Mark & I just returned from the SC State Fair. Having taken the kids Monday, we, like last year, came back again without them so we could look at the exhibits and eat the food. We had fried mushrooms, a turkey leg, a miniature hamburger, a fried Snickers bar on a stick, and homemade potato chips. There was a young man standing in the center of the food area, a Pepto Bismol rep, wearing a pink t-shirt and unapologetically handing out free samples. We took a few.
We saw a some shows too. The Chinese drummers were a lot of fun to watch. We saw a horse show that was so-so. But the best show of all was the machine wars set up in a plexi-glass cage at the back of one of the buildings.
There were these man-made robot-machines of motors, metal, and old tools (like rotary saws). They were remote controlled and would destroy things like lamps, printers, and concrete blocks--or set them on fire. There was one machine that had four 3-foot long spinning pieces of metal that looked innocent enough, until it rammed into a huge microwave with a stuffed blue gorilla on top of it. When it destroyed the microwave, the gorilla fell into the metal parts. Its body erupted and sent styrofoam stuffing everywhere. Gosh, it was great.
Dusan's slava is tomorrow. I'm going to be making the bread for the service on Sunday. I've seen some of the breads these Serbian ladies make, and they're beautiful. I hope I can pull it off. Hope told me that every Serbian lady stands in mortal dread that her Kolach will be gooey when the priest cuts it open at the slava service. I'm the same way with the Artos bread that we cut open on Thomas Sunday. Fortuately there are so few people there that day, that my several "internal" failures have gone unnoticed by most of our people.
