Wow, it's been a really long time since I've been here. *whistles through teeth* Lots of cobwebs to clear, lots of... life... to catch up on. And, like any ghost town, nobody to tell it to. That part, at least, is of little matter. It would be nice to get it all out anyway.
Much has changed, and much has not. As I type now, I've moved to another state. Instead of being just a ways outside of Boston, I'm now a ways outside of New York City.... well, for at least the past two days now. Somehow, I find that I come here and talk when I happen to be at a low point, when I feel that I can't talk to anybody else. True? Hmmm, I'm guessing yes. And tonight is one of those nights. But that's neither here nor there.
Life has been much the way that it was since I was here last, apart from the move. Still dissatisfied with what I was before? Yes, even more so. I've asked for him to let me go and he's said no. The move hasn't really improved anything. Distracted? Yes. Improved? No. Another distraction that actually helped was Burning Man. For two years, I prepped in hopes that I could go and I finally made it this past burn. After coming home a changed person, there was nothing to distract me any longer from what my life had become. Nothing had changed, but that I'd grown two years older and two more years of dissatisfaction lay naked in front of me for me to finally see with new eyes. Again, keep in mind that I'm only here because I've nothing else to distract me from what is or isn't going on in my life. Much of my life is very positive and I tend to be a happy person in general, but, at night, when things start looking their darkest, perhaps I can be more introspective and honest.
Well, enough of that. It's not helping things right now anyway, so best to let it slide. In these times, it's good to keep your good friends close... so, in typical post-move fashion, I've sorted through my friends... the ones that I can count on, and the less than reliable ones... and give the ones whose friendship is uneven the boot. Hasta la vista, babies! But seriously, I've moved enough to know that it's right on schedule. What happens next is yet to be seen. I've no friends here yet and hardly know my way around. I'm a little lost here. Perhaps soon it will work itself out. Perhaps.
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Friday, January 4, 2008
Memories of Night
Originally posted 8/24/06
Night time again. Cool. Quiet. Still. Most people are starting to think of going to bed if they haven't already turned in for the night. I just can't do it. The dark night tends to make me feel rather feral and restless. That's left over from bygone days, though, and isn't something that I'm going to go into here. These days, more often than not, I end up getting out of bed to enjoy the stillness, the quiet and the darkness of the house after everyone else is asleep. Given the fact that I've been a lifelong night owl, I suppose that it's appropriate that some of my favorite memories are from the night, then, isn't it?
There was one night soon after we arrived in Saudi when the company arranged for us to have a picnic on a beach by the Red Sea. They called it the Goat Grab, though I'm not sure if they had any goat there, but you never know, eh? It certainly wouldn't be the strangest thing that I ate while I lived there. The beaches along that part of the Red Sea were different than they are here. Sure, there's sand, but that's abundant through much of Saudi anyway. What made it different was that the Red Sea had extensive coral reefs along the shoreline that slowly build on themselves as the old coral ages and dies, so you sometimes had to walk through a shallow water area of old coral, sea urchins, mollusks, crabs (and sometimes even a lost pufferfish) for about 50 to 100 feet (or sometimes more) before you get to the drop-off where the waves were breaking. It was strongly advised to wear shoes in the water because there were all sorts of sharp or poisonous things to step on. Another oddity of these beaches was that there were often parts of the beach that were mostly enclosed on the land side with cinderblock walls, as if someone were claiming it as beachfront property, but without any houses on them. Just walls around the beach in the middle of nowhere. Odd, but typical.
In one of these "courtyards" at the beach that night, they spread two long rows of table cloths with oriental carpets along each edge to sit on; on the table cloths were spread dish upon dish of the most mouth watering middle eastern food that I had ever seen in my life. We took off our shoes and sat on the carpets to eat while some of the Saudi nationals who were along with us were playing traditional music. What a great experience. However, the most memorable part of the evening was when we first arrived at the beach. All the kids (myself included...hey, I was only 14) ran down to the waterline as kids always do when they get around water, and we stood there listening to the waves breaking against the coral somewhere out in the inky darkness at the edge of the reef. Eventually, most of the kids ran back to the group, but I stood there, intoxicated by the smell of the sea air and enoying the feeling of the night breeze on my face.
And then I looked up and saw something that I had never seen before: a sky full of stars completely untouched by any trace of man-made light. It was unlike any sky I had seen before or would see again, painted by seemingly thousands of stars, like a barrel full of diamond dust had been poured from horizon to horizon across a sky of black velvet. There was not one place where you could point your finger and find blank sky. I was awestruck. Unfortunately, I only saw this for a few minutes. They fired up the generators and much of the sky was lost as the light haze in the humid air bleached out the dark sky.
Those few minutes have stayed with me throughout my life, though. Every time I look at a starry night sky now, I think of that night and what the sky looked like, glad that for one time in my life I could see all that lies hidden from our eyes in much of the western world.
Night time again. Cool. Quiet. Still. Most people are starting to think of going to bed if they haven't already turned in for the night. I just can't do it. The dark night tends to make me feel rather feral and restless. That's left over from bygone days, though, and isn't something that I'm going to go into here. These days, more often than not, I end up getting out of bed to enjoy the stillness, the quiet and the darkness of the house after everyone else is asleep. Given the fact that I've been a lifelong night owl, I suppose that it's appropriate that some of my favorite memories are from the night, then, isn't it?
There was one night soon after we arrived in Saudi when the company arranged for us to have a picnic on a beach by the Red Sea. They called it the Goat Grab, though I'm not sure if they had any goat there, but you never know, eh? It certainly wouldn't be the strangest thing that I ate while I lived there. The beaches along that part of the Red Sea were different than they are here. Sure, there's sand, but that's abundant through much of Saudi anyway. What made it different was that the Red Sea had extensive coral reefs along the shoreline that slowly build on themselves as the old coral ages and dies, so you sometimes had to walk through a shallow water area of old coral, sea urchins, mollusks, crabs (and sometimes even a lost pufferfish) for about 50 to 100 feet (or sometimes more) before you get to the drop-off where the waves were breaking. It was strongly advised to wear shoes in the water because there were all sorts of sharp or poisonous things to step on. Another oddity of these beaches was that there were often parts of the beach that were mostly enclosed on the land side with cinderblock walls, as if someone were claiming it as beachfront property, but without any houses on them. Just walls around the beach in the middle of nowhere. Odd, but typical.
In one of these "courtyards" at the beach that night, they spread two long rows of table cloths with oriental carpets along each edge to sit on; on the table cloths were spread dish upon dish of the most mouth watering middle eastern food that I had ever seen in my life. We took off our shoes and sat on the carpets to eat while some of the Saudi nationals who were along with us were playing traditional music. What a great experience. However, the most memorable part of the evening was when we first arrived at the beach. All the kids (myself included...hey, I was only 14) ran down to the waterline as kids always do when they get around water, and we stood there listening to the waves breaking against the coral somewhere out in the inky darkness at the edge of the reef. Eventually, most of the kids ran back to the group, but I stood there, intoxicated by the smell of the sea air and enoying the feeling of the night breeze on my face.
