September

Oh, September. The dog days of summer are gone (what on earth does that mean, anyway? Why thank you, Mr. Google for this information) and the brutal routines of school mornings are back. The temps are still a bit too warm for comfort and going all day without a nap is killer.

This September is full of newness for our family. Meg and Nic are in a new school, which is quite a distance away. In order to save money, they ride with a teacher. He has to be there early, so on the most brutal days, they have to get up at 6:30 and leave by 7:15.

It’s full of growing-up kids. Meg is going to Middle School camp with her class tomorrow and won’t be home until Thursday. She’s been helping me pack school lunches, something we’ve never had to do. Today we picked up her new phone (for emergencies, not gabbing with friends) so that eventually she and Nic can take the metro without us but still be able to get help if they need it.

September has more limbo in it than normal for me this year. If I get the school job I am hoping for, I have most of September to get my life together. If I don’t, I probably need to start looking for something else. I’d be really happy to know, one way or another.

I’m looking forward to the part of September that brings crisp air and cool nights.


September loosens
its sweaty grip
on summer
out of necessity.
Bright emerald leaves
pale with sometime dew.
The trees
begin to languish in confusion,
not knowing whether to count on sun or chill.
They begin to entertain thoughts of fatalism
but don’t want to give up just yet.

Perceive a weak,
slow whisperleak
in the air.
Change is imminent.

September is
the kindest kind of cruelty imaginable.
She is the now and not yet.
She is the house half-built.
She demands prayer.
In September,
the builder begs
for resolve
to finish what was started
before the cursing season takes over
and the last chance skips away smug.

September is
the epic novel that is
a mere three chapters shy of completion.
She is the teasing promise.
She asks you to trust her,
but does so with
a concealed wink and cross of fingers.

September is
the sigh that comes after sighing.
She is the nap
when you should be rising
and the wakening
when you should be reclining.

September is
the unavoidable call-to-arms,
suddenly interrupting furlough.
September is my coach, but
I am a novice runner
wishing to delay my training
just one more day.

In September,
too many cars return to the city.
Crane anxiously for a parking place.
You are a wheeled hamster.
Circle four more times.
Eventually an oil-stained spot will open.

Hope has its basis in September,
but it is forced.
Still,
hold on to this.
Thank heaven
hope is not utterly deferred.

Dessert

We don’t normally eat dessert after meals in our house (unless you count our son who asks for a cookie at 9:30 on Saturday mornings when he ate breakfast, oh, 45 minutes before.) When I was growing up, dessert was reserved for when we had company. Normally we just ate another spoon of mashed potatoes or something if we wanted something more to eat.

Since I don’t enjoy baking, I was happy to carry that tradition on with my own family. If they do want something sweet after a meal, their choices usually consist of yogurt or a store-bought cookie. Nothing but the finest for my family.

Here are my favorite desserts, if I don’t have to make them myself:
Tiramisu (My favorite is at La Finca de Susana here in Madrid.)
Brownies (from a box is just fine.)
April’s warm chocolate chip cookies.
Kim’s chocolate cakey pudding thingies (do you notice a trend in the fact that OTHER PEOPLE make these?)
Ice cream (not vanilla, unless there is plenty of chocolate sauce).
Cheesecake (Carolyn’s, with caramel sauce whenever possible. Or Café Latte’s chocolate raspberry. I’m warning you, don’t click that link unless you can get in your car and go over there. RIGHT NOW.)
In a pinch, a few squares of Valor’s sugar free dark chocolate with almonds.

And now I need to go run 100 miles, if you’ll excuse me. Except, oh yeah, I don’t run any more than I bake. Oh well!

I had to ask Heather if the topic she selected was to be written in the singular form or the plural form. She opted for the singular, but I think it should be plural.

This tells you how much I like me a heap o’ dessert.

My fav: strawberry shortcake.

If I cannot get that, I will settle for:
-brownies
-ice cream—any kind except coffee flavored
-cookies, especially homemade peanut butter or chocolate chip or Christmas cookies or snickerdoodles or ginger snaps or snickerdoodles.

Yes, I’m aware I’ve written the word “snickerdoodles” twice. It’s such an interesting word I just couldn’t pass up writing it again.

I also like cake, any kind: chocolate, white, yellow, marble, purple or limestone.

I adore pie, almost any kind: apple, cherry, blueberry, pumpkin, banana cream.

Cobbler’s awesome too, but could someone settle an issue that has perplexed me no end? What’s the difference between

-apple cobbler
-apple crisp
-apple crumble

Finally, no post on dessert would be complete without mentioning the fond memories I have eating mom’s pumpkin bars with cream cheese frosting and her bundt cake. I love the word “bundt” also. If someone could come up with a bundt snickerdoodle cake, that would make me extremely happy.

To sum up: I like dessert so much I think that if I couldn’t get anything “proper” I’d likely settle for a spoonful of raspberry jam.

Back to School

I enjoy the whole “back-to-school buzz”. Normally I have to limit my exposure to the aisles of new notebooks, pens, pencils, erasers, backpacks, etc. because if I don’t I could fill a shopping cart and cause my bank balance to suffer from hunger pangs. This year has kind of snuck up on me because our kids are starting school almost two weeks earlier than they normally do. I’m not sure how prepared we are, but we’ll see I guess. This year I’ll have to pack lunches, and we won’t have school uniforms so that will be an adjustment for all of us.

When I was growing up I enjoyed school, and I was always excited about going back to school. Almost without fail I would wake up about 17 times during the night, nervous that I had overslept and was going to be late for the big day. My new outfit would be all picked out, my bag packed and all that jazz.

