PBS. PBS. I didn't know about PBS. Thank you to Kaycie for the suggestion. It has helped. PBS kids' tv (for those of you who share my recently-enlightened ignorance) is a decent mix of British buy-ins (hurrah), and other shows which are (a) not cartoons and (b) not interspersed with commercials. There is Reading Rainbow, which is a bit like the old Playdays, and Mister Roger's Neighborhood which is downright odd, but harmless, imaginative, liked by 3-yo, and a huge step up from Nick and Disney. Thank you Kaycie.
I didn't know about PBS. This makes me wonder what else I don't know. I mean, there are things I know I don't know, but what about all those things I don't know I don't know? I can't ask anyone about those. There must be lots of things that are just so obvious to everyone, that no-one thinks to enlighten me. Perhaps my dishwasher unloads itself and puts the clean stuff away in the correct cupboards, but I just haven't used the right programme. Perhaps it's rude to wear yellow on Mondays. Perhaps I can be fined for not having a clean enough car. Perhaps you all dance naked to the sound of bagpipes every third full moon in the Wal-Mart parking lots.
Who knows?
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Venting
That is one American word that I like. It’s better than “rant”, which is somehow too angry. It’s a bit more 21st century than “letting off steam”. Anyone who lives with small boys who find bodily parts and their various names amusing will understand why I don’t want to say I’m going to “get it off my chest”. And I don’t want to “dustbin”, which is clearly very repressed in a British kind of a way – it suggests that when you need a good scream about life, you should do it into a receptacle which can be safely sealed with a lid, and that somehow your house will be cleaner afterwards. Vent is much the best. And I really need one. It will be an event.
Obviously this will spoil the relentlessly cheerful identity that is Iota, whose life in the Midwest is 'not wrong, just different", a series of endlessly fascinating and amusing opportunities for witty reflection. So for the purposes of this blog entry, I am re-titling my blog "Totally Wrong and Horribly Different and I want to go Home. Now." If you are an easily offended or very patriotic American, look away now. If you are the kind of person who would enjoy seeing Mary Poppins losing her temper and slapping a child, hard, several times, in public, (I hope my mother isn’t reading this…), then this could be for you.
America. You make it impossible to bring up children without spoiling them. You give stickers away free to my child as I leave Wal-Mart. You don’t know what I can get that child to do at home for the sake of a sticker. I don’t need free stickers in her life. Your teachers give the kids candy at school. This makes it really hard not to give them candy at home. Candy comes in such a huge size, that a normal mother looks really mean, because she makes her children share a bag or a bar. You need to produce your candy in smaller sizes. And it’s not candy. It’s SWEETS, or SWEETIES. Not CANDY.
Your preschool tv consists of Barney and Dora and Wunderpets. Need I say more? And for every 30 minutes of kids’ tv, there is 20 minutes of show and 10 minutes of adverts. That is rubbish by any standard. (I haven’t ever timed it, but don’t you dare interrupt a woman mid-vent.) I have to get a friend in London to record and post me bootleg dvds of CBeebies. After-school tv isn’t any better. I do not want my 6 year old to think it is hilariously funny to make jokes about dating girls the whole time. He needs Jungle Run, Raven and Bamzooki. As for adult tv, you have so many adverts about medical conditions, that I hardly dare watch. I am slowly becoming convinced that I need a whole raft of different drugs. The only saving grace is that the adverts are so bad (think of that one about the woman who splits in two, and is so happy because the two drugs she needs are now combined into one tablet, so she can become one person again). If you’re going to have that many adverts, please at least make them interesting, possibly amusing even.
You can’t make a good cup of tea. We all know that. I’m not going to go on about it. But you don’t chat either. I am being drawn inexorably to the conclusion that tea is necessary for chat (I always thought it was tea or wine, but you have wine over here, so it must be just the tea). You talk to each other, ask questions and give answers, and it seems to work for you, but I can’t do it your way. It isn’t chat. You also make too much eye contact, and stand too close to me when you talk to me. Should I stop using deodorant or something? And you use too much of your vocal register. Can’t you be more monotonous? I manage to express surprise and admiration without raising my voice an octave. Can’t you? Try the monotone. If it was good enough for Winston Churchill…
Don’t get me started on George Bush. What is this “learning the lessons of Vietnam” venture? Isn’t it a bit late? If you’d learnt the lessons of Vietnam, might you have resisted invading Iraq? You and our ex-prime minister Tony Blair. (See, even in vent mode I am religiously even-handed.) By the way, he never was Prime Minister Blair. He was the Prime Minister, or Tony Blair, or Mr Blair. Never Prime Minister Blair.