And then I looked up and saw something that I had never seen before: a sky full of stars completely untouched by any trace of man-made light. It was unlike any sky I had seen before or would see again, painted by seemingly thousands of stars, like a barrel full of diamond dust had been poured from horizon to horizon across a sky of black velvet. There was not one place where you could point your finger and find blank sky. I was awestruck. Unfortunately, I only saw this for a few minutes. They fired up the generators and much of the sky was lost as the light haze in the humid air bleached out the dark sky.
Those few minutes have stayed with me throughout my life, though. Every time I look at a starry night sky now, I think of that night and what the sky looked like, glad that for one time in my life I could see all that lies hidden from our eyes in much of the western world.
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
History of the Girl: Part I
Originally posted 8/1/06.... these four posts below are in chronological order from the top down (which may be pretty confusing for regular blog readers... I'll have to work out some other way as I put more posts back up). These are actually four out of my first five posts from when I was just a blogging newbie, but this is what I started with. :-)
There's a lot of information that I never really tell people about myself. I know that we all self-edit to one degree or another, but I intentionally leave out huge chunks of my life until I know someone a little better. I don't lie about it, I just don't offer up any information unless necessary and, even then, rather sparingly. One of the reasons that I wanted to start this blog is so that I could have an opportunity to just get it all out, as a way to talk about it for a change. Whether anybody is actually there to read it is entirely secondary.
My brother and I were born here (our parents were WWII refugees from Europe who actually met in NJ... funny, that) and we spent the first part of our lives in upstate New York. Life seemed pretty normal to me... y'know, blood sausage and sauerkraut for Christmas dinner (none of that for me, thanks, give me a hamburger, really), along with shredded veal in a meat gelatin with vinegar and/or hot mustard (yum... or not, but it's really not all that bad), Santa coming to our house on Christmas eve while we were over at the neighbor's or while we were at church (woohoo! presents on Christmas Eve hours before our friends got theirs!), and all those normal, assimilating kinds of things that immigrants do. You can bet that we were the only family on the block burning real candles on the Christmas tree as a treat. But we also had the cat, dog, fish, gerbils, all that typical kind of stuff and our parents had us doing lots of sports (though baseball and football were suspiciously absent from the list... hmmm). We didn't have much money because of the whole "war/refugee/immigrant" situation. Still, camping, hiking, kayaking and xc-skiing were mainstays and we spent an amazing amount of time in the Adirondacks. A kid could do a lot worse. Odd traditions aside, I had great hopes of becoming any one of the endless variations of a normal American.
Then, just as I was rounding the corner to 14, it happened: my father sat us down and announced that he had the opportunity to take a job in Saudi Arabia.
That was when I should have known that I could pretty much kiss any hopes of being "normal" goodbye...
There's a lot of information that I never really tell people about myself. I know that we all self-edit to one degree or another, but I intentionally leave out huge chunks of my life until I know someone a little better. I don't lie about it, I just don't offer up any information unless necessary and, even then, rather sparingly. One of the reasons that I wanted to start this blog is so that I could have an opportunity to just get it all out, as a way to talk about it for a change. Whether anybody is actually there to read it is entirely secondary.
My brother and I were born here (our parents were WWII refugees from Europe who actually met in NJ... funny, that) and we spent the first part of our lives in upstate New York. Life seemed pretty normal to me... y'know, blood sausage and sauerkraut for Christmas dinner (none of that for me, thanks, give me a hamburger, really), along with shredded veal in a meat gelatin with vinegar and/or hot mustard (yum... or not, but it's really not all that bad), Santa coming to our house on Christmas eve while we were over at the neighbor's or while we were at church (woohoo! presents on Christmas Eve hours before our friends got theirs!), and all those normal, assimilating kinds of things that immigrants do. You can bet that we were the only family on the block burning real candles on the Christmas tree as a treat. But we also had the cat, dog, fish, gerbils, all that typical kind of stuff and our parents had us doing lots of sports (though baseball and football were suspiciously absent from the list... hmmm). We didn't have much money because of the whole "war/refugee/immigrant" situation. Still, camping, hiking, kayaking and xc-skiing were mainstays and we spent an amazing amount of time in the Adirondacks. A kid could do a lot worse. Odd traditions aside, I had great hopes of becoming any one of the endless variations of a normal American.
Then, just as I was rounding the corner to 14, it happened: my father sat us down and announced that he had the opportunity to take a job in Saudi Arabia.
That was when I should have known that I could pretty much kiss any hopes of being "normal" goodbye...
On the Threshold of a Brand New Life
Originally posted 8/2/06
Okay, so, in the story of my young life, I had reached one of the major turning points: I was leaving the only town that I had ever lived in and was moving to, of all exotic places, Saudi Arabia. Expatriate life. What an adventure!
Now, the company figured that the hardship benefits for taking a job like this had to be very generous because, when you live in a place like that, you make considerable lifestyle sacrifices. Everything becomes more difficult, from food and clothes shopping to getting medical care, but things can be particularly hard if you're a woman or a girl... being unable to work or drive, unable to go out without being covered up, being isolated on a compound in the desert with limited things to do. These things can really wear on you. So, other than covering all your living expenses and giving you a generous food allowance, how do they sweeten the pot even more? Travel. Lots and lots of travel. One home leave a year back to the States and three vacations a year any place else in the world but the US... with the company paying airfare and providing a very nice spending allowance.
In my 13 year old mind, we had hit the JACKPOT. My first time out of the country! I had a shiny new passport in my hand, ready to see the great cities of the world. Dreams filled my head of seeing London, Paris, Rome, all the great places in Europe... and beyond! And we were taking that first vacation on the way to moving to Saudi. Oh, the possibilities! Where would we go?! The suspense was killing me... where would my parents choose for that first trip?!
When we were finally in Saudi and I was meeting the other expat kids from the company, we were comparing notes about our European stopovers. The other kids had all been to places like London and Paris and other celebrated places in the world. Where had we gone? What was the first country outside of the US that I stepped foot in?
Iceland.
Shit. Even among the misfits we were misfits.
Okay, so, in the story of my young life, I had reached one of the major turning points: I was leaving the only town that I had ever lived in and was moving to, of all exotic places, Saudi Arabia. Expatriate life. What an adventure!
Now, the company figured that the hardship benefits for taking a job like this had to be very generous because, when you live in a place like that, you make considerable lifestyle sacrifices. Everything becomes more difficult, from food and clothes shopping to getting medical care, but things can be particularly hard if you're a woman or a girl... being unable to work or drive, unable to go out without being covered up, being isolated on a compound in the desert with limited things to do. These things can really wear on you. So, other than covering all your living expenses and giving you a generous food allowance, how do they sweeten the pot even more? Travel. Lots and lots of travel. One home leave a year back to the States and three vacations a year any place else in the world but the US... with the company paying airfare and providing a very nice spending allowance.
In my 13 year old mind, we had hit the JACKPOT. My first time out of the country! I had a shiny new passport in my hand, ready to see the great cities of the world. Dreams filled my head of seeing London, Paris, Rome, all the great places in Europe... and beyond! And we were taking that first vacation on the way to moving to Saudi. Oh, the possibilities! Where would we go?! The suspense was killing me... where would my parents choose for that first trip?!
When we were finally in Saudi and I was meeting the other expat kids from the company, we were comparing notes about our European stopovers. The other kids had all been to places like London and Paris and other celebrated places in the world. Where had we gone? What was the first country outside of the US that I stepped foot in?
