. The further and further we kayaked into the ocean, the more entranced I was. The sea looked just like liquid glass, moving our tiny kayak up and down. Emmie said she felt like Pocahontas, and I felt like an Olympian, rowing away with 15 other kayaks through the waves. The further we went into the ocean, the more our kayak swayed. Was the dizziness I was feeling the same rush that an Olympian feels when they’re about to win the gold medal? Was the faintness in my head the same feeling Pocahontas felt when she kayaked just around the riverbend? All of a sudden my head was stretched out of the kayak, and I was losing my lunch. Little did the sea lions that we passed know that instead of swimming through ocean foam, they were actually wading through the croissant I had on the ship. The next 45 minutes of the adventure included me laying on the kayak and Emmie kayaking me ACROSS THE PACIFIC OCEAN. She didn’t even complain or attempt to feed me to the sharks once. Give that girl the Nobel Prize, Oprah.

My monopoly skills came in handy: When my family plays board games, we don’t mess around. A family favorite is Monopoly, which usually takes a good five hours to finish if we’re lucky. I can’t count the amount of hours I have spent relentlessly trying to trade Park Place to the owner of Boardwalk in exchange for the Railroads, St. Charles Place, and a hefty sum of cash. I thought these skills were useless beyond Monopoly. However, after kayaking we found a place to eat some tacos and then looked around at the shops. As I looked into one of the shops, I told the man there I was looking for a bag for my sister. He held up one but I told him that was too much for me to spend, and started to leave. He called after me, lowering the price. I returned to the shop and for the next few minutes I was unsure whether I was trying to secure the pink monopoly or a bag, but I left pleased with my bargaining skills.

I found the most valuable part of the cruise ship: When we were not out exploring the cities, our time was spent on the ship. I lost to Dan playing shuffle board and then lost to both of them playing mini golf, but I still felt like a real winner because there was an ice cream machine on the cruise and no adults to tell me I shouldn’t go back for my 97^th serving.

It is suspected that President Obama tried to welcome me back: On Thursday I got through customs, got off the cruise ship and was back on American soil. We were in the Los Angeles airport, ready to take-off, when the pilot was told we needed to stay on the ground for a bit. Apparently President Obama was flying into LAX. I listened as people sighed unhappily, realizing they would miss their connecting flights. I could hardly hear them and I pressed my face to the little airplane window, searching for Air Force One. President Obama was flying into the Los Angeles airport. And there I was, sitting on the runway in the Los Angeles airport. OBVIOUSLY THIS WAS NOT A COINCIDENCE. BARACK OBAMA WAS COMING TO WELCOME ME BACK TO AMERICA. But minutes later the pilot was on the intercom again, announcing we could take off. Amid the cheers from the passengers my shriek of “But the president!! He probably saw my tweets I sent him!!” was hardly heard. It is still unknown if when President Obama took the first step off his plane he heard me calling down ideas about education reform.

Although I was sad to return to normal life, I am slowly coping by eating large amounts of ice cream and correcting people on their Spanish. (Do I speak Spanish? Of course not. But I usually follow up my correction with “I was just in Mexico, so I would know.”) Adiós amigos!