Whatever You Do, Don't Touch That Door.

The Butterball turkey had sat in our freezer, dare I say expectantly, for two weeks, solidly frozen in anticipation of the big day. Or so we thought. When we removed said turkey three days before Thanksgiving only to find it half-way frozen we were perplexed. "Turkeys in freezers do NOT spontaneously defrost," Tony and I insisted to one another. "I mean, it's a freezer, right? It's supposed to freeze the bird, right?"

And then the question we did not want to face arose. It is the question you do not want to consider when there is a massive, half frozen, imported, precious as gold, $60 bird sitting between you and your spouse mere days before the annual pig out. "How long do you think it has been like this? Do you think it's gone bad?"

We have been without turkey for foreign Thanksgivings in previous years. In China, although there is a word for turkey (literally, "fire chicken") there was no way to actually get one in the years I was there. The best we could do were freshly-slaughtered-before-your-eyes chickens.

In Korea one year, a friend's mother smuggled one into the country from the USA under her dress or something, and it miraculously ended up in our oven. In seven years, that was the only time we ate turkey for Thanksgiving. Of course, there were always rumors that one could acquire turkeys in various markets around the country, but in reality, we never managed to get anywhere fast enough to get one of those precious black market turkeys.

But here in Oman, turkeys can be had--rock solid frozen, factory grown, yellow-net-wrapped, Butterball turkeys. The things do everything besides wave an American flag and shoot off fireworks. The Al Fair chain, famous for its porn...I mean pork section, fresh baked bread, and packaged foods also carries turkeys through November and December especially for little flag wavers like us.

So back to the here and now, standing in the middle of the kitchen with a plastic wrapped turkey threateningly half-thawed on the tile floor between us, Tony and I must have looked like we were in the middle of a comedy sketch. We poked and prodded, and hemmed and hawed as to whether this turkey could have been the source of the odd smell in our freezer. "It reeks in there."

"Yeah, but it smells like rotten milk. Do you think it's the turkey?"

"Crap, if it's not the turkey then that means we will have to empty the freezer to find what else has gone bad."

We sniffed and pinched the plastic wrapping around the turkey. And in the end we decided to risk it, threw the sucker into the vegetable drawer in the refrigerator, crossed our fingers, and started to prepare for Thanksgiving Day.

Tony went out and got a new food processor for the event, and then set to work modifying the menu to maximize the use of his new toy.

We pickled beets, baked pies, and experimented with pumpkin cheesecake. We drew criticism from Tian for baking pan after pan of casseroles. "Mom," she insisted, eyes rolling tweenishly. "Nobody (nobody being Tian) eats casseroles. Why are you making so many. They're disgusting." We peeled potatoes, snapped beans, chopped an enormous bag of onions, sliced apples, and boiled things to make them mushy, which is what we do on Thanksgiving.

And on the day of Thanksgiving, we unwrapped the bird to find...it was perfectly defrosted with just a touch of ice left under the wings and in the cavity. Now all of you who were actually there can breathe a sigh of relief--the bird was untainted. Did you really think we would serve you a rotten turkey? Really?

Just be thankful we didn't open the freezer during dinner.

What I Learned Over Eid Vacation

While the rest of Gulf States had to suffer the injustice of a truncated Eid this year, Oman is still on holiday, finishing up an epic 10-day country wide haitus from work, school, and other responsible activities. While truly faithful, wealthy, and/or forward thinking Muslims went and did the required hajj, and truly wealthy, childless, and/or forward thinking expats left the country for Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, the rest of the infidels/poor folk stayed here.

As we are infidel, rather short sighted, comparatively poor, and a long way from childless, we also stayed in Oman. And we learned a surprising amount during that time. Reflecting back upon the experience, I can safely say that our learnings fit neatly under a variety of school subject headings, delineated below for your reading pleasure:


Math
1 inch of rain in Oman=2 feet of snow in Virginia
Recall the chaos that ensued in Virginia last winter...and the winter before...and the winter before (?) when the snow just kept falling. That one snow storm knocked out all services and roads and generally acted as a kind of glue, uniting people in a common bond of natural disaster. Now imagine the snow as rain--not heavy rain, just nice gentle rain. Now imagine people reacting in the same panicked manner, running their cars into curbs, cautioning one another against going out, and stocking up in toilet paper. It has been a bit surreal.