I think that for me, part of the thrill of going back to school was the reunion. Some of my friends would be gone for the summer months, so I was always excited to get to see them again.

I am enthused about the return to routine again. Not so much about the early mornings! Also enthused about my children not being together 24/7. I’m ready to take a break from being the referee.

Summer provides a nice break, but I’m a creature of habit so I rather enjoy the scheduled regularity of the school year. I like the “early-to-bed-early-to-rise” rhythm of the week. I also find intentional learning stimulating and enjoy seeing my kids learn new things. I even enjoy working with them on their homework.

When I was a kid, I always knew the beginning of the school year was imminent because I’d get a new pair of shoes. There’s nothing like the suggestive power of new shoes: I believed they could honestly help me run faster and jump higher.

As I got older, the first day of school provided occasion to jockey for position in the classroom based on one of two criteria:

A. Either I’d look for a good friend and sit next to them
or
B. I’d look for a pretty girl and sit next to her. Yes, I was a nerd, but I fancied myself a regular Casanova.

I remember the first time I attended a school that involved changing classrooms for each period and using lockers. Compared to primary school, junior high felt huge; and, compared to junior high, high school felt gi-normous, so I was nervous: “What if I don’t make it to class on time? What if I get lost?” I remember walking quickly through the hallways, heart beating rapidly, eyes focused only on what was in front of me so as to get to my locker and to the next class without incident.

Naps

I am not aware of any time in my life that I did not dig naps. Maybe when I was a kid, but I doubt it. Even in high school, Sunday afternoons in my house involved naps for my parents and I. My brother was not a big fan, but that worked out OK as he got older because he would make pie on Sunday afternoon. Definitely a win-win situation.

Anyway, I love naps. I used to require at least a 2-hour time-slot for a nap. Anything less and I would just end up feeling cheated. Or I would spend the whole time wondering if I really had enough time to get a decent amount of sleep. Because oh no, I don’t waste time worrying about ridiculous things.

Lately, I have learned to accept and even grow to love power naps into my life. Maybe it’s my age, but a 20 minute snooze where I am more in la-la land than really sleeping can be remarkably restorative.

Here is the deal though, I must be at least 90% horizontal for a nap to happen. The couch works, my bed works, the hammocks on the balcony work. Sitting up does not work. Please make a note.

And now if you’ll excuse me, I have time for a power nap before company comes!

When I take naps, I tend to take “power” naps. I lay down and “close my eyes” (that’s the expression I use) for 15-20 minutes and then get back up again. It’s pretty rare for me to take a nap of greater duration than one hour. It’s a funny thing, though, because usually I have to be feeling pretty drowsy to lay down and snooze, but by the time I actually put my head on the pillow I catch my second wind, or when I actually lay down, my mind starts racing with all the things I need to do which makes me unable to rest peacefully.

Chances are, if a nap lasts an hour or longer, it’s because I just lay down on the couch and doze off. The act of actually going to a bed to nap revives my energy.

My nap-taking quotient also tends to come and go in a seasonal fashion. Seems like I will go for months without taking a single nap and then, wham, all of a sudden I’m feeling generally tuckered out and will feel like I need one every day for a period of 6-8 weeks. Today happens to be one of those days I feel like taking a nap. In fact, a couple hours ago I said I was going to take one but then I got going on other stuff and the nap got lost in the shuffle.

Olympics

I can’t remember when the Olympics started registering on my radar. Again with the MK and TV thing, but I don’t remember really being that aware of them when I was growing up. I obviously KNEW they existed but I don’t remember watching them really until after Troy and I were married.

I have to admit, I’m a bigger fan of the winter games. I like the ice-skating especially, but I seem to be more drawn to the winter sports than summer ones. I can hardly stand to watch the diving, since that diver years (decades even?) ago hit his head on the diving board. I get too stressed out.

This year it has been fun because Meaghan and Nicolas, but especially Meg, have been very interested in watching the games. In true TCK (third culture kid) fashion, Meg roots for both Spain and the US (and recently commented that we should root for “my” countries, Canada and Ecuador as well.) I’ve been working this week, so haven’t gotten to watch too much, but Meg has been giving me updates. I HAVE seen some basketball (with the gi-normous Chinese player on the men’s team) cycling, (Spain won a gold!) swimming and right now we are watching tennis. Spain’s player Rafa Nadal is playing. He’s smokin’ (as a tennis player, not in cuteness.)

Clearly, I have well-informed, articulate opinions on the Olympics.

I DO love Cool Runnings, does that count?

I prefer the winter Olympics. I realize that’s politically incorrect, seeing as the summer Olympics are now in full swing, but it’s the truth.

My favorite sport is ice hockey and I have fond memories of the 1980 U.S. team whooping the Russians. That was one day I really was proud to be an American.

Now that I’ve gotten the shameless patriotism out of my system…Currently, I am watching the tennis match between Rafa Nadal and someone whom I only have referred to as “some Italian schmuck”. It’s not that I have anything against the Italian’s; it’s just that Nadal just won Wimbeldon, and he IS a Spaniard, and we ARE living in Spain, so I pretty much have to refer to ANYONE Nadal plays as “a schmuck.”

Anyhoo…I also enjoy watching basketball and volleyball, so there are two points in favor of the summer Olympics, but let’s face it: bobsledding is one heckuva crazy sport, as is skiing and ski jumping and…Yeah, the winter Olympics pretty much kick the big dimpled butt of the summer Olympics.

