Acorns...A Childhood Dream

When I was a youngun', I read My Side of the Mountain and thought, "Man-o-man...one day I want to hollow out my own tree in the woods, cure me some deer skin, and fill my food stores with acorns so that I can too enjoy acorn flour pancakes." I read and reread that book, scheming and planning, memorizing the technique for acorn collection and storage because you never know when you might need to know how to deal with acorns.

Well low and behold, that day has come and acorn collection time is upon us.

My rationale for what you will soon see was a foolish endeavor was that going from this

To these fine products was as simple as

Pick and dry...and we have dried apples!

Pick and boil...and we have apple syrup!

And so off we headed into the world of acorn processing. 

Damn those apocalyptic, end of world blogger types who swear up and down that acorns are well worth the time it takes to process squirrel fodder. And damn them again for claiming that six changes of water will take your acorns from bitter, inedible nuggets of nastiness to healthy, delicious, satisfying treats. It has been six weeks and we still aren't there. 

Once again, the thing that rankles me is the blogosphere, where folks claim that this acorn processing stuff rocks. Really? I just have to set the record straight, dammit. 

So here is what you get if you decide that you need to play with acorns.

First you have to pick them up which, if you have middle schoolers, is potentially embarrassing. Thus, I recommend the first step in this process very highly. There are any number of different kinds of oak trees and even, so they say, a sweet oak that drops acorns that need hardly any processing but I think that might be a load of kaka. 

The next step. getting the acorns out of their shells part, also ranked pretty high on the fun-stuff-to-do-when-you-have-no-money scale. It got high marks because you get to smash stuff with hammers. Next, though, comes the poopy water stage.

Yup, that muck comes out of acorns (and yes, there are acorns in there, under the muck) through a process called leeching, which involves lots of boiling water and baking soda. Is it any wonder our forefathers decided pretty quickly that importing flour from Europe was the way to go? 

You get about six weeks of poopy water before the acorns stop being so full of tannin that they constipate you and their bitterness curls your toes. Then the water looks like this instead:

 Many hours of drying in the dehydrator and they start to look like mouse turds.

And they then can be thrown in a jar and placed in the cupboard until the trauma of having undergone this experience begins to fade.

I think the next thing you are supposed to do is grind them into a sort of acorn meal and make things out of them--like bread, noodles, and coffee (and My Side of the Mountain pancakes). Really! However, the same idiots who swore that this whole process would take days are also the ones who posted recipes for all that stuff so we have yet to eat these shriveled, blackened nuggets.

Anyone in the market for some acorns?

What You Don't See...

Many downsides of moving exist and, having grown up a product of the US military, I know them all. But there are also downsides of staying in a place for too long. Chief among them is that you forget to see.

If we had lived here in Sweet Little Town, USA, for forever, we would forget to notice that the leaves went from green to stunning scarlet almost overnight last month. We might even fail to see that our house is freezing cold all the time. Or that we can never dress in fewer than six layers these days.

But I digress (because I am freezing cold and even my brain feels numb).

This week has been the most amazing week ever because this week it snowed. And because we are suddenly living in a manner that includes very little structured anything aside from the multiple hours that The Man requires we spend everyday getting smart at the local school house, we had lots of time to go out and see the snow.

We were stunned. Snowflakes have shape! Snowflakes are cold! Snowflakes get stuck in cobwebs and on mittens and sit there staring back at you, definite in their shape. Snowflakes are, in short, quite astonishing and worthy of constant comments.

A snowy miracle

Yes, that's snow on the roof of the car. We
were
nearly wetting ourselves.

Also of note was the amount of snow that fell without anyone else in this town taking much notice. I mean, there was a WHOLE DUSTING OF SNOW! And some of us were outside running around in it with photo-taking equipment because, well, it's SNOW!









Some of us (anonymity is important in this blog, but only when I cannot remember which child says what) wanted to go sledding in the pathetic dusting of snow that fell during the afternoon and early evening hours. However, when the physics of sleds was explained, that plan was quickly abandoned in favor of snowman making.

And I shall call him Bob...

To lend a bit of perspective, that is a mini carrot for a nose, and balled up next to Bob there is a black glove, child's size extra small. Bob is, shall we say, petite.

It is still snowing out as I type, but none of it is sticking too much. Bob lays slumped on the front porch and a squirrel made off with his nose at some point during the morning. However, we are seeing snow as I have never seen it before because, well, it's like I have never seen it before.

Snow is cool (okay, that's bad, I know).

How to Eat on $65 a Week (and Not Develop Scurvy)

I keep running across all of these "how to save a bazillion bucks" blogs these days. 

We have a love-hate relationship. 

The blog's author always posts a picture of herself in a sidebar looking like the all-American girl. Their peaches and cream complexions are probably because, with all of the wholesome recipes and money saving tips they offer, they can go to the spa each morning, leaving the kids with nannies. And they can then hit the gym before lunch. I hate them all. 

happymoneysaver.com...this woman gave us our recipe
for homemade laundry soap at $.02 a load. And she
manages to look stunning while doing it. Damn her.

keephomesimple.blogspot.com...I love this woman's
one-hour French bread recipe. She raises kids, cooks
wholesome meals, and looks like June Cleaver. Every day.

fivehearthome.com...thanks to this woman we have
healthy, no-cook granola bars until the kids find them and eat
them all (their new record--three hours). In case you haven't
figured it out yet, her name is Samantha. Her life is perfect.