Iceland.
Shit. Even among the misfits we were misfits.
Culture Shock in Saudi Arabia
Originally posted 8/3/06
So, imagine that you've been plucked from your comfortable, temperate home of lush greenery, tall trees, winding rivers, lakes and been spun around until you were dizzy then plonked down in a 125 degree Fahrenheit desert. If you were like me, you'd stand there, slackjawed, dazed, trying to absorb what just happened.
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There we were. The new Jeddah airport was still being built (that's why we were there in the first place), so we arrived at the old Jeddah airport close to, or even in, town... I can't even remember anymore. But if ever there was a time to mutter the oft overused quote, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," this was it.
Anyone who has ever gone through Saudi customs can relate to what an alarming experience it can be for a first-timer. After claiming your luggage, you brought it to the customs area, which, at the old airport, was a cavernous white room with long, low counters and bright overhead lighting where they would rifle through all your bags to determine if you were trying to bring in anything forbidden. Pornography. Pictures of women with any skin other than hands, faces, or feet showing at all (to them, the same thing as pornography). Pork. Alcohol. Even, in one story we heard, mentions of pork and alcohol. The customs agents had black markers and used them with impunity to black out anything that they deemed offensive. That is, if they didn't take it away from you instead. After a while, you learned what things to avoid bringing into the kingdom so that you could get through customs with the least hassle. To add further enjoyment to the customs experience was the clear, plexiglas barrier where the people who were meeting you stood. On those counters, before the throng of onlookers, all your dainties and not so dainties were spread out for everyone to see.
But this is something that you eventually get used to and, over the years, you tend to rack up customs stories. Like the friend who was bringing in her precious contact lens solution (a hard to find item there at the time) and frantically trying to stop the customs agent from squirting the entire bottle all over the counter while he was feverishly trying to light it because he was convinced that it was alcohol. Or the time when I was coming back from a european ski vacation and the agent reached into my ski boot bag where I had also packed my furry boots (all the rage in the french alps at the time). With his hand still in the bag and looking into my eyes, he started slowly fondling the goat hair with a lecherous smile on his face and a look that I can still see today. I doubt that I even tried to hide my disgust and there's no way that I can emphasize the word "eeeew" in print to accurately describe what I was thinking at that moment. It's a good thing that I wasn't as outspoken then as I am now or I might have made some crack about his last date and then I would have really been in trouble.
But back to that very first time. It was an eye opener to have my things treated so roughly by a stranger and it was a taste of how different life was going to be now. Finally cleared through customs, we made our way past the armed guards at the barrier into the teeming mass of people from seemingly every possible corner of the globe; once we finally found the company driver who was there to pick us up, we walked out the airport door into the hustle and bustle of the hot, steamy Jeddah night.
"Welcome to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, folks. Enjoy your stay..."
So, imagine that you've been plucked from your comfortable, temperate home of lush greenery, tall trees, winding rivers, lakes and been spun around until you were dizzy then plonked down in a 125 degree Fahrenheit desert. If you were like me, you'd stand there, slackjawed, dazed, trying to absorb what just happened.
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. There we were. The new Jeddah airport was still being built (that's why we were there in the first place), so we arrived at the old Jeddah airport close to, or even in, town... I can't even remember anymore. But if ever there was a time to mutter the oft overused quote, "Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore," this was it.
Anyone who has ever gone through Saudi customs can relate to what an alarming experience it can be for a first-timer. After claiming your luggage, you brought it to the customs area, which, at the old airport, was a cavernous white room with long, low counters and bright overhead lighting where they would rifle through all your bags to determine if you were trying to bring in anything forbidden. Pornography. Pictures of women with any skin other than hands, faces, or feet showing at all (to them, the same thing as pornography). Pork. Alcohol. Even, in one story we heard, mentions of pork and alcohol. The customs agents had black markers and used them with impunity to black out anything that they deemed offensive. That is, if they didn't take it away from you instead. After a while, you learned what things to avoid bringing into the kingdom so that you could get through customs with the least hassle. To add further enjoyment to the customs experience was the clear, plexiglas barrier where the people who were meeting you stood. On those counters, before the throng of onlookers, all your dainties and not so dainties were spread out for everyone to see.
But this is something that you eventually get used to and, over the years, you tend to rack up customs stories. Like the friend who was bringing in her precious contact lens solution (a hard to find item there at the time) and frantically trying to stop the customs agent from squirting the entire bottle all over the counter while he was feverishly trying to light it because he was convinced that it was alcohol. Or the time when I was coming back from a european ski vacation and the agent reached into my ski boot bag where I had also packed my furry boots (all the rage in the french alps at the time). With his hand still in the bag and looking into my eyes, he started slowly fondling the goat hair with a lecherous smile on his face and a look that I can still see today. I doubt that I even tried to hide my disgust and there's no way that I can emphasize the word "eeeew" in print to accurately describe what I was thinking at that moment. It's a good thing that I wasn't as outspoken then as I am now or I might have made some crack about his last date and then I would have really been in trouble.
But back to that very first time. It was an eye opener to have my things treated so roughly by a stranger and it was a taste of how different life was going to be now. Finally cleared through customs, we made our way past the armed guards at the barrier into the teeming mass of people from seemingly every possible corner of the globe; once we finally found the company driver who was there to pick us up, we walked out the airport door into the hustle and bustle of the hot, steamy Jeddah night.
"Welcome to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, folks. Enjoy your stay..."
Jeddah: Let's Talk About the Weather...
Originally posted 8/4/06
When I've told people about how hot it was in Jeddah, the first thing that they usually say is that at least it was dry heat because it was the desert, but this wasn't true at all. Jeddah is on the Red Sea and therefore very humid, sometimes even 80-90%, so couple the high humidity with 125 degree temperatures and you may just be able to imagine how hot it really felt.
The adaptability of the human body is simply astounding, though, and by the end of the first week there, I was spending most of the day at the pool despite a temperature spike that week to over 130 degrees. So, how was the heat not oppressive? There was a constant desert wind blowing that helped to keep you cooler. Not a breeze. A wind. And that made all the difference.
Factoring in physical adaptation, our house was air-conditioned to a chilly 80 degrees and if it were any colder than that we might have had to put on sweaters. So, the relative temperature felt no different from a typical hot August day at home. One man's 125 is another man's 95, right? But we can also talk about absolutes. In absolute temperatures, it really was hot; the heat was enough to make the pool water the same as a warm bath by the end of the day and the shallow water at the beach could become even uncomfortably hot. And, at its worst, losing your air-conditioning in the summer could make your food spoilage quick and catastrophic. Returning home from a vacation one summer, we found that a breaker had tripped, knocking out our AC and rendering the refrigerator totally beyond any hope of repair because it was dripping with blood from the festering, spoiled meat in the freezer. So, yes, in absolutes, it was hot. Of course, these are the summer temperatures. In the winter, it was in the chilly 70's and the pool area was deserted.
Jeddah's in a desert, getting rain maybe only twice a year on average when we lived there, usually in the winter, sometimes heavily, but never for very long. To give you an idea about what the weather was generally like, I can give you a rundown of the weekly weather pattern during the summer:
Monday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Tuesday: Sunny, hot , humid, windy.