It has been fun seeing our kids get into the Olympics this year. This is the first year on record I can honestly remember them noticing the Olympics so it has been fun seeing them cheer for various teams. Interesting: they always cheer for Spain and for America when they play, but I have yet to see what they’ll do when the two play against each other. Time will tell.

Top 10 Summer Foods

There are certain foods that I associate with summer, and some of them are not that readily available in Spain. So in honor of summer eating, here are my top ten favorite things to eat during summer.

1. Fresh raspberries. I love raspberries more than any other berry. When I CAN find them in Spain they are usually pretty pricey. I love being able to pick them and eat them. When we were in Germany recently I picked a couple of wild ones but they were sour and sort of buggy.

2. Broccoli/cauliflower/bacon/mayo salad. I know there must be an official name for this salad that everyone brings to potlucks and picnics, but I don’t know what it’s called.

3. Corn on the cob. I.love.this. It’s my all-time favorite thing to eat at the Minnesota state fair. They cook it on a rotisserie grill thingy and then dip the whole ear in a vat of melted butter. It’s also good if you cook it in the microwave still in the husk.

4. KFC coleslaw. I have never found a coleslaw I like as much.

5. Pink lemonade, you know, the kind that is frozen in a can.

6. Lucy’s potato salad. The perfect potato salad.

7. Anything on the grill, but the bacon-wrapped filet mignons I used to buy at Sam’s club are my favorite.

8. Deviled eggs. With dry mustard, not yellow.

9. Bread and butter pickles, preferably made by my sister-in-law.

10. Ice cream. Always wonderful; best in summer.

Since food is a serious thing, I’ll start with a disclaimer: let’s assume, shall we, that I already get to include certain foods as a foundation while at the same time not “eating into” my list of top 10 summer foods—pun intended. This foundation would include:

-Hot Tamales (thanks Megan!)
-Powdered donuts
-Bacon strips
-Bacon bits
-Beef wrapped in bacon
-Toast
-Bacon and Tomato on toast
-Cap’n Crunch
-Cap’n Crunch with bacon bits

Now that I’ve gotten the foundational health foods out of the way, here are my top 10 summer foods, in no particular order:

1. Sweet corn on the cob
2. Lemonade
3. Watermelon
4. Popsicles
5. Chicken chutney salad (yes, I do have some class)
6. Sangria
7. Roasted marshmallows
8. Dill pickles

The last two require some explanation:
9. Raspberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream: when I was a kid, we picked wild raspberries and brought them to my aunt. She’d make cobbler with them. It was delicious.

10. Fresh fish, caught from the lake, batter-fried by my brother Todd. He’s quite the fish fryer. Writing this makes me miss him just now.

Yes, summer food does have its attachments. Some of these foods we can’t really get in Spain, so when we have the chance to partake, it is truly a treat.

Happy eating, everyone! We'd love to hear what your top ten are.

Smell

I have a really keen sense of smell. My nose is super sensitive to both good and bad smells; I can often smell things that others can’t. Maybe I have a superpower after all!

I think smell is an amazing thing. It always amazes me how one whiff of something can transport you back in time to a specific place. I think a lot of our memories are made more poignant by the smells that go along with them.

On the flip side, I think smells can be tortuous as well.

Some smells I could do without:

• Licorice
• Burning rubber
• Burnt hair
• Lexi’s, um, “toots”
• Mothballs
• Leftovers that have been in the fridge too long
• Wet dog
• Fingernail clippings (sorry if that was too gross)
• Beer
• Nasty street corners baking in the hot Madrid sun

I’ll end on a fresh and happy note! These are some of my favorite smells:

• Freshly brewed coffee
• Baking bread
• Garlic, especially roasted
• Honeysuckle (although it makes me sneeze like a crazy person)
• Turkey and stuffing roasting in the oven
• Fresh basil just pinched off the plant
• Cinnamon
• Sprigs of fresh mint
• Lilacs
• Chocolate
• The air during and after a good rainstorm
• Baby powder
• Hot chocolate chip cookies
• Just mowed grass (but, again with the sneezing)
• My kids, after a bath or shower
• Fallen leaves in autumn
• Vanilla
• Cotton sheets, line-dried in the sun
  

Being an actor, I’ve learned that smell is more connected to emotion than sight. Try it out now. In your mind’s eye imagine these scents:

Coffee
Fresh cut grass
The sea
Roast turkey
Perfume
Rain
A strawberry scented candle
Lilacs
Bacon
Spearmint
Puppy
Lemon
Shower gel
Pine
Chocolate
A lit match
Fresh tobacco

Okay, now imagine these smells:
Urine
Bad breath
Dirty socks
Cigarette smoke
Wet dog
Cooked cabbage
Moldy egg salad
A field covered in fresh manure
Insect repellent
Skunk
Old carnival ponies
Sulfur
Stale, imitation crab meat
Zucchini gone bad
Rancid, uncooked potatoes
Mildew

My guess is: there were a handful of items from the first list that conjured positive emotions. Smell has the potential to actually make one feel less fearful even. By the same token, there were likely a handful of items from the second list that called forth negative emotions.

Some of the scents, both good and bad, have particular memories attached to them and recalling these memories results in (quite often) strong emotional impulses. That’s why, depending on your experiences, some of the items from the first (“positive”) list may actually call forth negative emotions, even though we tend to regard those scents as generally pleasant. For example, perfume: if you’re divorced and you imagine the perfume your ex-wife wore, this could have a negative effect.