Their houses always abound with love. They describe their kids as "sweet, loving, energetic, beautiful," and their past-times usually include reading something (like home-making magazines, but never smutty novels), baking, church, and servicing her husband who is, invariably, her soul mate. *Retch*

And yet, for all of my animosity, I need to thank these blogging ladies because they are the reason we are not eating oatmeal every night for dinner. And they are also the reason, in part, that our grocery bill is so low.  They just have so many darn good ideas on saving a buck. Gotta pay for those facials somehow.

I was talking to my sister this week and she was so impressed at how cheaply we are eating but then, when I explained how we are eating so cheaply, she was repulsed which, of course, means that these tips must be blog-worthy.

How to Eat on $65 a Week (and not develop scurvy)

1. Eat cabbage...lots of cabbage.

. 

Cabbage is frickin' cheap. And you can turn it into cabbage soup, cabbage rolls, cabbage salad, cabbage fritters, cabbage meatballs, cabbage curry. The downside is that it is hard to disguise as anything but cabbage. 

The bite out of our budget: 85 cents apiece. 

Meal value: 3-5 meals can be squeezed from a single cabbage. 

Complaint level: 8/10 due to its gaseous qualities.

2. Use TVP as a filler anytime you serve ground meat.

I know, it looks like breakfast cereal...or cat vomit...depending on your age and level of tact. But it is in fact some kind of dried stuff that, when you add it to meat, makes your food budget go a long way. Like little dried flakes of magic. 

The bite out of our budget: Infinitesimal

Meal value: Seemingly infinite

Complaint level: 0/10 if they don't see it going into their food, 10/10 if they do. TVP gets an 11/10 if they fail to make the cat vomit connection.

3. Sop off the government.

I know, I know...the dole is naughty. But my kids eat a lot. So T and I sat down and calculated that we could save approximately $100 a week if we would just sign them up for government lunch at school. So we did. 

The bite out of our budget: There is free lunch. Thank you US taxpayers.

Meal value: 15/week

Complaint level: 0/10. They like free lunch because it guarantees pizza once a week. We will deal with the resulting obesity later.

4. Sop off the neighbors...then make stuff.

Man, everyone here has fruit trees that they don't pick. Right now, it is don't-pick-your-apples season with a few hangers-on from don't-pick-your-pears season. It looks like we will soon be heading into don't-pick-your-crab-apples season.

The fruits of our latest sopping.

Apple jelly made from the neighbor's apples

The bite out of our budget: Thanks to child labor, nada.

Meal value: 5/week...there's apple fritters, apple jam, apple sauce, apple pie, apple crisp, apple cake, apple slices for snack... 

Complaint level: 1/10. No one complains about dessert, but there have been some complaints about the occasional worm and the rot level encountered when picking. It will come out later in counselling.

5. Shop at Aldi and eschew organics

Not as good as Walmart for entertainment value, but
darn cheap so long as you keep your expectations low.

I know, you're going to say that we are probably setting ourselves up for chronic diseases later while simultaneously destroying the planet, but buying conventional saves in the short run, and right now we are all about the short run. On top of that, Aldi, according to a number of hardcore, money saving bloggers, is nothing less than the devil's work. 

But Aldi has my heart because, if you are not overly picky about labels, the mountains of pre-packaged foodstuffs that you have to navigate around to find the bargains, and the fact that you have to USE YOUR OWN BAGS **gasp** it is cheap.

Signing off from the world of "ain't got no money"...

Povertingly yours,

Rachel

Soccer Chicas

Last month, just before leaving Oman, I witnessed a group of girls discussing a bizarre phenomenon. It was odd really and the girls could not get their heads around it. They had observed that all of the non-Omani women they had met that summer were good at sports. The Omani women, in contrast, with the exception of a tiny handful, were just awful at anything having to do with a racket, a ball, or a bat of some sort. Even moving faster than a slow stroll was too much to ask for some. The girls were puzzled.

As they sat and conversed about how strange this was and pondered how this could be, they asked one another, “What strange forces are at work?” (Okay, they didn’t say exactly that, but you get the idea).

“I have heard,” one of the girls suggested, “That Omani women are just more delicate.”

All of the girls nodded their heads. “It is the heat,” another replied.

And then they all sat and nodded their heads some more. End of conversation. Yes. It is the heat and the delicacy of that nationality. That was their end conclusion.

I watched them and was also completely flabbergasted. But I was thinking about how strange this conversation was and, further, that they had drawn upon this conclusion so automatically and without any sort of apparent demonstration of critical thought upon the matter.

In spite of images like this--

Thanks to www.sail-world.com for the image of the
Oman Sails All Women Team at work.

And this from the 2014 Olympics

Shinoonah Salah Al Habsi (in the middle) in the Summer Olympics, rockin'
the Daily Mail. I hope Reuters doesn't mind that I borrowed the image.

And the others you get to see if you do a search on "Omani women sport image", the girls (or at least the ones I talked to) don't see themselves as people who need to be or even can be physically active.