When you drive, it is so darn polite. Everyone knows that a woman having a bad day needs the opportunity to nip out assertively in traffic, to zoom away from a junction in a most impressive manner, to race someone to the last parking spot. With your sluggish automatics and 40 mph speed limit in town, you deny a woman these small but significant pleasures.
Why do you have insects that sound like digital bleeps? I do not like it when poor Husband has to open the bedroom window and say, “see, it’s an insect of some kind, not something in the kitchen, or an alarm going off somewhere”. What will that critter have to say for itself the night our smoke alarm needs a new battery, and we get burnt in our beds because I thought it was him imitating the bleep? Huh?
Oh my goodness. That’s 916 words, and I’ve only just started. Enough venting for one day, though.
Obviously this will spoil the relentlessly cheerful identity that is Iota, whose life in the Midwest is 'not wrong, just different", a series of endlessly fascinating and amusing opportunities for witty reflection. So for the purposes of this blog entry, I am re-titling my blog "Totally Wrong and Horribly Different and I want to go Home. Now." If you are an easily offended or very patriotic American, look away now. If you are the kind of person who would enjoy seeing Mary Poppins losing her temper and slapping a child, hard, several times, in public, (I hope my mother isn’t reading this…), then this could be for you.
America. You make it impossible to bring up children without spoiling them. You give stickers away free to my child as I leave Wal-Mart. You don’t know what I can get that child to do at home for the sake of a sticker. I don’t need free stickers in her life. Your teachers give the kids candy at school. This makes it really hard not to give them candy at home. Candy comes in such a huge size, that a normal mother looks really mean, because she makes her children share a bag or a bar. You need to produce your candy in smaller sizes. And it’s not candy. It’s SWEETS, or SWEETIES. Not CANDY.
Your preschool tv consists of Barney and Dora and Wunderpets. Need I say more? And for every 30 minutes of kids’ tv, there is 20 minutes of show and 10 minutes of adverts. That is rubbish by any standard. (I haven’t ever timed it, but don’t you dare interrupt a woman mid-vent.) I have to get a friend in London to record and post me bootleg dvds of CBeebies. After-school tv isn’t any better. I do not want my 6 year old to think it is hilariously funny to make jokes about dating girls the whole time. He needs Jungle Run, Raven and Bamzooki. As for adult tv, you have so many adverts about medical conditions, that I hardly dare watch. I am slowly becoming convinced that I need a whole raft of different drugs. The only saving grace is that the adverts are so bad (think of that one about the woman who splits in two, and is so happy because the two drugs she needs are now combined into one tablet, so she can become one person again). If you’re going to have that many adverts, please at least make them interesting, possibly amusing even.
You can’t make a good cup of tea. We all know that. I’m not going to go on about it. But you don’t chat either. I am being drawn inexorably to the conclusion that tea is necessary for chat (I always thought it was tea or wine, but you have wine over here, so it must be just the tea). You talk to each other, ask questions and give answers, and it seems to work for you, but I can’t do it your way. It isn’t chat. You also make too much eye contact, and stand too close to me when you talk to me. Should I stop using deodorant or something? And you use too much of your vocal register. Can’t you be more monotonous? I manage to express surprise and admiration without raising my voice an octave. Can’t you? Try the monotone. If it was good enough for Winston Churchill…
Don’t get me started on George Bush. What is this “learning the lessons of Vietnam” venture? Isn’t it a bit late? If you’d learnt the lessons of Vietnam, might you have resisted invading Iraq? You and our ex-prime minister Tony Blair. (See, even in vent mode I am religiously even-handed.) By the way, he never was Prime Minister Blair. He was the Prime Minister, or Tony Blair, or Mr Blair. Never Prime Minister Blair.
When you drive, it is so darn polite. Everyone knows that a woman having a bad day needs the opportunity to nip out assertively in traffic, to zoom away from a junction in a most impressive manner, to race someone to the last parking spot. With your sluggish automatics and 40 mph speed limit in town, you deny a woman these small but significant pleasures.
Why do you have insects that sound like digital bleeps? I do not like it when poor Husband has to open the bedroom window and say, “see, it’s an insect of some kind, not something in the kitchen, or an alarm going off somewhere”. What will that critter have to say for itself the night our smoke alarm needs a new battery, and we get burnt in our beds because I thought it was him imitating the bleep? Huh?
Oh my goodness. That’s 916 words, and I’ve only just started. Enough venting for one day, though.
