Blue Lights

Today as I sat visiting with Hannah, I suggested that we should have a Girl's Night once a month, and the following month she could have a Daddy Daughter Night. She wanted to know if she could pick the venue, because if so, she'd choose going to the movies. Extricating myself as gently as possibly from the possibility of huge financial galas, I suggested it might be a date that involved just going to a shop and choosing a pastry to eat while drinking some chai. Wisely, she nodded, "Like the blue lights."

?

Of course, I had no idea what she was talking about and asked her to explain. "You know, like in Bosnia when we went to the blue lights," she reminded me.

If you have watched Disney's Ratatouille six and a half dozen times like we have in our home, you'll remember food critic, Anton Ego was taken back to his childhood home after one taste of Ratatouille. That totally happened to me; except instead of going back to France, my mind time-traveled to Bosnia. I couldn't believe Hannah remembered something so small from so long ago. "You remember the blue lights!" I asked excitedly. She told me what she remembered: If she was well behaved in school for a period of time, Daddy would take her to the blue lights. She reminisced how in the evening, if you looked out the window of our apartment in Vogošća, you could see blue lights upon the hill. She continued, "I remember when we went to the blue lights, looking into my cup of cocoa, and when I looked up, I remember seeing Daddy's face." Then she asked, "Mommy, what are the blue lights?"

The blue lights could indeed be seen from our apartment window back in 2005 when Hannah was only four years old. They beckoned from the hill and were as enticing as fairy lights to see. Dan and I drove out there once during the day to check it out and found it to be a nice hotel on the hill. So when Hannah had behaved at school for whatever was the required time, we took her to the blue lights one evening. The waiter had on a red jacket and there were white tablecloths and candles on each table. We had no idea it was going to be so posh and weren't really dressed for the occasion. Nevertheless, we sat at a table by the window in the nearly empty dining room and ordered hot chocolate, which, by-the-way, is aMAZing in Europe. I think they actually USE chocolate to make it. And real milk. Plus you get to add your own sugar to taste. MMMMmmmm....

So, go forth and make some "blue light" memories with your loved ones. If they happen to include chocolate, all the better!

Summer Reading for Men

Our community library has a summer reading program for kids. You know the schtick--after reading so many books, children earn various prizes; a blatant ploy to deter them from becoming mindless organisms only capable of using a joy stick before school convenes in the fall.

This year Hannah has won the "You're a Terrific Reader" certificate (coughlame), a coupon for a chocolate chip cookie (thanks local grocer), a nifty change purse from the electric company, and only recently, the ever coveted "I'm a Truly Awesome Reader and You're NOT" t-shirt. Conversely, Logan JUST earned his second prize--thanks to my gentle maternal encouragement, loving support and the timely application of a cattle prod.

Today, we spent an hour at the library reading the final five books for him to merit his "Get a Free Cookie" coupon. Of the 20 gazillion books in the library, he was able to find the first three. The process of finding interesting reading material was simply too Herculean a task, so he asked that I find the final two, with the requirement that they be, "mumble, mumble books." Since I'm not very fluent in Mumbo Jumbo, I asked him to please repeat. Restating his request in English, he said, "I only want you to pick manly books."

Ugh! There goes my chance of picking out any of those pantywaist books from the sissy shelf that I've been itching to read with him. I hate it when he limits me like that.

It Runs in the Family

Several years ago, Oprah featured a guest who had some sort of facial recognition problem. She couldn't even identify the people in her workplace. She compensated by memorizing their wardrobes and learning their gaits so when they passed her, she would know who it was. It's called prosopagnosia.

I think I have it.

I've always suspected I was a bit off, but after having introduced myself to Tina in England one day, I consistently walked right past her when we happened to be at school picking up our respective kids. She couldn't understand how I could be so friendly when visiting at her house and an Ice Witch in public. I swear, I just didn't see her! She was confident I was some sort of lunatic whose meds needed a radical overhaul. When I finally explained my dilemma, she jokingly suggested that I have all my new friends wear a little red bow in their hair so I could recognize them...sheer genius.

Yesterday at the grocery store, Hannah walked right past me. I'm thinking of getting a little red bow for my hair.

I'm Back

It's hard to whine while simultaneously attempting humor, so I've been in a self-imposed blogging time out.