Wednesday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Thursday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Repeat this for every day all summer and, well, you get the picture. When you first get there, you look out the window to check the weather when you get up in the morning, but it's always the same, so after a while you just stop looking. You would think that it would be ideal to have a summer of perfect days (and thinking back on it, it was kinda nice), but you would be surprised at what you miss. Try to explain that to the people you see when you first come back to the States after spending the summer in the desert... try to get them to understand why you are running barefoot on the grass, laughing in the pouring rain.
And because it's 75 degrees out, you have on a sweater.
When I've told people about how hot it was in Jeddah, the first thing that they usually say is that at least it was dry heat because it was the desert, but this wasn't true at all. Jeddah is on the Red Sea and therefore very humid, sometimes even 80-90%, so couple the high humidity with 125 degree temperatures and you may just be able to imagine how hot it really felt.
The adaptability of the human body is simply astounding, though, and by the end of the first week there, I was spending most of the day at the pool despite a temperature spike that week to over 130 degrees. So, how was the heat not oppressive? There was a constant desert wind blowing that helped to keep you cooler. Not a breeze. A wind. And that made all the difference.
Factoring in physical adaptation, our house was air-conditioned to a chilly 80 degrees and if it were any colder than that we might have had to put on sweaters. So, the relative temperature felt no different from a typical hot August day at home. One man's 125 is another man's 95, right? But we can also talk about absolutes. In absolute temperatures, it really was hot; the heat was enough to make the pool water the same as a warm bath by the end of the day and the shallow water at the beach could become even uncomfortably hot. And, at its worst, losing your air-conditioning in the summer could make your food spoilage quick and catastrophic. Returning home from a vacation one summer, we found that a breaker had tripped, knocking out our AC and rendering the refrigerator totally beyond any hope of repair because it was dripping with blood from the festering, spoiled meat in the freezer. So, yes, in absolutes, it was hot. Of course, these are the summer temperatures. In the winter, it was in the chilly 70's and the pool area was deserted.
Jeddah's in a desert, getting rain maybe only twice a year on average when we lived there, usually in the winter, sometimes heavily, but never for very long. To give you an idea about what the weather was generally like, I can give you a rundown of the weekly weather pattern during the summer:
Monday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Tuesday: Sunny, hot , humid, windy.
Wednesday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Thursday: Sunny, hot, humid, windy.
Repeat this for every day all summer and, well, you get the picture. When you first get there, you look out the window to check the weather when you get up in the morning, but it's always the same, so after a while you just stop looking. You would think that it would be ideal to have a summer of perfect days (and thinking back on it, it was kinda nice), but you would be surprised at what you miss. Try to explain that to the people you see when you first come back to the States after spending the summer in the desert... try to get them to understand why you are running barefoot on the grass, laughing in the pouring rain.
And because it's 75 degrees out, you have on a sweater.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Christmas Preparations
Here it is, late at night (or early in the morning depending on how you look at it), and I've been working on decorating the humongous, fake Christmas tree that I dragged down from the attic today. I'm having a hard time getting in the spirit of things this year and feel like I'm just going through the motions. I have yet to put on any Christmas music at all; I'm just not in the mood. I feel so... so... Grinch-ish. Still, every once in a while I come upon something that stirs some sort of memory from Christmases long ago: The Swedish angel chimes, the candle holders that clip to the branches of the tree and boxes upon boxes of white candles for them, or some glittery glass ornaments that remind me of the ones that we used to have when I was a girl. Despite the fact that my heritage is largely ignored by my husband's relations (I'm not from a proud Chinese heritage, like they are... I'm just "white," right?), Christmas is one of the most important holidays of the year in Estonia; before the Christians usurped it, the celebration of the Winter Solstice was a huge thing for my pagan ancestors, too, so perhaps some of it is hardwired in me. Anyway....
Sorting through the various bins and tubs of Christmas decorations and things, I felt a pang for the Christmases of my childhood again. A myriad of memories from my childhood came flooding back to me, like the fragrant smell of spruce hanging in the air (we only had real trees as a child, balsams with the wide open branches and small needles), the smell of freshly snuffed candles, the colorful glass ornaments, opening our presents Christmas Eve while still dressed up from a candlelight church service, the smell of spritz cookies or cinnamon wafting from the kitchen. There wasn't always snow on Christmas day, but from the bay window in the front of our 1930's house in upstate New York, you could look out over the rhododendron bushes to the huge beech tree that was right in the middle of our front yard and practically see the cold. It was usually nice and warm by the fire, though, where it was nice to warm up stocking feet that were a bit cold from the hardwood floors.
Tonight, as I continued to decorate the tree, I kept flashing back to the one thing that I knew would be a balm to my aching soul right now: Körp. This is my ultimate comfort food from my childhood and, though we ate it at all times of the year, it reminds me mostly of Christmas. It's a sweet-ish type of cookie-like crust pressed into a 9x13 pan and filled with a mixture of cream cheese, cottage cheese, and I think egg, along with sugar and whatnot, and then sprinkled with cinnamon and baked. When cut up, it's like an extremely light sort of cheesecake with cinnamon on top, a cake that you can cut up into easy-to-handle pieces. It's simply delicious (this is seconded by my non-Estonian friends who've tried it).
Of course, it's got butter, cheese, and possibly egg in it, so that rules it out completely right now because of Second Son's egg and dairy allergies. I'm, well, sorrowful. My mother had given me a recipe for it long, long ago and I have no idea what happened to it (this was after she finally figured out ingredient amounts... before she did that, the instructions were more like "put in flour until it looks right," or "add enough [ingredient X] so that it looks/feels right"... very specific instructions, you know). Of course, it's a moot point because I can't have most of the ingredients in my house and I suppose that only makes my longing for it worse. If I actually had the recipe, I suppose that I would probably try to borrow a friend's kitchen just to get a few squares of Körp. That would be a happy thing indeed.
Sorting through the various bins and tubs of Christmas decorations and things, I felt a pang for the Christmases of my childhood again. A myriad of memories from my childhood came flooding back to me, like the fragrant smell of spruce hanging in the air (we only had real trees as a child, balsams with the wide open branches and small needles), the smell of freshly snuffed candles, the colorful glass ornaments, opening our presents Christmas Eve while still dressed up from a candlelight church service, the smell of spritz cookies or cinnamon wafting from the kitchen. There wasn't always snow on Christmas day, but from the bay window in the front of our 1930's house in upstate New York, you could look out over the rhododendron bushes to the huge beech tree that was right in the middle of our front yard and practically see the cold. It was usually nice and warm by the fire, though, where it was nice to warm up stocking feet that were a bit cold from the hardwood floors.
Tonight, as I continued to decorate the tree, I kept flashing back to the one thing that I knew would be a balm to my aching soul right now: Körp. This is my ultimate comfort food from my childhood and, though we ate it at all times of the year, it reminds me mostly of Christmas. It's a sweet-ish type of cookie-like crust pressed into a 9x13 pan and filled with a mixture of cream cheese, cottage cheese, and I think egg, along with sugar and whatnot, and then sprinkled with cinnamon and baked. When cut up, it's like an extremely light sort of cheesecake with cinnamon on top, a cake that you can cut up into easy-to-handle pieces. It's simply delicious (this is seconded by my non-Estonian friends who've tried it).
