and yet...

My uncle died of ALS last week.
...and yet tomorrow we will attend M's grandmother's 98th birthday party.

M's cousin is responding well to his chemotherapy.
...and yet my aunt is having a relapse of systemic Lupus and is suffering terribly.

Of their own volition my sons have saved up 5 weeks worth of their allowance to give to poor people in Egypt next week.
...and yet today one was needlessly cruel to the other.

The tooth fairy didn't show up last night when B left a tooth under his pillow.
...and yet we have full faith that she will visit this evening while he is sleeping and restore balance to life's yin and yang.

We're staying but I hope the hobo moves on...

We're back and had a really nice long weekend away.

It seems that M's nefarious employer will let us stay put (for now), which relieves an enormous amount of stress that's been building for me over the last couple of weeks.

The kids had fun digging through a treasury of old children's books that Oma has been saving all these years. They're all classics, including this one about a lovable hobo and all of his wacky hyjinx.

This guy may be a beloved character in Dutch children's literature, but I don't think I'd want to be caught alone in a room with him. Especially since he seems to be "buffing his lampshade" in public...

it was like, totally insane

Oh my god, you guys. the drive? was. horrendous. and I've reverted to adolescent gibberish because I haven't yet fully recovered. The first two hours? we drove 100 km. in total. The next hour and 15 minutes? 25 km. There was traffic. There were accidents. there was construction. and then? then it started to rain. buckets full.

And suddenly, in the midst of all the chaos? one of the little people in the back seat decides to see what would happen if he pulled one of the live wires out of the screen for our portable DVD player and touch it to the jack for the headphones. The DVD player died a sudden, cataclysmic death. Luckily the boy was unscathed, but we still had 497 km to go.

We got here just before midnight-- the normal 5 1/2 hour drive had grown an extra set of limbs and had extended its ugly self past the 9 1/2 hour marker. *shudder*

Against all odds, however, I have not had to be sedated or committed. I'm sitting here with homemade brownies and a cup of coffee. we visited a great local museum today and I'm about to go out and walk the dog along the dikes. Coincidentally, M's flight back home on Saturday is with KLM, so he'll be able to go AWOL during the layover in Amsterdam and drive back home with us on Sunday.

I'm hoping my next post will buck the recent trend and won't feature disaster as a central theme!!! (knocking on wood and spitting over my shoulder)

Random acts of kindness

Yesterday was from hell. really. just. straight out of the inferno. I chaperoned a class of third graders on a 9 hour odyssey that included nerve-wracking journeys on crowded trains. Just to make it extra-special, the teacher put me in charge of the hyenas and I came *this close* to tanning their hides.

Because the field trip lasted longer than originally planned, I called my neighbor frantically and asked if he could please let out D the wonderdog. Which was doubly embarrassing because I'd left my house in a complete disaster. I mean, above and beyond my normal benchmark of messy.

I got home, and not only had he walked the dog, he'd vacuumed the whole house as well! I'm cringing and yet grateful all at the same time...

M is out of town again this week and the kids have the next couple of days off, so I've suddenly decided to pack it all in and drive out to see my parents-in-law in Holland. I'm hoping that a little bit of TLC might reel me back in from the fraying ends of my tether...

Making a name for myself in the 'hood

Its got dreads, a revealing neon bikini and a great, big doobie hanging out of its mouth. When you flip a switch it plays a harrowing rendition of "Row, row, row your boat" and gyrates its slender hips suggestively.

Our neighbor bought it for us while vacationing in Portugal because it "made him think of us and laugh".

???

S and B apparently took it over to a friend's house this afternoon. and then they accidentally left it there...

I just got off the phone with this boy's mother:

"Hello, this is Betsy. Umm. yes. I think my boys might have left something verrrrrrry attractive over at your place this afternoon...."

Is this a seasonal product?

I was a bit surprised to see that our local supermarket has "Baby Bodys" on special this week. Apparently they're available with either long arms or short ones...

Update from Casa V

Lost: one tooth (the first!)
Earned: 2 yellow belts in Taekwando

10 reasons to go vegetarian (or at least decrease meat consumption)

People often ask me why I decided to become a vegetarian. There are many, many reasons, but the recent riots in the Caribbean and Africa have reaffirmed my commitment to eschew meat and animal products. This morning I feel compelled to share some basic facts:

1. Over seventy percent of American grain and eighty percent of American corn is fed to farm animals.
   
2. According to a Cornell University study, the amount of grain consumed by animals could feed approximately 800 million hungry people.
   
