Mausts On Toast

OK, here’s an account of the day of my visa interview at the London Embassy on January 31, 2006:

I set my alarm for 6.30am and left my house about 7.15, I met my next-door neighbour Ian at the station on his way to work so we sat on the train together and talked all the way to our destinations. I got off at Bond Street and realised I was an hour early to be able to go into the embassy so I thought I would make sure I knew where it was and how long it would take me to get there. I’d been to the embassy in 2003 so I recognised the way…

After I had walked there and back, I went into Starbucks and passed the time with a Chai tea latte. At 8.50 I made my way to the embassy and got in the queue to go through security. After entering the embassy, a man who worked there ushered me over and gave me a numbered ticket and said I should sit down and wait till my number was called.

About 15 minutes later my number was called and I thought I was gonna be sitting there for hours. So I went up to the booth and she said,

“OK. Can I have your application form?”
I was like, “Erm, what?”

And she realised I had a non-immigrant ticket number and I needed an immigrant. SO I went back to the man who gave me the ticket in the beginning and told him I needed an immigrant ticket. He said I had to sit back down and wait again. About an hour later my number was called!!!

I was called up to a different booth and gave all my documents to the man behind the window. He gave me back my x-rays [that we taken at the medical examination earlier in January] and said I should take them to America. Then he said I need to sit down again and wait till I’m called up for ‘the interview’. 30 minutes later a man’s voice came over the loudspeaker and asked me to go to desk number 13. This man checked over more of my documents and got me to sign something and took my index fingerprints, then asked me to raise my right hand and said something along the lines of:

“Do you swear you’ve told me the truth and all these documents are correct?”

And I said “I do”.

Then he signed some stuff, told me I’d receive my passport on Thursday or Friday and that I could go if I didn’t have any questions. And that was it!!!!! He didn’t even ask me any kind of questions about anything. It was so easy.

There we go, I think that’s about it.

» Emily

I’ve been checking our mail everyday for the past several weeks hoping everyday to open up our little mailbox here at Timberline and find lying there an envelope yielding the logo of Southeastern Seminary. Yesterday was that day, and as you can probably guess from the title of this post, I’ve been accepted! Well, on a conditional basis that I first graduate from WVU. So, all I have to do is kick one more semester of WVU flat in the teeth and we’ll be off to Wake Forest to engage in philosophical and theological anti-pelagian pauline polemics! Bam! That’s exciting, and we’re excited about getting an “upgrade.” What means this? Well, we really feel like it will be an upgrade to move to North Carolina and carry on to the next stage of our lives: Emily back to nursing school. Me to seminary. And who knows except God alone what that future holds?! I wonder how much upcoming excitement he sees in our lives. That we may always love his command. =)

In other news, Emily and I are headed to Huntington this weekend, the city where we first fell in love and were introduced to one another. Our plans our to see friends and have a fun road trip away from Morgantown. If we can remember, we’ll take along our digital camera and post pictures after we get back.

Speaking of posting pictures, hop on over to the Photo Gallery and peep 91 recently added photos of our trip to Grandma’s house in Columbus. They’re not to be missed.

Anything else to share with y’all? Can’t think right now, but hopefully Emily will come on here and add anything I’ve forgotten.

This week’s food of the week is: Reese Peanut Butter Cup Klondike Bars
Wow, they’re good.

This week’s song of the week is: Eternal Flame by The Bangles

This week’s drink of the week is: Rockstar Juiced

This week’s person of the week is: Emily Clare (Hayes) Maust — she’s out of control

This week’s leisure time activity of the week is: Camping

This week’s stupid thing of the week is: The Dominion Post — the Morgantown newspaper! it’s horrible. while Israel is having peace talks with Hamas, they slap a story about a poodle being mauled on the front page!!!

This week’s thing we bought this week is: an Electric Hand Mixer — wow, you haven’t had mashed potatoes until you’ve had our super creamy taters!

If you have eaten, drunk, listened to, read about, done, or otherwise come across any of the above Things of the Week, leave us a comment telling us about it, and we’ll hook you up with a special surprise!

Emily and I both have the wonderful pleasure of two days off work…at the same time; a very rare occurrence! So when our days off overlap, we like to take advantage of our time together and our love for road-trips and traveling. Ergo this morning (wednesday circa 8:00am) we will put our Ford Taurus on the road for Columbus, Ohio, whenceforth we shall drive 4ish hours over the hills and through the woods to [my] Grandmother's house. We're taking our digital camera, so hopefully we can show what we've been up to when we get back into Morgantown on Thursday sometime; (we both have to work bright and early on Friday). See ya!

It's been a slow week in Theydon Bois.  Nevertheless we have all been caught up in World Cup Fever.  Many cars proudly display the flag of St George (a red cross on a white background) and we love it. First of all, England beat Trinidad & Tobago.  I know they were not the most challenging opposition but they fought bravely and England only pulled though by the skin of their teeth.  I have been watching Mexico versus Angola tonight.  Mexico are rated the fourth best in the world.  Angola are rated no-where.  If you saw a group of passers-by knocking a ball around on a patch of wasteland at the end of your street, they would be rated more highly than Angola.  They were gob-smacked that they made it to the  World Cup in the first place.  But to hold Mexico to a 0-0 draw was pretty amazing, especially when they lost a man and were fighting 10 men against 11. They demonstrated an amazing amount of heart.  They were totally focused and dedicated to their cause - an example to us all.