Of course, it's got butter, cheese, and possibly egg in it, so that rules it out completely right now because of Second Son's egg and dairy allergies. I'm, well, sorrowful. My mother had given me a recipe for it long, long ago and I have no idea what happened to it (this was after she finally figured out ingredient amounts... before she did that, the instructions were more like "put in flour until it looks right," or "add enough [ingredient X] so that it looks/feels right"... very specific instructions, you know). Of course, it's a moot point because I can't have most of the ingredients in my house and I suppose that only makes my longing for it worse. If I actually had the recipe, I suppose that I would probably try to borrow a friend's kitchen just to get a few squares of Körp. That would be a happy thing indeed.
Friday, December 7, 2007
I've pulled all of my posts. They're not gone; they're just pulled. This post may also be pulled very soon, but not before I've had a chance to get it all out there before sending this post off into the ether with a few keystrokes.
I don't really know why I did this. I don't want to delete my blog or at least not right now. If I'd wanted to do that, I'd have done it already. After all, Blogger makes it as easy as two mouse-clicks to delete a whole blog, as all you blogspot bloggers are aware. No, I've just pulled the posts until I figure out what I want to do. And for those of you who've been around long enough, I've reverted to my original black background.
As you may have guessed lately, I'm not happy. As a matter of fact, I've not been happy for over a year now, but have been increasingly unable to blog about it. In all honesty, that's why I've posting so infrequently. I've been unable to put on a happy face and try to blog about something unrelated. I've felt as trapped and unable to express myself on my blog as I have been in real life.
Basically, I'm tired. I'm tired of having to be the strong one all the time and would love, for even one lousy day, to have someone hold me in their arms and say, "I'll take care of you. I'll be strong for you. I'll protect you," and that I'd actually feel taken care of, able to lean on them, and actually feel protected and, for once, safe. Perhaps I can feel safe if I wrap my arms around myself. I'll be in the arms of someone who's used to having to take control, to carry their own weight and other's. That's the only solution that I can come up with.
So be it.
Muse has been serving as a soundtrack lately. Most of you will probably not like these two videos at all (right, Mom?), but I've been immersed in their music for the past few weeks despite the dark places that they take me.
That perfectly symbolizes the free-fall my mind's taken lately.
And this one is the Muse video that got me hooked, though I first heard Muse in the van from Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia, when I did an iPod swap with someone else. On the one hand, Justin Theroux, the actor who is featured in this video, is quite nearly the physical ideal in my mind with his very lean, muscular build, but I've been on the receiving end of male rage like that a long time ago and have mixed emotions. It's at once terrifying, yet hard to look away from despite bringing back some ugly times. But the body, oh, the body... the irrepressible libido speaks yet again...
I don't really know why I did this. I don't want to delete my blog or at least not right now. If I'd wanted to do that, I'd have done it already. After all, Blogger makes it as easy as two mouse-clicks to delete a whole blog, as all you blogspot bloggers are aware. No, I've just pulled the posts until I figure out what I want to do. And for those of you who've been around long enough, I've reverted to my original black background.
As you may have guessed lately, I'm not happy. As a matter of fact, I've not been happy for over a year now, but have been increasingly unable to blog about it. In all honesty, that's why I've posting so infrequently. I've been unable to put on a happy face and try to blog about something unrelated. I've felt as trapped and unable to express myself on my blog as I have been in real life.
Basically, I'm tired. I'm tired of having to be the strong one all the time and would love, for even one lousy day, to have someone hold me in their arms and say, "I'll take care of you. I'll be strong for you. I'll protect you," and that I'd actually feel taken care of, able to lean on them, and actually feel protected and, for once, safe. Perhaps I can feel safe if I wrap my arms around myself. I'll be in the arms of someone who's used to having to take control, to carry their own weight and other's. That's the only solution that I can come up with.
So be it.
Muse has been serving as a soundtrack lately. Most of you will probably not like these two videos at all (right, Mom?), but I've been immersed in their music for the past few weeks despite the dark places that they take me.
That perfectly symbolizes the free-fall my mind's taken lately.
And this one is the Muse video that got me hooked, though I first heard Muse in the van from Alabama to Atlanta, Georgia, when I did an iPod swap with someone else. On the one hand, Justin Theroux, the actor who is featured in this video, is quite nearly the physical ideal in my mind with his very lean, muscular build, but I've been on the receiving end of male rage like that a long time ago and have mixed emotions. It's at once terrifying, yet hard to look away from despite bringing back some ugly times. But the body, oh, the body... the irrepressible libido speaks yet again...
Monday, December 3, 2007
A Dark Horse
If we had any doubts about our younger son not being able to compete with his older brother in the creation of awkward moments, they were officially laid to rest. A male friend of mine was over eating dinner with us last night when our five year old son offered this interesting tidbit very audibly for all of us to ponder:
"I beat my penis!"
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a new winner, folks. And of course I exhibited my usual grace under pressure with my response of "most males do." Um, oops.
So, the younger brother has raised the bar, at least temporarily. It will only be a matter of time before one of them bests that one.
"I beat my penis!"
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a new winner, folks. And of course I exhibited my usual grace under pressure with my response of "most males do." Um, oops.
So, the younger brother has raised the bar, at least temporarily. It will only be a matter of time before one of them bests that one.
Thursday, August 2, 2007
Happy You Know What
Yup, it's Thursday and I thought that I'd post an old photo of myself that I found in the small suitcase of photos from long ago. And yes, I'm half... um...well... I'm in a state of partial dress. Oh, well, whatever. Guess it's technically an HNT photo, as some folks were egging me on to do. To me, it's more a tribute to the long, hot, uninhibited days of summers past.
I used an old photo because it's what I had. I had something different and current in mind, but what I wanted to shoot was a bit complicated to do by myself. Maybe some other time. As a sort of a side note, this was taken before I started climbing, so I'm in a bit better shape now. Funny, that's not how it's supposed to work, is it?
Thursday, July 5, 2007
Summer again. Great.
If you don't want to read about sex-type stuff, then this isn't the post for you. Sorry, I'm just in that type of mood today and sometimes you just need an outlet. If you find this kind of thing to be offensive or don't want to ruin the pristine image of me, then maybe you should just stop here. Just thought I'd mention it.
"Did you do those today?" The Mister looked more closely at the kitchen counter.
"Yes," I coyly answered. "I wanted to see if I could still do it."
"Um, why?" The Mister sounded a little suspicious. Oh, sheesh.
We all know what tying a cherry stem in your mouth is rumored to signify, but I don't know what the fuss is all about. They're only cherry stems and I don't know how it could possibly mean anything. But I must confess the truth: warm weather gets me thinking about sex. Of course, I can't really blog about it because The Mister very clearly spelled out that he doesn't want to read about any exes (I don't blame him) and I don't think that he wants to broadcast our own business on the internet (especially in front of my mother, Egads!).
Still, as the temperature starts to rise the heat triggers memories of older days kind of like the way that smells trigger memories. Temperatures increase, clothing decreases, skin wears a thin layer of dewy sweat (this is the nicer version of ewwwy sweat and infinitely more sexy), and bodies become more languid in the heat. Now I watch passively as others go through the whole rituals of seduction and attraction. They participate in the hunt and they get to feel the spark of chemical attraction, to experience the thrill of that first touch or being able to finally get the chance to breathe in the intoxicating scent off the skin of a new lover's neck.
