Kind O' Glad Tidings

I have some kind of great news. Er, um, wait--that is not piratically correct, and today is National Talk Like a Pirate Day! Let me try again. Me be havin' some kind o' glad tidings. The great news is that I will get to work on my internship with Linda in Illinois for at least a month! But it is only kind of great news because, as it stands right now, the IHPA employees will still be laid off--just not as soon as they thought. Today Blago announced that he is postponing the budget cuts until November 30. So first everything was going to shut down on September 30, then October 15, and now November 30. It's not fair that Blago keeps stringing everyone along. BUT, it does mean that there is now more time for the legislation to go through that would completely restore the funding. So that is great news too. I received a bunch of e-mail replies from various Illinois senators today, and they all (both Republicans and Democrats) expressed their support for the bills to reverse Blago's budget cuts. They all said that they would try to raise the issue during their meeting this coming week--but now, even if that doesn't happen, there is still hope that the bills could be passed on November 12--the original Senate meeting date. At least things are looking up a bit. Let's keep our fingers crossed!

It is now less than a month until I get married--I can't believe it! It feels like I just got home from school. Time has been flying by lately. Since I will soon be moving to a small town in the Midwest, I decided to reconnect with my small town self and read one of my favorite books: The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America by Bill Bryson. It is such a funny book. He writes totally random things. The book chronicles his "journey of discovery" across the United States. Said journey was inspired by a sense of nostalgia he felt for his homeland after spending a number of years in England.

Here are some of my favorite tidbits:

"Des Moines is the most powerful hypnotic known to man. Outside town there is a big sign that says, WELCOME TO DES MOINES. THIS IS WHAT DEATH FEELS LIKE. There isn't really. I just made that up. But the place does get a grip on you."

"A sign just ahead of me said, BUCKLE UP. ITS THE LAW IN ILLINOIS. Clearly, however, it was not an offense to be unable to punctuate."

"Every parked car along the street had a license plate that said, MISSOURI--THE SHOW ME STATE. I wondered idly if this could be short for 'Show Me the Way to Any Other State.'"

"Just south of Grand Junction, Tennessee, I passed over the state line into Mississippi. A sign beside the highway said, WELCOME TO MISSISSIPPI. WE SHOOT TO KILL. It didn't really. I just made that up."

"A state trooper pulled up alongside me at a traffic light and began looking me over. He said, 'Hah doo lack Miss Hippy?' I was quietly distressed. The man was armed and Southern and I couldn't understand a word he was saying. Finally it dawned on me that he was asking if I like Mississippi. I said, 'Oh! I like it fine! I like it heaps! I think it's wonderful. The people are so friendly and helpful.' I wanted to add that I had been there for an hour and hadn't been shot at once, but the light changed and he was gone."

"The lady at the desk said, 'You pocked on the skwaya?' I said, 'Yes.' She said, 'Okay, honey, you git in yo' car and you makes the skwaya. You goes out the other end, twoads the university, goes three blocks, turns rat at the traffic lats, goes down the hill and you there, un'stan'? I said, 'No.' I wint outsod thinking that Miss Hippy was goan be hard work."

"From time to time I would pass a sign that said HISTORICAL MARKER AHEAD, but I didn't stop. There are thousands of historical markers all over America and they are always dull. I know this for a fact because my father stopped at every one of them. Usually they would commemorate something palpably obscure and uninteresting--the site of the first Bible college in western Tennessee, the birthplace of the inventor of the moist towelette, the home of the author of the Kansas state song. You knew before you got there that they were going to be boring because if they had been even remotely interesting somebody would have set up a hamburger stand and sold souvenirs."

"The streets were the widest I'd ever seen in any town, even out here in the residential neighborhoods. Mormons sure do love wide streets. I don't know why. When Brigham Young founded Salt Lake City one of the first things he did was decree that the streets be 100 feet wide, and he must have said something similar to the people of St. George. Young knew the town well--he had his winter home there--so if the townspeople ever tried anything slack with the streets he'd have been onto them right away."

It's a pretty funny book. Or, as me pirate mates 'd say, "'Tis a good ol' read." Arrrrrrgh.

A Faint Glimmer of Hope

Faint as it may be, there is a slight glimmer of hope in the Illinois historic sites situation. The latest problem was that even though the House of Representatives voted to restore funding to the sites, the Senate wasn't going to meet until November 12--long after the sites had been closed.

