On Socks and Hot Chocolate.

We had our first snow here in Provo this week. And I'd like to tell you of the joy my socks give me.

Last Saturday, in anticipation for the snow, Shannon and I went shoe shopping... I got winter boots, sneakers, and two pairs of church shoes that seemed like they'd survive snow and ice. We were almost going to go to the checkout line when...

"Oh no! All these shoes are black! I need black socks, then!" So Shannon and I went to get some socks. I wanted some nice, warm socks that make my feet happy in the deep of winter. However... it seems it is not common practice to make women's socks practical. Just cute. Who needs warm, cozy socks when you can have cute ones? Psh. It seems to be true of all clothing actually... women's clothing is lacking in the practical department, whereas men's clothing is pretty much just that. Practical, and little else. Where else do you find adorable little jackets that LOOK like they've got pockets, but upon inspection, you find that in fact, there are no pockets. The jacket was just made to look that way in the name of fashion.

You can even see this trend in WHERE you find socks. Women's socks are next to the hats and purses and belts and scarves. Women's socks are accessories. However, do you know where most department stores place mansocks? Next to the underwear. You see, socks are not accessories for men. They are a necessity. Why this difference? I don't know. And I don't understand it. I'm a girl. I get cold feet. Why can't I have thick, practical socks? Socks are not an accessory, ladies. Socks are a necessity, regardless of your gender. Especially if the snow is coming.

So... it is for this reason that Shannon and I made our way to find the mens' socks. Although I have rather small feet for a girl of my height, I've found that if I find the smallest mansocks I can, they are only slightly too big. And I can SO deal with only slightly too big! I found a pack of thick, black socks, and happily threw them in the cart. We got a couple of strange and uneasy looks from the men we ran into whilst gallavanting through the mansock section of Target... after all, we were awfully close to the men's underwear section.

I have always imagined what it will be like when I have free access to some guy's socks. I can just see it now. Newly married, my husband starts noticing that his sock supply has strangely been disappearing twice as fast as it did before he was married. And he will think that this is odd, and perhaps he is just imagining things. But then, one day, he'll look down at his wife's feet -- my feet -- and suddenly he will exclaim something along these lines... "THOSE ARE MY SOCKS!" And I will cackle, affirming his suspicions, and then refuse to give them back. I figure that if I warn him before I marry him that I will be stealing his socks -- and he still marries me -- I will be able to say that he knew before we got married that I would be stealing his socks. And it's his own darn fault if he didn't believe me when I told him so.

And it really is a very good thing that the BYU Honor Code forbids me from going into guys' bedrooms. Otherwise all my guyfriends last year would have noticed a slow and steady depletion of their sock supply during the winter months. I mean, what good is a little brother, if you can't steal his socks? Ah well. Clifton's feet were far bigger than mine anyway. I imagine that I could have fit two of my feet into a single one of his socks.

Anyway, besides socks, another necessity for winter survival is this wonderful thing called hot chocolate. I have a collection. Or, rather I did. Last week I had thirteen or fourteen different flavors. Off the top of my head, these are the ones I remember: milk chocolate, milk chocolate marshmallow, Belgian dark chocolate, mint chocolate truffle, mint chocolate marshmallow, chocolate cinnamon, Italian amaretto, French vanilla, dulce de leche, chocolate raspberry, orange creme, candycane, and roasted hazelnut. 'Twas amazing. The entire top shelf of my pantry is devoted to my hot chocolate collection.

Last Sunday night, when I walked into my apartment having just come home from work, I was met with a few of the following comments: "Jenna! I'm SO sorry!" "Hi... how much do you love us?" and "Uh... we have some bad news for you..."

I inspected their guilty faces plastered with guilty smiles and I knew.

"What happened to the chocolate?"

That was met with an uneasy (or hysterical, depending on the roommate in question) laugh. "Darn, you're good," commented Ron, my roommate Aubrey's boyfriend. I rushed over to the cupboards and looked up at my precious stash of hot chocolate should have been. I had left thirteen varieties. I saw a measly five where those thirteen used to be. When I opened the canisters, I found that most of the powder in the remaining cans was gone.

