Me and Andre Agassi...or that guy Elaine dated

I remember years ago when Andre Agassi shaved his head for first time. More than simply having short hair it became clear that he was going bald. And the world was shocked.

Last week I put the quarter-inch guard on the electric trimmers to shave my head for the first time in several months. (I think I last did it when I needed a thesis stress reliever at the beginning of the summer). Looking in the mirror that night after I managed to even things out after the trimmer broke mid trim, I saw that something had changed.

No, I’m not exactly going “bald” but for years I had been blessed by full, if not the least bit manageable, hair. My hairline is receding in such a way that it’s full in the middle but somewhere in line with the outside of my eyes, it disappears. Unless you’ve met the Bunker men or know my older brother, you might not understand this description but it eventually it may end up resembling a suburban, white guy Mr. T hairdo.

I guess this is what I get for giving Ben a hard time. Maybe if I’d mocked him for being too tall or popular or good looking some of that would have rubbed off on me instead.

Here and there

One of those traps I fall into when dealing with our new culture is that of comparing everything. Usually that means either painting everything here as so much better (the government, the availability of food and western products, etc) or, especially when I'm tired, everything as worse (the quality of the tools and plumbing products, the heat etc.)

But sometimes there are just those reminders of the other. Or you start to see some universal patterns. See what I mean:

The name of our old home city translates in this language as "love" or "passion."

The name our new home city translates in this language to "the three faults" (thankfully not in reference to earthquakes).

In my English thesis I referred to a certain major African rebellion. It would translate to "The Want-Want" or "Go-Go" Revolution here.

In any country, Coke always tastes better and colder in a glass bottle.

If you're going to buy food on the street, well-cooked meat on a stick is a pretty safe bet.

The time just before rainy season is never pleasant. It either means lots of flies or lots of heat.

Teenagers can have a way of making you feel like you're being made fun of, no matter what langauge they're using.

Young children, on the other hand, can be great language teachers.

College kids love to practice their language and are less offended by your culture mistakes.

People our age and their parents do not have the same culture if they live in an urban environment. (Unless they are from the extreme upperclass or extreme lower class.)

Walking everywhere limits your ability to see how big your city really is. But you also get to know your little part of the city much better than if you relied on a vehicle.

It is easier to learn a language when you are enjoying it.

Internet connections are never fast enough.

Give a little boy a stick and somehow always becomes a gun.

Packages from home always make life better.

Anyone who speaks English is your friend.

No one, in any country other than America, understands how to make really good pizza, hotdogs or BBQed anything.

Milk from a box just isn't something you want a big glass of.

During national vacations, when you actually have time to finish your to-do list, no stores or offices you need to visit are open.

The world's teeth are getting worse.

Small children from all cultures love watching animals.

The devolping world is not in need of your old T-shirts, especially if they have profanity or outdated American pop-culture references.

Hey, whatever happened to...

Facebook has gotten me a curious about many of the people I really hadn't thought about in years (I think mainly as I attempt to bolster my self-esteem with an attempt to increase the size of my friends list. Unfortunately, I'm a couple of years late for the Facebook rush so most of my generation is out of the loop.). But I realize I have lost track of many of the people who I once spent time with.



In the interest of posting content without substance, I offer you the following:



Do you know what happened to your:



College roommates? : Maybe a third of them. I could really only tell you specifics on one or two of them. One sends me a check every month (that sounds weird) and yet I couldn't tell you much more than his address. Others I catch wind of when a group of Campus house people get together and we ask the above question. I lost track of my freshman roommate by my sophomore year.



The members of your wedding party: Yes but only because most of are relatives.



Your prom date(s): Actually I do. Thanks to the internet, I just found out that one is a language teacher. The other is married and brilliant (at least if you equate college degrees with intelligence) but that was several years ago so she may be single and dumb by now.

The owners of the lockers were on either side of your locker in highschool: No, and I'm curious.

The school bully: There were several but one shot his wife while she attempted to protect their child. Cheery.

Your closest (geographically) friend in gradeschool: Jeff Huffman, whatever happened to you?



Anyone on whose yearbook you wrote "friends forever": Thankfully, I don't know that I ever wrote that.

Your highschool class's most likely to succeed/golden child: Not since a sport's injury ended his basketball carreer, forcing him to focus only on medical school. Poor guy.

Or any of the following:

Your favorite teacher.

Any foreign exchange student from your school.

Your first boss.

Any lab/group partners from college.