Fast forward a month and here I am in the good ol' US of A. Tian must have been feeling lonely for some mom time as now I see her for all of two hours each day. She invited me to come to one of her soccer games. Wow. I must be the coolest mom in the world if my teenager wants me to come watch her do anything.

Because I was totally flattered to be invited to a middle school sporting event and because I am only minimally employed (okay, I am pretty much totally unemployed), I said that I would come and watch her team play. 

It was amazing.

This is what girls look like in America when they grow up with the expectation that they will move their bodies.

Look! There is Tian at the end of the bench! Go Tian!

They end up taking it for granted that they are supposed to move their bodies, and they just do it. They play like little soccer demons every day of the week and go to bed wondering what they will do with themselves after soccer season is over at the end of September because they love playing the sport so much. And then they hear that there is an indoor winter soccer league and subsequently quit whining at their mothers all the time.

After my month-ago-conversation, I am eternally grateful for the belief that girls can and should play sports here.

And so is Tehva.

Perhaps You Are Gobsmacked...Or Perhaps You Saw This Coming

We are back in the USA and things are going well for all of us. But one of us is confused.

If you had to choose one of these two to be confused, which would you choose?
I know, it's a tough call. 

If you guessed Tehva, then you win the million dollar prize. As if I had a million dollars. Let's not go there.

Tehva is in a constant state of confusion but the girl is doing her darndest to catch up with everyone around her. Her greatest struggle seems to be that she lacks a common language with her classmates and with the schooling institution in general.

Period or Full Stop?

“Mom…every time my teacher says, ‘Period’ I just crack up.”

“Does she say it a lot?”

“All the time! It’s so funny!”

I appreciate that this particular visual is bilingual.
Tehva would appreciate that, too, if she could
stop laughing about the period thing.

In Tehva’s mind the woman is menstruating excessively, but I am sure that in Mrs. H’s mind, nothing of the sort is transpiring. “What would you have her say instead?”

“I don’t know. Not that.”

Tian, who is decidedly and very intentionally NOT having any communication issues with ANYONE in this tiny hamlet breaks in to lay down the law. “Tehva, you can’t think of it as a full stop anymore. It is a period.”

“I like full stop. And period sounds dumb. It sounds like someone is bleeding.”

“Well they’re not. So get over it. Speak American.”

We are trying hard to get Tehva to simply understand that speaking American and, well, speaking hybrid-been-overseas-in-a-British-dominant-expat-culture-for-my-early-formative-language-years-English are two different things. It is rough going, though.

Dress like this...

What Are the USA's Colors Again?

To make things even harder, yesterday was Patriot Day, meaning the kids were asked to wear red, white and blue to school in memory of 9/11, but I am not sure that anyone actually said that in Tehva's class. It might have been implicitly understood by everyone. Except for Tehva. 

Tehva came downstairs wearing yellow, black and orange. “Where is your red, white and blue? You look like you are dressed for Patriot Day in…maybe…Germany?” (is there a country whose national colors and yellow, black and orange?)

“Huh?”

“It’s Patriot Day. Red, white and blue.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind.”

Football or Football?

“Mom, one of my teachers is selling tickets for something. Can we go?”

“What is the event?”

“Ummm, they keep saying it is football. But I think it is something else. Is it soccer?”

Silas, who is also, aside from the fact that he uses vocabulary better suited to a college professor and adamantly insisting that he does not follow sports, fitting in quite nicely here, breaks in to clarify things. “No, Tehva, it is called football but it is the one with the funny ball. American football. No one here would buy tickets to soccer.”

“Oh, you mean the one with the ball that kind of looks like a rugby ball?”

Tian then entertains everyone with a tale of watching boys run up and down the field with their football pads bouncing around their ears because the boys are so short. Everyone laughs, but I can see Tehva thinking, “Does this have anything to do with a period?”

What Ramadan Is Good For...

Most people know that Ramadan is the Muslim Holy Month, but there is a whole culture around Ramadan that makes the holiday feel unique if you are Muslim. And if you are not Muslim, it's a sigh of relief.

Being here during Ramadan has been a little bit sad since we are not really invited to participate in the celebrations going on around us. Frankly, it's a bit like the next-door-neighbor's birthday party you didn't get invited to.

But in spite of feeling all woe-is-me, there are some ways that Ramadan can be enjoyed if you aren't in on the good times but are bearing witness to the good times.

What is Ramadan good for if you are not Muslim but living in a Muslim country?

1.) Ramadan is a good time to go to the dentist.

What with the fast on, no one wants to go to the dentist and have work done, only to swallow a bit of water during the procedure and have to make up that day's fast later.

Two days ago I went to the dentist to have my teeth cleaned before we return to The Land of the Free, The Home of the Brave, The Place of the Ridiculously Expensive Medical and Dental Procedure. I waited a grand total of 38 seconds to be seen.

Incidentally, the political enemies of the USA, the Russians and Cubans who man the dental clinic, were lovely, patient, and kind, and charged me $12 for my cleaning, Tian's extraction,  a round of painkillers and Tony's filling.

God bless the Communists.

2.) Ramadan is a good time to learn to drive.

Ramadan = no traffic = no one to plow into = best time to learn to drive.

When we non-Muslims are commuting to work, our Muslim neighbors and co-workers are still sleeping off the morning's suhoor (see my earlier post about exactly how this eating thing works at Ramadan).