"Uhh... well, we were in charge of Linger Longer, and we didn't have anything else to feed the masses," commented one of my roomies. I understood. After ward prayer, the entire ward comes over to an apartment... which is supposed to provide some sort of treat for everyone. My roommates told the tale of the hot chocolate brigade. They had brought out the collection, and had lots of hot water ready. And the mugs? We only had about twenty or so, so they had a mugwashing team ready. And they'd crank out clean mugs and hot water, and then the ward members would mix their own pick of hot chocolate flavor from my collection. And they described to me how happy it made everyone. I didn't doubt it. It was so cold outside. My roommates described how popular our little 366 Red Brick apartment was -- people were packed like sardines in our teeny little kitchen and packed like packing peanuts in the living room. [I heard from outside sources how happy everyone was, so I think it wasn't just my roommates exaggerating to save themselves.]

It simultaneously made so happy and so sad.

So happy... because my hot choclate collection had served its purpose. It brought joy to people. That's what I wanted it for. I mean, people would come over, and I'd glowingly show them all the hot chocolate. And then tell them that they could have some whenever they wanted. No one ever took me up on that promise, except for tonight. When I wasn't there. Which was why I was so sad. I had been at work. I didn't get to see anyone smile. I didn't get to hear anyone's glee. I didn't get to see any cold people be warmed from something I gave. And because I had work every Sunday night, and I was so busy during the week, no one really knew who Jenna Griffin was. Nobody knew it was my collection, no one knew that I was the hero of the night. And I felt as invisible as ever.

My roommates have promised to replace all the hot chocolate that they gave away. So, I will soon have another quite formidable hot choclate collection. I suppose that once it is completely replenished, then I can have another hot choclate party... and I suppose that time I will be there, and I can see all the happy people.

Pizza Guy Serenade.

Apologies, apologies, apologies! It has been far too long since I sent out an email to y'all. Life has been pretty good. Busy, but good. Like… extremely busy. And an email is long overdue. Sorry!

I had a date two Fridays ago… but don't get too excited, I hadn't met him beforehand. See, being so busy and all, I haven't really had the opportunity to be noticed much by the guys in my ward. After mentioning this to Shannon, she decided to organize a group date, and she proceeded to set me up with her friend Carl. I had absolutely no objection to this, seeing as I hadn't been on a date for four months.

So, Friday night comes, and Shannon has pumpkins! And she made pumpkin dip, too, based on a recipe Rachel's mom had given us. Carl called to say he would be late, but Shannon didn't mind too much. See, Shannon had been having difficulty finding herself a date. No, it's not that she didn't asked anyone, but rather… every guy she's asked has been busy. She finally asked a guy in our ward named Jacob whom she'd been hoping to not have to ask (he likes her, she doesn't like him back, and she would prefer not to lead him on). After that had been worked out, Carl showed up, and the four of us sat in our living room for a moment until Jacob came. Then Shannon announced, "Okay! Let's go! Service date at the Wilk!"

We journeyed up the hill that we all live at the bottom of. Shannon and Jacob talked, and Carl and I talked. Carl mentioned that this is his first semester at BYU and that he just got off his mission three months ago.

"Where'd you serve?" I asked.

"Albania," came the answer.

I blinked. … … "Oh," I said. "I know someone who served there."

He looked up in surprise. "You do? Who?"

"Michael Smith?"

"Oh! I know him!" Carl exclaimed.

Oh dear. Remember Michael Smith? He's the one who I'm pretty darned certain liked me last spring term. You know. The one that visited me every day, threw a surprise birthday party for me, tried to con me into holding his hand, and graced me with a piggyback serenade? The smiley, manipulative one. Remember him? Yes. Him. He also served in Albania, and when he got back he wrote the new Albanian grammar book that the missionaries now use. "Really?" I said.

"Well, not really, I know who he is, and I did a few splits with him, but that's about it."

Phew. Which means I won't have to deal with any Michael Smith stories. Good.