Interesting, isn’t it? What are some other scents that you’d add to either list? Are there any scents from the first list you’d regard as negative?

Books

I love books! I devour them. I read super fast, so they never last long enough for me. I’m always looking for something to read, although I have to limit myself somewhat. Once I get on a reading roll, I have a hard time doing anything else.

I was really happy to get a chance to read while we were on vacation. I raided CJ and Amy’s bookshelves and I was thrilled to get my hands on A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. I had been wanting to read it ever since I read Kite Runner. I think he is an amazing writer, and I think his stories are very important and need to be heard. So that was cool.

I also got to read Gift from the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh, which is another one that has been on my list for awhile. I am definitely going to have to get my hands on a copy of that one. It’s a short little book, but it is packed with wisdom and words to live by. I am amazed that it was originally published in 1955!

In my house there are two “classes” of books. Since we don’t have a public library with English books remotely near us, I buy books in the 1-3 euro room of used bookstores, but usually those are ones I plan on parting with. Then there are books we buy to keep. Mostly we buy those when we are in the U.S. and can browse though used bookstores.

First, I need to clear something up: It’s my fault we didn’t post yesterday. Now that my conscience is clear *whew!*, we can address the topic at hand…

I love books. If I had enough money, I’d love to increase our budget for buying books five-fold. I could spend all day (literally!) in a Barnes & Noble bookstore. I’d go through the shelves of most sections book by book, if I had the time and, if I knew I could spend, say, 500 dollars in one go on purchases, I’d make a big fat list during my browsing, take the list home and carefully plot which ones I’d buy.

My thematic priorities are as follows (pretty much in this order)…

Theology
Poetry
History
Classics
Philosophy
Drama
Children’s Books (from Dr. Seuss to “chapter books”)
Fiction (a wide variety)
Biographies

I rarely read books more than once. If I refer to a book after I’ve read it, that’s only because I remember a particular passage and pull it off the shelf to find something very specific I need.

Last note: I’ve always known a handful of Robert Frost’s poems before. I am just finishing up an anthology of Frost poems. He is very good. If you don’t know his stuff well, I encourage you to read him.

4th of July

This year, we are celebrating the 4^th in Germany, with some college friends. CJ is in the US military, but I can’t tell you any more because then he might have to kill me. And you. Just kidding. Sort of. Mostly I just don’t know, because I’m a bad friend.

Anyway, to be honest, we never really know quite what to do with the 4^th of July, even when we are in America. The last time we were in the U.S. on the 4^th of July we ended up getting together with fellow missionaries who had just moved back from Europe and watching the World Cup on TV. We’re so patriotic aren’t we? We did barbecue though, so does that count? And it was storming like crazy that day, so the only fireworks we saw were through the rain and in between lightning strikes on the way back from Denver to Colorado Springs.

So this year we’ll be enjoying the festivities provided by the American military, in Germany. I don’t know exactly what, but perhaps we’ll have BBQ and hot dogs. I hope we have potato salad.

I don’t have strong feelings about the 4^th of July, or any “patriotic” holiday from any of the countries that I have lived in. I always say (I know, it’s corny, but true) that I feel more like a citizen of the world than any particular country. That means I get to claim ALL the holidays!

I’m not super patriotic, but I do have fond memories of 4^th of July celebrations when I was a kid. Up until the year I was 9, my family would go to Silver Lake in Rochester, Minnesota to witness the evening’s fireworks display. I’m sure that in reality Rochester’s show rates as average compared to other fireworks displays around the country but my heart remembers it as the best, brightest, most spectacular I’ve ever seen.

We weren’t wealthy by any stretch of the imagination, but we always managed to get plenty of firecrackers, bottle rockets, roman candles, cherry bombs and sparklers. A 4^th of July staple for us kids involved the following: we’d lay two bottle rockets side by side on the street, light the fuse and see how far (and where) they’d go. Some would get stuck under a car, others would fly into a tree, and others would make it the full length of the block.

I especially liked it when we went camping after the 4^th, because inevitably we’d find a dead fish on the beach, place a firecracker (or two) in its mouth and watch the fun.

Of course, no post would be complete without mentioning the delicious 4^th of July fare: polish sausages, hamburgers, hot dogs, potato salad, devilled eggs, lemonade, root beer, ice cold dill pickles, and watermelon. Yum.

This year, we’ll be on an American military base in Germany on the 4^th. I imagine our kids will love it.

Superpowers

Troy and I recently started watching Heroes, so I’ve been pondering the very important question “If I were a superhero, what powers would I want/have?” I know, this kind of deep thinking is a challenge in the summer heat, but sometimes you just can’t back away from the hard thought processes, you know?

I came up with the following list of powers I would like to have if I was a superhero:

• The ability to move objects with my mind. This would come in really handy when it’s time to clean up the house.

• The ability to shrink. I would apply this immediately to all the fatty regions on my body.

• The ability to be invisible. I’d like to be able to disappear when I made a stupid comment. I’d also use it to spy on my children when I am curious about how they are acting (good, bad, cute or otherwise) when I’m not in the room.

• The ability to make others do whatever I want just by thinking it. Well, that seems pretty obvious to me!

• The ability to read minds. This one would be helpful so I would know if my children are being rebellious on the inside. It would also help me know when I should use the previous power.

• The ability to teleport. I would love to be able to flit around Madrid and back and forth across the world instantly and easily. Especially when it’s too hot/cold/rainy/I’m too lazy.
  

I would like elastic ear lobes. That way, when it rained, I wouldn’t even need an umbrella.