BUT, just a few minutes ago, Blago called a special meeting of the House and Senate in Springfield this Monday to discuss his ethics bill (hahahaha--an ethics bill written by him? That's funny). So the Senate will be meeting--but will not necessarily vote on the bills that would restore the funding to the state sites: Senate Bill 790, Senate Bill 1103, and House Bill 6350. So we need to cross our fingers and pray that the senate will take time to vote on these bills in addition to discussing the ethics bill, and that these three bills will pass. If these bills are passed before October 15, then it will be like Blago's budget cuts never happened--the sites will stay open, people will keep their jobs, and life will be good. But if the bills aren't passed before October 15, everything will shut down and even if funding is eventually restored, it would take months and months to re-post all of the IHPA jobs, re-hire everybody, and get back on track.

So Monday's special meeting is the LAST AND ONLY HOPE for stopping the historic sites from closing. I have e-mailed all of the Senate leaders asking them to please discuss this issue on Monday and I have sent them links to the online petition. Like I said, now all we can do is cross our fingers and pray for a miracle.

Allergens + Cold Germs = Icky

I'm totally sick. My sore throat grew into a full blown cold today. I can't breathe, hear, taste, or smell anything. And, several allergy-aggravating encounters at work today did not help the cause. Mark and James spent the day moving another old, wooden, rusty, falling-apart wagon to the storage shed. Remember how I mentioned the other day that they were moving a wagon? They hooked that wagon up behind the tractor and were pulling it down the street. It did pretty well until they got to a corner--then it fell apart. So I don't know why they wanted to try again today with the second wagon (which is in just as bad or worse condition), but they did. This time they hooked it up behind the truck and it seemed to do a bit better (although it is most definitely no longer in one piece).

But anyway, while they were doing that I got to man the museum. At about 11:00 a caravan of cars and vans rolled in, and out jumped a group of D.U.P. ladies. I love Daughters of the Utah Pioneer ladies, but I must say that even though my sense of smell is not at its best today, I could totally smell their perfume when they came inside. There were 20 ladies, and the clashing perfume scents almost did me in. My nose started to run even more than it already was, my eyes got watery, and my throat constricted. They wanted me to tell them the story of Camp Floyd, and when I started, they said I needed to speak louder. What I didn't tell them was that it was all I could do just to breathe--let alone speak louder :-) But they were really nice ladies and, as D.U.P. ladies always are, they were genuinely interested in the history of the site. They asked a lot of good questions and they laughed at my jokes. After looking around a bit, they had a picnic outside and they even brought me some lemonade before they headed out! That was very thoughtful of them.

Then, this guy came in that looked JUST LIKE the funny bearded man from the "Red Green Show." It was hilarious. Maybe it was really him? He even had the hat and was wearing a plaid shirt! He was an extremely enthusiastic person, and he kind of wore me out with all of his questions. But he was very nice and, like the D.U.P. ladies, was very interested in the history of Camp Floyd.

Now, back to the allergens. After Mark and James were finished with the wagon, they came back into the office. Mark was digging around in the depths of some shelves on his desk and pulled out an old notebook. He said, "Ewwww, mouse poop." Said mouse poop had fallen from his notebook to his desk. He then gingerly brushed the droppings onto the floor. Mark must have missed the memo about Hantavirus. I'm pretty sure that this afternoon's sneezing fit was not mouse dropping-induced, but you never know. Anyway, I was pretty miserable by the end of the work day.

A nasty thunderstorm blew through, and then Mark wanted me to go out and take the flags down from the flag pole. I said, "Um, I actually have a deathly fear of being hit by lightning and, considering my past record with close calls where lightning is concerned, I really would rather not go stand at the base of a tall metal pole at this moment." He said, "Aw, you'll be fine. The lightning's stopped for a second." That did not comfort me in the least. :-)

As I was taking the flags down, I was fully expecting to get zapped, but alas I survived to tell the tale. I hoped that the rain storm would quiet the rampant pollen outside (which I think is also contributing to my current nasal situation), but unfortunately there were some weird air currents associated with the thunderstorm, and dust devils were popping up everywhere stirring up the tumbleweeds, dust, and pollen.

Anyway, I was very glad to get home this evening to my box of soft tissues. Mom and I have had a fun time hanging out while Dad is at the MTC. We even got to watch one of my favorite TV shows: "Bones" that is on on Wednesday evenings. Well I'm going to go blow my nose and go to bed.

