Workin' for the man every night and day

You know you are too close to a person when he asks you to shave his back. Ew.
OK, with that said, life is good. I'm gaining all sorts of new skills these days. I'm getting to be a real ace when it comes to mowing the lawn, and my mom is teaching me all the ins and outs of canning... we've canned many, many jars of apple pie filling, and I expect this to continue through the end of the week. It may seem a little antiquated, but it's a skill I'm happy to have-- kind of makes me feel like I'm participating in the ultimate Relief Society ritual. Now I'm a full-fledged woman.
The last few days have been good for introspection. My aunt told me that I have a problem because if a boy likes me, I automatically hate him (true, but I'm making an effort to not scream in any more faces when they go for the kiss--poor Tyler). My dad has taken to calling me "Kate"-- as in Katherine from Shakespeare's "Taming of the Shrew." He insists he isn't calling me a shrew, but he says he wonders if there's a man out there who can tame me. Do I need to be tamed? Interesting.
My other happy news is I went to the Fair last night and had a chat with two gentlemen from Poland. How I love the Poles! Of course, I wish these two hadn't taught my friend probably the foulest Polish cuss word, but they were still nice. Adam from Katowice told me that I spoke the best Polish of any American he's met so far. It helps that no one outside the Midwest speaks Polish, and he's only been to Las Vegas. And I don't know how to say a whole lot, but I guess my pronunciation is ok. You can win people over pretty easily by singing them drinking songs in their native tongue.