It would also have been nothing short of “super” if my brother had grown up with stink-free feet.

I think it would also be neat to be able to eat as many boxes of Hot Tamales as one wants with no repercussions whatsoever. On second thought, throw in slabs o’ bacon to that diet and I would be a happy camper.

Basically, when I think of superpowers, I want something that will enhance my life, make it easier. So, included in my superpower package I would like things like self-trimming toenails, self-cleaning ears, indestructible teeth, and static-length hair and beard. Also, I wouldn’t object to being able to run for as long as I want without getting tired, and the ability to retain word-for-word recall of anything I read. Related to that: I’d like any writing ideas I get to write themselves.

On a different topic: Another superpower I’d like would be the power to make people (ahem—my wife) laugh at all my jokes.

It also wouldn't hurt to have the ability to make money.

Arachnophobia

I admit it, I am a closet fan (or not so closet since we own it) of the “thrill-omedy” Arachnophobia. I’m not overly fond of spiders, but I’d rather deal with a spider than a roach any day.

I think part of the reason I like it so much is that these spiders are a villain that everyone loves to hate, and since they aren’t human, it’s OK. And come on, John Goodman is freaking hilarious as the exterminator. Plus, the sheer number of spiders that invade is super high on the squirm scale! I also love it because it’s scary without a lot of the weird and creepy stuff that shows up in some movies today.

Personally I think this movie is best watched in a group, with people who aren’t afraid to scream at the top of their lungs. I first saw the movie at my journalism prof’s house with a bunch of my fellow journalism students. We screamed the house down and laughed until we almost wet our pants. It was one of the most fun nights of college.

And for those of you out there who are worried about the mistreatment of spiders (some people objected to the movie when it came out because it “gave spiders a bad reputation.”) you’ll be happy to know that all spiders were “herded” with hot and cold. And the honkin’ big one? It was fake.

If you have the guts, come over and watch it with me. I dare you.

Snakes and spiders have one thing in common for me: I find them both terribly fascinating but, were I to encounter one loose within 8 feet of me, I would freeze with fear.

When I lived in Texas, I saw a big hairy tarantula when I played over at my friend’s house. And this was not because he had one as a pet. No, we were just playing out back, when suddenly we saw a hairy tarantula there, stuck in the corner of my friend’s porch. My friend told us to simply walk away slowly or the spider would jump at us and bite us. That was one smart kid.

I also have heard about the brown recluse spider. Apparently this spider looks like an ordinary house spider. Its bite at first appears like a mosquito bite. But, if you let it go untreated, the subtle poison begins to eat away at your flesh and it kills you slowly but surely.

As I write this, many of the doors in our apartment are opened, allowing air to come in via our wrap-around balcony. I imagine one or two of these little varmints crawling into our house right now. And, tonight, while I’m asleep, one will bite me. I will wake in the morning, thinking it was just a mosquito bite, but, come August, I’ll be shopping for special underwear for folks that only have half a buttocks. Yeah, I guess you could say I have arachnophobia.

Summer

Ah, summer. Apparently the new trend is that it remains cool and very, very rainy in Madrid. Then overnight, it heats up to eleventy billion degrees. Or at least 80-something. I swear, last week I was wearing a sweater and today it was roasting. Go figure.

Since we finally had beautiful blue sky and warmth today, we went in the pool after we picked up the kids from school. It was glorious. This year they got the mix of heat and chemicals right the first time. Last summer the pool was forever too cold or had too many chemicals or whatever. Today it was beautiful. It finally feels like summer.

The balcony doors are open, the hammocks are hung. This morning I sat on the balcony and had some toast and coffee. Lexi, (the dog) sat at the other little chair across from me. We had a very pleasant time.

The best of summer starts after Friday though, when the kids are done with school and mornings can be leisurely and chill. I’m ready for things to slow down.

We’re kicking off the summer with a futbol (that’s soccer to you Americans) party. Spain is playing Greece in the Euro Cup. Apparently the game doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things but we’re going to have fun anyway!

Bring on summer!

It’s late so my energy level to write something coherent and cohesive or codependent and coexistent, is pretty dang low. I had some ideas to write about how I actually prefer winter to summer. I was gonna “diss” summer and then come ‘round and say what I liked about summer. I was gonna do it in a roundabout kinda way, hopefully sprinkling in a joke or two, but I couldn’t figure out the best way to do it, so basically I’m left with a one-word topic that leaves me as flat as a duck’s foot. So, I’m just gonna do some random one-word free association and hopefully you’ll be able to make sense of it and just how I feel about summers past and present, and especially how Suzanne Somers makes me smile and choke all at once.

Okay, here goes, my typewritten Rorschach test.

Summer, heat, beat, drums, chicken legs, Kentucky, cousin, Tracy, blonde, crush, lake, camp, tent, fire, marshmallows, ‘smores, stories, ghosts, dark, stars, planets, aliens, Close Encounters, Richard Dreyfuss, sunburn, mashed potatoes, butter, salted, corn, state fair, horses, mini donuts, sugar, sticky, humid, mosquitoes, gnats, basketball, slam dunk, David Munger, Old Spice, rollerskating, sucking face, cruising chicks, swimming, skinny dipping, nightswimming, REM, Losing My Religion, finding God, crying, changing, laughing, telling jokes, playing pranks, ding dong ditch, hide and seek, kick the can, red rover, stealing bikes, fireworks, roman candles, cherry bombs.

This is what summer means to me.