I don't even want to discuss the last 12 months of our lives, however I reserve the right to cryptically allude to them in the very vaguest of terms in future entries. I'm hoping that someday I'll find the humor of being unemployed and moving in with Dan's mother in her 2 bedroom home in Wyoming just before winter arrived with only what we could carry in our sedan, but currently I don't have the visceral fortitude for that. I know that is a massively complicated run-on sentence with the word "in" used four times, but we all have our crosses to bear...yours is deciphering that unwieldy last comment, mine was writing it.

Here's to less complication in both writing and life!

Another Story In Which I Misplace a Child

This is one of Hannah's favorite stories to retell...probably because it's proof positive that her mother is barking mad.

While living in England, we lived across the street from the Martin family, a good, proper, speaks-the-Queen's-English lot. I was in the midst of making a cake and realized that I was short two eggs. I asked Hannah to skip over to their house to borrow the necessary eggs. My British neighbor had gotten quite used to my culinary shortages and wouldn't blink at the cheeky request. I'm not sure the English ever ask neighbors for a cup of sugar; I'm not sure they ever run out of anything in their organized lives. And if they do, they don't bother their neighbors about it. But as a crass American, I just boldly asked without shame.

Anyhow, I gave Hannah an empty egg crate so she wouldn't drop the eggs on her short trip back. She looked at me quizzically and asked, "Are you sure?" I was in a hurry to get the cake baked and feeling a bit impatient, I answered that I was, in fact, sure. She gave me another chance and said, "Do you think I might get lost?" She played with Louise Martin every other day, and had NEVER gotten lost crossing the cul-de-sac, so I was pretty confident she could do it now. In broad day light. Gritting my teeth, I assured her she would not get lost. Convinced, she took the egg carton and headed out the door.

I stood watching from the kitchen window, waiting for her to cross the street and knock on the neighbor's door. Hmm. She must have stopped to look at a bug or something, because she didn't cross. I could still hear the silvery chimes that hung from the front door ringing and yet I felt a dread. I walked to the door and looked out, hoping to see her and knowing somehow that I wouldn't. She was gone. She had never crossed the street, she just vanished.

I ran down the street bare-footed, calling her name. As a foreigner, the neighbors gave me a lot of latitude when they saw me acting crazy. As I reached the corner, there was no sign of her, so I returned home for shoes and Logan. I shoved him in the car and started driving, wondering where to look first. Could she have misunderstood me and thought she needed to go to the UK store around the corner (it's like a 7-11)? Surely she wouldn't walk all the way to the news agent store half a mile away, would she? I quickly drove around the corner to the UK store and asked the clerk if a little girl had come in wearing an orange track suit? She gave me a strange look and shook her head.

Back into the car, I turned around and cruised down the road trying to figure out how to park near the news agents to pop in and have a look for my six-year-old daughter. Of course, there's NEVER any parking in front of that store, so I needed to turn around and park at the Co-op grocery store across the street, another place I'd have to search. Just as I'm making my way back from a very complicated U turn, I see my blithe little girl cross High Street (in America, we'd call it Main Street), skipping along with her egg carton.

Seriously?! I was so angry at her! Where in the WORLD had she gone? From the looks of it, she had gone to TINA's house which required her to walk half a mile down a busy street, cross an even busier street and then retrace her steps homeward. I had just asked her to go to KARI's house, maybe 40 steps round trip!!

Lucky for us both, I couldn't get my hands on her because as a motorist, we're not to stop the car in the middle of a busy intersection so we can throttle a naughty child...foreign countries always have their own quirkish rules. As I followed her, I reran the conversation we had had in the kitchen. All of a sudden, the crazy questions she had asked didn't seem so crazy. Is it possible I had said, "Go ask Tina for 2 eggs" when I had meant "Kari"? Sometimes, when talking to the real Tina, if I wanted to suggest we ask Kari to join us, I would invariably say, "Let's ask Tina." When corrected, I'd amend my statement by saying, "The OTHER Tina!"

Thankfully, I'd figured this out by the time I was able to pull up beside my happy daughter, who was bursting with importance and pride at her magnificent journey. I asked her if she wanted to hop in and ride the rest of the way home. It was such a lovely, sunshiny day, she declined and trotted the rest of the way home with me driving ahead for a bit, pulling to the curb and waiting for her to catch up.