Biology
Animals, once dead, decompose and do NOT readily float.
On Monday morning we got a respite from the rain. On Monday morning I also discovered a dead dog laying next to the dumpster across the street. It was a wadi dog, which means that it was a wild, pack-oriented, large-ish animal that enjoyed barking at 3 a.m. And it was very dead, laying on its side next to the dumpster with no indication as to how it had died, aside from a thin gray cord tied around its right rear foot. When I went to dump the morning's load of dust and debris from the daily driveway sweeping, the sun was already beating down and the dog was bloating up.


I idly wondered whether it would eventually split and burst, if the trash truck guys would be willing to pick it up and toss it into the truck, and whether or not the additional coming rains would be heavy enough to float it away through the night.

The answer--no bursting; yes, they were willing; and no, the rains did not float it away.


Language Arts
New word: faffing.

When friends showed up late for our party, they excused themselves by remarking that they had been faffing. This seemed highly inappropriate to share with a room full of people, some of whom were complete strangers to them and so a language lesson ensued.

Examples of usage: "Stop faffing around and do the dishes already!"
"If it weren't for all of your faffing, we would be at the party already!"

Definition: wasting time by mucking about


Home Economics
Lamingtons are a topic of hot debate, are most readily consumed at one's grandmother's house, and are delicious.
http://australianfood.about.com/od/bakingdesserts/r/Lamingtons.htm
"Lamingtons are a quintessential part of every Australian's childhood. The little sponge cake is dipped in chocolate icing and then rolled in desiccated coconut."

We have yet to actually taste or attempt to create our own lamingtons. However, we were made to endure quite a lengthy discussion/argument as to whether or not lamingtons are a originally a product of Australia or New Zealand, and whether lamingtons must be dipped in chocolate in order to truly be a lamington. Heavy stuff we contemplate herebouts.


Social Studies
We would all love to drive. I think.
Even though Eid was long over as of Wednesday, people were still out in droves enjoying the cool weather, cloudy skies, and their families. Invariably througout that day we would find a clutch of men, women and children with their cars parked on the beach in a chuckwagon style formation. The patriarch would be ensconced upon his beach chair throne, quietly observing his grandchildren, fully clothed, frolicking in the waves.


One woman broke away from her gaggle of family members to walk briefly up the beach with the kids and me. She bemoaned the fact that she had only two teenaged daughters and no son, admired Silas in all his maleness, and asked where Tony was. When I told her that he was at home she was shocked. "What?!? You are drive?" When I told her that women in America had to learn how to drive, she shook her head in wonder. "Some things change and are very different from old Oman. Some things must change for good. Some things are change and are bad. But you are drive!"


I think she thought that women driving is a good thing. I think. At any rate, it was nice that she was so easily impressed by something as mundane as me driving the kids to the beach.


We are back to school starting Saturday. I am afraid the week ahead will be fairly dull in comparison.

Low Pressure Systems and the Five Year Old Brain

It often takes a natural disaster to show people's true colors and the media tells us that when our mettle is tested, our American character shines through. I am confident enough now to state that I truly know my children and I can blame it on the rain.

Rumors began to circulate at the beginning of the work week. "Rain is coming...It's going to rain on Monday..." and with each retelling the fabled storm grew bigger and stronger. "I heard it will stay for three days and dump a foot of rain!" until it had evolved into a storm to rival the legendary Gonu of a few years back. Gonu wiped out villages, killed hundreds (by unofficial reports), and turned the town upside down. This storm does not even have a name, but it still holds the power to make folks trippy, as rain will in a country where so little of it is ever seen.

So we all sat on our hands and waited nervously for the enormous storm to hit. For many days it lurked off the coast, spinning in the Indian Ocean, while those of us in this parched land continued to speculate as to whether or not it would hit and we would actually get to see rain. And then it happened--the rain began.