We got to the Wilk, where we proceeded to put to cut out the pieces for school bags. Once Carl and I got tired of cutting fabric, we moved to the coloring tables. We got to color alphabet books for kids. Much more exciting. I freaking love coloring. I found out some more random trivia about my date… he is the fifth of thirteen children, went to Mesa High, and is a mechanical engineering major.

At one point, Shannon's date bit me (Me: "JACOB!" Jacob: "What? It was Shannon!" Me: "SHANNON! JACOB BIT ME!" Shannon: "JACOB!"). Scary… I mean, in past times when a guy starts to stare at me, I always get a little scared and hear myself thinking, "He looks like he's going eat me or something. Run!" Then I'll reassure myself that that's ridiculous… but you know, now I'm not so sure. Jacob scares me now, more than ever. A hint for the guys: don't bite your date or any of the other girls in the date group. Bad idea. We don't like it.

After we got tired of coloring, we headed back to our place. We gathered our pumpkins, newspapers, knives, markers, graham crackers, and pumpkin dip, and headed over to the 4-plex, where our friend Kelsey lives. Now there were four couples. Kelsey and her boyfriend as well as a married couple (that Shannon, Carl, and Kelsey knew) made our date group a party of eight. There were four pumpkins, so one pumpkin per couple.

Carl and I got our pumpkin and immediately began plotting its fate. He grabbed a newspaper and started doodling design ideas. He wasn't very good at it and gave up pretty quickly, handing the marker to me. "Draw something," he urged.

I shrugged, and started to draw pumpkin-type faces with quick strokes. I was unhappy with most of them, so as soon as I finished one face, I moved to another idea. "Wow," I heard. I continued to draw, waiting for him to say he liked one. "Whoa! Stop! That one looks like a bunny!" I looked down at one face I had just drawn. Its eyebrows did look a little like rabbit ears I suppose.

"Yeah," I said. "What about it?"

"Can you draw a bunny?" he asked.

"Uh," I said. I drew a silhouette of one. I hated it. So I kept trying to draw a better one, and I thought I was improving, but Carl kept pointing at the original one I had drawn and saying he liked it. Although it was definitely not my favorite sketch of the many I had drawn on the newspaper, he admired it with such awe that I couldn't refuse. He also requested that we make it a killer zombie bunny. So I added an arrow through his head, and let it hold a scythe.

So Carl gave me the pumpkin and watched expectantly. "Uh… you wanna draw it?" I asked. He shook his head and answered that he couldn't. I shrugged and duplicated the bunny on the pumpkin. He just kind of watched, which made me a little uneasy. He was still watching intently after I had finished, so I then picked up the knife and started to carve it. I had carved out about half of it when I offered the pumpkin to him again. "You wanna carve the rest?"

He shook his head. "No… You're doing a good job." I sighed and finished the carving. This happens every time I end up showing that I can draw while on a date… the guy stops drawing and just watches me draw. A little frustrating, because I like watching another person draw just as much as anybody else. I don't really care if they don't think they're good at it or not. I mean, I don't think I'm very good at in the first place.

Well, after the pumpkins were carved, Carl kind of shuffled his feet and said quietly. "Uhhh… do you wanna go on a walk?"

I blinked. "Sure?"

"It's just that I need to, um, make sure my research paper was received, and I need to go home and do that on my computer and uh… yeah…" He looked very, very embarrassed.

Shrugging, I repeated my previous answer. "Sure, let's go." We walked over to his place, and he dashed to his room. I made myself at home on the couch. 'Twas a comfy couch, really.

When he was done, we walked back to Kelsey's place, Carl apologizing all the while. I'm sorry the system was down earlier, I'm sorry, you must think I'm a loser, I'm sorry, I feel stupid for having to do homework on a date, etc. I dismissed the situation as trivial more than once, but he kept apologizing. Whatever.

When we got back, we had caramel apples, and took pictures. Carl held a knife at my throat for one of them to be funny buuuut... It was scary. Very scary. Another hint for the guys: holding a knife to your date's throat is also not a good idea.

