The Traveler, Part 1

I was attempting to make my way through the basement with a machete this afternoon when I came across a box of beloved books. In that box I also found a porceline "post card" from a woman who befriended me when I was young and far from home.

Oh, sob-sob.

Back in the dark ages at the end of my high school career, I applied for a summer exchange program through AFS. I wanted to go to Germany since, after barely passing three years of high school German, it was the one language, other than English, I could imagine attempting to converse in.

And what could be better than to spend my summer days frolicking in the Schwarzwald.

I was sent to Germany. Upon arrival in Frankfurt, my host family retrieved me and we drove many hours to the small university town of Marburg. Imagine my delight. Cobbled streets too narrow for cars. A castle on the hill. Wow! A $2.00 glass of bottled orange juice. Outrageous. It wasn't possible to get fresh OJ in third world country of Germany. And 300 years ago, $2.00 was a lot for a glass of OJ. (Did I mention I'm immortal? 300 years ago was barely a drop in the bucket to me.)

We left Marburg and made our way to our final destination. Hamburg. Or, more accurately, a suburb of Hamburg. Having grown up in a suburb of New York, this was much like home. Almost everyone spoke English. I couldn't imagine a place I'd less like to be.

Where was the damn forest?

I was living with a family of four in an apartment that was actually two apartments with the wall in the middle broken down. There was a cage full of canaries in my bedroom. Noisy, stinky canaries. Well, to be fair, I'm not sure which was stinkier... the canaries or the hard boiled egg they were fed. But they were noisy.

Where was the damn forest? And the house made of gingerbread?

And what was the German equivalent of M&M's?

So many things to adjust to. Such a wrong time in my life to go. I'd just graduated high school and left all of my friends and all of those "summer-before-college" parties for eight weeks in the suburbs of Hamburg.

What the hell was I thinking?

WAS I thinking?

Hot

Not me. Well, yes, I'm hot, but not necessarily HOT. Not these days.

It's too freakin' humid and I've never sweat so much.

Summer camp proved to be a long hot day yesterday for the offspring. He's home recovering today. Had a headache and a bit of a fever. The fever is gone. And we're watching marathon reality tv.

Which is why I'm on the computer. Reality TV is turning my brain to mush. At least, for my creative kid, the shows he likes require creativity and math.

I was never very good at math.

And right now I don't care because I'm so damn hot.

The Tooth Fairy

Our late-bloomer has finally started losing his baby teeth in quick succession. He lost both front teeth within a week of each other sometime in late Spring. And recently he lost one of the neighboring front teeth.

This kid, who's efforts to earn money for all the model trains and things he "must have" are often thwarted by his own eight-year-old lack of motivation, has chosen to not leave his fallen teeth for the Tooth Fairy. I guess it's not such a terrible thing. Our Tooth Fairy is kind of cheap.

No, he wants to save his baby teeth to hand down to his children.

That's not to say he hasn't had the Tooth Fairy experience. He left his first two bottom front teeth for the Tooth Fairy. The more recent teeth he'd been keeping in a small plastic treasure chest the school nurse had given him when he lost a tooth at school. A couple of nights ago I presented him with a small wooden box, train and tender inlaid on the top, which opens by sliding the top to the side. One of those secret boxes that looks like a block of wood until you figure out how to open it.

He loves this box. It's kept in his bedside drawer. Likes to look at the teeth in the box and listen to them clack around in there.

I'm not sure how his children will feel about this legacy of baby teeth.

Personally, I would prefer cash.

Recipe for Disaster

I'm baaaack...

Sorry I've been away so long.

This morning, it being Saturday, cartoons were on and coffee was in the cup.

I usually drink my coffee from a nice, heavy, ceramic mug. Not today. Today my husband took a trip to Dunkin' Donuts for coffee and treats. I don't prefer their coffee, but the prospect of having it "delivered" was nicer than having to limp into the kitchen and make it for myself.

My husband likes to use DD's plastic cups with the lid that slides closed.

You know the ones I'm talking about? The UNSTABLE ones?

My morning coffee was delivered to me in a reusable, unstable plastic coffee cup. My choice. I was thinking that I should avoid the use of styrofoam whenever possible.

So there I was, sitting on the chaise, reading a book, occassionally sipping coffee. When my son wanted to play the have-mom-sit-on-the-end-of-the-chaise-while-I-run-at-her-and-try-to-knock-her-down game. It took him three tries, but he did succeed in knocking me down. While we were cuddling there on the chaise, Mr. Gangly legs knocked the unstable cup of coffee, on which I had failed to close the top, and suddenly there was hot coffee pooling around my butt, all over the chaise.

So here's the recipe:

1 chaise

1 unstable coffee cup full of hot coffee, with the drinking lid open

1 gangly eight year old

1 mother

floor space for running (optional)

paper towels (for cleanup)

Instructions: Shake. Do not stir.

I still smell like coffee, even though I've changed all of my clothes. I do love my coffee, but maybe not this much.