If you've read this far, consider yourself tagged.

Refridgerator Rights

This was posted on Coffeehouse Christianity and it got me thinking:

"refrigerator rights". These are people who have earned the right to open up our lives (our refrigerators) and see what's inside. Sometimes they will even need to tell us that something stinks and needs to be taken care of." - Chris and his colleague borrowed this idea from Craig Groeschel.

Gretchen talks about these people in terms of drop-by friends. These are the people who simply drop by...for no "reason"...whenever. Sometimes they bring food or the kids or news but mostly they just bring themselves. There's an informality that illustrates more respect and greater intimacy than with those call-first friends who need a reason or excuse to come over.

I think we also have people who found themselves important enough to be on the outside of our refridgerators. Granted, this is a much easier group to get into, especially around Christmas when our fridge is usually covered by families dressed in coordinated outfits and forced smiles. But how many people to we allow ourselves to brag about authenically (verses those we brag about to make ourselves look more important)? How many people to take pride with when they accomplish something great?

And on the other side, who are those people in your life that you really allow to mourn with you and feel your pain? I just recieved news from a friend on that shock, stop everything level and, while I certainly can't feel the same level of loss as she is going through, I certainly hurt for her and her family. This is a person who, if there was only hundreds rather than thousands of miles between us, we would be in the car in a few minutes to be with. Have you offered yourself to someone in that way recently? Have you let them come to you?

I guess I'm in a wishful mood right now, looking forward to that time when we will be in a more permanent place and can have that level of intimacy and proximity with friends again.

Sucking face...book

So Pete has introduced me to yet another time-suck: Facebook. In order to see his pictures from his recent trip to Hawaii I had to get an account. And once I got an account, I just had to make sure I had some friends. And once I started looking, I realized that there were a lot of little features which, if I spent a ridiculous amount of time on, I might one day understand.

So if I haven't posted in a while, look up my name there -the one with my slightly girly middle name - and see what I've been up to. (But I do still plan to keep this as my primary blog site.)

Oh, and when you sign up for an account, you'll learn that you can get addicted after just one hit.

What earthquake?

Just wanted to let you all (both? you - singular?) know that yes, there was an earthquake somewhere in Asia earlier this week. And, no, it wasn't close enough for us to feel it.

As far as tsunamis are concerned, we currently live halfway up a mountain so there's little risk there either. Our new home, Big Coastal City, will be near the water but is along a shallow, protected coast so there's still little risk.

Thanks for your concerns but we're fine.

Dedication

For the past several months, we’ve been reusing pages from various drafts of my English thesis and the hundreds of pages of research that went into it. Mostly this means using them for printing out our daily language assignments or using them for scratch paper. Our houseworker keeps @ entertained by making them into paper airplanes. @ normally draws on them. Today I found the following on his desk:

Dedication:
This paper is dedicated to my amazing wife, Amanda. Thank you for loving me through ten years together, three continents, a political expulsion, a broken leg, the birth of our son, several concussions and countless promises of “don’t worry, the thesis will be done soon.” Without you, Amanda, all of this would just be silly.

Or, you can read the final draft when you get my thesis through inter-library loan from Eastern’s library.

Why I believe Sir Barry is dead

Having seen nothing posted from him in months, I can only assume that Sir Barry is dead. My evidence is as follows:

On his most recent record album cover, he was wearing no shoes.

He failed to make his scheduled appearance on American Idol.

Before going into seclusion, he indicated that he would be taking "personal time."

Owen Wilson's recent problems - depression resulting from Barry's demise?

Curt Kobain, Richard Jewel and Barry: things like this do come in threes.

Tuesday's lunar eclipse - at least here - a sign that Barry was taken up in the mother ship?

Just last week I stepped on a crack.

I think I read something about it in Revelations.

Because lists are easier than thinking...

Hoping to get some of you blogging again, so let's start with something easy: Fives.

(*This idea shamelessly stolen from Tanya who didn't tag anyone when posting her response to her sister's tag.)

1. List five jobs you would like to tell people you do for a living even though you don't.
- "I save lives." (Then simply walk away.)
- "I design personal libraries in the homes of wealthy individuals who have neither the time nor the compulsion to read."
- "I'm a balloon safari tour guide."
- "I run a foreign-language bookstore."
- "I teach English in developing countries."
(I may actually be writing this from my basement in Pekin, Illinois.)