This kind of stuff is for other people now, but, like a phantom limb, my libido surges forth in the warm weather and brings back distant memories of when it was my constant companion, best friend, and worst enemy. If love is a battlefield then lust must be a four-star General. There will be no more battles for me these days, but it's nice to know that I still know some of the maneuvers.
Hee hee.
"Did you do those today?" The Mister looked more closely at the kitchen counter."Yes," I coyly answered. "I wanted to see if I could still do it."
"Um, why?" The Mister sounded a little suspicious. Oh, sheesh.
We all know what tying a cherry stem in your mouth is rumored to signify, but I don't know what the fuss is all about. They're only cherry stems and I don't know how it could possibly mean anything. But I must confess the truth: warm weather gets me thinking about sex. Of course, I can't really blog about it because The Mister very clearly spelled out that he doesn't want to read about any exes (I don't blame him) and I don't think that he wants to broadcast our own business on the internet (especially in front of my mother, Egads!).
Still, as the temperature starts to rise the heat triggers memories of older days kind of like the way that smells trigger memories. Temperatures increase, clothing decreases, skin wears a thin layer of dewy sweat (this is the nicer version of ewwwy sweat and infinitely more sexy), and bodies become more languid in the heat. Now I watch passively as others go through the whole rituals of seduction and attraction. They participate in the hunt and they get to feel the spark of chemical attraction, to experience the thrill of that first touch or being able to finally get the chance to breathe in the intoxicating scent off the skin of a new lover's neck.
This kind of stuff is for other people now, but, like a phantom limb, my libido surges forth in the warm weather and brings back distant memories of when it was my constant companion, best friend, and worst enemy. If love is a battlefield then lust must be a four-star General. There will be no more battles for me these days, but it's nice to know that I still know some of the maneuvers.
Hee hee.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
Father's Day
I couldn't let this day go by without posting at least a little something about my father. This is one of those weekends where Father's Day and his birthday fall on the same day, followed the day after by the anniversary of the day that he passed away. He would have been 73 today, but unfortunately he died the day after his 59th birthday. These kinds of weekends used to be very raw in the beginning, but it's been 14 years now and it has mellowed to merely a remembrance.
My father wasn't perfect and it wouldn't be right to turn him into a saint. He had really grumpy moments. It was my father who once, when he didn't want to speak to his mother when she called, added the phrase "tell her to go sh*t in her hat" to the family lexicon. (In his defense, she wasn't very nice.) He rigidly held to the attitude that his opinion was always the right one. He was not very patient at times.
There were many good things about him, too. Even in the grumpiest mood, he was never, ever negative. He could be lots of fun and he definitely knew how to laugh at himself when it was required. For example, he and I went food shopping during a trip to France and he bought a huge can of what he took to be mixed fruit ("Apples and apricots, what an interesting combination," he had said at the supermarket), but when we got back to the chalet, my brother took one look at it and said, "Dad, do you know what you bought? 'Confiture' is jam." Now realizing what a silly mistake he had made and faced with the most enormous can of jam that any of us had ever seen, he laughed, got out four bowls, dished out several spoonfuls of jam in each bowl, poured mineral water over his and sat down to eat. "Come on, kids, it's great with mineral water!" Of course he didn't expect us to eat it, but we gamely took a bite each when we weren't laughing. Making light of these kinds of mistakes was really his way of dealing with them.
He devoted himself to his family despite not having much patience for the nuts and bolts of child rearing. Instilling honesty, a good work ethic, cultural appreciation and excellent manners were of utmost importance to him. Academic achievement was really important to him. Over the years, he made a lot of sacrifices for his family and always worked really hard. When we were younger, he would often be gone for work before we got up and come home from work after we had gone to bed so that he could support his family. Weekends were always about family and because of his love of the outdoors, much of our childhoods were spent in the Adirondack Mountains, hiking, kayaking, x-c skiing, or camping, all on a shoestring budget. When we were a little older, he finally switched to a corporation which eventually gave him the opportunity to work overseas, which, with the excellent pay and hardship benefits, would earn enough money to pay for college and offer the opportunity to show us some of the world. He strongly believed in trying new things and he encouraged me to take flying lessons, learn to scuba dive, and study abroad during college.
I have many really good memories of my father, but I'm going to share one of my favorites. Right after I graduated from high school, I met my parents in Vienna, Austria, before we headed to the middle east for the rest of the summer. Early one evening, we went to the Stadtpark (City Park) for some cake and wine. There's an ornate, old building there where a small orchestra plays on the terrace where they've put a dance floor and my parents got up to dance a waltz. My father was a really wonderful dancer and I sat and watched them disappear and reappear amongst the other couples. At other times, I watched the peacocks wandering amongst the beautiful flower gardens and across the lawn. It was lovely.
As the sun was setting, we finally got ready to go and were only a little way down one of the gravel paths.
"Why didn't you dance?" he asked me.
"I don't know how to waltz," I confessed.
"You don't? Here, let me show you." He showed me where to put my arms and hands and there on the path in the twilight, to the orchestral music that was floating across the gardens, he taught me how to waltz. Of all the memories of my time with my father, those several minutes, dancing on the path in the twilight with my father is the one that makes me smile the most.
Happy Father's Day and Birthday, Dad, and Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there.
My father wasn't perfect and it wouldn't be right to turn him into a saint. He had really grumpy moments. It was my father who once, when he didn't want to speak to his mother when she called, added the phrase "tell her to go sh*t in her hat" to the family lexicon. (In his defense, she wasn't very nice.) He rigidly held to the attitude that his opinion was always the right one. He was not very patient at times.
There were many good things about him, too. Even in the grumpiest mood, he was never, ever negative. He could be lots of fun and he definitely knew how to laugh at himself when it was required. For example, he and I went food shopping during a trip to France and he bought a huge can of what he took to be mixed fruit ("Apples and apricots, what an interesting combination," he had said at the supermarket), but when we got back to the chalet, my brother took one look at it and said, "Dad, do you know what you bought? 'Confiture' is jam." Now realizing what a silly mistake he had made and faced with the most enormous can of jam that any of us had ever seen, he laughed, got out four bowls, dished out several spoonfuls of jam in each bowl, poured mineral water over his and sat down to eat. "Come on, kids, it's great with mineral water!" Of course he didn't expect us to eat it, but we gamely took a bite each when we weren't laughing. Making light of these kinds of mistakes was really his way of dealing with them.
He devoted himself to his family despite not having much patience for the nuts and bolts of child rearing. Instilling honesty, a good work ethic, cultural appreciation and excellent manners were of utmost importance to him. Academic achievement was really important to him. Over the years, he made a lot of sacrifices for his family and always worked really hard. When we were younger, he would often be gone for work before we got up and come home from work after we had gone to bed so that he could support his family. Weekends were always about family and because of his love of the outdoors, much of our childhoods were spent in the Adirondack Mountains, hiking, kayaking, x-c skiing, or camping, all on a shoestring budget. When we were a little older, he finally switched to a corporation which eventually gave him the opportunity to work overseas, which, with the excellent pay and hardship benefits, would earn enough money to pay for college and offer the opportunity to show us some of the world. He strongly believed in trying new things and he encouraged me to take flying lessons, learn to scuba dive, and study abroad during college.
