Kate and Neil’s Awesome Website

My family has started referring to my birthday as Kate’s birthday season. The festivities spanned a 4 day period, including today my actual birthday. In total I would estimate that over $18,000 dollars was spent on my 27th birthday celebration including murder mystery party with costume rental, family dinner party/ presents & the car Neil bought me today (2006 Scion Xa).As opposed to popular societal trends, my birthday increases in extravagance each year exponentially. By the time I am 50 it will be a 3 week festival in Tahiti for me & my closest 50 friends.

Happy birthday season to me!

I had to go and read the news. Ether this morning’s splitting head ache and dry heaving, the ever worsening weather, or today’s news worked me into an ever worsening basket case of frothing fear. Actually my headache has dampened and I’m not really that scared but seriously today’s news strangely fear filled. For example during just one 15 minutes news block I heard about the 19,000 Americans who die each year from drug resistant Staph infections they catch while visiting the hospital (this coming hours after Kate found out she needs her tonsils removed), about how congress’s awarding of the Dalai Lama with an honorary medal tomorrow is basically going to start WW III with China, about the South’s legalization of hate crimes against blacks (basically), about global warming, pollution, breast cancer, atomic weapons, DNA screening, terrorism, and that this crazy guy, George W. Bush, is still our president.

Most frightening of all it seems the largest population of meth users in Utah are reproductive aged women, often married and with children. In an attempt to tide the ever increasing numbers, the Utah government has released advertisements targeting this precise group. I saw one of the first of the campaign’s billboards and it was strangely haunting and depressing to see a drug advertisement with “mom” as the subject. Needless to say I now feel even less safe driving. (j/k).

No more freedom fries for us. I have been coveting nationalized healthcare in a BIG way lately. I have had a sorethroat/fever/general illness since Tuesday. I am insured by Aetna who has a contract with the Federal Government to provide healthcare insurance for Americorps members. Despite the fact that they have not sent me a member card, which is apparently crucial to the process, I went to a urgent care clinic. There I met with a PA (not a physician) who informed me that a) I do not have Mono b) I do not have strep c) nothing else. Armed with the enlightening info about what I do not currently have, I continued being sick.They gave me a prescription for a decongestant. I then had the lovely experience of dealing with my “insurance company,” if you can call it that. Turns out, that I have to pay out of pocket for ALL prescriptions and then submit approximately 1,000 documents to see IF they will reimburse me. I had to call them 7 (not an exaggeration) time to get the right form & fill it out correctly (fingers crossed). I am not sure how uneducated or people without 3 1/2 hours of free time during the day are able to go throught this process.

This is most likely what the “insurance company” is banking on. If you can’t figure out how to make a claim, they don’t have to pay.

I am sick of being SICK!

Tear down the wall, pack up the minutemen, and get ready to expand! Immigration has just taken a turn for the better. The solution to our current immigration problems is to unify Canada, the US and Mexico into one nation state.

Kate has posed a question for the Republican YOUTUBE debate in November.

This question has ilicited a number of enlightened and articulate commments from obviously well-educated people roaming the internet such as (these are actual quotes):

“LADY!!! WERE AMERICA NOT FREAKING MEXICO!!!!! its not our freaking concern. UGH.”-MushyPenguin

“Ah, so global Socialism is your answer. How wonderful. And who should pay for all this? Why, Americans of course. I guarantee I’ve been around the world, and seen more of it than your prepubescent, idealistic little mind has. Let’s all do away with borders, countries and individuality. We should be all one big happy planet. Grow up and open your eyes.” -Wallace1776

“Why is it the job of the United States to “improve Mexico”? What kind of globalism are you smoking?”-Sugarmonkey528

“Land mines and 50 cal machine guns…that’ll do the trick.”-mike3764

“yeah and… change those retarded glasses.”-bcmple (this was the entire quote)

“Screw Mexico, its time to focus on America!” -FatherClayton

“She even looks like a ****ing liberal activist. More U.S. citizens are killed by illegal scum every year than are killed in Iraq. The ones who do come here to work, they steal our social security numbers and burden the tax payers. Look how they run their own country, the more of them that come here, the more they are going to bring us down. Liberals don’t know how to run this country… Why have any borders at all?” -danwk7

We have been so struck by these brilliant ideas we have come up with a plan. You’re right Mushypenguin, we’re not in Mexico! But, we could be. You’re right danwk7, why have any borders at all! Our new plan for the future of North America is a gigantic conglomerate nation. Canamerico! This was people will truly have a choice. They can show their support for local political decisions by voting with their residency. This may at first, of course, iniciate a enmass migration to “Canada” since they provide “healthcare.” But, the US government would wise up. The populationless barren Mexican desert would have to entice people back with less robbing from the poor & more equitable programs (perhaps even un-corrupt elections.)

Besides, just think of the new National Anthem possibilities.

O say, can you see, we are so proudly border-free? Canamericanos, there’ll be no cry of war, no attacks to make earth shake at its core.

O Canamerico!

Our home and somewhat native land! True patriot love in all thy sons & daughters command.

I went to take the pre-test to be a court interpreter today. I would like to think that my Spanish is pretty good but, I showed up and out of 17 people taking the test, I was the only gringa.

The test itself is one part of about 45 hundred little steps in the court interpreter certification “process.” All parts of the certification are spread out so as to make it a minimum of a year long “process.” All certified interpreters are on a list and work on an on-call basis. I think they make the “process” so difficult to keep the list small.

I did pretty well on the English section, with a few glaring exceptions about legal terms. As for the Spanish section, I think you only realize how little vocabulary you have when you are asked to translate word like fender or wrench. For fender I simply made up a non existant word & for wrench I said “large tool.” I was able to wiggle around some other tricky vocabulary, but spelling & accents may get me down.

You can all rest assured that the court interpreters are properly screened & trained to bring forth justice. This apparently involves knowing the word for wrench.

Until last week, when I got a job with the International Rescue Committee as a refugee case manager, I had not idea Salt Lake City was a major refugee relocation center. Each year around 400 refugees are relocated to the Salt Lake Valley in Utah to start new lives as future American citizens. Many of the relocated refugees have spent up to 30 years in a refugee camps and so everything about the US is new to them. For example many refugees have never signed a lease before, been to a grocery store, or even been in a car. While the first year or so is a very difficult adjustment for many of the refugees, eventually they settle into American life and, like the rest of us, live out the American dream. As part of my job I am also able to work with many refugees that have been in the US longer than 5 years and most of them own their own houses, have great jobs with benefits, have sent all their children to college and university, and are full fledged US citizens. In fact I am told very few refugees, if any, require welfare assistance after their first year in the US. Every time I meet one of these great Americans I am humbled to think what they have gone through and how hard they have fought to get where they are…and if they can work hard and be successful, then I sure can! My heart goes out to all the refugees in the world and what a great country we live in that allows many of these destitute people to relocate to hope and prosperity.P.S. Sorry we have been slacking, we are having a tough time adjusting to our new lives (and real jobs) in SLC and finding time to do things we love (i.e. the internet).