For those doing the math, that means zero traffic.

On the flip side of the day, 7 p.m. is the other best time to practice driving because Oman is experiencing a collective fast breaking.

Frankly, driving between 5 a.m. and 9 a.m. or between 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. is like driving through the zombie apocalypse as the roads are so deserted, and who doesn't love zombies?

3.) Ramadan is a good time to save money.
\
That coffee and snack that Tony usually buys in the mornings, thus draining the monthly slush fund of, well, slush, is fat and happy right now because there is no coffee available in the mornings unless it comes from our home supply of coffee. And those snacks? They will once again be available after 28 July. There are no restaurants open for lunch (except the American Club but shhhhhhh...that's a secret), no Starbucks selling tasty, overpriced beverages, no little cafes with little cafe treats. We are living in a diurnal food wasteland and that, my friends, is like getting a little bit of free money each and every day.

4.) Ramadan is a good time to master the art of eating on the sly while in the car.
I didn't realize how many breakfasts on the road we were doing until Ramadan hit and we suddenly were being discouraged from overtly carrying food outside our house--getting up earlier and eating breakfast at home was out of the question.  The only realistic solution to this problem, then, was to learn how to eat in the car without looking like you are eating. I recommend moving to a Muslim country so that you, too, can learn how to eat in the car without appearing to eat.

5.) Ramadan is a good time to be a lazy bum at work.
Nobody is working too hard during Ramadan because everyone is conserving energy. This is contagious. If you have ever fantasized about a three-hour workday punctuated by long stretches of putting your feet up or chatting with the person at the next desk, then working during Ramadan is for you.

6.) Ramadan is a good time to get free chocolates.
I had a big fat box of nice chocolates waiting for me on my desk yesterday. The Ramadan Fairy left them. They were better than Russell Stover. Can you imagine? Ow, I think my tongue just impaled my cheek.

And that is what rocks when it comes to Ramadan.

Date me, Baby...It's Fast Breaking Time

The weirdest potluck that I have ever been to started like this:

We all gathered in a gigantic circle of the grassy lawn in front of the host’s home, cradling our dishes that we had brought. Then the introductions began, innocently enough at first:

“Hi, my name is Raven.”

“Hi, Raven.” (Yes, it felt a bit AA, but in fact it was just New England hippy).

\

“To share with all of you tonight, I have brought a potato salad.”

Oh, that’s nice, I thought. I’d never been to a potluck where we identified our food before people started to eat it but it was New England. Here’s where it gets weird. “My salad contains potatoes, so if you’re allergic, don’t eat it. Oh, and it has mayonnaise which is soy-based, so if you have an intolerance, don’t eat it. And I put onions in it. And salt.”

My thought: people have potato allergies? And who DOESN'T know that potato salad has potatoes in it?

At Southern pot lucks we always just plunk our dishes on the long table with the crepe-papery covering in the social hall and maintain a quiet vigilance over whatever we’ve brought. It’s a matter of church lady pride to see your mac-n-burger casserole go first and then hear the Preacher call out, “Now who brought that mac-n-burger? That was delicious!” The anonymity is a sacred Southern ritual within the potluck itself.

But back to New England and on to the next person in the circle. “Hi, my name is Ocean Leaf Lovesalot.”

“Hi, Ocean Leaf Lovesalot.”

“I brought a roast chicken that I raised myself on organic, vegetarian feed, but if you are vegetarian, you should not eat it. I seasoned it with salt and pepper and garlic.”

From the crowd comes, “Now, Ocean Leaf, did you use ethically raised garlic this time?”

“Oh…oh…I’m sorry. The co-op was out. It's conventionally raised...”

"Oh darn. No chicken for me tonight."

And on we went around the circle with each person warning us of gluten, dairy, soy, sugar, seeds, garlic, spice, gelatin, honey, nuts, and non-vegetarian-compliant foods. I was half starved by the time we were allowed to eat, so I ate a bit of everything, but not before others went through the line, discussing their limitations as they went.

“I’m not eating gluten now. I really feel like I have so much more energy these days.”

“Oh, yes, I also am gluten free. And I have read about soy and its hormone level link so I have cut out soy. My moods feel so much more stable.”

It was something akin to miraculous that this gathering had gotten off the ground at all because how do you throw a New England hippy party for a largely vegetarian crowd with a high incidence of Celiac’s disease that will not eat anything processed or containing sugar or dairy? Or that is unethically raised?

This all comes to mind because it is Ramadan. As I write this, we have just finished up the second week and are into the third. While I thought in the first week about getting arrested, in the second week I have thought a lot about food because, in spite of Ramadan being a fasting period, this month is still very much about food. But it is about what we eat, but it is also about when we eat and how.

Ramadan’s fast exists in part to encourage patience, purity and modesty. It also serves to heighten people’s awareness of the plight of the poor. By forgoing food and water from sun up to sun down, the feeling of desperate wondering about the timing of one’s next meal should trigger a feeling of empathy for those who go without every day. In that way, people will give more freely to charity in order to support those less fortunate while developing patience, purity, modesty, and a closer connection to God.

At least that’s what Nasser told me.

