Slow Death

We had the privilege of hosting judges from the Ukraine for a week (though it truly seemed like 2 weeks). As enjoyable as it was on one level, it seemed, on another level, like a slow and painful death. I am sure all of you know someone who has said, "Oh, I've always wanted to have a Bed & Breakfast!" While we are all grateful for those people, I am sure they are insane. This is not to say that I don't want people from coming to visit us, it's just that I don't want people to come and visit us. No really, only if you speak English, can get yourself around town, don't want to go out and party until 1 or 2 in the morning, don't expect me to make breakfast every day and I don't have to take you to the airport at 5 am. So, family members, Emily Jones, BFF's are all welcome. Please just note the rules stated above. I was going to give you a play by play, blow by blow run down of the week, but it was just too long, so here is a list of the high/lowlights.

1. Hopefully would go to be early, but wanted to have tea and chat 'til 12:30 am.
2. Hotel style continental breakfast, complete with hot cereal and coffee every morning. My coffee must not have tasted too good, because Judge bought instant coffee on Monday.
3. Monday, no one wanted to eat, only shop -- Gap, Barnes & Noble, Apple Store and Victoria's Secret. Very odd experience with Julia digging through stacks of undies while discussing things with Judge in Ukranian. He bought 2 bags of stuff. I didn't ask.
4. Tuesday Ukranian Dinner - a Pork Festival -- All the dishes had some sort of pork product in it. Borscht with spare ribs, potato salad with ham, pork shishkebabs, pierogies and polenta garnished with bacon. If a spot of your plate had not food on it, someone would dish you up some more.
5. Wednesday, a little respite, because everyone went to the Jazz game. They have a Ukranian player on the team and he posed for pictures and signed all their ticket stubs.
6. Thursday - dinner at the Sykes house with pot roast, rolls, roasted potatoes and salad. Made coffee but no one drank it. Must not be too good. Bob took the Judge and Julia shopping -- he was feeling better. Bought the judge a $175 tie!! and a bike helmet for Julia's son. Julia and one of the other judges went out for drinks later. Bob stayed up until 1:30 waiting for her because she said she would only be an hour.
7. Friday -- big huge dinner at the Jacobs house. Kathy, thank you so much. Lots of speeches and then we sent them off to a concert at the Conference center. Then they went shopping some more. We pawned them off on the Sorokins and the Johnsons. We're not very good neighbors.
8. Saturday, they were supposed to be on their way to the airport where we could just leave them. The coordinator overslept and called Bob and asked him to get them checked in as Julia had all the passports (I think a throwback to communism when you didn't want anyone to defect.) It took over an hour to get everyone checked in due to pictures, hugs, overlimit bags. I waited in the car.
9. Cleaned the bathrooms, washed the bedding and generally aired out the house. Kathleen said it smelled like coffee, cheap aftershave and cigarettes. I think it is just a little Euro-funky smell.
10. Monday, I took all the bedspreads to the laundrymat to try to get them smelling fresh again. I may have to throw the pillows away due to the stale cigarette smell, even though they didn't smoke in the house.
11. Tonight at dinner Bob said he missed them and didn't I. Honestly, no!!

Tell Me Its Not True

What is the world coming to? I just read that Days of Our Lives has fired Marlena and John. She's been possessed. She's had amnesia. She's been married to John 3 times and Roman at least twice. I think Stefano even held her captive for awhile. And John's been a priest and brainwashed by the Evil Stefano. He's had amnesia and been in a coma and missing for months at a time.

I guess the bad economy has even hit Salem. This is apparently a cost cutting measure by NBC.

I haven't watched a soap opera in a zillion years. But I always knew that if I started again, Marlena would still be there. I am so dissapointed.

It's all Relative, Part II

I was on my way home from Park City yesterday (I had gone to Provo to file a complaint with the district court -- not my own personal complaint, but a malpractice filing for a client) when I decided to take a side trip through Provo Canyon and Heber and have lunch with Sarah. I knew I needed to get gas, but wanted to try to get to SLC and buy it at the Maverik on 2nd West and north Temple for 1.999 gallon.

When I pulled out of Park City, I had 22 miles to empty -- SLC is 26 miles from PC. Anyway, I thought I could make it and then chickened out at Parley's Summit and bought 5 dollars worth of gas. That's a whole whoppin' 2 gallons at $2.25 at the Sinclair Station. I was up to 53 miles to empty.

Anyway, its a good thing I got that gas because I realized that I had errands to run before the $1.99 and 9/10's gas (why do they do the 9/10th thing anyway?). I got the lawn mower shoved into the back of my car and drove up Main Street heading for Maverik. To my surprise, the Maverik at 13th So. and Main had gas for $1.959!! I bought just a little less than 20 gallons (since I bought 2 gallons in Parley's Summit and used one driving around) for $39.01!!! Does anyone remember when gas was this cheap? Cheap is a relative term.

p.s. this picture is a Chevron Sign from google. I haven't seen Chevron this cheap yet.

God Bless America

After watching all the election coverage (that seemed to go on for a decade) and the historic election of Barack Obama, I believe, no, I know, the following is/is not true:

1. Barack Obama is not a terrorist
2. Barack Obama probably does say the pledge of allegience, salute the flag, pray, blah, blah blah. 3. He is not the devil or the anti-Christ and I am sure he is not the great satan that is discussed in the book of Revelations.
4. He is a natural born US citizen.
5. He is not a Muslim. He was not sworn into office with the Koran. That would have been some other person (in the US House of Representatives - who actually is a Muslim) and so what.

6. He is very liberal on issues that I am conservative or centrist about.

#6 is a perfectly legitimate reason to vote against someone. I am so glad the election is over no matter which way it went just because I was sooooo tired of the anti-Obama emails I kept getting. I checked out the first 2 or 3 on factcheck.org and snopes.com; but since they always turned up as false, or misleading, or doctored, etc. I just quit reading.

Now, while Senator Obama may not be my favorite president, I am also tired of people who say they are going to move to Canada. Please, go. The problem with these people is that they never go!!

America is the greatest country on earth!! My children probably think this is an outrageous claim, but it is true. I believe that God intended us to be great and good. America is bigger than one president. We will survive. We have survived other disastrous presidents. We lived through Jimmy Carter.

It will be OK.