Oh, I forgot to share the latest news from Springfield. Today Blago said that because they're having a hard time figuring out how to proceed with the state parks matter, they are going to leave the sites open for a whole 15 more days than they had originally planned. Big whoop--like that will help anything. Everyone will still lose their jobs. Blago is not a good person nor is Senator Evil Jones, ahem, I mean Emil Jones, who is refusing to reconvene the Senate until November 12--even though the general population of Illinois is asking him to hold Senate meetings before the sites close. I called Senator Jones' office today, but his secretary was not very nice. I'm going to try again tomorrow to talk about the petition with her. Today Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity finally talked about the corruption in Illinois--it's about time that people start figuring out that Obama is just another Blago or Evil Emil!

Tonsils

It's amazing how you can feel just fine one day and then be totally ill by the next. I felt perfect yesterday, but when I woke up this morning I could tell that I was getting a sore throat. It didn't take very long to turn into a full-fledged illness, so I've just been taking it easy today so I can try to get better before the bridal shower on Saturday. I'm no stranger to having sore throats. Back when I was in 7th grade, I would get strep throat every couple of weeks. Finally the doctor decided it was time to take my tonsils out, and when he removed them (don't continue reading this if you are about to eat dinner), the tonsils exploded from all of the infection stored up inside of them! Ewwwww! Isn't that disgusting? Thankfully I didn't know that any of this was happening at the time, and Mom had to wait a couple of weeks after the surgery (until my anesthesia-induced nausea subsided) to tell me the icky tale.

So, anyway, at least we know it's not my tonsils causing my throat to hurt.

Today Mom and I got the last batch of wedding announcements into the mail! That was a big job to get all of those sent out, but it was fun to see the announcement process through from start to finish. I can't believe that the wedding is one month from Thursday! Time is flying by so fast. It feels like I just got home from school. I made some updates to the wedding website, including the addition of a condensed web version of the wedding video.

The IHPA petition now has 3,964 signatures! And I had originally hoped to just get 1,000! I am working on the letters that will be sent to the Illinois senators this week, and I am thrilled that the petition keeps growing. Well, I am off to continue being sick ;-)

Taking it to the Streets

Well, even though there's no stopping the state from laying off the IHPA employees on September 30 and moving forward with the historic site closures, at least people are showing that they are upset about it. When a man from the Illinois state workers' union called me last week and invited me to Saturday's protest in front of the governor's mansion in Springfield, I wondered why they would have a protest there--since Blago doesn't live there, but I found out that it was because yesterday the Illinois State Historical Society was hosting their annual awards banquet at the mansion, and the protestors were hoping to catch the attention of people interested in history. It's kind of ironic that the ISHS would have their awards ceremony at the gov's mansion--since it's the gov who is trying to erase the state's history, but I guess that they might as well use the governor's mansion for something since it's just sitting there empty.

Anyway, this picture is from today's issue of the Illinois State Journal-Register. My favorite is the lady with the big specs sporting the Abe Lincoln hat and beard. Due to the distance factor, I was not able to attend the demonstration (I'm not typically the demonstrating type--usually that's the Democrats--but this is a worthy cause), but it's cool that people showed up to support the historic sites. The Springfield police department even showed up to make sure that the protestors didn't interrupt the traffic flow--now that's a real protest!

Yet, things still aren't looking to bright for the future of IHPA. Even though the House of Representatives voted on Wednesday to pass a bill that would temporarily restore funding to the sites, the bill still has to go to the Senate. The Senate's next scheduled meeting is November 12, and though they could have called an emergency session before then, the Senate leader, Emil Jones (who also happens to have been Obama's mentor in the Illinois Senate, but I'll save that tyraid for another day) has adamantly refused to do so. He said that any of the issues they'll be voting on can wait until November 12. Problem: by that time the IHPA employees will have been laid-off, and the sites will have been closed. If the funding isn't restored before the layoffs take place and the sites close, it's going to be a mess to try to get things up and running again even if the Senate does pass the bill (which, unfortunately, is unlikely). And, there's no guarantee that people would get their jobs back right away even if the funding was restored. It's all quite a mess. I'm going to use the online petition as the backing for some letters I will be writing to Illinois senators this week. And hopefully Saturday's protest helped increase public awareness a bit.