3. Valuable water resources are also squandered for meat production. Producing just ten pounds of steak requires the same amount of water as is used by an average household for an entire year.
4. An estimated 4,000 gallons of water is needed to produce a one day, animal-based food supply for an average American; a one day, plant- based food supply would only require about 300 gallons.
   
5. Intensive animal agriculture is a vast user of fossil fuel, mainly for the production of feed. A grain-fed steer who ingests twenty five pounds of corn a day and lives to reach a weight of approximately 1,250 pounds, consumes almost 284 gallons of fossil fuel throughout his life.
   

For more chilling statistics please visit Veg for Life.

And if that wasn't convincing enough have a look at this:

1. Every year in the UK livestock are given enough food to feed 250,000,000 people while in the world 30,000,000 people die of starvation
2. 20 vegetarians can live off the land required by one meat eater
3. Every 3 seconds a child dies of starvation somewhere in the world
4. If Americans reduced their meat consumption by 10% it would free 12,000,000 tons of grain - enough to feed 60,000,000 people (the population of Great Britain)
5. If all Americans became vegetarian, it would free enough grain to feed 600,000,000 people (the population of India)
6. The UK imports £46,000,000 worth of grain from third world countries to feed our livestock
7. Due to overgrazing 850,000,000 people live on land threatened by desertification & over 230,000,000 already live on land so severely desertified that they are unable to sustain their existence & face imminent starvation
8. 1 acre yields 165 lbs of beef or 20,000 lbs of potatoes
9. 8/10 of cultivated land in the UK is used to grow food for animals (14,732,000 hectares)
10. It takes 16lbs of high protein soya to produce 1 lb of beef

*These and plenty more reasons are listed at ARC

WTF?!

S and B's school is part of a greater complex that includes all grades up through high school. The campus doesn't have a gate around the perimeter which means that students can enter school grounds at any time day or night. Consequently it's covered in broken beer bottles-- shards of glass cover the playgrounds and litter the steps.

Last week one of S's classmates fell on a broken bottle and cut his hand so badly it warranted a trip to the hospital, stitches and a cast all the way up to his elbow.

The solution for the glass problem? The school has now passed the responsibility for cleanup off on the children in the lower grades. ??? My first grader has spent the last two recess periods picking up glass shards, cigarette butts and other garbage. He isn't wearing gloves, and although he swears he's using tongs I can totally see a scenario in which he picks up the shard first, puts it in the tongs with his fingers and then tosses it into the garbage cans.

I'm all for community action but am having a hard time understanding why this is considered a reasonable solution to the problem...

I'm surprised she didn't brain him with that microphone

This video had me laughing until I cried. literally.

Hint: keep your eye on the drummer. (Anno, I hope your broadband is now hooked up and that you're in a punchy mood...)

In deNILE

We've just booked a trip to Cairo for a week's vacation in May! :-) :-) Somebody pinch me because I still can't believe it!

Rejuvenated

We're back! The weather this weekend has been unbelievable-- today it was 22 degrees and sunny! We actually had brunch this morning outside at the Stadt Cafe and soaked up the sun and the atmosphere.

Prague was wonderful. I don't know what it is about that city-- you know how it is when you meet someone and click with them immediately? That's how I've always felt about Prague. Something about it brings the intrepid side of me to the surface.

The boys and I roamed around happily for two days. Spent an afternoon at the National Museum and then took in the sights. S and B are finally old enough that they can participate in planning what we should see, which was fun. They loved the castle and the Charles Bridge, but secretly I think their favorite activity was the breakfast buffet in the hotel.

Easter break is now over and life returns to normal tomorrow...

Gargoyles I	Gargoyles II

Where for art thou, Spring?

I am losing my mind. really. truly. The kids have a couple of weeks off and the weather has been horrendous. snowy. gray. This Florida girl has had it with winter.

There were only two things that prevented me from stringing myself up with my shoelaces last week. First of all, we have no rafters. Secondly, my parents in law came down for a much needed diversion.

We took a quick jaunt out to Schloss Lichtenstein and just the very act of having to be civil for 4 days has actually improved my mood. somewhat.

Tomorrow M will be traveling to Prague on business and I have decided to take the kids and go with him. I doubt we will be able to spend any time with him, but I'm thinking it will do us all some good to get out and get some fresh air and soak up some culture. More news hopefully upon my return...

Brahms' (very cold) Hungarian dances

We attended a piano concert with the kids yesterday evening. The whole performance was spectacular, but the real treat of the evening was a duo that played lively pieces "for four hands". They were amazing-- their hands were flying up and down the keys in a superhuman feat of digital gymnastics.

I leaned over to B and whispered: "Can you believe how fast their fingers are moving?!"

His answer?

"YEAH! But I'll bet they couldn't do that if it was freezing in here..."