Monday, August 20, 2007
School supplies
Actually, school doesn’t supply. That is why, at this time of year, you will see hoards of mothers looking hassled, clutching lists, and stocking up their carts in the “Back to School” section in Wal-Mart. The deal seems to be that your child doesn’t just have to have a pencil case with a few things in it; he/she has to help the school out with basics like paper, white board pens and erasers, boxes of tissues, disinfectant wipes, and various other daily items. I’m sure it would be cheaper and easier for the school to bulk buy these things. There must be some historical reason for this bring-and-share approach. Maybe it goes back to pioneering days, when times were hard and people mucked in. My guess is that though this is a chore and source of parental complaint, there would be a general sadness if the system changed and the lists were no longer handed out. It seems to be something of a rite of passage from one grade to the next, from the summer holidays to the new school year. I suppose the equivalent for British mums would be buying uniform.
The list is somewhat mystifying for an incomer. First there are the unfamiliar brand names. I’m going to include a few, for the sake of any Americans abroad who can go all nostalgic and misty-eyed at this point. Fiskars scissors, Crayola, RoseArt, Elmers glue, Ziploc bags, Merriam Webster dictionary. There. Had your fix?
Next comes the complication of familiar words with different meanings. Crayons on the list are wax crayons. What I think of as crayons are down as colored pencils. Felt tips are called markers, or I think just Crayola will do (I might be wrong on this). And Pony beads? But this isn’t just me. No-one seems to know what Pony beads are, except 3-yo’s Preschool. Then there are intriguing things like “1-1/2” three ring zippered binder (no trapper keepers)”. Actually, I do know what this object is. I really do. I haven’t fathomed what “1 hand-held pencil” could be, though. How could it possibly differ from the packet of ordinary #2 pencils I have bought? Are these non-hand-held in some way? Do kids plug them into their iPods these days?
Finally, there are the items which seem pretty straightforward, but which turn out to have a twist. At this point, one has to try to get inside the mind of an elementary school teacher. For example, “1 large pink eraser”. For me, the eraser has already used up enough of my mental energy by requiring me to remember not to call it a rubber (titter titter), so I am certainly not going to question why it has to be pink. I’ll just buy pink ones and think of a way of persuading the boys that they’re not girlie. Then there is the “1 box (15 or more) quart size FREEZER EZ slide Ziploc bags”. However, it seems that you can’t buy freezer Ziploc bags with an Easy Zipper slide. You just can’t (at least not in SuperTarget). It’s one or the other. So which is more important to the teacher? That she can put them in the freezer, or that they have zipper slides? Can’t have both. I went for the zipper slide (even though FREEZER was in capitals). How many of my children’s school activities need to be frozen, after all?
I can’t let this list pass by without telling you Brits about the superb Sharpie. A Sharpie pen is a permanent marker. That’s all really. They get me very excited though. You can write names on things that I’m sure British permanent markers can’t handle: plastic carrier bags, pencils and felt tips, hand-held sharpeners, water bottles that go through the dishwasher. When you’ve written a name with the Sharpie, it is dry instantly, so you don’t get that smear effect that you usually do, from rubbing your finger over to test whether it’s ok to rub your finger over. The Sharpie is a nice shape, stubbier than a felt tip, but gently rounded, like the fuselage of an aeroplane. I like the name Sharpie, too. I can get more excited about a Sharpie than a permanent marker, just as I can get more excited about a Biro than a ball point pen. I need to get out more.
Oh, and one other thing about the “Back to School” shopping experience. Hallowe’en costumes are in the stores already.
Post Script
Aha. I have solved the mystery of the hand-held pencil. I didn’t dare go and ask in Wal-Mart, although it might have been rather public spirited of me, giving a few sales assistants a good laugh on a Sunday night. Instead, I asked another mom at school. She explained that a hand-held pencil is the result of a typographical error. It should have been joined onto the next item on the list: “sharpener”. The object in question is a hand-held pencil sharpener. And in case you are equally mystified by this, let me pass on the explanation. If they just put “sharpener” on the list, some kids turn up with one which is the size of half a brick, which you plug into an electric socket. Saves you all that work of rotating the pencil yourself, but annoys the teacher as you have to get up from your desk to plug it in. So in fact I wasn’t far off with the iPod thought.
The list is somewhat mystifying for an incomer. First there are the unfamiliar brand names. I’m going to include a few, for the sake of any Americans abroad who can go all nostalgic and misty-eyed at this point. Fiskars scissors, Crayola, RoseArt, Elmers glue, Ziploc bags, Merriam Webster dictionary. There. Had your fix?
Next comes the complication of familiar words with different meanings. Crayons on the list are wax crayons. What I think of as crayons are down as colored pencils. Felt tips are called markers, or I think just Crayola will do (I might be wrong on this). And Pony beads? But this isn’t just me. No-one seems to know what Pony beads are, except 3-yo’s Preschool. Then there are intriguing things like “1-1/2” three ring zippered binder (no trapper keepers)”. Actually, I do know what this object is. I really do. I haven’t fathomed what “1 hand-held pencil” could be, though. How could it possibly differ from the packet of ordinary #2 pencils I have bought? Are these non-hand-held in some way? Do kids plug them into their iPods these days?
