The day Ben met his match

 Oh hi elder!

Well it’s been a busy week around here, so I’ll get into it.

Work wise, I was given three days and a weekend to produce a video. Luckily, my best video producer was available to help. I get a little frustrated because of the short notice, but then these ideas come and I get excited about it. Then we get started and everyone gets excited. This is just a simple corporate message but it’s an opportunity to do cool work, it’s an opportunity to establish our brand, and mostly, it’s an opportunity to impress my boss and other executives. It seems to have worked, here’s what my boss sent me in an email: “I know this all was so last minute and crazy. Thank you-- it really looks great, and also so proves how involved you and team should be from the beginning, for all this work. I am so pleased!” So I have that going for me. There were several other projects that got done by both me and my staff this week. Now i just have to see what I’m behind on.

Tuesday night I got the mantle done, it looks really good. I didn’t work on anything else the whole week till Saturday. I was doing work stuff but we did get away to buy the “big tv”. Between that and work that took all of Saturday. It’s big, it overwhelms the mantle. As is the Rivera way, despite its size, it’s much closer to the bottom of the price range than the top. But it looks good and it’s going to be fun to have two giant screens going when everyone is over for football games. We also got the armoire moved and the old tv down, both somehow going in mom’s office, but I’m going to leave that for another day. But now there are holes all over that wall which I need to get patched up. Our living room will be half fancy and half ghetto for your return.

Mom wants me to walk to bishop’s with her real fast, so brb…whew, didn’t have to chat forever thank goodness.

Wednesday for some reason while I was working at my desk my back sorta locked up. I wondered if it was because I was lifting the heavy fireplace mantle the night before or if it was from stress. It was really getting to me. That evening we were taking the ym shooting down by Utah lake. I could barely load my guns in less my clay launcher. So when Joey asked me not to make him go I struck a deal to have him load it. Now that he’s graduated, I sort of can’t blame him. My back was too sore to shoot, but we set up a pretty impressive skeet station and a lot of the boys shot. Every once in awhile things would get sketchy so I’d have to calm things down, but for the most part it was fun. It was fun to be with some of the other leaders, especially brother Elwood, who is just an extremely good person. It makes me want to start shooting again. I quit when ammo got super expensive and rare doing Covid.

Thursday was Joe’s graduation. Grandma came with us. It was about what you’d expect. It was down at UVU, and the traffic was bad getting there. Ben was in fine form during the event, going on quiet rants and taking deep sighs. It was keeping me entertained though because my back was still sore. The best reaction was after the long procession of names and the march. It was closing in on two hours. At the end, it got quite because they were about to end with the school hymn. When Ben figured out what was next he let out this sigh/moan much more loudly than he may have intended to. I think at least our half of the facility must have heard it. After telling him to calm down I got the giggles so bad we both got the kindergarten teacher stare from your dear mother. 

Afterwords Joe couldn’t decide where to go eat. So mom was going down the list of places nearby on Yelp. She saw a new place called Houston Hots. It one of those new trendy chicken places. It’s twist is that you can order your chicken from 0, no heat, to 10, extreme heat. It was late so I ordered no heat. Everyone else ordered in the 2 or 3 range. Not your brother, he ordered a chicken sandwich and when the asked him what heat level he wanted he boldly ordered, “Give me the hottest you’ve got!” As a response they made him sign a release. He casually signed it without reading it and even I suggested that that was probably more for marketing reasons than legal. As we were waiting for the food we were looking at a menu that described the highest heat level the equivalent to a Carolina Reaper at 2,000,000 schovils. That’s high. Ben was confident and I was still thinking it was marketing hype. Grandma got her’s first, it was fine, then the rest of our food came. It was good, maybe better than Raising Canes. Then Ben chomped down on his sandwich as if it were any old chicken sandwich. He described the heat as going up and down, and that he was impressed that it actually was hot. By the fourth bite I could tell he was starting to feel the effects, maybe even suffering a little bit. By the time we were done he was done but I could tell he was formulating a plan to finish it. If not this time maybe a next time. Mom took a tiny little morsel and she was hurting. We finished and left. Mom wanted to stop at McDonald’s for a Diet Coke because she was still feeling her little taste and her own medium order. Grandma was getting worried because by that time ben was starting to writhe and moan in the back seat, especially when we’d hit a rough spot in the road. At first it was entertaining but by the time we got through the drive through it was evident that it was more than just Ben being overly dramatic. We headed home but Ben couldn’t make it past the maverick, he had to stop for the bathroom. After half an hour he came out, only marginally relieved. We made it home and I really didn’t see much more of Ben, I even worked for a couple of hours after that and he stayed between his room and the bathroom. He said he was up four times that night, and the next day he said he felt like his body was fighting some sort of disease. It was a 2,000,000 scovile disease. So Thursday, June 1, 2023 was noteworthy for three things: the day Joe became a legal adult, the day Joe graduated from high school, and the day ben met his match, hot spice wise anyway.

Friday was a busy, busy workday. I did manage to go to dinner with mom, but the I was back working till midnight. Saturday was the tv purchase and installation, and tons of work work.

Today I went to sacrament meeting, but then had to come home and work some more. Grandma came over and brought her epic chili for Navajo tacos. Mom made the fried bread from Rhodes Rolls, and they were also epic. After dinner we went to Joe’s seminary graduation. The best thing I can say about that was that it was mercifully brief. Short enough in fact that Ben didn’t find the need to sigh/moan audibly. We walked home to find a little snake hiding in the corner of our front porch, mom and grandma both screamed. I thought he was beautiful.

Well, that’s life for this last week kid. I really love you. Today I realized that next fast Sunday you will be home. I swelled with happiness and anticipation. I’m so excited to have you home. I’m so proud of you my son.

Pops