Excitement at JCI!!!

The U.N. Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon visited JCI World Headquarters this afternoon. He had already visited Monsanto and will be giving a speech at SLU later today. JCI has had a relationship with the United Nations for over 50 years and in 2003 JCI adopted a resolution to support the U.N. Millennium Development Goals to eradicate extreme poverty & hunger, to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, global compact and corporate social responsibility. JCI has since developed a program called “Nothing but Nets” which provides bed nets sprayed with insecticide to prevent malaria in Africa. We have many local member organizations in Africa who can distribute the nets in an efficient & effective manner.

Our 2009 President, Jun Sup Shin is from South Korea and has made climate change his priority this year. Ban Ki-moon is also from South Korea and he is in the St. Louis area to discuss the issue of climate change, so from what I hear he said he wanted to stop at one non-profit while in town and JCI was chosen. A man from the State Department came to check out the office Tuesday. A few more men came from U.N. Security yesterday to let us know the rules-no media, no unauthorized guests, no fast moves, etc., etc., etc. We were all very excited; especially Edson who has visited the U.N. many times and has a framed picture of himself with the former U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan in his office. He called this a historical event in JCI history and is very proud.
We hired a professional photographer who took many pictures and we were able to get a group shot but I don’t have access to it yet so here are some pictures I took.

My Sister, The Traitor

(Encarta Dictionary – traitor – betrayer – somebody who is disloyal or treacherous)

I went by Mom’s after work yesterday to check on her, bring her some dinner and visit for a while. She is still somewhat insecure about taking a shower because she’s afraid she might fall or something as she still doesn’t have all her strength back. So while she was in the shower, I decided to check the plants on Mom’s porch to see if they needed watering. The plants that I potted were fine but when I checked the hanging plant that Barb bought for Mom, it was dry. It’s a beautiful plant. I think it’s called an angel-leaf begonia. It is lush and full with plenty of flowers. It’s so lush it looks like it should be at an exotic resort in the Caribbean or Mexican Riviera. Absolutely georgeous! In fact, it’s so full, I had a hard time getting the leaves out of the way to water it. As I was pushing the leaves aside I noticed the tag and decided to see where my ELDEST sister bought the beautiful plant. Lo & behold she bought it at Koenig’s Nursery!

Now, if you read my blog regularly, you should remember the problem I had with Koenig’s and reported on August 4, 2008 in “It’s the Principle”. The last sentence of my blog was, “I will NEVER go back to Koenig’s Nursery again and if you’re my family or friend, you won’t either!”

Just for that, Barb, I’m telling Ronnie & Matt that you shop at WalMart….

A fun-filled, action-packed weekend!

Saturday, me and a few of my friends went to a huge garage sale on the parking lot of the Family Arena in St. Charles. They have it every year and there’s a $5 per car admission. We met at Waffle House for breakfast and all piled in my car so we only had to pay one admission fee. It was fun and I got $20 worth of other peoples’ cast-offs. I bought a bobble-head Pee Wee Herman to go along with my bobble-head Beetle Bailey I got last year. Then later on I had my Fun & Games party at the Adrenaline Zone. There were 10 of us who played demolition ball and laser tag. I’m proud to say that both teams I was on won in each game. Afterwards, we all came back to the house and played trivia. Everyone was told to bring 5 trivia questions and I stipulated that this was going to be a friendly game so the questions should be something that they thought at least one other person would know the answer to. Obviously, I’ll need to come up with a better plan next time because out of 50 questions, Maggie, who was the winner, only got 23 right.

Sunday we met Mom, Jennifer, Ron, Janet, Ranya & Johnny at Spiro’s for Mother’s Day brunch. And surprise!!!Mom didn’t like it.

My best news is that Friday night I bought a new car for the first time in my life. I got a 2009 Chevy Malibu, that’s dark blue with a sunroof and free On-Star for a year. As soon as I pressed the button to get it all set up, I got suckered into buying 100 minutes for the hands-free phone service. Oh well, it was only $15! I already used the turn-by-turn navigation system to get to Spiro’s just to check it out. I’m hoping it works better than the Garmin I bought Jim!