Stash

I have a hoarding habit. I think it comes from growing up on the mission field and not having access to things we liked in America. Friends would come to visit us and bring us goodies, which we would divvy up with military precision. My brother would blow through this allotment in record time, and then he would come begging for some of mine, which I resented deeply. I had an empty stationery box in my dresser where I kept my chocolate from America.

Our family has continued this tradition, on two levels. The first level is Mom’s normal chocolate stash. Make no mistake, the chocolate “cabinet” is way out of reach of the children. I have various other chocolate stashes around the house, but if Meg knows where they are, she will raid them. So for my own protection the mother lode has to be out of reach.

The secondary level of stash is when we get candy from America, usually mini Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Since all four of us like them, we have to divide the package into four little baggies of them. The kids ask every five minutes if they can eat one of theirs. I hide mine somewhere and eat one every once in awhile.

This plan can backfire however, because the other day I was working on my box of filing and I found a baggie of Peanut Butter cups at the back of my filing cabinet. But alas, they were stale and disappointing.

Heather uses this word to refer to over-the-counter drugs she carries in a little box in her purse. The other day, she asked me to pick up some allergy medicine. When I walked in she said, “You got the stash?” and then chuckled.

For me, the word actually carries the original illegal meaning. Most people find this surprising about me (because I’m in the ministry) but I grew up around drugs (as in marijuana). In fact, my brother sold pot to others when I was a kid. I can remember when I was 8ish: I came into the house to find him measuring out a large table-full of pot to make dime and nickel bags as well as a cache of joints.

I also learned early on that he had a stash of Playboy in his room. And, uh, Mom and soon-to-be-stepdad had a stash of Jim Beam on top of the fridge that I could reach any time I wanted a nip. Ah, yes, the innocence of childhood. I was 9 at the time.

Now that I’m supposed to be a man of God, I invest the word “stash” with other meanings. For example, I find it difficult keeping a stash of Hot Tamales in the house.

Also, I think the word “stash” would make a good name for a character in a soap opera. I can just hear someone saying, “Did you hear that Stash proposed to Alycia, but he really thought she was her twin brother Mortimer?”

Frasier

Troy and I just finished working our way through all 11 seasons of Frasier. I have to say, I think they should have stopped at season 10. It definitely went downhill quickly. I don’t know if they were all tired or what.

In general though, I love Frasier. I think it has excellent writing and a good cast. Somehow they strike a really good balance between being completely ridiculous and over-the-top so you want to smack them, and being so self-deprecating that you want to give them every benefit of the doubt.

I love the way Eddie stares at Frasier all the time.

I hate the way Frasier just cannot stay in a relationship. Ever.

I love the way they never show Maris; knowing that my imagination is probably conjuring up far worse than any actress they could find.

I love it when Daphne “does” an American accent.

I think this is my all-time favorite Frasier quote: Frasier [responding to a caller] “Roger, at Cornell University they have an incredible piece of scientific equipment known as the Tunneling Electron Microscope. Now, this microscope is so powerful that by firing electrons you can actually see images of the atom, the infinitesimally minute building blocks of our universe. Roger, if I were using that microscope right now, I still wouldn't be able to locate my interest in your problem.”

Frasier has left the building!

We just finished watching the final season of this hit television spin-off series. Frasier Crane, played by Kelsey Grammer, first made his appearance in the hit original series "Cheers." "Frasier" is quite possibly the most successful spin-off ever.

I am partial to this series because, quite frankly, the writing is just so dang good--especially for a 30-minute comedy program.

I love all the characters, but if I had to choose my favorite, I would choose Niles, Frasier's brother. He's just hilarious. So, in honor of Niles, here are a collection of my favorite quotes from him:

"Her lips were saying 'no,' but her eyes were saying, 'read my lips.'"

"A funny thing happened the other day. One of my patients had a rather amusing Freudian slip. He was having dinner with his wife, and he meant to say 'pass the salt,' but instead he said 'You've ruined my life, you blood-sucking shrew.'"

"My taekwondo instructor says I'm two moves away from becoming quite threatening."

"I've always liked the thought of meeting the great people of history, but then I think 'what if it's like high school and none of the really cool dead people want to talk to me?' Mozart'll tell me he's busy, but then later I'll see him out with Shakespeare and Lincoln!"

"It's my testicular hypothermia device. It promotes motility by keeping my nether regions at a cool and constant ninety-six degrees."

Sayings of Yore

I somehow have collected an arsenal of old fashioned sayings (I think a lot of them are actually Canadian.) I grew up hearing them from my Grandma, my parents and a few other random sources.

Sayings like:

“You’ve got more nerve than a canal horse.”

“I look like the wreck of the Hesperus”

“A whistling woman and an old fat hen, both will come to no good end.”

“One fine day in the middle of the night, two dead boys rose up to fight. Back to back, they faced each other, drew their swords and shot each other. The deaf policeman heard the noise, and if you don’t believe me, go ask the blind man, he saw it all.”

“By the skin of his teeth”

“Busier than a one-armed paper-hanger”

That’s just a sampling. I’m sure I will think of more when I hit publish. I got curious and was trying to look up some of these quotes, and I found these other funny Canadian quotes, courtesy of this site. I don’t know if they are all really Canadian, but they’re funny!

“Rattlesnakes are so big on the Bruce Peninsula, they don't have rattles; they have little bells that play "Nearer My God to Thee."

“Been there. Done that. Got that maple-leaf T-shirt.”

"I've seen live bait smarter 'n' him."

"The chances are slim and none, and slim is visiting Alberta."

"I'm gonna feed you a shut-up sandwich."

