tragedy has struck downtown salt lake

if you have been around me in either early april or october in the past three years or so, you may know that we have a lovely general conference tradition: we drive up to salt lake early saturday morning where sometimes we wait in line and make it into the conference center, sometimes we end up in the tabernacle, and recently we've been going to the joseph smith memorial building. after the moring session, we walk down the street to 400 s. and 55 w. to a little afghanistani restaurant called 'baba's' and enjoy their lunch buffet. it's so good that some years we get excited for conference just because we know that baba's will follow.

well jeff and his friends were happily exiting off the freeway yesterday morning and working their way to the zcmi mall to park when jeff looked to his left and did not want to believe what he saw--baba's wasn't there.

this couldn't be.
i made a quick u-turn to be sure, and sadly but surely i was right.

baba's is gone.

i think i may have yelled and screamed in pain and heartbreak, yet, to be honest, i have taken this rather well.
it's gone, but we have our memories, and even have a picture from a few conferences ago.

we had to make some phone calls to other people who were going to meet us there and announce the passing of the great establishment. becky noticed a place called 'curry in a hurry', and since she has been a self-proclaimed curry fan since thailand, it was decided this would be the new meeting place.
except that when we met there shortly after 12, we found it was closed on weekends. we almost went in to a chilean place [i don't know a lot about south and central american cuisine], but seeing as the group had no real concensus on where to go and chile didn't sound exotic enough for me, we continued to wander. we almost went the 'star of india', which was where baba's used to be, but decided it was time to cut that loose and start afresh [too many good memories there], and so we ended up at 'the house of kabob', which offered dishes of 'greek, turkish, and persian' origin.
the food was great and they had a sort of arabian technon in the background.
everyone heartily approved.

a lesser tradition that has developed recently is to stop at mcdonald's at the mall across from temple square before the first session starts. my biscuit meal was good. i should not have gotten the mcgriddle. not that good and way too deadly.

this is one of the two times a year when i watch 10 hours of tv in one weekend and it was great. actually, we had tickets for the saturday afternoon session, which is especially awesome. it's wonderful to be in there, to see president hinckley and the apostles. plus we got to be there to hear elder bednar's talk on the Holy Ghost and elder nelson's words on marriage. those were my two favorite talks, along with elder hales's opening talk on agency.
this is really awesome stuff.

and while i think it is best to be dressed and alert even if you are watching it from home, i slept in this morning [daylight savings time + not sleeping for the past five days] and there is something quite endearing about watching conference in you pajamas with a bowl of cereal.

final word: cree-l kofford's prayer at the priesthood session a few years ago will always be the coolest prayer ever.