Finally, there are the items which seem pretty straightforward, but which turn out to have a twist. At this point, one has to try to get inside the mind of an elementary school teacher. For example, “1 large pink eraser”. For me, the eraser has already used up enough of my mental energy by requiring me to remember not to call it a rubber (titter titter), so I am certainly not going to question why it has to be pink. I’ll just buy pink ones and think of a way of persuading the boys that they’re not girlie. Then there is the “1 box (15 or more) quart size FREEZER EZ slide Ziploc bags”. However, it seems that you can’t buy freezer Ziploc bags with an Easy Zipper slide. You just can’t (at least not in SuperTarget). It’s one or the other. So which is more important to the teacher? That she can put them in the freezer, or that they have zipper slides? Can’t have both. I went for the zipper slide (even though FREEZER was in capitals). How many of my children’s school activities need to be frozen, after all?
I can’t let this list pass by without telling you Brits about the superb Sharpie. A Sharpie pen is a permanent marker. That’s all really. They get me very excited though. You can write names on things that I’m sure British permanent markers can’t handle: plastic carrier bags, pencils and felt tips, hand-held sharpeners, water bottles that go through the dishwasher. When you’ve written a name with the Sharpie, it is dry instantly, so you don’t get that smear effect that you usually do, from rubbing your finger over to test whether it’s ok to rub your finger over. The Sharpie is a nice shape, stubbier than a felt tip, but gently rounded, like the fuselage of an aeroplane. I like the name Sharpie, too. I can get more excited about a Sharpie than a permanent marker, just as I can get more excited about a Biro than a ball point pen. I need to get out more.
Oh, and one other thing about the “Back to School” shopping experience. Hallowe’en costumes are in the stores already.
Post Script
Aha. I have solved the mystery of the hand-held pencil. I didn’t dare go and ask in Wal-Mart, although it might have been rather public spirited of me, giving a few sales assistants a good laugh on a Sunday night. Instead, I asked another mom at school. She explained that a hand-held pencil is the result of a typographical error. It should have been joined onto the next item on the list: “sharpener”. The object in question is a hand-held pencil sharpener. And in case you are equally mystified by this, let me pass on the explanation. If they just put “sharpener” on the list, some kids turn up with one which is the size of half a brick, which you plug into an electric socket. Saves you all that work of rotating the pencil yourself, but annoys the teacher as you have to get up from your desk to plug it in. So in fact I wasn’t far off with the iPod thought.
Friday, August 17, 2007
Hot tea
We all have bad days. This wasn't even a bad hair day. Just a bad day.
There is just under a week left of the school holidays (and I believe I've mentioned that they are 3 months long here... read my lips... 3 months long...). I have no imagination left. I have no patience left. I do however have two children left. Don't worry, I haven't done away with any of them. One is out at a friend's (hurrah! we've finally done enough inviting round for them to be invited back, hurrah! hurrah!).
Now I know we ex-pats look at Blighty through rose-tinted spectacles. Even so, I do think certain things in my life would be easier if I were back there now. This afternoon, for one. This is what I would do if I were in Scotland. I would go out. I know, I know. It's rained all summer ("summer?" you grunt). You're all sitting there feeling very grumpy and sorry for yourselves. But I would spot that half hour of grey dampness, in between the downpours and the drizzle, and I would force them out. There would be resistance, subversion, complaining, plea bargaining, lost wellies, but I would persist. The rain would possibly have set in again by the time I'd got every one togged up (at what age do they do this themselves without badgering?), but out we would go. The park, the beach, a walk, anywhere. By car first if necessary. I have a friend whose motto for the care of children is this: if in doubt, fling them out. You need to watch her near any open windows, but I do agree with the general sentiment.
I can't do that here. Outdoors doesn't exist in the same way. The neighborhood pool is now open only after 4.00pm, since a lot of the schools have gone back - "school hours" they call it. It's somewhere between 95 and 100 degrees, so the park isn't an option. This is not just me being a wuss. The swings and slides are too hot for the backs of small legs. We've done a short stint in our nice shady garden (back yard... whatever...). That's all the options.