And yes, I have seen people giving to the poor in the streets, as well as free meals distributed in the evenings by mosques throughout Muscat, so it does work. But more interesting to me has been to watch how people eat at Ramadan.

Iftar, the evening meal that breaks your day’s fast, begins at 7:03 p.m. but in actuality, even if you are eating your iftar at a restaurant, it starts earlier. We attended iftar recently and found that it involved a lot of staring at plates of food between 6:40 and 7:03 p.m. Everyone arrived at the restaurant a good 30 minutes before the maghrib prayer call sounded in order to secure a table. A miniature table off to the side was loaded with dates, yoghurt drinks, juices, water, and fried tidbits like eggrolls and samosa.

Everyone took a small plate of these things and placed it at their seats. Then they all went back and loaded up plates of dinnery foods so as to be ready when the maghrib went—chicken, rice, mutton, dal and salads all featured heavily at all three iftars we attended. And nobody said anything about allergies or ethics. Imagine.

 After all drinks were arranged neatly and the dates were in the optimal position, everyone commenced with the sitting and staring portion of the evening, except for Tehva and the other under 10s. They all quietly snitched little pinches of food and sipped from the tops of their cups while asking frequently about the time.

And then the moment of release—the prayer call. With the first Allah akbar, everyone silently picked up a date and broke their fast. After a slug of yoghurt drink and an egg roll or two, many men got up to go pray, and then returned to the table to join their families in seriously breaking the fast, shoveling in the chow as quickly as possible in order to go back for more. And, for some, this was followed by more. And more. And more. And all the while, the eating was accompanied by happy chitchat and some serious gustatory appreciation.

The iftar lasts as long as people care to eat and then the good times begin, lasting until the pre-dawn meal, the suhoor, which is hearty and meant to carry you through the day until your next iftar.   

In this context, the dietary restrictions of that potluck of yore seem vapid and superficial. At Ramadan, everyone is so happy to break the fast and so prayerful as they proceed through the process of fast breaking that you can’t help but pick up a date and joyfully join in. To speak up at the serving table and question whether something has garlic or gluten or dairy would be to break the spirit of iftar. The whole idea, I think, is to have an enlarged sense of God’s bounty and the patience to wait to enjoy it.

And that is something to take to your next hippy potluck--a big dish of potato salad, a part of God's bounty, made with immense patience, and sprinkled with gratefulness and happiness just to be eating.

Ramadan Week One

I received this message via email a week ago:

“Beware those of you who will stay in Oman for Ramadan. If you are a woman, you must cover everything, from your ankles to your wrists, or risk flogging. DO NOT eat or drink in public at any time or you will be arrested.”

Yikes.

So naturally, with this type of fear mongering crowding my inbox, I was very eager to see what Ramadan would be like here. Based on the above message, my neurotic side, developed carefully and over many years through such venerable news outlets as CNN and FoxNews, was expecting a month of surreptitious sustenance seeking and sweatiness. The rest of me couldn't wait to see what would happen next. So here is what did happen.

In the expat community, the days leading up to Ramadan felt like an enormous hurricane churning off of the American East Coast. The dread amongst some was nearly palatable. Would we lose power? Would groceries be available? Would restaurants ever be open? OMG…would the windows break? What if I were to have my car break down? Or have a medical emergency? How earth shaking would this all be?

In fact, the days leading up to Ramadan in the local community were matter of fact. The landlord finally harvested the dates that have been ripening on the palm trees out front. Paper suddenly appeared over the windows and doors of food outlets that would stay open during the month. People started buying enormous quantities of yogurt drink. Pretty mundane stuff. None of it suggested impending imprisonment.

The night before day 1, we went out to do a bit of grocery shopping since rumors abounded as to when food and grocery outlets would not be open during the holy month. Imagine Black Friday bundled with the crowds that come out for the returns and sales of Boxing Day/December 26. Then infuse the situation with the panic of the approach of a major blizzard and mix in some uppers for good measure. 

That was pre-Ramadan shopping. To say the shops bustled would be an understatement. They nearly burst with the pre-Ramadan shopping.

So you're probably thinking that this was in the busy part of the store?
No, it was just the store. The whole store. Wall to wall people.

And everyone was buying like crazy. Of course there were dates (you need dates to break the fast at sundown), but there were also piles and piles of frozen chickens. People were walking off with two and three 25-kilo bags of rice. Fruit and veggies galore. I was endlessly impressed. 

But the the next day the unthinkable happened. I realized that I was out of vinegar and would have to go back to the store during Ramadan. I feared for my liberty. After all, that email had said! Remember? No ankles, no wrists, no food. Whatever would I do? 

I grabbed my camera of course! And here is what met me at 1:00 p.m.

It was like the zombie apocalypse had hit the mall and left me behind as the sole survivor. Of course the utter lack of people allowed me to see all sorts of decorations that were up for Ramadan all over the mall. 

The toy store had this promotion going on. 

Marks and Spencer had beautiful Arabic script painted across their windows, wishing me a "Generous Ramadan". 

Without three bazillion people at the mall with me, I could see all of this. And I could also see that no one was out to arrest me. In fact, during the first week of Ramadan I have been most impressed with how calm and quiet everything is. People are keeping their energy levels very low and are making extra efforts to avoid anything that requires putting out any extra effort beyond praying, fasting, and breathing. Perfect serenity.