She is not amused...

Poor D. She's doomed to spend the next two weeks with a lampshade on her head. And unfortunately she doesn't even get to enjoy the tequila buzz that's the normal precursor to this kind of activity. She is definitely not amused...

Her elbow operation was a success-- they removed a bone splinter that had been caught in the joint and has been causing chronic inflammation for who knows how long.

But her feet are still a mystery. How on earth does a dog walk around on (at least) 5 broken toes? The vet says he's never seen anything like it. Which isn't comforting because he also can't figure out how it would have happened. He's guessing that she might have done it when she was a puppy and the bones weren't fully finished forming. (which is ironic because we carried this dog up and down stairs for the first year of her life in order to make sure that she didn't put too much stress on those sensitive Labrador joints...)

I'm just hoping that the vet is right and that this doesn't mean that there's something inherently wrong with the bones in her feet... (*shudder*) In any case, it hasn't seemed to slow her down at all. You would never know that anything was wrong!

I'm trying not to think about worst case scenarios right now, though. Am just looking forward to the point when she's healed and we can let her off of the leash and let her bound around to her heart's content...

Greeeeaaaaaatttttt...

Am killing time in a small town in the Black Forest waiting for D the Wonderdog to get out of surgery. The good news is that only one elbow is affected and that this particular problem can be repaired.

The bad news? The x-rays revealed multiple tiny fractures in her feet. She´s got a bunch of bone splinters floating around-- the vet says he´s never seen anything like it in a dog this young, this small, this fit, etc. He doesn´t think it would do any good to go in and clean the splinters out-- feels that would be too invasive and might cause more harm than good. He said that since she´s small and fit that her body should be able to compensate for now. Later she might be in for trouble with arthritis. The only thing we can do is be watchful and wait.

It´s hard not to feel like the world is falling down around my shoulders...

I'd rather be listening to Prokofiev

Last Monday I rushed my very sick cat to the vet in the middle of the night.

Tomorrow (Monday) I will take D the Wonderdog in for surgery on her elbow(s).

Today, however, we went to a live performance of Peter and the Wolf, which was so beautifully played that it brought tears to my eyes. I think prefer this kind of drama...

*image thanks to Wikipedia

All-you-can-eat buffet

B is on a bird kick. They've been talking about them at school and a couple of weeks ago his class took a field trip to a bird sanctuary. He made a suet-ball which we hung up in the garden and at breakfast he spends an inordinate amount of time staring dreamily out the window and narrating all of the avian activities outside.

This morning he told me in a very serious tone that he'd like a bird feeder. But not a suet ball like we've got outside, but a real bird feeder. filled with seeds. so the birds can have brunch.

I stifled a giggle. Why brunch?

Because then the birds can keep going back and eat as much as they want!

Good question!

B is about to lose his first tooth and has been thinking a lot about the tooth fairy lately.

Hey Mama, remember when S tried to trick the tooth fairy?

Yeah. But it didn't work because she knew that wasn't his tooth. Fairies know everything.

Oh really?! Cool! I hope I see her when she comes, because I've got a question for her.

You do? What's that?!

I'm going to ask her if aliens really exist...

Even sand is looking appetising at this point...

I visited an acupuncturist / witch doctor this week. I'm not sick, but have been feeling a little off-balance for a while. I've had digestive issues for about a decade now-- it was diagnosed as IBS at one point, but I've always thought that that was just a substitute for: "I've got no idea what's wrong with you, but it's not serious."

Anyway, I've read about this woman and went in to see about a "tune up". I got a great feeling from her-- she's got a whole wall of credentials and has amassed more than 30 years of experience.

She did all kinds of diagnostic tests and deemed me a "very interesting case." (great...) She's convinced that I suffer from multiple allergies / sensitivities and has advised me to give up grain products and dairy. Those of you who know me know what a catastrophe this is-- I love milk and often drink almost a liter per day!

I'm not feeling very enthusiastic but figure I'll give it a go for 2 weeks just to see what happens. The problem is that I cannot metabolise sugar, so that's out. I've been a vegetarian for almost two years. Now no grain and no dairy? That doesn't leave much. Something's gotta give, and I'm afraid that my ethical principles might have to end up falling by the wayside in order to fill my stomach.

The one saving grace is that for some reason she says that spelt (dinkel) is OK. It's a mystery to me, since as far as I know spelt is just another type of wheat, but hey, I'll take anything I can get at this point! (Ze Germans are big spelt enthusiasts...)

I'm now on day 3 and I think I'm feeling better but I'm also RAVENOUS! Anybody know of any good low-carb vegan recipes? (ha!) Somebody HELP ME!!!