One moment we could see the mountains out the school room, beige, dusty, and comforting in their arid regularity, and the next they were gone, buried in deep purple clouds with wispy bottoms. Having been coerced by my triathlon team, The Turkey Basters, I ventured out in the evening for a run in the rain. Tian, Silas, and Tehva ran like lunatics through the drizzle that dampened the dust trapped in the air, and Tony went for a swim. The rain was soft and happy and everyone smiled.

This morning dawned with blue skies, but by 3 p.m. the rain had begun, this time with a flash of lightning from the clouds that were now brown and black. The rain fell in an enormous torrent and within an hour the wadis were so full that driving on any road in our area became an amphibious experience. By my count, three out of every five vehicles on the road either hit a curb, skidded off the road, dinged another auto, or skidded in the slick of oil-tinged rain water. Driving the ten kilometers to the university to pick up Tony took 30 minutes, and the return 45 minutes.

And when we returned?

Tian and Tehva, whom I had irresponsibly left at home, greeted us at the door, wading through standing water in the foyer. "Oh my gosh! Where were you? I thought you had been in a car wreck!" Tian's had very attractively rolled her pants nearly to her thighs and she wrung her hands like the mother of a teenager. "You have been gone for like THREE HOURS!"

I didn't have a chance to point out that we had been gone less than two hours as she plowed right along with her story. "I was upstairs with Tehva and came downstairs because I thought I heard something and THERE WAS WATER EVERYWHERE!" True enough, the grit, dust, and dirt with which we live in its dry form had been carried by rain water into the house and now, in the form of a silty mud, coated the entire first floor.

"The landlord told me to unplug the drains in the floors, so I did, and then the water all flowed away. Well. mostly. But I ran around the neighborhood and asked lots of people to use their phones so I could call you, but the phones were down." I must have been looking concerned, imagining Tian skipping through flood waters in the dark. She added, almost as an after thought, "Oh, but don't worry, I left Tehva here alone. She was fine."

I look over at Tehva and she is uncharacteristically quiet, flipping through a book. "You stayed by yourself, Tehva?" (Wait til the Royal Omani Police hear about this one). She nods and turns the page without making eye contact.

The cat, who is in a panic to get up off of the wet floor, climbs onto my head and perches as far away from the standing sludge as possible. Or maybe she endeavors to escape the girls, who are positively creeping me out.

"Tehva was really freaked about you guys because she thought you had died and was concerned that we wouldn't have any money to live on. But then I told her not to worry and that I know the PIN number at the bank. Then she told me she hoped you wouldn't come back because then we could have all your money and buy whatever we want."

Ah-hah.

After the clean up I hid the bank cards. Then we walked over to the mall to pick up some take away for dinner, only to find that rumors of a crippling power outage there were false. Consumerism was proceeding at its usual frantic pace and nary a dishdasha was besmirched by rain or mud.

The rain has been forcast to continue through the weekend.

If reports filter through of a five year old who has offed her parents and absconded with the bank cards, please check on us.

Between the way our house is situated off the road and the pounding of the rain, no one would ever hear us scream.

Social Opps

I know, it seems as though our existence here has lately been peppered with hazards left and right--the police, the snakes, the scary Egyptian men on the beach. Things continued somewhat along that vein this week, although not enough to make a blog entry.

However, thanks to the fact that Muscat absolutely crawls with expats desperate for SOMETHING to do with their every waking moment, compounded by the fact that liquor is, in comparison to, say, EVERY OTHER COUNTRY I HAVE EVER LIVED IN, very difficult to come by, Greater Muscat seems to have more than its fair share of things to do for expats.

To preface this entry, I must admit that I find it very touching that so many friends and family firmly believe that we are suffering here. During our time in the States this summer, I even bore witness to one woman who was nearly moved to tears by her supposition that we are doing mission work in the Middle East and that I make great sacrifices in regards to my personal safety and appearence in order to carry on said work. This particular blog will reassure you that we are not suffering at all. Part of me is sorry to prove these assumptions false but my consceince will be lighter having unburdened my soul.