I like it. But I still have all of my joints covered all of the time, even if the mannequins don't. More to report next week, at the end of week two of Ramadan.

Dear Alex, Homeowner and Philanthropist

On the road to "the place"

Dear Alex,

We have arrived!

I am standing on your third floor (that is the third floor only for Americans. It is the second floor for my British friends...I know y'all have a hard time counting floors in a building) of your home. You know, it is the house that we are borrowing while we are staying spitting distance from Spain--not one of the other homes that you own. 

I figure that the likelihood of anyone else being this high this early in the morning is pretty slim, since this seems to be a town whose population is mostly too old to climb too high this early in the day. You guys are excluded from this qualification, of course, but your neighbors by and large seem to fit this generalization. This actually works out well for the fam and me because the older generation is incredibly patient with our lame French and always takes the time to listen hard, finish our sentences, and then respond very slowly and clearly. I am in love. 

The balcony...a good place to
stand and watch the world go by
sans clothes.

Because of the town's predominant demographic, and because I can do it, I am starkers on the black iron-wrought balcony that juts off of the home, which also happens to hang over the town’s main road. As an added bonus for someone who is lacking clothing, this home also looks down a side street that sports a now-abandoned hotel, ensuring that there will be no one looking back at me.

We have all of the windows open and the shutters pulled back so that we can take advantage of the breezes that roll down the foothills of the Pyrenees and curl over the valley’s grape vines on their way into this house. The breezes are so intense that, just like you requested, Alex, we have posted heavy objects in front of all of the propped-open, glass-plated doors so that the breezes don’t force the doors shut and shatter the glass.

Please note, Alex, that we have placed the required heavy things in front of the doors.

I figure that should earn us a few good house guest points--propping the doors, I mean--not strolling buff.

People with too many children don't have libraries
that are this cool--shoot we don't even have a library.
We just have bookshelves.

While we have been at your place, we have decided that we need to continue to befriend people with fewer children and more class and money than we have, because that is the reason that I can stand here right now with all of my parts hanging out. And you can't imagine how much I appreciate taking in a view in the early morning in the state that I am in.

The new patio

According to the propaganda distributed by the wine-making cooperative of your tiny hamlet, this place only gets 45 days of rain a year, and we have been fortunate enough to be here for two of those days (or unfortunate, depending on where in the world you are coming from--but since we are coming from the Middle East, just as you will be soon, we consider ourselves fortunate that it has rained) . 

But today, on our third day, the skies are bright blue. Instead of the air feeling muggy and sluggish, it is crisp and cool and enjoyable. This is what your patio looked like early early this morning, Alex!

As I finish this up, I notice that the guy who lives across the way thinks it is a beautiful day, too. He is also naked and standing on his balcony. I wave. He waves back. Vive la France.

We have the place ready for you when you arrive, Alex (don't worry, we'll wash the sheets!). See you guys soon!

Rachel, Tony, and Offspring

How to Eat in France

How to eat in France.

First, go way back in time and agree to host Couchsurfers who are older, well-established financially, and from Toulouse. Make sure one of them is from the Flemish area of France and insure that he despises sweets, much preferring good cheeses and wine to anything that even suggests that it contains added sugar.

Make sure the other is local and a mother herself who likes to make sure that people eat well on her watch. That point is key.

Then arrive at their home having eaten little other than the odd baguette, a smear of butter, a chunk of dried pork sausage, and Chevre. Or Brie.  Or whatever else looked good in the store. Sometimes the pick-a-cheese-any-cheese method of buying worked, but sometimes we needed a splash of wine to go with that cheese to make it go down with any gastronomic appreciation.

Now sit. 

Sitting at the table in the garden is very important since the fragrance of the flowers blooming all around contribute to the enjoyment of the food. Lilacs are up at this time of year, and so are lavender. Irises have just finished and their dried husks lay wilting around the bright green fans. The cherry tree in the backyard has finished for the year as well, but that is okay since that means the melons are at their best—orange and fleshy and juicy.

Now that you are sitting, rip a chunk of bread and wonder that it is not yet another baguette. At first it is a sourdough sort of loaf. Then it is a loaf riddled with different seeds—poppy seeds and millet and sunflower. Then it is a heavy cereal loaf.

Don’t forget to smear that bread with a pâte—which literally means paste—and this one is literally a paste of duck liver and mushrooms. Make Tehva stop eating it all because without some serious parental controls she will not stop. You are also welcome to sample the blood pudding or the thinly sliced chorizo, but none of these chunks is too big and there are six other people enjoying this aperitif with you, so lentement!

Breathe. Don’t forget to breathe.

After a long linger over the aperitif, sit back and ready yourself for the local sausage that appears, grilled and seeping juices, in one small coil on a simple white plate. Have some bread. Take a section of the meat. Drink some more wine, but never too much in your glass in one go. It seems to be there just to make everything else taste nicer. 

And it works.

Now come to a casserole dish of curly buttered pasta topped with a generous layer of melted Emanthâl cheese. You will appreciate its simplicity, even after the children have tried to snake the brown, crispy cheese off of the top, and you will eat it with some more red wine from the vineyard near the city.

