Back at the Beginning

Every once in a while, life just comes full circle. Like this morning when I pulled a pot of hot water off of the stove to take a bucket shower. I couldn't help but think of those fun May days when this was my routine. I put my hair up in defiance, as my silent revolt against the lack of hot water. Only in Russia. At least as far as I know. There may be another country where the government plans to shut off the hot water for two to three week periods every summer, but I haven't heard of it.

Then there was my trip back to crap cafeteria (given this name by Eli after the golubtsi incident) at lunch today. Andrey asked if I'd like to go eat up there with him. I told him that I had made a solemn oath never to return, but sure, why not, I'd check it out with him. We walked up to the counter, I smelled the familiar scent of not-so-yummy food. That was when the name crap cafeteria came back to me. "I think I'm just going to buy some bread to go with my tomatoes," I said as I turned and walked out, "See you in the office."

Even the tomato sandwiches took me back. Every time someone toasts bread and eats it with tomoatoes, we all think of President Gibbons. I am pretty sure he ate the same meal for lunch every day--for good reason, it's delicious! So whenever anyone has tomato sandwiches, we ask if they are eating po-Gibbonsu, which means in the style of Gibbons.

Then there was that conversation with Elder VanDyke in Ukraine. I used to be in touch with him a lot as we planned for President Uchtdorf's visit. Today I was calling to confirm some particulars on the organization of public affairs in Ukraine. When I told him it was me calling, he said, "Where have you been? It's been too long!"

Then, as I sat staring out the window of the kitchen around lunch time, I thought to myself, where did those days go when I'd hope that Rick would be out of the office so that Eli could get off early, and we could skip out to go to some new Orthodox Church? What made this even better was returning to my desk and finding an email from Eli saying he had just told Uncle Will he missed waiting til 3:00 when Rick left so he could "go get Kimberly and she would sneak out and we would spend the rest of the day laying on the beach, eating borsch and vafly, and being hysterical groupies for mediocre street bands."

I guess that's what it means to come full circle.