I have many really good memories of my father, but I'm going to share one of my favorites. Right after I graduated from high school, I met my parents in Vienna, Austria, before we headed to the middle east for the rest of the summer. Early one evening, we went to the Stadtpark (City Park) for some cake and wine. There's an ornate, old building there where a small orchestra plays on the terrace where they've put a dance floor and my parents got up to dance a waltz. My father was a really wonderful dancer and I sat and watched them disappear and reappear amongst the other couples. At other times, I watched the peacocks wandering amongst the beautiful flower gardens and across the lawn. It was lovely.
As the sun was setting, we finally got ready to go and were only a little way down one of the gravel paths.
"Why didn't you dance?" he asked me.
"I don't know how to waltz," I confessed.
"You don't? Here, let me show you." He showed me where to put my arms and hands and there on the path in the twilight, to the orchestral music that was floating across the gardens, he taught me how to waltz. Of all the memories of my time with my father, those several minutes, dancing on the path in the twilight with my father is the one that makes me smile the most.
Happy Father's Day and Birthday, Dad, and Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there.
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
Night of the Living Food Protein
I was standing in the waiting area at my son's gymnastics class on Monday, uneventfully waiting for the hour to tick away. It's a comfortable waiting area with spacious, carpeted riser-like steps for you to wait and watch the classes through the wall of windows that looks into the gym. From there you can see your kids do their graceful cartwheels and handsprings or, alternatively, trip over their own feet and fly through the air in an impressive display of flailing limbs. Whichever.Anyway, the first thirty minutes had gone by quite uneventfully. That was until I glanced over to the entrance of the hallway that leads to the front door and I saw it on the floor:
The Cheez-It Square of Death!!! (cue Psycho shower scene music)
My pulse raced and my breathing quickened. I broke out in a cold sweat. I kept looking over my shoulder at the bright orange, one inch square cracker. It sat there looking all innocent as it mocked me, just waiting for the right moment to strike! Aaaaagh!!
Okay, so that seems a little bit extreme, but it really is true that those things really wig me out. Cheddar cheese goldfish crackers? They're like the piranhas of the snack world to us and they and their inevitable shower of crumbs are simply everywhere where you find kids.
Still seem a bit extreme? The bottom line is that it's hard to have a child with a deadly milk allergy in a world that's littered in cheddar cheese cracker crumbs. They're everywhere from playgrounds and sports venues to regular retail stores where they're knocked off the stroller trays of snacking children and then are selectively ignored by the young child's parents so that someone can step on them and spread the crumbs all over the store from the bottom of their shoe. And if anybody's going to find that trace bit of crumb, it'll be my son. He finds them often enough that I lament that Benedryl doesn't come in a multi-vitamin supplemented formula, y'know, to kill to birds with one stone, so to speak.
Anyway, the place where my son goes for his gymnastics class is no exception to the ubiquitous goldfish cracker rule. The carpeting is a veritable smorgasbord of cheddar cheese cracker crumbs, cookies, sandwich crumbs, and spilled milk. We watch the kids scarf down all this milky goodness and then go running into the gym without so much as wiping their mouths or hands on a napkin, subsequently spreading all that milk-protein all over the equipment. This is why my younger son can't take a gymnastic class even though he'd be quite good at it, but has to sit out in the waiting area in a stroller the entire time.
Yes, he's turning five years old and he still sits in a stroller while we wait, but only because the last time that he was out of the stroller at the gymnastics place, he was gagging on his tongue by the time that we got home. There's nothing like giving shot of epinephrine into your kid's thigh, taking a scenic ambulance ride, and enjoying the hospitality of the hospital overnight to give you the reason to dread kid snacks when you see them.
So, as we got ready to go at the end of the class on Monday, I looked back and the cracker was gone. Gone?! I hustled off to the car just in case it had snuck off and was waiting to pounce.
Thursday, June 7, 2007
Musical Interlude: Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown
Ooh, two posts in a day! I really like Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown and when I found this, I knew I had to post it. Hope you enjoy it.
(Oh, and if you liked that, check out the video on the bottom of the video screen for "Gatemouth Brown- Pressure Cooker". It was a toss-up which one to post.)
(Oh, and if you liked that, check out the video on the bottom of the video screen for "Gatemouth Brown- Pressure Cooker". It was a toss-up which one to post.)
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Call me Delilah
It's been another long absence. Um, oops. The Mister was out of the country for most of last week and I usually don't sleep very well when he's gone, so I ended up too exhausted to be able to construct a coherent sentence. Not only that, Sasha and JP were over for movies many of those nights to keep me company, so there goes that blogging time as well. As for this week, I've been working in the yard or just recovering from last week.
Anyway, enough excuses and on to the subject of my post.
I hardly ever talk about my younger son. He's the biggest pill on the planet sometimes, that is, when he's not being completely charming and happy. He can go from "joy" to "headache" in a heartbeat, usually over something really minor like changing clothes, eating, toilet training, or leaving the house when he doesn't want to, or, as the case has been lately, letting me cut his hair.
It's been months since he would let me cut his hair. We were jokingly starting to call him "Hippy". He would whine, protest, thrash and even throw himself off the haircutting chair if we tried to get him to sit for a haircut, running a great risk of my severely cutting him with the scissors and making it necessary for The Mister to hold him down so that I could finish the haircut that my son, by some miracle, had reluctantly let me start. It usually makes me break into a cold sweat just thinking about his next cut. We had eventually resorted to begging, time outs, even bribes, but they were all useless and it looked like I was losing the battle until I happened to read a post by Heart in San Francisco at Guilty With An Explanation where she wrote about how she used to cut one of her son's hair while he slept. Ingenious! So, that's what I did last night or at least attempted to do and I'm happy to report that, while I take no real pride in the quality of the cut (not one of my better ones... no surprise there), I got the job done.
One thing that I wasn't looking forward to was the scene that he was going to make when he woke up and found that his carefully protected locks were gone. I had the aspirin ready and waiting for the inevitable stress headache. As it turns out, he didn't even notice. Ah, sweet victory.
(Thank you, Heart in San Francisco, for the idea that had never occurred to me. You're a genius. Oh, and I have no idea how your blog disappeared from my links list, but I've fixed that. Your blog is fantastic and I want to spread the joy.)
Anyway, enough excuses and on to the subject of my post.
I hardly ever talk about my younger son. He's the biggest pill on the planet sometimes, that is, when he's not being completely charming and happy. He can go from "joy" to "headache" in a heartbeat, usually over something really minor like changing clothes, eating, toilet training, or leaving the house when he doesn't want to, or, as the case has been lately, letting me cut his hair.
It's been months since he would let me cut his hair. We were jokingly starting to call him "Hippy". He would whine, protest, thrash and even throw himself off the haircutting chair if we tried to get him to sit for a haircut, running a great risk of my severely cutting him with the scissors and making it necessary for The Mister to hold him down so that I could finish the haircut that my son, by some miracle, had reluctantly let me start. It usually makes me break into a cold sweat just thinking about his next cut. We had eventually resorted to begging, time outs, even bribes, but they were all useless and it looked like I was losing the battle until I happened to read a post by Heart in San Francisco at Guilty With An Explanation where she wrote about how she used to cut one of her son's hair while he slept. Ingenious! So, that's what I did last night or at least attempted to do and I'm happy to report that, while I take no real pride in the quality of the cut (not one of my better ones... no surprise there), I got the job done.
