Yahoo! Answers XV

I've been collecting a new batch for you. Here are questions I've asked over the past few months, with some selected responses, before the Yahoo! gods deleted them. As always, names have been slightly altered or changed.

Happy quarantine!

Question 1: Why does the direction north keep changing? Walmart is north from my house but my sister says it's east at her house and we just want to meet there to have lunch at the food court our Walmart has a nice Domino's Pizzeria you know the kind where they put the hottt chile shakers on the table because they trust you not to steal them and Darlene keeps going to the wrong Walmart.

What Has Been Your Best Coping Mechanism of Late?

I've been going on very long runs every weekend for about a year. I started these for my "Year of Health" in 2019, and then noticed pretty quickly that they were possibly the thing I looked most forward to each week.

I usually do them on Sunday NOT THAT WE KNOW WHAT BREAKING THE SABBATH IS afternoons. I start from my house and run to downtown Salt Lake City, weaving through some neighborhoods, and then I turn around and come back home. It's about a 12-13 mile run, depending on how many detours I take.

The Sunday afternoon run has honestly been the best thing I have ever done for my anxiety. Since I started doing it last spring, I have been calmer than I can remember being in a long time. I told you recently that my Achilles was hurting me and this stressed me out to no end because the last thing I needed while on lock-down during a pandemic was to lose my ability to go on these weekend runs. Fortunately I got some advice for physical therapy exercises I can do at home and they have been a miracle.

I did not expect these to work. I kind of don't trust anything a doctor ever says to me. I don't know why. Maybe it's because my brain is so incapable of computing science on even the most basic levels that whenever a doctor prescribes me something I feel like they're just attempting to do magic tricks. This, of course, drives my medical student husband crazy.

Good Parents

You all know that I have the cutest dog in all the land, right? Like, yours is cute, too, I'm sure. But mine is like the supermodel of dogs. Much cuter than yours. Much cuter than your children, too. Exponentially cuter than your grandchildren. I'm sorry. It's just true.

Utah's Reality TV Pioneers

I was 15 when Julie Stoffer showed up on The Real World. My family’s access to MTV was only about a year old at this time; my parents had resisted paying for cable despite their children’s pleas for the better part of a decade.

The Real World was first class television. A handful of young adults experiencing real issues in a real place from inside an outrageous mansion and with access to basically unlimited resources. They had jobs. They had conflict. We teens were enamored with the responsibility of it all.

Brownies From Scratch

I have severe writer's block right now. I just finished a new article for The Beehive that will be published this week, so I think I may have drained all of my creative juice through that. Or I used all of it trying to talk Skylar out of using a very large power saw to cut into my kitchen cabinets for some organizational project he's all up on today.

Yes, MY, by the way. It can become "ours" when he starts doing some of the cooking.

I'm being completely unfair with the prior sentence, by the way. I like cooking--I generally find it therapeutic, but especially lately. Skylar doesn't like cooking. So I have insisted on doing all of it, but then whenever it benefits me, I shout at him "I guess you don't appreciate how long I stood over that hot stove for you last night!"

Speaking of hot stoves, last Sunday I made brownies from scratch but I was too lazy to look up a recipe so I just guessed. I recorded an Instagram story to document the experience:

The People of Lagoon

As you know since you are all experts on my life, I have gotten a Lagoon season pass every year since 2013.

Why do I do this? I don't know. It's very confusing. Lagoon is our local theme park and it's like . . . how do I describe this . . . it's like if Walmart started a carnival.

Now, am I better than Walmart or carnivals? No I am not. I would submit I'm not even as good as Walmart or carnivals. One time when Duncan was a puppy and he had just gotten neutered I took a day off of work and went to Walmart in sweats the moment it opened for the day and I pushed Duncan around in a shopping cart trying baby onesies on him so he wouldn't lick his crotch.

I Made A Sweater

A couple months ago I decided to knit a sweater. I had been avoiding this for a while because every time I looked at a sweater pattern it was like "Hello WOULD YOU LIKE TO DO A LOT OF MATHHHH" and that terrified me, so then I'd just make another scarf or hat.