2. List five things you no longer have but wish you did.
- That polyester planet shirt. (Pete, do you have it?)
- Any of the glass heads I once collected.
- A copy of the movie Bob Roberts.
- My youthful exuberance.
- Risk, the board game.

3. List five things you were doing about ten years ago. (Stolen directly off Tanya's sister's list.)
- Recovering from my internship in Kenya.
- Gearing up for another year of graduate school and trying to figure out how to pay for it.
- Trying to figure out what will happen between me and a friend I had become smitten by.
- Looking for a place to live in Charleston.
- Thinking about moving to a country not found on any of the maps in ISU's map room.

4. List five "unnecessary" indulgences you sometimes give in to.
- Staying on "executive floors" at hotels.
- Cold Coca-Colas in glass bottles.
- Staying in the shower until the hot water runs out.
- Buying DVDs I probably won't watch more than once or twice.
- Buying certain books mostly so that someone else might be able to borrow them.

5. List five things you enjoy doing that you didn't when you were younger.
- Grammar
- Trying new foods (and, yes, I'm still easing into this one).
- Talking with strangers.
- Playing baseball.
- Walking to the grocery store or to a restaurant.

OK, here's the pitch: If you haven't posted five blog entries in the last five weeks, consider yourself tagged. If you haven't had an in-person conversation with me in the last five years, consider yourself tagged. Or if you're reading this and you are over five years old, consider yourself tagged.

Now get writing.

Out of the loop

I just heard that one of my brothers and his wife are in Hawaii right now. Which brother? I've no idea. And that's my point. For the last few weeks, really since we've entered the post-Potter era (PPE), I've basically been running to keep up. I haven't watched much news, I haven't talked with many people unless it involved my language homework. And my last two attempts at sending out a mass email update to people apparently didn't go through. (Did any of you get our last update, sent about a week or two ago?)

So here's the update from my end:

Just finished my first week of the new language unit and am scraping by. I enjoy it since it's one on one and there's more thinking involved rather than just repetition. And I understand the material but there's a new component that's a bit more challenging: read the material, then summarize what you read in your own words. Well, my words are usually in English...

Celebrated @'s 3rd birthday last night with gifts from grandmas and grandpa as well as a few from us. I bought him a t-ball tee with a nerf bat/ball. Like with most kids, the real fun comes from sending the T flying. If the ball moves, that's ok too. He got great books, new DVDs (four hours of things we haven't watched a thousand times!) and some clothes that will fit him through his 10th birthday.

I did buy a few books while we were in Singapore but not nearly as many as I'd intended. Everything was so expensive, even at the used book shops, that I made a point of limiting my choices to things that I really knew I'd read within the next six months or so

I'm reading Kazou Ishiguro's "The Unconsoled." I know I've made a pitch for him before but, seriously, if you haven't read at least something by this author you need to. "When We Were Orphans" or "Remains of the Day" are the safe choices but "Never Let Me Go" or my current read are really what shows his greatness. It does require work to read him but this is one of the few contemporary authors I've picked up in the last five years who will will have college lit courses named after him in the future. (Of course maybe, I'm just spending too much of my time reading good writers and need to start reading more good authors.)

Not many new household projects. I hung a new spicerack for Amanda and Ibu. I think the house is in as good of shape as it can be before the rainy season starts. Then everything will start to drip, swell and warp again.

I'm putting of writing an essay about how people in this culture express disappointment. I did the interview but just don't want to write about it...in any language.

I really don't like our lizards anymore. On any given day I'll see no less than five or six in various places around the house; the bathrooms, the office, the kitchen. I know that they eat misquitoes but they don't seem to take care of the spiders or cockroaches. Amanda had me release two that were trapped in our water pitcher that was left out one night. Several have simply died while on the curtains or walls. A few have met messier fates.

My wife continues to amaze me as she meets people, grapples with the language and just pushes through the daily complications of life. I think it's the fact that she has a level of discipline I lack. She does things that have to be done while my first reaction is to look for a way not to do them or put them off (thus, this post when I should either be writing my essay or studying for my test). That, and I just think she's a neat person.

I'm trying my hand at some creative writing again. Gretchen did a poem (???) about where she comes from. I'll try the same model with @. I've been dwelling on the concept of "legacy" (a concept I'm still trying to define) for the past few months and it might be an interesting way to look at the legacy we are creating with our three year old.

Heading out

I'm not sure who to blame. Maybe it's dad and the family vacations we went on but never flew to. Maybe it's Heyworth - a town I blame everything on like it's a mean stepparent. Or the books I read as a kid. Or the cultural exchange programs I never participated in but was always surrounded by...

