gratulacje a takze pozegnainy, emilia i pawel

that title is my effort at saying 'congratulations and farewell to emilia and pawel'. it should get a chuckle out of them in its inaccuracy, but it's the thought that counts, right? readers of this blog, especially those overseas who have found spackleshot by googling 'vegetable porn' (surprisingly many!) will recognize emilia as one of my favorite people to blog about--that stone cold polish fox who taught me to grow tomatoes. and here she is again. and by the way, i could say the same things about pawel, but it would be inappropriate.
all references to physical beauty aside, emilia and pawel came to the u.s. with limited english skills, busted their butts for low pay at the us open (where i met them in the summer of 2001) as food runners, perfected their english, worked their way up the catering ladder to butler, then senior butler, then captain, and most recently, completed their masters degrees in business in tandem while pawel continued to captain full time and emilia prepared taxes. in short, they came, they conquered, and now they're headed back to poland to dominate the economy of the motherland. when they invited me to attend their graduation ceremony, i couldn't have been more touched. i will miss them, but i expect at least emilia to continue to be a presence here at spackleshot. ah, the internet. see slide show above for snapshots from the graduation. we all cried. especially when the canons fired confetti into the audience.