Sunday

Right now it's nine pm Sunday night here in beautiful Nha Trang, Viet Nam. Twelve time zones around the world, corrected for Daylight Saving Time, it's right at ten am on the same day. That would be the Eastern Time Zone of the United States, including each of those particular places Sunshine and I call home. When it's finally nine pm Sunday night there, eleven hours from now, the 2008 Miss Universe Pageant will begin its live telecast to time zones all around the globe. This is my meandering way of making obvious the fact that, while my friends and neighbors are tuning-in to watch the broadcast this evening, Sunshine and I will be dressed to the hot nines and settling-in for the very same show tomorrow morning. We'll be just on the other side of the TV screen from those Eastern Time Zoners, yet outside the Diamond Bay auditorium it will be eight o'clock in the morning. The pageant should be over by ten thirty or so, and there might be some press-type things afterward. If the same sorta governmental bungling that stopped all the cabs from picking people up after Tuesday's Presentation Event happens again tomorrow, it will be in the blazing noontime heat. This will surely kill me. Last night's bar adventure included drinks with Viet Nam's Agence France-Presse reporter. Today he delivered this story, which includes the following:

Many favoured Miss Venezuela, [...] whose country is admired here as a 'pageant powerhouse' that has long drilled contestants with makeovers, English classes and runway-practice.

"She seems to come with that mindset that, no matter what happens on the final night, you're only a Miss Universe contestant once in your life and you have to enjoy it," enthused one contest insider [*] who asked not to be named.

[Cavin]