In any case, despite my anxiety, I really love to travel and as I get older I'm finally getting comfortable with it. I enjoy a nice plane ride (as long as the plane is large enough to have a bathroom on board), I understand taxis and I'm even willing to attempt a bus for short trips. Amanda doesn't know this yet but I think we'll try a subway next week to get us to or from the zoo!

Tomorrow we leave for Singapore to get some passport things done and I can't wait to explore the city a bit. It will be our first extended visit to the city but thanks to our previous overnights there, we're beginning to feel comfortable there despite the crowds and the novelty of everything. We're learning the main roads and the layout of the airport. We'll attempt shopping and touring the local cutural sites. We'll eat at restaurants other than Subway (it's safe travel food for me) and might even find an Indian or Ethiopian. I even think that both Amanda and I will get an afternoon alone to explore what the other isn't interested in.

So yeah, we'll be gone through the 10th.

Some Harry Potter questions and random thoughts

It's been a week so if you haven't read the new Harry Potter yet, it seems like either you deserve to have some things spoiled or you just don't care...And if we, who live on a mountain in the middle of nowhere have been able to read it, you have no excuse.

So, SPOILER ALERT (sort of):


The wrong Weasley died.

Neville Longbottom is the man.

Did Neville and Luna end up together?

Mrs. Weasley cusses? Did Lord Voldemort ever cuss? I was awfully disappointed.

In the end, were the characters trying to punish their offspring when they named them what they did?

Draco Malfoy did not get what was coming to him.

Did the Dursleys come to the other wedding?

The real secret to eternal life is to have a self portrait made.

Kreature, a hero?

My eyes did leak over the death of one character (hint, he wasn’t in the first book).

Was the American version funnier?

Flying doesn’t seem like a big deal if you can teleport at will, although I guess it beats the broom.

Snape can fly too? When did he pick this up?

We never do find out what James and Lily did for a living.

The book needed another 200 pages.

Ron is whipped and will always be until he dies as the result of old age and nagdom.

Rowling’s next book: Hogwarts the New Class, starring Elizabeth Berkley as Hermione, Tiffany Amber Theisan as Fleur, Dustin Diamond as “Screech the owl”…

Some songs I wish I'd written

Gypsy by Suzanne Vega (that “My Name is Luka” girl)

American Pie – a bit too obvious of a choice?

When Love Came to Town

Jack and Diane by John…Cougar…Mellencamp

Hold Me Jesus (or about 70% of his other songs) by Rich Mullins

Hey Jealousy – the Gin Blossoms

Silent Running – Mike and the Mechanics

Hazy Shade of Winter – Who sang this song first?

Power Windows (our wedding song) by Billy Falcon

I Miss the Rains - Toto

Play Something We Know – Adam Hood

The Chasing Song or Passover Us – Andrew Peterson

Silent Night/Eleven O’clock News – Simon and Garfunkel

My Tree - Chris Rice

(I Want to) Paint It Black

Last Mango in Paris

We Are the Beggars at the Foot of God’s Door – The Normals

Don’t Stand So Close to Me (or almost anything from Dream of the Blue Turtles) – Sting

Mr. Tambourine Man - Bob Dylan

The Dangling Conversation – Simon and Garfunkel

Puff the Magic Dragon – Peter, Paul and Mary

PVC, the LSD of home repair

I have stumbled into my latest addiction with all the carelessness of 1960s flower child. I was looking to expand my horizons. I wanted to break from the restrictions unnecessarily placed on me by the Man (ironic since I am also the Man). I wanted more than my life currently had. I wanted freedom. I wanted to shower every night and allow my wife the option of doing laundry whenever she wanted.

So a while back I bought an extra water tank, capable of storing 550 liters of life giving, if not drinkable, water. The problem was that in order to fill this new tank, Amanda and I were required to wake up in the middle of the night, when the city water actually flows, stretch a hose between the two and siphon it from one to another. Not the best mode but the easiest one for the time being.

Yesterday Amanda and I went to the hardware store to make this job a bit easier. We bought eight meters of 3/4 inch pvc, assorted elbows and joints, a couple of shut off valves, a hacksaw and sealant. The total bill for the project was less than 15 USD! Now, with the cuts made and joints ready to be sealed once the old tank is empty, I am left with something like eight feet of pipe and a couple of couplers and joints. What to do with this? The mind reels.