Plan B in the UK would be this: a soft play centre (I said I had no imagination left). They're vile places aren't they? Vile, but we love them on afternoons like this. I would be sitting in a large barn of a building, inadequately ventilated, full of screeching children. The noise level would be uncomfortable for adult ear-drums. The smell of damp socks would pervade the atmosphere. The dust would irritate the back of my throat. 3-yo would bite small chunks of dirty foam out of grubby balls, and then laugh when I told her not to. The third or fourth time, I would say "if you do that again, we'll have to go home" and then instantly regret it. She might do it again. I would be sitting at a plastic table on a wobbly plastic chair. I would have optimistically purchased a cup of tea. It would be horrid. It would be in a polystyrene cup. They would have put the milk in when the bag was still in. The bag would now be floating around, unable to turn the white water a sufficiently encouraging shade of brown. They would have filled the cup too full, so the so-called tea it would slosh over the edge at any attempt to prise a little more colour and/or flavour out of the bag. I would have scalded my tongue (I hate polystyrene cups). I might also have a nasty flabby danish pastry in a sealed plastic pocket. I might eat it to make myself feel better about the tea.
Sounds appealing, huh? Well, that's what rosy-tinted specs do for you. But let me tell you this. I live in a city of 500,000, and there is no soft play centre. Strange, but true. I'll tell you why. Several of the McDonalds and Burger Kings have very small play areas. Very small, but better than nothing. It's a poor alternative, but you can buy a coke (the food is not compulsory, I've discovered) and sit and watch your children as they burn off excess energy. Or write a blog entry. I don't have a whizzy lap-top, so it's just with plain old pen and paper for future transcription. I tell you, this could be a blockbuster about a boy at a school for wizards, if I was in a romantic coffee shop in Edinburgh and not a greasy Maccy D's in a soft-play-centre-free zone in the Midwest.
And the tea? Well, I did give it a try. This was a rather exciting moment, actually. Hot tea is rare to find. Iced tea abounds (hate the stuff), but hot tea is a rarity. So when I saw it on the board, I thought I could redeem the afternoon by discovering that McDonalds' tea is surprisingly good. That would have been a cheering moment. Would have been. If the tea had been surprisingly good. Their coffee is so surprisingly bad that, my first week here, I took mine back to the counter saying "I think there's a mistake, I didn't order a mocha", and the girl said "this isn't a mocha".
The tea thing started badly this afternoon. I asked for hot tea, and the girl simply didn't understand me. This has never happened before. After repeating "hot tea, tea, hot tea" several times, I eventually just pointed to it on the board. "Oh, haht tea", said the girl. I made the mistake of ordering a large. Of course I should know by now. Large is too large. A cup of tea the size of a bucket is not appealing. Then I asked for creamer. I know not to ask for milk, but usually when you have coffee, you get creamer in small sachets. But not in McDonalds. The girl had to go and ask her supervisor, who got a small cup of cream out of the coffee machine. They had never met anyone who liked cream in tea. I don't like cream in tea. They were doing their best though, so I just said "we do in England, or milk, sometimes". It was not looking promising at this stage. I had a bucket of dark tea (good colour though, which was something), and a small bucket half full of cream. My hopes were not high, but they were still there. That was until I discovered that the dark bucket was filled with warm water. Ah well. At least I wouldn't be scalding my mouth.
My final problem. How to dispose of the large amount of unwanted beverage I now had. I didn't like to leave it, which seemed a bit ungrateful after they'd tried so hard to overcome the accent and the milk issues. I didn't feel I should put it in the trash - all that liquid sloshing around in a plastic bin liner could cause trouble. I didn't want to be seen sneaking off to the restroom, cup in hand. In the end, I tipped it down the water fountain, holding it in front of me and hunching my back to hide it and to give the impression that I was bending to drink. Fortunately, we were the only people in the play area at this point. Oh good. I was hoping I would find a "fortunately" somewhere in this story, and there it is.
There is just under a week left of the school holidays (and I believe I've mentioned that they are 3 months long here... read my lips... 3 months long...). I have no imagination left. I have no patience left. I do however have two children left. Don't worry, I haven't done away with any of them. One is out at a friend's (hurrah! we've finally done enough inviting round for them to be invited back, hurrah! hurrah!).
Now I know we ex-pats look at Blighty through rose-tinted spectacles. Even so, I do think certain things in my life would be easier if I were back there now. This afternoon, for one. This is what I would do if I were in Scotland. I would go out. I know, I know. It's rained all summer ("summer?" you grunt). You're all sitting there feeling very grumpy and sorry for yourselves. But I would spot that half hour of grey dampness, in between the downpours and the drizzle, and I would force them out. There would be resistance, subversion, complaining, plea bargaining, lost wellies, but I would persist. The rain would possibly have set in again by the time I'd got every one togged up (at what age do they do this themselves without badgering?), but out we would go. The park, the beach, a walk, anywhere. By car first if necessary. I have a friend whose motto for the care of children is this: if in doubt, fling them out. You need to watch her near any open windows, but I do agree with the general sentiment.