As the days of the week roll past here, one generally finds the social calendar filling until Wednesday hits and the tidal wave that is Muscat Expat Society comes crashing down. Things creep along for us as the week begins. Saturday is the Hash, which ordinarily spawns a second activity--perhaps a playdate or dinner. This week, the Hash turned into a dinner party as a couple of folks pulled grills, dogs, burgers, and fried onions from their cars at the end of the run. The desert was a solid mass of black, punctuated by two trays of glowing coals and dozens of hungry hashers guzzling beers and scarfing down processed meats.

Sunday is the Mountain Walk, which attracts such an eclectic mix that the social opportunities that grow from this can be as varied as a longer walk on the weekend, a boat trip, or a date to go to a show at Muscat's new opera house. This week the Walk ended with discussions of water management in arid climates, climate change in Oman, who would be attending the Friday opera house performance of Don Quixote, and strategies that work best when teaching English to Arabic-speaking boys aged 13-14. One of the regular walkers approached me about having the kids act as flower-givers at the end of November's classical music concert at the university. Add another to the social calendar.

Monday normally is the day that we pack ourselves off to the American School for a game of ultimate frisbee with the under-30s of Muscat. However, this week we elected to stay home and watch a movie, which we had acquired semi-legally. And we never divulge our sources so don't ask.

Tian has a piano lesson on Tuesdays from her Japanese piano teacher who lives down the street in a true marble mansion. Our Tuesday afternoons used to be fairly monochromatic but now we are afforded options. There is a running club in Muscat that meets on Tuesdays and runs distances that vary, spanning lengths which begin at sane-and-totally-manageable and end at whoa-that's-really-far. There is also a group that explores the wadis in and around Muscat, and a third group that explores the ridges of those wadis.

Tuesday's ridge walking group is not a chatty group and so social opps rarely arise on Tuesday walks. We merely walk up and then come down, huffing and puffing as we traverse the ridges. If I watch carefully as I walk, I can see where the people in front of me have left drips of sweat on the dusty beige rocks. The quiet, chatterless afternoon segues into evening and then sundown. Tuesday walks get my head set for the weekend.

Wednesdays we go to Irish dance in order to bounce around in synch with a dozen others, and then the weekend truly begins. This Wednesday evening we attended a potluck during which we met the new minister for Muscat's Protestant church and his wife. The hostess very graciously opened her home and wedged fifty people into a space designed to fit eight comfortably but in spite of that, introductions were jovial. "I am from Ghana...I have been here 22 years...my husband and I are here from Taiwan...I teach mathematics...I am from Germany...I am in Oman for two months...we are from the Philippines...my daughter is here from India; she is a software engineer..." Tehva decided the men from Ghana must be kings due to the beautiful embroidery on their shirts, and told them so. Tian and Silas floated around the room offering snacks to people while they made introductions.

Thursday began with a 7 a.m. biathlon during which blue and purple jellyfish tried to eat the participants. I survived, did NOT finish last, and was treated to an English breakfast of eggs, beans, sausage, and toast, enjoyed outdoors under a thatched roof restaurant on the beach. The biathlon spawned talk of competing in the triathlon next month. Yet another social opp to place on the calendar. The biathlon was followed by a playdate for the kids, a book club meeting (add another date to the calendar for next week's meeting), and a baby shower, plus poker with the boys for Tony in the evening.

As we discussed the weekend, Tony said, "You know, I have come to the point where I no longer hear people's accents--I only hear what they are saying." I thought about this in reference to the week behind us and the week ahead which is, admittedly, not promising to be anywhere near as busy as this one was, and had to agree. Initially I protested: "No, no, I ALWAYS hear the accents." But that is not true, and nationality is not the first thing that comes to mind when I think of the people with whom we share social opps here.

We spent our week, as we always do, in the company of people from Russia, Ghana, Egypt, England, New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Armenia, America, Lebannon, Oman, Ireland, India, Pakistan, and the list goes on. Our lives here are full of social opps of the type that are difficult to explain to someone who is not living the expat lifestyle. Our interactions are those of ordinary everyday events, not generally colored by political tensions, but supported and developed in part by the commonality of living in a foreign country. These types of interactions have become so ordinary that it no longer seems notable to socialize with a Cambodian woman who grew up in absolute poverty or a man who spent his childhood memorizing the Quaran and now travels throughout the world as an engineering consultant.