I called the real Tina when I got home and explained the whole story. She was wondering why I sent Hannah over because she had already told me in an earlier conversation that she only had two eggs left so was surprised that I send my daughter over to claim them. She had willingly handed them over, too! Luckily, Tina eventually moved around the corner from us, so scooting over to either Tina's homes for a needed item was no longer a hair-raising journey.

Science Fair

I hate Science Fair. It should rightfully be called, "The Grade Your Child Gets Directly Correlates to Your Calibre as a Parent." Yes, it's a little more ungainly a name, and certainly more expensive to put on a banner, but the data I'm about to present will prove my theory:

First, parents have to help their child find a topic in which he or she is mildly interested and yet will be somewhat feasible to prove in an experiment.

Then they have to help their child gather data and buy all the elements necessary for proving or disproving the hypothesis.

Next, they must facilitate this child in setting up the experiment and collecting the data necessary to prove the theory.

Finally, they will have to help design and then execute said design on their child's four foot cardboard display board (in my case, the night before) and then send them on their way to the judging where parents aren't invited to attend.

This is a process that takes months. We were not allowed to help Hannah type her paper, write her bibliography, nor oversee how she presented the data. Those were projects she did at school.

Here's HD's Science Fair 2011:

"Which plant will grow better, one that has extra c02 or one with regular air?"

The plan was to plant pinto beans in 2 separate containers and when they sprouted, put a cube of dry ice in one container and seal it while leaving the other container open, without dry ice (when dry ice melts, it converts to c02). We started late January trying to get pinto beans to sprout. They refused. Dan went to a nursery (which is only open one day a week) to purchase some seeds, in case the beans had been irradiated. Nothing. I was working 60 hours a week during this crucial time and not getting home until 9:30 in the evening, so I wasn't able to help much. I DID go online and give instructions to Dan and Hannah on how to make a terrarium, but I wasn't available to help put it together.

About a week before she is to present her findings, I took a look at those terrariums and noticed that, not only were the seeds not sprouting, they were ROTTING. Because there was too much water in the terrarium, something I warned both father and daughter against. Too late. No time to rectify the situation. Hannah had to present "inconclusive" results at the Science Fair. Students who had excellent results have excellent parents. Students whose results are rotting in jars have parents who are rotten. Coincidence? Hardly. There is totally a direct correlation.

It occurs to me that this whole "science fair" is a very Machiavellian way for teachers to assess which kids have smart parents interested in their child's future and which ones have inept simpletons for parents, raising children who will likely be on the dole.

Next year, we're going to do something a little less ambitious, such as "Which color do more ten year old girls prefer, pink or blue?"

The REST of the Story

Do you remember that blurb last year about us having to wait a month before the job Dan wanted became available? And how we waited, and nothing? And how we drove all the way to Cheyenne, Wyoming with a few suitcases, two kids and a fluffy dog? I DID mention the dog, right?

Well, since then, this is what we've been up to:

• Hannah had to be tested to be admitted into the G/T program here. She registered just south of being a frikken genius, which gave her passage into the "Trailblazer" class. This means we had to move her from the school she had just been moved to two weeks previously in order to attend this program. Let me do the math for you, both she and six year old brother attended three schools within 2.5 months. That confession makes me feel like a shiftless gypsy.
• Logan started hanging with the shadier elements of 1st grade and had recently started coming home with unsatisfactory marks for effort, behavior and following directions. Of course we "persuaded" him vehemently to "reassess his choices" and he's now on the straight and narrow again.
• In my desperation for employment, I took a job working as a cashier for minimum wage at Sears right before Christmas. Grueling. In early January, I was hired to work as a paraprofessional at one of the local elementary schools. Nirvana.
• By the end of January, Dan was offered a job. Oh, and it's in Ft. Hood, Texas. His starting date was February 14th. So that one month estimation we were hoping for was only about 120 days off the mark. That means, once the school year ends, we have to pack the suitcases, kids and dog for that little 1,000 mile jaunt back to Texas. Because yanking the kids from school four times in one academic year bumps me from "shiftless gypsy" to "trashy hobo" and that's just a title I don't need after 9 months of unemployment. Still a sensitive spot for me...so we wait for the last day of school before heading back.
• And the dog? He started talkin' smack to a pair of Great Danes who were passing by the house a coupla months ago and got beat down. Six hundred dollars later, he is MUCH better, thanks for asking.

Here's to less "exciting" times!