I can't do that here. Outdoors doesn't exist in the same way. The neighborhood pool is now open only after 4.00pm, since a lot of the schools have gone back - "school hours" they call it. It's somewhere between 95 and 100 degrees, so the park isn't an option. This is not just me being a wuss. The swings and slides are too hot for the backs of small legs. We've done a short stint in our nice shady garden (back yard... whatever...). That's all the options.
Plan B in the UK would be this: a soft play centre (I said I had no imagination left). They're vile places aren't they? Vile, but we love them on afternoons like this. I would be sitting in a large barn of a building, inadequately ventilated, full of screeching children. The noise level would be uncomfortable for adult ear-drums. The smell of damp socks would pervade the atmosphere. The dust would irritate the back of my throat. 3-yo would bite small chunks of dirty foam out of grubby balls, and then laugh when I told her not to. The third or fourth time, I would say "if you do that again, we'll have to go home" and then instantly regret it. She might do it again. I would be sitting at a plastic table on a wobbly plastic chair. I would have optimistically purchased a cup of tea. It would be horrid. It would be in a polystyrene cup. They would have put the milk in when the bag was still in. The bag would now be floating around, unable to turn the white water a sufficiently encouraging shade of brown. They would have filled the cup too full, so the so-called tea it would slosh over the edge at any attempt to prise a little more colour and/or flavour out of the bag. I would have scalded my tongue (I hate polystyrene cups). I might also have a nasty flabby danish pastry in a sealed plastic pocket. I might eat it to make myself feel better about the tea.
Sounds appealing, huh? Well, that's what rosy-tinted specs do for you. But let me tell you this. I live in a city of 500,000, and there is no soft play centre. Strange, but true. I'll tell you why. Several of the McDonalds and Burger Kings have very small play areas. Very small, but better than nothing. It's a poor alternative, but you can buy a coke (the food is not compulsory, I've discovered) and sit and watch your children as they burn off excess energy. Or write a blog entry. I don't have a whizzy lap-top, so it's just with plain old pen and paper for future transcription. I tell you, this could be a blockbuster about a boy at a school for wizards, if I was in a romantic coffee shop in Edinburgh and not a greasy Maccy D's in a soft-play-centre-free zone in the Midwest.
And the tea? Well, I did give it a try. This was a rather exciting moment, actually. Hot tea is rare to find. Iced tea abounds (hate the stuff), but hot tea is a rarity. So when I saw it on the board, I thought I could redeem the afternoon by discovering that McDonalds' tea is surprisingly good. That would have been a cheering moment. Would have been. If the tea had been surprisingly good. Their coffee is so surprisingly bad that, my first week here, I took mine back to the counter saying "I think there's a mistake, I didn't order a mocha", and the girl said "this isn't a mocha".
The tea thing started badly this afternoon. I asked for hot tea, and the girl simply didn't understand me. This has never happened before. After repeating "hot tea, tea, hot tea" several times, I eventually just pointed to it on the board. "Oh, haht tea", said the girl. I made the mistake of ordering a large. Of course I should know by now. Large is too large. A cup of tea the size of a bucket is not appealing. Then I asked for creamer. I know not to ask for milk, but usually when you have coffee, you get creamer in small sachets. But not in McDonalds. The girl had to go and ask her supervisor, who got a small cup of cream out of the coffee machine. They had never met anyone who liked cream in tea. I don't like cream in tea. They were doing their best though, so I just said "we do in England, or milk, sometimes". It was not looking promising at this stage. I had a bucket of dark tea (good colour though, which was something), and a small bucket half full of cream. My hopes were not high, but they were still there. That was until I discovered that the dark bucket was filled with warm water. Ah well. At least I wouldn't be scalding my mouth.
My final problem. How to dispose of the large amount of unwanted beverage I now had. I didn't like to leave it, which seemed a bit ungrateful after they'd tried so hard to overcome the accent and the milk issues. I didn't feel I should put it in the trash - all that liquid sloshing around in a plastic bin liner could cause trouble. I didn't want to be seen sneaking off to the restroom, cup in hand. In the end, I tipped it down the water fountain, holding it in front of me and hunching my back to hide it and to give the impression that I was bending to drink. Fortunately, we were the only people in the play area at this point. Oh good. I was hoping I would find a "fortunately" somewhere in this story, and there it is.
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Vile dins
I left this story as a comment on a blog. Two people said they liked it, which I thought justified me sneaking it in as an entry on my own blog.