We share much here with people from all over the world, including the commonality of being exhausted at the end of a week full of social opps.

Danger! Danger!

The new in thing here in the Muscat Mansion is the Thursday morning swim. All the cool kids in Muscat, apparently, are going in on the biathlon/triathlon scene and, well, I just hate to get left behind, so I have signed up for a biathlon. However, before one can actually attempt such a rigorous event, one must train, so train I will.

In actuality, training began last month with a 2 kilometer sea swim outside a much-too-Western compoundy area called "The Wave". You drive into The Wave and enter a state of cultural confusion, beginning with the enormous billboard of Greg Norman, which greets you at the front gates, and not ending until one has completed a circuit of the cobble stoned streets lined with grass, trees, immaculate homes, and Western shops.

Fortunately I am not required to drive through The Wave to get to the training venue. Instead, we meet at a car park just next to The Wave, where a clutch of Indians play cricket every Thursday next to an enormous family of Omanis who visit the beach without fail at the start of each weekend. Although our group of "trainees" meet, zombie-like, at 7 a.m., this family looks perky and bushy-tailed at 7, as if they have been frolicking on the beach since 5:30 a.m. and are ready to get on with lunch by the time we show up.

The water at the beach is clear, and calm enough to observe our toes as we wade in to our waists; the salinity of the Arabian Sea wants to pick me up and float me. The visibility is convenient for doing a critter check. The first time we did this swim, a black and yellow sea snake slithered past along the sandy bottom (DANGER--but only if they bite, which it didn't). Another time a ray glided past (DANGER--but only if you step on them, which I didn't do). Last week a school of fish flew out of the water (DANGER possibly, but only if you hear music). Today I see a starfish. Hardly the dangerous creature to which I have grown accustomed.

We swim a kilometer down the beach and then turn around to come back to our starting point and I find (DANGER) that my swimming partner, Greta, has disappeared. Finally I spy her sitting way down the beach, near Tian, who has been babysitting Greta's two year old. Bizarre. Greta is hard core when it comes to swimming. As a matter of fact, after her stroke revelation last week she has become a torpedo in the water, burying the rest of us inferiors with wake that issues behind her like a speed boat. However, she is not bionic and there is no way she could have already finished the swim.

"Sorry," she says matter of factly when I reach her. "The police came and got me out of the water."

Apparently two Egyptian beach goers had had a bit of a fright when they saw Tian and Hux playing on the beach. They had misinterpreted Tian as an abandoned four year old who had been left in charge of her younger sibling. (DANGER) They then made a further jump and presumed that Greta and I had either A.) drowned or B.) gone on a luxury cruise, leaving the two alone for good. Then they called the Royal Omani Police, reported that these two ruffians, aged 4 and 2, had been playing on the beach, alone, for several hours, and needed to be taken somewhere in the company of responsible adults, possibly to an orphanage.

When the police came, they were very apologetic at dragging Greta out of the water and left just after the Egyptians, who, realizing their error, exited the beach scene rather quickly.

So now you see why it has been nearly six weeks since I have last blogged. I have been so busy training for the biathlon (no, really, I have...kind of...okay, not really too much but sometimes!), endangering my four-year-old child (okay, really she is ten, nearly eleven, but four year old sounds more dramatic), and recreating myself as an irresponsible beach bum that I have not had time for blogs!

But I promise to try harder from now on, rather than living on the dangerous side of life, to toe the line and get some serious writing done. Seriously.

Butt Sprayers

As our shuttle bus rolled lazily through the heat to the arrivals gate, Tony rubbed his hands together. It was an anticipatory move and I thought he was going to start in again about olives. "Oh, man," he had been lisping through a mouthful of drool for the week before we returned to Oman. "Olives. I can't wait!" And sure enough he couldn't wait. Buying olives was his first official act once we had set our bags down in the Marble Mansion.




But no, it turned out that his hand rubbing this time was about something entirely different. "Butt sprayers!" he announced, in this shuttle full of jet lagged Brits who, it appeared, were being drawn back to Oman against their individual wills. "We are back in the land of butt sprayers!" Tian gave an excited little yelp and then a squeal,. "Yay! Butt sprayers!"