"We never went to bed hungry. We stayed up."

I think someone one day should take old sayings and spruce them up a bit, going through them systematically, so as to keep them alive.

For example, I think no one says "chew the fat" anymore because it's not politically correct to say "fat". So, why not make it "masticate the obesity" instead? Or, better still: "gnaw the gristle"?

Also, there's "a penny for your thoughts." That expression needs to be changed to reflect inflation and the exchange rate. Or, you could keep it at just a penny and then you'd be saying something like "what you think is pretty worthless, frankly. In fact, counting the hairs on my grandpa's toes would prove more exciting."

And "toss the pigskin" doesn't make sense anymore, either. Instead, I suggest "hurl the swine"--but I guess that could also be misconstrued as another way of saying "to vomit".

Expressions that could, perhaps, be kept just as they have always been might include "Pow! Right in the kisser." That one does seem to still have a certain charm, doesn't it?

I also realize it is not an expression per se, but we really should keep the word "cockamamie" alive, don't you think? It has so many uses, and if you combine it with other "creative" words you could construct sentences like "Get that cockamamie thingamajig outta my mug and quit yer lollygagging, will ya?!"

I wonder where the expression "till the cows come home" came from. My question is: "Did the cows ever come home?"

Schtick

I feel that I need to start with an apology to all of you, although most of you will probably find what follows below (in Troy’s part) more amusing than I do. Even though I chose this topic, I did not think through the madness that would ensue. And yes, I know what is in Troy’s post today because the sound of it was echoing down the hall and I was unable to escape.

Anyway. Our house is an almost constant comedy hour, with Troy and Nicolas performing at will. I roll my eyes, Meg goes back and forth between eye-rolling, saying “Stop it!” and helpless giggles. There is a whole ensemble of “schtik” that they perform. And it just keeps getting bigger, and bigger. And bigger. Oy vey!

I honestly have no idea where all this stuff comes from. I mean, I know it’s from Troy’s crazy mind, but I am continually awed by the sheer magnitude of the stuff. It has been building up for almost 20 years now; I shudder to think of what the repertoire will look like by the time we’ve been married 40 years.

Once again I am left somewhat speechless in the glare of the schtik. I should have known better. I know at least half of you are desperate to press play now, so we might as well get on with it.

Follow this link and turn up the volume!

Umbrellas

I think I had a really good idea for a topic on Friday night, but I can’t remember for the life of me what it was. I hate it when that happens.

We have been having so much rain lately; much more than is normal for May. April maybe, but not May. To be honest, most of the time I can’t be bothered with umbrellas. I tend to take them places and then leave them there. Most of the time, I take my chances and hope that I’ll only get sprinkled on. After all, (and I’m sure Troy will be happy to testify to this) I’m not made of sugar. Although salt probably melts just as easily as sugar.

Lately though it has been down-pouring so much that I have been using my umbrella. That is, I have been using it when my husband hasn’t already taken it. We only have a certain number of umbrellas in our house, and we have one little compact one that fits in my purse. But it also fits in the murse. So pretty much whoever leaves first wins. I think I need to purchase a very girly umbrella that he’s not tempted to take. I saw a tiny little cute frilly one in H&M the other day; I should have picked it up.

These umbrellas make me giggle:

Our friend Jake has one of these but I can’t find the photo.

This is crazy, but I’m quite sure Lexi would approve. She's a baby about the rain.

I get the feeling this is another one of Heather’s “I’ve-got-a-bone-to-pick-with-you” topics. What I mean to say is: I know that she thinks there are certain umbrellas in our home that belong to “her”. But, what I want to say is: that view is sadly mistaken. In actuality: what’s hers is mine and what’s mine is mine. Sounds fair, du’n’ it?

I think part of the confusion stems from the fact that either:

A. I bought her a very nice umbrella some time ago, but it is not compact enough to fit in her purse so…

B. She bought herself an umbrella to fit in her purse.

Notice: in no instance is there a moment on record when any kind of umbrella has been purchased for ME. So, what is a man to do, I ask?

On a separate note: some time ago I posted a little nugget on my personal blog that stated: “If I weren't a pastor, and I had the chance to do anything else, I think I'd enjoy making umbrellas.”

Thinking about it now, I still stand by that statement. Not sure why, just think it would be neat.

Okay, enough profundity.

Hot Tamales

Mmmmmmmmm, the cinnamon spiciness that are Hot Tamales make them one of the very very few non-chocolate candy that I will eat. The problem with them is that once you start to eat them, you think “I’ll just eat a few more” until you have consumed your body weight in them and the roof of your mouth is raw. And then you eat a few more.

I can’t remember the first time I ate Hot Tamales. I’m pretty sure that Troy introduced me to them while we were in college. When we lived in the US I would usually put them in his stocking at Christmas, but I didn’t eat them that much myself.

And then one fateful Thanksgiving, when we house-sat for someone. Downstairs in their family room, in easy reach of the two big comfy chairs, we found a large bag of them. And we ate way too many. I can’t remember if we bought them more or not, but we should have!

It’s now tradition that we eat them whenever we are back on furlough. It certainly didn’t help that we found 2 lb bags of them at Sam’s Club. I won’t embarrass us by telling you how many of those bags we consumed during various road-trips and catching up on TV sessions. Let’s just say that the roofs of our mouths have never been the same.

Wow, look what I just found. Good thing we can’t get our hands on this baby!

No, we don’t mean the real kind of tamale you would get in a place like Mexico. We mean the kind you buy in an American grocery store. Most people think of them as being “like Mike & Ikes”, but actually it’s the other way ‘round: Mike & Ike’s are like Hot Tamales.