It’s been a slow week at Theydon Bois. We’ve had the Formula 1 British Grand Prix and England versus Paraguay in the Soccer World Cup. The Grand Prix was a disappointment as our boy, Jensen Button, withdrew after a few laps due to engine failure. But the soccer was more hopeful as we won the match when Paraguay scored an own goal. We must do better in the next game. The performance so far has been unimpressive.

The plant sale in the village for Cancer Relief has been more hopeful. Georgina has been doing her bit. She took some plant pots to the house where the plant sale was held and left them around the back. When she went to the sale the next Saturday she realised it was at a completely different house. Imagine the surprise when the pots were discovered. Who had left them? We are keeping quiet.

I’ve been reading a borrowed copy of The Da Vinci Code.  Well, you don’t think I’d buy a copy and swell the author’s coffers?  The story is pacey and keeps you turning the pages, but the theology is so suspect.  Not that one should ever be under the illusion that the book is anything but fiction. The genre, style, literary techniques shout out in every sentence that this is a contrived, self-conscious, money-making work of, let’s face it, “pulp” fiction.  This is not to deny that, in it’s own way, it is “a good read”.  But we must not fall into the trap of thinking that it is anything more than a “ripping” yarn.  Mixing fact and fiction to give credibility to both is a well-known if disreputable technique.  The Louvre museum exists.  Jesus married Mary Magdalene.  Don’t confuse the two.  One is true, the other false, well, at the best, supposition.  The author is playing games, and making a fortune at the same time.  Read the book, if you must, for what it is, viz. pure fiction.  Don’t be outraged nor give the author the undeserved “oxygen of publicity.”

Q: Why the name MaustsOnToast for your website?

A: Well, it does seem a bit random doesn’t it? Whenever I went to get Emily & I a domain name (a name plus dot com or dot org), I had a hard time trying to come up with something that would represent us well, while at the same time being easily remembered and easily spelt. I’m not quite sure if I’ve succeeded, but nonetheless we are currently parked online at MaustsOnToast.com. So why MaustsOnToasts.com then?

Right, well, in the place Emily where comes from (England) where they talk differently than where I come from (USA), they eat beans on toast. Yes, you take baked beans, heat them up and pour them over toast. And then you eat it, and it’s oh so yummy. I really enjoy it. Not quite as much as Bombay Balti on Toast…but you don’t always have the canned taste of India on hand, so you go for beans. And it is yummy. Try it at home tonight with your family. So, where was I? Yeh, our domain name.

Well, so Emily and I got married and we now have the same surname: Maust. Thus we are Mausts. And since Emily is from England, we have to represent our roots. Sooooooo….we are Mausts On Toast because we are two Mausts and it’s a play on the English cuisine beans on toast. voila! It’s kinda a cute name isn’t it? Yeh, you know it is. Go on and chuckle now.

This month of June we have many celebrations to, well, celebrate.

• June 2nd - Sir Nigel D. Hayes (emily’s dad) celebrates his 56th birthday!
• June 4th - Justin (drew’s little brother) turns 12!
• June 4th - We celebrate our first anniversary!
• June 14th - Simon A. Hayes turns a young-looking 31!
• June 19th - Duane W. Maust (drew’s dad) celebrates his 49th birthday!
• June 39th - International Celebrate Hannah Polly, Polly Hannah Day

If you see any of these mirthful birthful people around, be sure to wish them a happy day!

This news update is just to tell you that we’ve just added about 100 more photos to our photo gallery. After this weekend’s wedding of my brother Matt and his new wife Christina, we had tons of photos to add from their celebration in Beckley. And, hotly sought after photos of Emily in her new work attire (aka Scrubs) have been posted so the world can see how cute she is as a little nursey poo.

Soo, click on Photo Gallery now!

So, Emily and I had the privilege of attending a BBQ at our Pastor’s house this past Friday evening. We arrived late as usual and made our way around, chatting about anything that could become conversation. The wife of one of the couples at the party had her siblings staying with her and her husband that weekend, and had brought them along to the gig. I like kids so I made small talk with the eldest boy, named Isaac, and probed his mind to see how far along his 11 year-old mind had come. Pretty bright young lad he was, conducting himself in a grown-up manner with plenty of animation along the way. I found out that his family owns a farm and that the father is a “meat cutter” (same thing as a butcher?). Well, in order to have meat to cut up, one must first subdue the soon-to-be meatlings. Hunt they must.

Isaac adores hunting; turkeys, squirrels, deer, groundhogs, possums, you name it. “What gun do you hunt with?” “I hunt with a .232…blah blah blah.” This child could talk for hours about the white man’s “boom stick” and never miss a beat.

On the way home I asked Emily, “Would you ever find an 11 year-old in England obsessed with guns and hunting?” Her response, “No way!”

How different that is to have in one nation boys utterly frightened by guns and apathetic to the sport of hunting and in another, a West Virginian Isaac going “ballistic” about guns and killing animals with them.

Hunting isn’t just for aristocrats anymore.