One thing that I wasn't looking forward to was the scene that he was going to make when he woke up and found that his carefully protected locks were gone. I had the aspirin ready and waiting for the inevitable stress headache. As it turns out, he didn't even notice. Ah, sweet victory.
(Thank you, Heart in San Francisco, for the idea that had never occurred to me. You're a genius. Oh, and I have no idea how your blog disappeared from my links list, but I've fixed that. Your blog is fantastic and I want to spread the joy.)
Monday, April 30, 2007
Where does he get this stuff?
Our eldest son has a way of catching us off-guard sometimes.
This past weekend, The Mister was working on the computer while our almost seven year old son was playing nearby with his Lego Star Wars figures and, since our son rarely stops talking, he was explaining his play scenario to his father.
"Luke and Leia are getting married," he informed The Mister.
"They can't get married, son. They're brother and sister," my husband replied.
"It's too late. Leia's pregnant."
Oh. My. God.
This past weekend, The Mister was working on the computer while our almost seven year old son was playing nearby with his Lego Star Wars figures and, since our son rarely stops talking, he was explaining his play scenario to his father.
"Luke and Leia are getting married," he informed The Mister.
"They can't get married, son. They're brother and sister," my husband replied.
"It's too late. Leia's pregnant."
Oh. My. God.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Parental Advisory- Explicit Lyrics
As some of you know, a lot of the music that I listen to is not exactly kid friendly. For example, the Beastie Boys are not known for their wholesome lyrics. However, this doesn't stop me from listening to the kind of music that I like to listen to, but it does present a rather interesting conundrum when it comes to my kids. They're always, and I mean always around.
At home, this isn't a problem. I just plug myself into my iPod and they're none the wiser, but in the car, music proves to be a little more problematic. So, what's a girl to do? I've become very good friends with the volume knob. It helps to know the lyrics very well. When some explicit lyrics are coming up, you get your hand ready on the volume control and, when you get to the objectionable lyrics, you turn the volume completely off for the duration of the word/phrase that you need to blip out. Done correctly, this technique will help preserve the purity of your child's vocabulary until their friends (or, by sheer accident, you) lend a hand in mucking it up.
Having heard me talk about doing this and also being in the car with us to witness it, Sasha sent this to me. Thanks, dude. ("Dude"... mwaahahahaha!)
At home, this isn't a problem. I just plug myself into my iPod and they're none the wiser, but in the car, music proves to be a little more problematic. So, what's a girl to do? I've become very good friends with the volume knob. It helps to know the lyrics very well. When some explicit lyrics are coming up, you get your hand ready on the volume control and, when you get to the objectionable lyrics, you turn the volume completely off for the duration of the word/phrase that you need to blip out. Done correctly, this technique will help preserve the purity of your child's vocabulary until their friends (or, by sheer accident, you) lend a hand in mucking it up.
Having heard me talk about doing this and also being in the car with us to witness it, Sasha sent this to me. Thanks, dude. ("Dude"... mwaahahahaha!)
Monday, March 19, 2007
A Night at the Movies
I saw the movie "The Lives of Others" with a JP and Sasha this weekend and I'll have to say that I'm still thinking about it. If you're not familiar with the film, it's a German movie about a German secret police wiretapper/interrogator in 1984 East Berlin who is ordered to wiretap and eavesdrop on a couple, a high profile author/playwright and his actress girlfriend. The movie got all sorts of awards internationally, including the Best Foreign Film Oscar this year. Rightfully so, I think.Still, when I see movies or hear stories about these kind of activities of paranoid and controlling governments, it makes me perhaps a little more uncomfortable than it might make others around me because it hits sort of close to home. This movie got me thinking about what my mother went through as a child in the Baltics in Europe.
My grandparents had an apartment in the capital city where they lived much of the time, but they also spent time out in the country on the family farms. My grandfather's and grandmother's family farms were near to each other and they had known each other since grammar school, which is where they met (apparently my grandfather used to dip my grandmother's pigtails in the inkwells). After my grandmother and grandfather both finished college, they got married in 1928. Since my grandfather's early life had been centered around agriculture, he went to school to study dairy bacteriology and went to England to get his master's degree. Unfortunately, World War II intervened and he had to leave the country to go home before he could defend his thesis, so the actual degree was never received even though he did all of his work and research.
When the Germans came and occupied my mother's country, my grandfather spent time in a prison camp because he was educated in England, but one of my grandmother's brothers was able to convince them that they had no reason to suspect him of anything subversive and win my grandfather's release (apparently, this great uncle was a pretty respected member of the military and could use his influence effectively).
The Russians also occupied their country and, because my grandfather had studied abroad and was considered a possible threat, the Russians had a KGB agent living in the house with them as a "precaution". Of course, the woman whom they'd placed there couldn't be there all the time, so she would have "talks" with my mother about who had come over when the agent wasn't able to be there and what they'd talked about. My mother was four years old at the time.
One summer day during the Russian occupation, they were at my grandmother's farm when the Russians came and took all the neighbors from the nearby farms away in buses, but by some stroke of luck or fate they didn't go to my grandmother's farm. My mother said that they saw the bus hesitate at the end of the long drive to the farm and then drive away. They're not sure what happened to the neighbors or why the Russians didn't come to take them away, too, but after sleeping in the woods during the night for a time in case of a nighttime raid, they finally packed up a horse cart with all they could carry and left the farm, trying to get to the coast to escape. In the end, they got cut off by the oncoming Russian front and ending up living as refugees in Germany before they could get sponsored to come to the US years later.
All in all, they ended up better off than many. Many of my relatives had been put on cattle cars by the Russians and were sent to Siberian labor camps. Several didn't even survive the trip there, including some relatives in their 80's and some children. My dad ended up in Berlin with his mother after his father was taken away when he was 7 years old. His side of the story is less clear, since he never talked about it when he was alive, but I do know that he had to survive the nightly Allied bombing by lying in trenches during the air raids and he finally got out of Berlin by clinging to the outside of a train for 11 hours with his mother, who had to struggle to keep him awake through the night so that he wouldn't fall off. I don't know much other than that.
Having heard about what my parents have had to go through, I see movies like "The Lives of Others" with a particular chill, not to mention a bit of added perspective about all the petty things in my life that have been bothering me lately. Those things can go on the back burner and, with any luck, stay there for good.
Oh, and my mother, through an offer by the present government of the country where they came from and lots of sweat, paperwork and red-tape, has now gotten both the family farms back. My grandparents would have been happy to see it.
Monday, March 12, 2007
Saturday, February 17, 2007
Foreign Foods
As if that that isn't enough, there are "Mini Dickmann's" and regular "Dickmann's" in addition to the "Super Dickmann's."Apparently, only the mini-sized ones come with a white chocolate coating.
Oh. My. God. Where does one even begin?!
Of course, here's their homepage to check out if you're curious.
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