After the pictures we sat in the living room and talked for a while. Carl and I were pretty much done contributing to the conversation about an hour into it, after which everyone else talked and we just listened. When the conversation finally died down, we went home. And I got a hug. (Yay!) And that was the end of that night.

Well, the next morning was Saturday, and we had cleaning checks. The six of us spent hours beautifying our little apartment. By the time we were done, the inspectors came by and peeked around, and passed us. Oh, whatever. We all collapsed on the sofa. And then...

"Pizza!" someone said.

I gasped, and three of us (myself included) shouted, "TIMMY!"

Hm. This needs a bit of explanation. A month or so ago, we were tired and order an extra-large pizza with every single meat topping available. Plus pineapple. When we tasted our heavy-toppinged pizza, we loved and decided that such a delightful creation was worthy of a name. So, we named it Timmy.

I immediately pulled out my laptop and my wallet. My dad and I share a credit card, which I am only allowed to use in times of pizza emergency. No, I can't get candy or clothes or anything else with this card. Just pizza. And this was definitely a time of pizza emergency... six, tired hungry girls with no energy left to fix up a meal? This calls for Timmy! Times two!

I don't know if any of you have ever ordered pizza online... but it's pretty fun. It's a lot easier to mega-customize your pizza without confusing the heck out of the person on the other end, and they even have a space to fill in special instructions for the delivery guy. Then once you order, you get to moniter the progress of your pizza... it tells when your pizza is being assembled, and by who; when your pizza has been put in the oven, and who put it there; when they boxed your pizza, and who did it; when your pizza is on its way and who is bringing it to you.

It is, in short, amazing.

We ordered two Timmys: one with a thin, foldable crust, and the other with a thick, deep dish crust. Mmmm. And of course, as has become tradition, special instructions were along the lines of, "Serenade us, please!"

And the wait began. We watched the computer screen in suspense as it notified us of the adventures our Timmys were having. Finally...

"GUYS! TIMMY IS COMING! AND OUR PIZZA DELIVERY EXPERT'S NAME IS DANIEL!"

We all scrambled around the house for all the extra change we could find. Daniel is a man's name. This is promising for the prospect of a serenade... last time our delivery expert was a girl. And she did not even mention our request for a serenade. She just kind of sniffed disdainfully at our choice in pizza. But Daniel? Not a familiar name. This is promising! We separated our pile of random coins and dollar bills into regular tip and serenade tip. You can't blame us for getting our hopes up. Once the tip was assembled, we all watched out the window in eager anticipation.

Finally... a Domino's car parked in front of our house.

"Eee! Pizza car!"

"I can't see, is he good looking?"

"I can't tell from here! Can you see him? Does he look like the sort of guy that would sing?"

"I don't know, I don't know, I think he's cute though, but the window is too dark!"

We clamored around, unable to wait. Finally, the pizza delivery expert Daniel got out of the car with Timmys in hand. And walked up our sidewalk trying to surpress a grin.

"Guys, I think he's going to sing! He can hardly contain himself!"

"Eeeeeeeeeee!!!"

We opened the door.

"Uh hi," said Daniel. "Are there any guys here?"

"... No," we replied.

"DANG IT!" he exclaimed, handing us our precious Timmys. "I was hoping for some back up." He moved into serenade position. "Okay, so I thought of the most romantic song I know..."

And with that, he burst into song.

LOUD song. Head tilted back and guitar stance and everything.

"Just a small town girl... living in a LONELY WORLD..." And with that he continued. And he was into it. Three minutes, he goes into a guitar solo... after which he confesses that he doesn't know the rest. We don't care. The six of us burst into applause, and say, "Hold on, we need to get you a bigger tip!" We scrounge around the house for even more tip than we had originally planned... We ended up handing the guy nearly ten dollars in smalls bills and coins... which is nearly a 40% tip. But hey, he deserved it. And after he left, we mourned over our observation that he was married while we enjoyed Timmy. But oh, Timmy was good.

*If any of you are Facebook friends with me, I've been tagged in a video of our pizza guy serenade and you can watch the bit that we caught on camera. It was amazing. Although it was a million times more exciting in person than it is on tape. :D