For those of you who still don’t know what I’m talking about: Hot Tamales are a chewy cinnamon-flavored candy. They come in a small box or a large bulk bag. Each piece is about the size of a baby’s thumb, but they are much tastier than your average infant digit. I suppose the size of each piece is intended to be thought of as “bite-size” but my personal opinion is that Hot Tamales are best eaten two-at-a-time, and, on rare occasions, three at a time.

The other day we were talking with Kristen, who is part of our church home group, about Hot Tamales and how much we liked them. (No doubt, Heather will tell you in her post that we usually eat two bulk bags of Hot Tamales during a two-month stay in the States every other summer.) Anyway, because you can’t buy Hot Tamales here in Spain, Kristen arranged to have her boyfriend bring us FOUR big boxes of Hot Tamales (he came to visit her here).

Thanks, Kristen! And, by the way, all four boxes have already been consumed. And, yes, the kids did not get one morsel.

Chinese Food

I can’t remember the first time I ate Chinese food. We used to go to a big Chinese restaurant in Quito called the Chifa China. They had big lazy Susans in the middle of the table to make sharing the food easy. In Ecuador, the Chinese people put “cuy” (this is Quechua word and I’m not going to tell you what it means) in the middle of the Wan Tun fritos. They wouldn’t tell you what it was until you tried it and pronounced it delicious, which we did. Even when we found out what it was. Curious yet?

By the time I was in high school my favorite dish at our normal Chinese haunts was chicken with peaches. It sounds weird, but it’s not that different than lemon chicken, only peachier. Yum. Then there was that time I bit into a big hunk of ginger or something in my soup. YEOW. Good memories.

When I went to college, someone took me to Leann Chin’s and I was introduced to lemon chicken. Double yummy. I have been a big fan ever since.

Some other important things about my consumption of said food:

I prefer white rice

I rarely order spring rolls anymore. Our old favorite in the burbs had little mini rolls that I used to get, but I don’t like the big ones much…too greasy.

I still order wan tun fritos but I don’t think they eat cuy in Spain.

I also heart verduras rebozadas with soy sauce.

Before I met Heather, Chinese food meant “chicken chow mein.” Yep, that’s all I would ever eat. For starters, that’s what my mom made when she cooked “Chinese” at home (never mind the fact that it isn’t even “Chinese”). But, even when we went out for “Chinese” food (at Wong’s in Rochester), that’s what I would order. In high school, when I worked on Saturdays, I would often get chicken chow mein from across the street for lunch.

So, when I met Heather, she rightly scoffed at my single-minded selection. She told me: “That’s not Chinese food!”

Once, I was with her in Toronto, visiting her family. Her father was there and they all planned on going out for Chinese food one evening, because they all grew up in China. I was a little scared, thinking I probably wouldn’t be able to get my chicken chow mein as usual. I was right. They ordered all kinds of dishes I had never heard of before and, what’s more, they shared from each other’s selections.

Thanks to Heather I have now learned to be more adventurous in my selections. In fact, I’d say we’ve switched places since Heather always orders lemon chicken and I am content with almost anything (the sole exception to this is sweet and sour pork).

The last time I remember having Chinese with my dad, I ordered cashew chicken and he ordered (you guessed it!) chicken chow mein. He looked at me like I wasn’t his son.

Renting Movies

Troy and I have this funny little routine when it comes to renting movies. There is only one video store in our neighborhood. It’s called “House Movies” but I get the feeling they perhaps forgot “of” in between. Who knows. Maybe the store belongs to Greg House, M.D. Anyway, Troy is usually the one to go rent the movies. This is mainly because he takes the dog for her last walk at the same time. When HE takes her, she will wait quietly outside while he picks a movie. If I take her, she flails around like a dying fish and howls like a banshee almost the entire time I am in the establishment. I am not a big fan of said behavior.

After an appropriate interval of browsing the options, the obligatory phone call is made, wherein Mr. Cady asks me what I am in the mood to watch, and lists possibilities. House Movies does not have a great selection so it’s not like walking into Blockbuster and finding eleventy billion copies of all the movies you are dying to see. Sometimes I narrow it down for him, sometimes I leave him hanging and force him to make a decision. If I am on my game, when he calls, I answer “Movie hotline, how can I help you?” or some other tomfoolery.

Without fail, this is how the scenario ends. Troy comes home.

“What did you get?”

“I don’t know what it’s called in English.”

We have tried three methods of renting movies:

1. The old-fashioned way: through shops like Blockbuster.
2. Through a “cine-bank”: kind of like going to an ATM.
and
3. By mail-order.

My least favorite way of renting movies is by mail order. You rarely get what you want and when you do you have to wait a long time for it to come.

My favorite way is through a cine-bank. Heather and I used this method when we lived out in the ‘burbs because there was one just a short walk away.

But, when we moved into the city we could not find a cine-bank near us. So, we scouted out the nearest Blockbuster-type place, but that was pretty far away. So, we opted to rent by mail order. This was so disappointing that we now have settled on renting from a store, the old-fashioned way, even though the shop is a longish walk away.

The place we rent from is called House Movies. It is tiny, and very disorganized, and the owner seems to prefer horror movies, because that is what they have in greatest supply.

So, whenever I venture to House Movies, I take my mobile phone with me because almost every time I need to call Heather to either warn her about what I am planning to bring home or ask for her opinion. This has become a routine for us and, for some reason, she finds this rather amusing.