I was once listening to The Archers. David and Ruth were having an argument and in the background there was the tortured scraping of a child playing the violin. "That is so unrealistic", I thought. "The BBC sound effects department were obviously having a laugh that day. It never sounds THAT bad." Then the signature tune (da da-da da-da da-daa) came and went. But strangely the violin scraping continued. It was my own son in the next room.
This is a true story. It has a happy ending. He persevered with the violin, and now plays with attack and confidence. The scraping days are over, and I hope he is on the way to enjoying a musical instrument for many years to come, and maybe for life.
I could listen to The Archers here, by internet, but I don't. It wouldn't be the same somehow. The storylines weren't grabbing me at the time we left Scotland in any case, and it seemed a good time to sign off. I wondered if there was a US equivalent, which I could listen to on the radio as I potter about the kitchen (does anyone listen to The Archers anywhere except the kitchen?) I think it would be a good step towards integration to get dug into an Archers' equivalent. I've heard about a radio show called The Prairie Home Companion, which sounds like it might be worth tuning into. I'll let you know how I get on. And how realistic the children sound effects are. It'll never have such a good signature tune, though. That's for sure. Those familiar jaunty violins...
I was once listening to The Archers. David and Ruth were having an argument and in the background there was the tortured scraping of a child playing the violin. "That is so unrealistic", I thought. "The BBC sound effects department were obviously having a laugh that day. It never sounds THAT bad." Then the signature tune (da da-da da-da da-daa) came and went. But strangely the violin scraping continued. It was my own son in the next room.
This is a true story. It has a happy ending. He persevered with the violin, and now plays with attack and confidence. The scraping days are over, and I hope he is on the way to enjoying a musical instrument for many years to come, and maybe for life.
I could listen to The Archers here, by internet, but I don't. It wouldn't be the same somehow. The storylines weren't grabbing me at the time we left Scotland in any case, and it seemed a good time to sign off. I wondered if there was a US equivalent, which I could listen to on the radio as I potter about the kitchen (does anyone listen to The Archers anywhere except the kitchen?) I think it would be a good step towards integration to get dug into an Archers' equivalent. I've heard about a radio show called The Prairie Home Companion, which sounds like it might be worth tuning into. I'll let you know how I get on. And how realistic the children sound effects are. It'll never have such a good signature tune, though. That's for sure. Those familiar jaunty violins...
Monday, August 13, 2007
The wanderers return
Well, we’re back. It was a very good holiday. When I said “a week or two”, I was understating a little. We were away, in fact, for 2 weeks and 2 days. Maybe the American week is bigger than the British week.
I made a marvellous discovery in Colorado. Now you know how much I like our neighborhood pool. I’m afraid to say that they do much better in the Rockies. Yup. They sure do. They have hot springs.
We tried out hot springs in three different towns. It made me want to move to Colorado. Imagine having neighborhood hot springs instead of a neighborhood pool. It’s like having a warm bath in the middle of the afternoon, under the guise of entertaining your children. The one I liked best was in Ouray, the Switzerland of America as it is known, where you are in a sort of basin surrounded by peaks, and can't raise your eyes without enjoying stunning mountain views [you have to click on "Today's Movie" to make this worth watching, by the way]. Whoever had designed the Ouray hot springs had put careful thought into the layout, and had got it 100% right. I hope he or she got an award. It was set out so that there was a bath-hot pool in which one could do some serious lounging, whilst watching one’s off-spring play in the adjoining ice-cold pool to which they were attracted by a couple of big slides. This seems to me to be the ideal arrangement: adults lounge in the warmth while children cavort in the cold. There was also an intermediate tepid pool to one side, where one could play with the off-spring when required, meaning that I never, not once, ever, had to venture into the cold pool at all. I should mention at this point that Husband earned himself huge totals of brownie points – that’s UK girl guide brownie points, not US chocolate brownie points, although he could have had those too if he had wanted, such was my gratitude – by accompanying the off-spring into the cold pool when necessary, which actually amounted to a very long time. So not all the adults got to do all the lounging. Those who have a long-standing love affair with the hot bath took priority.
I developed a theory. When you visit the Rockies, you are very aware of their history, and how the great gold rushes of the late 19th century led to this harsh country being populated. There is evidence of mining all around, of fortunes being made and lost, of hopes and dreams, of new beginnings, of hardship and adventure. I’m not sure this was all to do with gold, though. I reckon word got out about the hot springs. I mean, if you were a pioneer, in a dusty covered wagon, your limbs aching from the bone-shaking motion, your feet sore from walking, your children dirty and tired, wouldn’t the promise of hot springs have done it for you? Just one “there’s hot springs in them thar hills” and I’d have been leaping on the front horse and whipping it to within an inch of its poor beleaguered life, stopping for the briefest of moments when the baby fell out of the back of the wagon, and turning back for it only because the cries of the older children were so piteous when I suggested that we would have more chance of being first at the springs if we let another wagon stop to pick it up.