A great weekend before getting down to the seriousness of mom’s surgery….

Happy 50th Birthday Edson!

Last weekend was Edson’s 50th birthday and we celebrated Thursday at work. Since I’m the social director, we waited until he was gone and decorated his office with Over the Hill stuff that I bought at the dollar store. I also stuck an Over the Hill yard sign in front of his parking space outside. When he came into the building and saw me the first thing he said was “you’re fired!” We all went to the board room, sang happy birthday, ate cake and I think he fired me a few more times.

Edson gave himself a birthday party and invited everyone to his house Saturday. He thought it would be fun to have a sushi bar and we joked about “mole” sushi. He said I wouldn’t know it was mole because he’d slice it paper thin. He also joked that my sushi would look more like a giant burrito when I got done preparing it. I wonder how he came up with that idea.

Anyway, I went to Spencer’s Gifts and bought him a cane that has a caution sign on front and a horn that says different “old man” things when you squeeze it. Jim & I walked into the house, I took off my shoes, put on a pair of slippers he has in a basket by the front door & handed him his gift & he fired me again. Jim told him that he thought he saw one of his sushis run across the road on our way in.

There was a houseful of people and he had the sushi bar set up in the kitchen. When it came to our turn to make our sushi, Edson told us what was in each bowl and brought up the whole burrito thing again. So he made mine for me and he knows me well enough that he put cooked shrimp & crab on mine instead of the raw salmon. It was pretty good but I thought the seaweed it was wrapped in was a little tough, causing mine to fall apart. There was more singing happy birthday with very fancy cakes that Edson likes to buy from a Korean bakery near his house and then it was downstairs for everyone’s favorite activity at Edson’s house – karaoke. Jim & I didn’t stay too long because we had to get up early Easter morning to meet his dad & brother’s family for breakfast. When we got home Jim didn’t feel very well but he didn’t blame it on the sushi – he said he thought it was from drinking the sake out of the wooden box.

I was very shocked the other night when Jim went to Pet Mart to get food for the fish and he decided to buy them a special treat. Seaweed. It looked exactly like our sushi wrappers!

More Moles

I think everyone is aware of our continuous mole problem. When Jim & I went to the St. Charles Home Show last year, we went for the purpose of hearing “The Mole Hunter” give his expert opinion on how to battle moles. After spending $150 for supplies, and a bit of trial and error, Jim has been successful in killing 4 or 5 moles. It seems we will never be all-together rid of moles as we live by the woods. I thought we had a whole family, including grandparents tearing up our front yard recently. Jim set his traps and it took a few weeks but he texted me one day before I got home from work that he got a mole. He was so proud that he saved it to show me.

My boss, Edson has come to me asking for advice because he has a mole tearing up his yard. He’s so desperate that he wanted the name and phone number of the Mole Hunter. I gave him the information but told him it would be very expensive and he should set traps like Jim. He agreed and I told him to buy 4 steel traps. Edson and I talked about it and arranged a time on the weekend a few weeks ago that Jim & I would stop by to show him how to set the traps. Unfortunately, our plans changed and we went to his house earlier and he wasn’t able to be there. Edson had told me the mole was on the side of the house to the right and we couldn’t miss the torn up yard. So, Jim & I walked around the yard and when I pointed to an area of dead grass in the front right section, Jim said it was zoysia and that’s why it wasn’t green yet. So we went further back and found tracks where Jim set the traps. After he was done, we were walking through the front yard where the “zoysia” was and we felt more mole tunnels underfoot. At that point, we realized that this was the spot Edson was talking about but we didn’t have time to move & reset the traps because we were in a hurry to go someplace. Jim was mortified that Edson would think he was an idiot! I told him that I’d pretend we didn’t walk on the dead grass and feel the mole tunnels.

Edson called later in the day to thank us for helping and didn’t mention that the traps might not be in the right area. Of course he wouldn’t mention it – he’s Japanese! Anyway, he said he would invite us over for a barbecue when he catches the mole. A mole barbecue, that is!