Then I took on The Scarf That Must Not Be Named, and that thing was so complicated to complete that frankly I probably now have what it takes to solve COVID-19 by tomorrow (but I won't, because busy with TV). So I thought I could maybe take on a sweater.

I found a pattern and showed it to Skylar. It has different stitch counts based on obesity levels and when I measured Skylar he was so small that I actually had to manually alter the pattern because it didn't contemplate someone of his size.

Speaking of, I am growing into my chair during social distancing. It's been four weeks and having zero access to a gym in addition to not even walking around an office, things are getting scary here. We've tried to create a fitness center in our basement using some elastic bands Skylar bought on day one of quarantine but so far the only thing they've done is nearly kill us.

Last week I heard a loud crash and then desperate moaning coming from the basement and I rushed down there assuming it was affairs but instead it was just Skylar and a pull-up bar that he had wrapped elastic bands around and then somehow sling-shot into his abdomen. I nearly became a widow that day, which is unfortunate because his life insurance policy sucks and I'm not even sure if I'm listed as the beneficiary [makes a note to check on that].

What are you watching?

We're all binging TV shows and movies right now and that's ok. If there is anyone in your life telling you that is not ok, you should get new people for your life.

I can't imagine what social distancing would be like without streaming. You guys. We would have to read books and talk to each other and stuff.

I've honestly been a little surprised that I haven't been watching really that much more TV in the last few weeks than I was previously consuming. Then yesterday I thought about it and realized it would have been kind of hard to starting watching more than I already was. And that made me a little sad about myself. And empty inside. So I filled that emptiness. WITH MORE TV.

I know y'all are already aware that Meg and I record a podcast called Hive Mind where we talk about what we're watching. Bonus this week, Skylar joined us so we could blab about Survivor. And by "we" I mean "I, while Skylar supportively nodded like a good Stepford wife."

By the way, Meg and Clint Betts are doing these daily live shows from The Beehive, mostly to give Utah updates on COVID-19 stuff. They've been amazing. You can find them at noon on The Beehive's Twitter or Facebook accounts (or watch them after the fact). Sometimes they have me on so I can tell stories, usually about poop or vomit. I was on today. You can find my story below around the 20-minute mark. Sorry my hair looks so great.

Beehive Live - April 7, 2020 https://t.co/HNSbYfSZ6Q

— The Beehive (@TheBeehiveHQ) April 7, 2020

Sweet Tea and Facebook Live

Momma's got a few things for you today.

First, I found the two worst movies of all time. I'm serious. We can stop searching now. These cannot be topped.

They are two Mormon films from the early 80s concerning the "Word of Wisdom" which is the set of guidelines around health practices church members follow (don't drink alcohol, coffee, bleach, etc.). I somehow never saw either of these films growing up and now I'm exactly split on whether I wish I had.

If you've been wanting more movie recaps from me, look no further. I wrote about both of these films for The Beehive. Please check them out.

Second, my grandma ("G-Mac") lives in an independent living center. She moved herself into it a few years ago so she could be around her peers and sort of revitalize her social life.

G-Mac is an extreme extrovert and I'm 100% sure this is exactly where I inherited that gene. Her ideal day is to have everyone she's ever met and liked all in the same room with her together for the full 24 hours, and she would like to repeat that day every day for her entire life. And that's how I feel, too. I ache that I can't see you people right now. This whole social distancing business is honestly my own personal Trial of Job.

Word of Wisdom: Cinematic Masterpieces from the 80s

As a Mormon child of the 80s and 90s, hokey church films were a near constant companion—like a third parent to me. We were shown Johnny Lingo as a reward in Sunday School classes. We were presented with depictions of Biblical stories as a teaching tool in seminary. Last year I wrote a thorough recap of Saturday’s Warrior, a film that spurred controversy and debate in my Utah neighborhood. “I heard the prophet walked out of it because it preaches false doctrine,” a girl told me in my second grade class.

While none of these films were any good, some were worse than others.