Now sit back and smile because you are starting to understand this style of eating that your fellow countrymen have glorified in diet magazines since you were younger. Wonder why it has never caught on in your own country, but then remember that nine days out of ten, dinner has to be a rushed affair in your home anyhow. And, realistically speaking, good bread and wine are too expensive to make it a feasible eating style.

Put this thought aside and be thankful that you are getting this experience here and now as the salad approaches. It is full of spring greens and artichoke hearts. Tehva has never seen an artichoke heart in her life, but rapidly goes from “I am not eating that” to “You can’t have any of those because they are mine”.

Think to yourself that that salad rocked your world and accept another splash of wine in your glass because that has to be the end of things…but no. 

The dates you dragged from the Middle East, along with one of those bright orange melons and a raft of cheese have just appeared on the table. There is no Brie, which makes you breathe a sigh of relief (but makes your boy child pout). There is, however, a Roquefort with a cauliflower bouquet, a small circle of Chevre, and a chunk of soft, two-toned cheese—one color on the outside ring with a lighter, creamier center.

The person from the Flemish area chooses another wine from his collection, a red something or other, and suggests having this with the Roquefort, which is like mouth fireworks.

Close your eyes and think, “Ah yes…this is how to eat in France”.

                                                                                                                   

I Am So Not Complaining

I walked into the Pharmacy with Tian in tow because learning to communicate a yeast infection to a pharmacist in a language you don't really speak is an important life skill. However, Tian was so disgusted by the thought of watching her mother communicate said thought that she flew from the shop before I could start pantomiming "itchy crotch".

TMI? I think not, for it was the yeast infection that should have stood as a warning for the rest of the day--a day for which Mastercard is made, if you can find a place that will accept a Mastercard that is not EuroMastercard.

But I am not complaining.

We took the tram to Parc Fleur de la Source, exiting at the end of the line instead of at that stop that said "Parc Fleur". Two hours of towing our luggage around behind us later, we found the park.

Look who was waiting for us in the park.

No complaints. It was cold and the roads were not built for rolly bags but the clouds eventually passed and the park, once we got there, was grassy, with a train and water features everywhere. And there were free toilets that didn't smell too yucky. Yup. No whining here.

And the peacock was waiting, too!

We caught the tram back into the city in the evening and found a Korean restaurant where the kimchee chigae was made with sugar and the pho (in a Korean restaurant?) lacked the mandatory basil leaves as well as the jalapenos.

But I am not whinging. It was food and it was hot, and I didn't have to clean up after us.

We got to the train station at 10:30 p.m., ready to board our overnight train to Toulouse at 11:55 p.m. I took Tehva to the station toilet where she managed to catch the door as another passenger exited. But the minute Tehva closed the door the room went dark and the floor erupted in a geyser. That sign that said, "Toilet cleaned after every customer" was totally true.

But no complaints. Our ankles were very clean and Tehva catching that door saved us 30 cents.

As I exited the toilet, I saw a scrolling message. In effect, it translated as, "There are no trains tonight because of the French strike. Thank you for your understanding, suckers." That explained the fact that we could not find our train on the marquis when we walked in.

But I am so not bitching about this. I booked the tickets in April, talked up the whole sleeper car thing for weeks, and suddenly found myself stuck in Orleans, France. But of course I was not alone in this endeavor--all of France knew not to be there, but Tony was there. And so were the three children who proceeded in the next hour to get wobbly lower lips and then confess all their troubles to a random Londoner in the Ibis Hotel lobby (where there were no rooms available at 11 p.m. by the way) while Tony and I, thanks to the kindness of Claude the night manager, tried to rearrange our train tickets via the internet.

Nope...no train

That didn't work out since our ticket did not register as ever having been purchased.

Claude sneered at us for reproducing too many times but did call over to the Best Western around the corner, explaining that they might be able to accommodate a party of our enormous size. For the right price.

We peeled the kids from the Ibis Hotel's lobby, where they had all sat drooling patiently on the plastic furniture, watching bad French TV. We led them to the Best Western, where we paid the right price for a tiny but tastefully decorated room that would allow too many children to sleep on various surfaces not really meant for sleeping.

I suspect that Claude got a kickback but at least we were not sleeping in the cold train station with the homeless woman whom Tehva inexplicably had named "Sex Worms".

On the way to our room in the Best Western, Tehva managed to break their classy throwback elevator. Fortunately they did not charge us for this infraction, but they did suggest that we might want to pay another $100 US for breakfast the next morning. In response we wearily asked how long we could stay in the room before they would evict us the next morning and then, like a couple of cheap whores, calculated how much money we were paying an hour for the room. It made us feel a little bit better.

But I am so not complaining because in the end we got where we wanted to go, and we got to ride the train first class, "JUST LIKE HARRY POTTER!"

But that is something else to celebrate entirely.

First class!

The Danger of Diversity...and the Joy

We are chronic Couchsurfers.

This means that we look for people who like to stay with and host perfect strangers in their homes at www.couchsurfing.org, and then we stay with them. Or, if need be, we host them. But now we are on the surfing end of things, which means we are putting ourselves out there to stay in people's homes.

As an American, this is sometimes incredibly painful. Americans are not very gracious guests because we struggle with receiving things. We much prefer to give things and have them accepted, but accepting things ourselves is sometimes difficult.