This was my theory, at any rate, until we got home to the plains. Back home on the range, I looked up Weatherbug on the internet, and was a little dismayed to find that the weather forecast for the next 5 days didn’t show any temperatures below 100 degrees. It has definitely hotted up since we went away. We had been warned, but as with all these things, you don’t quite believe it till you experience it. So I am pleased to be back to the neighborhood pool, which is open for another 3 weeks until Labor day. Neighborhood hot springs have their time and place, but I guess here and now is not it.
I have also to report, with some degree of smugness, that we only had ONE fast food meal in all our time away. Travelling with 3 children in America, this represents something of an achievement. The one fast food meal we did have was very well worth it. The lady behind the counter, on hearing our accents, went a bit dreamy and asked if we had ever met Sir Paul McCartney. I was sorry to have to disappoint her, but it was nice to be asked. Our visit to the establishment also meant that I could listen all evening to 3-yo talking about Burger Ting (she can’t say the sound “k” at the beginning of a word, not even in Tolorado), which was unbelievably sweet. Tute, one might venture.
I made a marvellous discovery in Colorado. Now you know how much I like our neighborhood pool. I’m afraid to say that they do much better in the Rockies. Yup. They sure do. They have hot springs.
We tried out hot springs in three different towns. It made me want to move to Colorado. Imagine having neighborhood hot springs instead of a neighborhood pool. It’s like having a warm bath in the middle of the afternoon, under the guise of entertaining your children. The one I liked best was in Ouray, the Switzerland of America as it is known, where you are in a sort of basin surrounded by peaks, and can't raise your eyes without enjoying stunning mountain views [you have to click on "Today's Movie" to make this worth watching, by the way]. Whoever had designed the Ouray hot springs had put careful thought into the layout, and had got it 100% right. I hope he or she got an award. It was set out so that there was a bath-hot pool in which one could do some serious lounging, whilst watching one’s off-spring play in the adjoining ice-cold pool to which they were attracted by a couple of big slides. This seems to me to be the ideal arrangement: adults lounge in the warmth while children cavort in the cold. There was also an intermediate tepid pool to one side, where one could play with the off-spring when required, meaning that I never, not once, ever, had to venture into the cold pool at all. I should mention at this point that Husband earned himself huge totals of brownie points – that’s UK girl guide brownie points, not US chocolate brownie points, although he could have had those too if he had wanted, such was my gratitude – by accompanying the off-spring into the cold pool when necessary, which actually amounted to a very long time. So not all the adults got to do all the lounging. Those who have a long-standing love affair with the hot bath took priority.
I developed a theory. When you visit the Rockies, you are very aware of their history, and how the great gold rushes of the late 19th century led to this harsh country being populated. There is evidence of mining all around, of fortunes being made and lost, of hopes and dreams, of new beginnings, of hardship and adventure. I’m not sure this was all to do with gold, though. I reckon word got out about the hot springs. I mean, if you were a pioneer, in a dusty covered wagon, your limbs aching from the bone-shaking motion, your feet sore from walking, your children dirty and tired, wouldn’t the promise of hot springs have done it for you? Just one “there’s hot springs in them thar hills” and I’d have been leaping on the front horse and whipping it to within an inch of its poor beleaguered life, stopping for the briefest of moments when the baby fell out of the back of the wagon, and turning back for it only because the cries of the older children were so piteous when I suggested that we would have more chance of being first at the springs if we let another wagon stop to pick it up.
This was my theory, at any rate, until we got home to the plains. Back home on the range, I looked up Weatherbug on the internet, and was a little dismayed to find that the weather forecast for the next 5 days didn’t show any temperatures below 100 degrees. It has definitely hotted up since we went away. We had been warned, but as with all these things, you don’t quite believe it till you experience it. So I am pleased to be back to the neighborhood pool, which is open for another 3 weeks until Labor day. Neighborhood hot springs have their time and place, but I guess here and now is not it.
I have also to report, with some degree of smugness, that we only had ONE fast food meal in all our time away. Travelling with 3 children in America, this represents something of an achievement. The one fast food meal we did have was very well worth it. The lady behind the counter, on hearing our accents, went a bit dreamy and asked if we had ever met Sir Paul McCartney. I was sorry to have to disappoint her, but it was nice to be asked. Our visit to the establishment also meant that I could listen all evening to 3-yo talking about Burger Ting (she can’t say the sound “k” at the beginning of a word, not even in Tolorado), which was unbelievably sweet. Tute, one might venture.
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