3.10 PST I Heart Sundays

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So this past Sunday I had a fantastic day. I made dinner for my family. But first, few of us played basketball in the A.M. against a local high school girls team. Man, that was quite a site. Poor Miquela, who played in high school herself and was damn good, had told her school that she and some other volunteers would play and on Friday a bunch of volunteers said the couldn't make it for sundays game, so the reserves stepped in (aka, the "I dont know how but if you need bodies, were there" troops). Imagine that old soviet blood, sweat and tears work ethic applied to 15U girls basketball and you got the team we played. For any of you who know me at all, I was not the worst player, so imagine our team. We got A for effort though, falling, clawing, throwing that ball (in any direction), running like hell down the court (occasionally forgetting to dribble.). It was a sight. I wish I had pictures. The score was something like 18 to 56. The our guys, who played the boys Uz team after us, thought it was the funniest thing ever. Thanks a lot. Whatever, it was good to sweat. Its cool. Im alright with an A for effort and about 10 air balls. I can handle it, good character building exercise.
Anyways, after that, Krista and I cooked for my family. An all American meal. Consisting of Chili, Garlic cheese bread, baked macaroni and cheese and for desert, lemon meringue pie. We started cooking at 1, and ate at 7:30. We had such a fun time. We got down and dirty too. Using a hand whisk for the meringue, everything by hand. We were sooo excited. It was a beautiful day that day, probably got to 70, so we set up a table outside, candles and all and when my host parents got back from the bazar, dinner was ready. Well at that point Im really glad that Tokhir was all about the vodka and coke because it went a little down hill at that point. Dont get me wrong we had a great time and it was funny as hell but...The chili was over taken by the bean count and was really spicy (and they dont really like intense spicy foods here). And the macaroni was not a hit either. Krista and I loved it, tasted like something youd get in the states, if I do say so myself.
But honestly, I didn't really like the chili, definitely wasn't your recipe Aunt Juli (which by the way, Id love for you to send me, for next time! Id love some of your other recipes but I don't have half the ingredients available so there is no point really. I'll be sticking to the walnuts, bread and vegetables diet as soon as I get to my perm site.). And I think we got a little overly excited about the warm weather. You know how those first warm days are, warm during the day but gets a little cold at night. So the poor kids were not digging the food, but because they are the great kids that they are, they sit there (shivering), trying to eat it, and smiling and saying "yakshi!" and "zor! " the whole time. We were laughing the entire time, lots of fun and the rest of us weren't too cold, maybe the vodka had something to do with that. We ate desert inside, and that, my friends, that, was by far the funniest part of the day, and it was a pretty funny day. The pie turned out to be a kick ass meringue top layer with lemon soup as the bottom layer. And this alone was pretty funny but what tops the cake (haha) is that they were so enthused and intent on telling us how great it was. We all knew that it was shit. It tasted not bad, again, Krista and I thought, but really, it was shit. I have a few pics. Good times and good try, I shall try again, maybe with a different menu.

Actually, I had a great Sunday before that as well. A bunch of us went up to the mountains, to this "ski area," I will not call it a resort, for the day. We packed in a taxi, sardine style and made the 11/2 hour trek. It was really beautiful. We went up the highest ski lift, that only 1 out of 30 people go up in order to ski down, we were part of the masses who only went up for the view. See pics. At the top, there is a dead tree and a fence that has all of these ribbons tied to them. It is some ancient tradition from the Zoroastrianism religion about making wishes by tying ribbons on such things at certain places, good luck, warding away bad omens, stuff like that. I have pics of that too. And for all of you who just said, "What? you missed your opportunity to ski in Uz!?," don't fear. I did ski. Sorta. Krista and I were the only ones who felt like we couldn't not ski since we talked about it all week prior. Well, we defiantly had quite an experience. First of all, the ski rental office was this guy who showed up with about one pair of skis in each size and the skis looked about 25 years old (it was only a $1.50 to rent (remember, big money here. But to us, "sure, why not!")). So I get my foot shoved into these boots that are defiantly too small, but the closest thing they got and we get in the toe-pull lift line and by the time we get halfway through, my entire right foot is asleep and my left is dozing off. We are determined to do this so I say its no big deal and only slightly worried I loosen the boot buckle, regain life in my foot and figure when I get to the top, Ill just snap it back up and by the time it falls asleep again, Ill be at the bottom. But first we had to get up that damn mountain. We obviously weren't experienced with this toe rope thing. We fell on our faces, all tangled in the rope not once, but twice. We were laughing so hard the by the second time that I think people were a little concerned. Yea, they stopped the lift both times, people all around, starring. These two guys, said they could help us, they were two burnt out Uz ski instructors and thank God they helped us up and out of the the way of the oncoming lift. We got them down from 4000 to 1000 sum, took them up on their offer to help us at least mount the lift. We couldn't even stand much less try a third time with the lift because we were laughing so hard at ourselves (we also didnt know what the hell we were doing, that probably had something to do with it too.). So we successfully get to the top and Im telling my instructor guy that I know how to ski, no prob, and I proceed to fly down the mountain and do ok till I near the bottom and realize Ive gotta stop and I momently forget how. So I crash, face first into the snow. Instructor man is right behind me, skids to a stop, stands over me, helps me up and looks at me like Im crazy and starts yelling at me, not mean yelling at me, its just that I cant understand a word that hes saying but I know hes saying something like, "Dude! Girl, your crazy! What the hell are ya doing! Ever heard of the snow plow!" so that was it. We paid the Uz instructors and called it a day... on the slopes. There is a pic of Krista, myself and my instructor, at the bottom of the mountain, skis off. Anyways, great day. Sundays are our only day off, I love Sundays.

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