Each of our five bathrooms is equipped with a little spray nozzle, somewhat similar to the spray nozzles you find on most North Americans' kitchen sinks, which is nestled in there right next to the toilet. After, well, you know, you have two options for clean up--the conventional toilet paper, or that little, high-powered butt sprayer. I suppose you can guess the road that some of us head down when clean up is required.


What's more, public facilities are always equipped with butt sprayers, which rids one of the need to shower at home. If required, one can always shower in any toilet, as we recently discovered thanks to Tony.

We are currently struggling with being a one car family in a spoiled American sort of way. That is, we don't really need a second car here. After all, we have already survived one whole year with nothing more than one little Kia Rio to get us across hill and dale. As a matter of fact we have taken to calling it the Kia Rio 4x4 in the hopes that it will never realize it is just an itty bitty sedan and NOT the Ford Expediton we treat it like (and wish we had).

As we struggle with our thoroughly Yankee longings, Tony has been musing upon other transportation options in which he could invest in order to stave off his burning desire for nothing less than a big, fiery 4x4. Motorcycle has crossed his mind but, as it is 1117 degrees at noonday, and the heat would probably erode the tires in three hours, I am saying no to that one. A second itty bitty car would be so redundant. That leaves us with a bike, which is like slapping a big sign on your back that says, "Kill me now, but if I make it to work in one piece, just fire me for being so sweaty and stinky." (As if you could fit that all on one sheet of A4).


When I pointed this out, Tony said, "Oh. no, I could shower with the butt sprayer. All the guys do it before prayer time. Haven't you ever noticed how the floors are covered in an inch of water after prayer time?"


The women, I think, tend to be a bit more conservative with the pre-prayer water use than the boys. "Is this cause they're showering after their bike rides?"


"No, because they are washing for prayers. But the boys do more than wash. I think they are showering in there. I could do that--just get to work and use the butt sprayer. I would just have to be careful with the nozzle. You know..." And here Tony trailed off without explaining what I know, thanks to a graphic friend, but Silas had to ask.


"Why do you have to be careful?"

"Because what do butt sprayers spray, Silas?"


Okay, I will stop here to say that, in spite of my best efforts over the last year, Silas fails to notice the obvious 9.9 times out of ten. "I don't know, Dad," he replied. "What?"


At this, Tony launched into a very detailed verbal illustration of how one uses a butt sprayer and where one should aim it to make it work most effectively. He went on to discuss angles, measurements, possible contaminents and to generally educate all of us on butt sprayer use and etiquette. I was enlightened. Silas remained perplexed. Tian and Tehva nearly gave Tony a standing ovation right there in the back seat of the Rio 4x4.

So that conversation left us no closer to investing in a second vehicle, as was the original intent, but I think it placed us all a little closer to wondering why Tony knows what he does about the ins and outs of butt sprayers.

Flight

By the time Tian and Silas were young toddlers they were experienced flyers, having racked up enough miles to pay for trans-Pacific flights. Then there is Tehva. When we first took her on a plane at four weeks old, she spent her time gagging on breast milk and creating unpleasant odors. This is, of course, to be expected of an infant on a long haul flight, but she has rarely had a chance to undo this unfortunate beginning and has grown up more suited to situations like mud bogs and Nascar races.

Not there is anything wrong with Nascar. Or mud bogs. Really. But they are loud and dramatic events and Tehva is loud, dramatic, and exactly the type of child that makes business executives cringe when she boards a 777 for a trans-Atlantic flight. While Tian prances down the aisle, whisking her new, stylish haircut from her eyes, and Silas harrumphs through the plane toting his fifteen stuffed animals and a Matchbox vehicle, Tehva spins, collides, and ricochets, dropping toys, clothing, and hair accessories on the way.

Fellow passengers cringe, flight attendants stare in wide-eyed horror, and her siblings are mortified. Tehva has the world right where she likes it and the rest of us are helpless to do little more than watch.

"Oh," I can hear you thinking. "That is a bit harsh coming from the child's own mother, don't you think?" You were so obviously not travelling with us on the 31st of August; the proof is in the pudding, which follows:

Pudding Proof #1

"Do you have to go to pee?"