It's a bit early to be thinking of our move North after the new year but I'm already thinking of a batting cage for the back yard or garage. Maybe @ needs a mini soccer goal? Or if we have a small yard I can build Amanda a plant stand. What about a workbench? Or a series of ferret tunnels? A giant croquet course? Sure, I'll need more than eight feet but at these prices I could buy miles of the stuff and it'd still be cheaper than books or DVDs. Already @ has a sword than doubles as a dirt tunnel.

So I need ideas to feed this obession. Ideas? Bookshelves and shoeracks are easy but I need a challenge. So many possibilities, so little time before language class begins again.

The same old...

I'm out of blogging rhythym and don't think I could write a truly unified-theme blog, especially on a hotel computer, if I wanted so instead, more of the same scattered thoughts.

The honeymoon of going to the big city for vacation is over. The malls, the palaces, the restaurants are all less thrilling than they were since we first ventured out of our "little" hometown.

I found a baseball bat and softball today at the bookstore. Unfortunately, the only gloves they had were for kids. Anybody have an old baseball glove they're not using? Or ifI could find a mushball (one of the large softballs they sometimes use at highschools so they don't have to shell out the big bucks for gloves), I wouldn't need a glove.

The only non-business English books I could find were the Greatest Works of Oscar Wilde and The Greatest Works of H.G. Wells.

If you refer to God as the "Great I am" here, you may accidently be calling him the "Great Chicken."

My top criteria for finding a hotel is now whether their pool has a slide.

My language learning is progressing to point where I can usually answer all the bus-ride-length questions a person typically asks (where are you from, how long have you been here, may I purchase your wife (kidding)) but at times my mind simply shuts off to the local language and I stumble through even those easy questions.

I mentioned the other day to Amanda that if she were to lose me to another woman, it would have to be to an Asian featured woman with an Australian accent. "If I were to lose you...?" she responded. "You mean, 'If I were to give you to...". I stand corrected.

I agreed that if I were to give Amanda to someone, it would be that crazy old guy in our city who walks around in an ill-fitting loin cloth. If she's nice...

I find it tough not to compare our language school to highschool...on fast forward. Instead of 4 years, people are around for a maximum of nine language units, each lasting about a month. The "seniors" have been around for a year at most but some people only take a unit or two before trying another program, going to work or simply dropping out. It was fun to see the freshmen group of eight come in last month all nervous and green. Here cliques aren't based around sports or GPA, they are based on who you work for or where you'll eventually work in the country or your national origin. There are the kids who have a ton of extracirriculars (in our case a child but they might also include a house in need of repairs, neighboorhood obligations etc) and those who seem to do nothing but study. Some you meet and think they'll never make it through while others seem to have such a grasp on the material that you wonder what they still need to learn. It's really a curious little group.

Odd to say that after two days of vacation, I miss home and that after less than a week out of school I miss the classroom.

I find myself really missing teaching and am actually looking forward to starting some initial informal interviews with universities next week. Keep that in your thoughts.

Package from Greenfield

What a great thing to get half way through a language unit - a package filled with unnecessities from some of our favorite people in Greenfield! There's just something great about opening a box of unknowns - even if the mailman first walks you through the customs declaration form, laughing at some of the things that made their way from the US.

And it's just the second package weve gotten since moving here - though it sounds like several are in transit - so we haven't gotten bored with presents...yet.

The hardest part about it was waiting three hours for Amanda to get back from class before I could open it. It sat, untouched on our dinner table, just taunting me. But I held my ground and didn't even walk the twenty minutes to school to pull Amanda out of class just to open it.

So what'd we get? The highlights include:
- Decaf tea and coffee and lemonade: This means we can induldge without having to stay up all night or having to pay five dollars a glass at one of the nice hotels in town.
- notecards: something I've tried to find both here and in Africa to no avail. Learning the langauge will be a snap now that I've got cards (or so my junior high Spanish teacher would leadme to believe).
- Post-its and scrapbook paper: I have no idea what good those are for but I think Amanda might find a use for them. :)
- Gum and dark chocolate: Survival food on test days or when there's no water.
- Sermons on cd from the cool church service (I hope the worship is there too!)
- A couple trains for @, causing him to exclaim "Yeah! I LIKE Calvin and Carter."

Cost to send a five or six pound package to the Island? Less than dinner for two at Applebees.

Some things just make us happy!