However, accepting things has opened us up to all sorts of experiences. Here is what accepting hospitality has looked like today in France:

Picnic in the park, which has been built as urban green space on top of a parking garage

The Car Rally in the town center--we went for a spin in the James Bond car!

Outside the Farmer's Market in Ormes. Tian rode on the
back rack.

The boulangerie's offerings

And the local butcher with the itchy nose

Learning how to light a candle like a real Catholic in the Orleans Cathedral

So when we are Couchsurfing, our sanity sometimes is questioned, but so is the sanity of our hosts, and that somehow feels nicer than being all alone in the loony bin. The neighbors here in Ormes think that our hosts are insane for having us, perfect strangers, stay. At the same time, some tell us that we are loons for placing our children in grave danger by sleeping in perfect strangers' homes, eating perfect strangers' food, sharing a laugh with perfect strangers, and letting them all gallivant around foreign places with the offspring of perfect strangers.

Why do it?

Because the world is a big place filled with billions of diverse yet kind strangers. And gosh darn I really want to meet them all.

I was raised in a culture that simultaneously glorifies and demonizes diversity. Diversity is glorified so long as it occurs in a controlled setting--books, school presentations, and antiseptic encounters all count as healthy ways to experience and deal with diversity.

Experiences where diversity is more up-close and personal are potentially laden with danger. Staying with strangers in a private home in a foreign country goes outside the boundaries of controlled. At the point when we enter into that stranger's home, diversity potentially becomes something dangerous, threatening and untrustworthy. But it rarely works out that way. Instead we find commonalities and go from there.

True enough, if we seek out and experience that diversity deeply, the potential to offend becomes much greater, but so does the potential to learn and experience a truly different point of view while discovering that we are not really as diverse as we thought we were in the most important ways.

And so, while we are in France, we are endangering our children's lives and potentially being very offensive. But, man, it sure is fun.

The Best Lesbian

Silas hangs with the British Scouts Overseas on Tuesday nights and generally, since he is flaky, he has nothing to say upon pick up other than, “It was good.”

Because of the homeschooling thing and the apparent risk that all of my children will become unsocialized idjits (or already are), I like to do lots of follow-up questioning in a motherly sort of voice so that they can develop their floundering conversational skills. No need for the children to become statitics, right? “So what did you do tonight?” always comes next.

They always do boy-scouty things like pitch tents, light things on fire, play hiding games, learn to use compasses and tie knots, and Silas will explain these things in as much detail as the boy can muster. After a quick description of the evening is off of his chest, Silas likes to turn on 97.0 FM and listen to classical music all the way home.

But tonight I did not have to ask Silas anything. He got in the car with a grave expression on his sweaty little face (sweaty because I had left him to bake in the 100-degree-at-8:15-PM heat while I sat in Muscat’s ridiculous traffic) and grave because he had just received a head lamp as an award.

He went right to the point and, in a somber voice, declared, “I got a headlamp.”

“Oh, another one?” As we pack up, we have been finding headlamps and pieces of headlamps in our house almost as often as we have been finding roaches. “Well that’s pretty cool.”

“Mom, what’s a lesbian?”

Non sequitor anyone?

I scraped around for the names of some people we know who are lesbians but being Silas he couldn’t remember any of the people whose names I came up with. “It’s a woman who prefers to marry a woman,” I finally explained.

“Oh. That’s weird. I just got the best lesbian award. That’s what the headlamp is for. Because I am the best lesbian.”

Now it was my turn. “Oh. That’s weird. I don’t really think you would qualify as a lesbian since you are missing the required equipment. Was this an award from the other kids in your group?”

“No, it’s from one of the leaders.”

Stranger still since I would think that the leaders would know that a vagina is required in order to be a lesbian. “Well, did they tell you why you are the best lesbian?” Best to remain matter of fact about this.

“Yes. At the camp we played a drama game where I had to pretend I was a TV. And I was the funniest. So they told me that I am the best lesbian. Am I a lesbian?”

“I don’t think so. Are you? Do you have something you have been hiding since the last time I saw you naked?”

“No! Mom!”

He remained perplexed. I remained perplexed. The headlamp remained unopened. And I remained unclear as to how to proceed.

There are countless different flavors of English that fly here in Muscat. English is the lingua franca, but when it comes to the nitty gritty, there are plenty of places where the Englishes collide. Is it a fork in the road or a bifurcation? Is it tea you wanted me to give to your child or supper? And then there is double fisting—dangerous stuff.

To the Americans it means walking around with a drink in each hand. Observe: “Wow! Double fisting it! What a party!” To the Australians and Kiwis, it means masturbating. Observe: “Wow! Double fisting it? Sorry dude—didn’t mean to walk in on you. Maybe you should come join the party instead.”

So maybe this was an English collision. Maybe there is some really charming double meaning for lesbian in the UK, especially when it is used in reference to a scout camp out. Or maybe when you put “lesbian” with “best” it means “funny clever guy who is good at drama games.”

Or maybe we have just run into overt homophobia. Or bullying and humiliation. Or perhaps, oh my, this honestly just occurred to me…perhaps he was declared the best thespian.

Whoa. Now the question becomes how many of those little boys walked out of that scout meeting tonight secretly thinking that Silas is a lesbian? 

My son the lesbian. I am so proud.