"No."

"Are you sure because the pilot has just said that we all have to stay seated now that they are pushing off from the gate and it will be a long time until the plane is in the air and seat belt sign is off."

I am sure you can see where this is going.

"Mom," Tian pleads tweenishly. "Tehva just peed before we got on the plane, remember?"

I foolishly relax, read a magazine, and feel the acceleration of the plane coursing down the runway when, over the whine of the engines I hear, "Mommy I have to go pee pee really bad."

During the course of our latest trip I counted seven eye rolls from fight attendants who would invariably bustle over to us to point out that the fasten seat belt was illuminated, only to be set straight by Tehva's, "But I have to go pee pee really bad!"

Pudding Proof #2

Everyone knows that domestic flights no longer give you anything--no checked luggage unless you pay for it, no little wings for the kids, and definitely no little salty snacks in bags anymore, which is a shame because I maintain that those snackies served multiple purposes back in the day.

What the airlines do still give out, although grudgingly, is a beverage and, being highly deprived of sugary soda on a regular basis, Tian, Silas, and Tehva LIVE for that beverage cart. Tian always orders ginger ale or cranberry juice, Silas always asks for water (but is excited about it anyway because he likes the plastic embossed cups that it comes in), and Tehva always asks for whatever will make her pee the most.

"Does cranberry juice make you pee pee a lot?"

"Yes."

"Then I want that. And when I am done with that I want some of Tian's ginger ale. And then I will drink some of what you are having. What are you having?"

"Tomato juice." (Because I am an adult and adults drink weird things like that when they fly.)

"Yum."

So here is where the snacks come in. If the airlines still were to hand out snacks, the snacks would absorb some of the liquid in five-year-olds' systems. Then they would not have said leaky five year olds using the toilet so much while the seat belt light is illuminated. And then the leaky five year olds would not have so many opportunities to climb in and out of their seats and invariably spill that purloined tomato juice on themselves while the responsible parent is in the toilet. I'm a big proponent of bringing back airplane snacks on domestic flights, even if it tags a few more bucks on my ticket.

Proof #3

International carriers have obviously decided that feeding us while over the world's oceans is wiser than throwing our starved bodies out the plane and so we receive a meal while over the Atlantic. However, this brings upon us a new, unique challenge. "I don't need any help!" Tehva roars from her seat, which is, conveniently, three over from my own.

"Tehva, that is hot food and you have to let me help you open it." Tian and Silas very helpfully pretend to burn themselves on their own entrees, and then Silas pretends that the steam escaping from his mashed potatoes and beef chunks has scalded him permanently, much to the chagrin of the passengers in front of us.

Tehva acquiesces but makes it very clear that that is the only help I am allowed to give her during meal time. There will be no mother-guided opening of anything else and so, entree opened, I sit back to enjoy my own meal to the steady whoosh of flushing toilets (they put us right next to the toilets for ALL legs of our trip this time. I think Tehva's reputation precedes her.)

Cue blood-curdling scream. I look in front of us for the infant that has been screaming on and off for the last hour. Hmmm...that baby is sleeping. Weird. Surprisingly the scream is coming from Tehva, whose face is covered in what looks like mashed potatoes and, less surprising is the fact that I am pinned into my seat by the beverage cart on one side, Silas on the other, and an airplane meal on a tray that is so close into my body that I am nearly wearing it as a cravat.

By some super-human feat of flexibility and strength, I extract myself from my seat, launch myself over Silas and Tian, and reach Tehva who is, it turns out, covered in pepper parmesan ranch salad dressing. It turns out she (surprise!) did need help opening other things on her tray, evidenced by the fact that she doused her face with what was supposed to go on her food.

I take her into the bathroom as she raises the dead with her shrieks, only to discover that her right eye is full of both peppercorns and parmesan chunks. As a matter of fact she sheds salad dressing from her eyes all the way through London.

So that is the pudding of which I speak. My point is proven, evidenced by the image you no doubt are now holding of Tehva at a Nascar race, Bud in hand, hooting at the drivers to "Stop! Just for a second! I have to go pee really bad!"