Just like the Parent Trap

I've written about finding your doppleganger before but didn't expect to run into one of mine here, in a town that isn't in any of the guidebooks and barely on the maps. But he's here and I have confirmation that it's not just my imagination (unlike my assertion that Just Pete's can be found in the movie National Treasure).

Jimmy's, my favorite store in the city, is staffed by Donny - an otherwise bright and curteous fellow - who insists in calling me Andy. This might seem odd if I hadn't met Andy. Andy is a white, thirty something midwesterner who wears khaki pants, has a bit more belly than he should, walks around in hiking boots and baseball cap; and has shorter hair than his wife would like. Andy sounds a bit more like Dan Akkroyd than I do but is a passable likeness if a person squints or only looks from a distance.

This was also confirmed today when walking with a couple of Americans who had spent the last week at a conference in one of the resort towns WITH ANDY, and they still thought I was him.

Amanda and I also speculate that maybe one of the reasons our bread order wasn't delivered last week was that Andy had cancelled his order.

I don't know if I should mention this to him or not - he may view it as an insult - but it seems a shame not to take advantage of this similarity. Shouldn't we swap families and see how long it takes them to notice (no thanks, he has more kids than I do but he also has a motorcyle...?). Or maybe we should trade places so we can reunite our estranged parents and get Dad to dump that golddigger fiance of his...

Or maybe not.

Randomings

Just some thoughts - Scan, skim, comment at will.



I tried to break up a fight the other day between two school kids. As I pushed them apart, I growled "Go to God." I meant to say "Go home." They were standing in front of an Islamic school.

@ is looking for a good catch phrase. He's recently tried "Sleep, sleep, sleep" in the local langage, usually as he runs circles through the house. He also likes, "Start your engines," "When I'm a daddy...," "Ka chow," and today "Oh, Jeezle Pete." But my favorites are: "Mommy's alright, daddy's alright, they just seem a little bit wierd" and one that he somehow picked up from Grandmaster Flash - "Don't push me 'cause I'm close to the edge" complete with the stutter in the appropriate spot.

My wife bought me a crate of soda in glass bottles the other day in the hopes that I'll limit myself to one a day. In the two days since then, I've stuck to the diet.

I'm now back in language class since my thesis is done. There's me, a Dutch couple and three Koreans. It's odd but today I got more overhearing the Dutch explanation of a verb than I did when the teacher explained it in English.

Now that we've been here three months, we are not the most clueless foreigners in the city.

Bought one of my favorite animated movies while we were on vacation (Disney's Robinhood -the one with the with the foxes), only to find that it's restricted to a region that won't play on either our computer or DVD player. We'll watch it once we get a universal player...when we get a TV...when we move to the big city...in nine months.

We really like our local church but I realized this past Sunday that sometimes it sounds like their synthesizer-heavy band is playing selections The Cars Worship Album.

Three weeks after I had it approved and I almost understand what my thesis was actually about. And I may have been all wrong.

We now have access to the International School's library so I'm rereading the A Wrinkle in Time books. They are not, no matter what people may say, Christian books. They're not bad, just not Christian.

There's something sad about being in any high school library that doesn't have any Vonnegut or John Irving (World According to Garp, A Prayer for Owen Meany). How many kids could learn to love reading if they just had something horrible but great to read?

While on vacation, I scoured the local bookstores and shopping malls for anything in English I could find. I brought home all three: The Devil's Dictionary by Abrose Bierce, The Best of Sherlock Holmes, and the current Asia Edition of Reader's Digest. The first title I'd rather not have our houseworker see; the last title I'd rather hide from anyone with taste.

Asian television gets around the "no porn on television" laws by calling it "Fashion TV."

When you get used to consistant 88 degree weather, 91 degrees is really hot.

I haven't had a reason to go into a hardware store in at least three weeks.

I can now "juggle" a small playground ball for a dozen or so kicks/headers without letting it touch my hands/arms or the ground.

Amanda's smarter than most people realize. Not just determined or a good worker, as she might admit, but really smart. I taught her Othello the other day and she'll kick my can if I let her play me again. I'm also glad she's a unit ahead of me in language school so I'll see what I'm in for and so she can order food over the phone for us.

Because Poppi doesn't see @ enough

Just some fun from our recent vacation to our nearby big city. Hotel room, cable TV, swimming pool, shopping and Italian food - just like Africa!

A bit gruesome???

If you're a lizard at our house, life is usually pretty sweet. Unless you happen to stop on one of the hinges to my workroom, that is...