Monday, June 30, 2008

I Kissed A Girl

Over the weekend, we met up with our little group of international (read: not Polish) friends at the park so that our Spanish friend could serve us all “good” paella.


Anyone who’s traveled to Europe, or really anywhere outside the U.S. knows that upon greeting your friends you are supposed to kiss. The kissing confuses me totally. After all these years of being overseas, as soon as I see a non-American, non-Canadian, or non-British, these are the thoughts that run through my head: “Do you think anyone would notice if I just scootched up under this table?” “They’re definitely going to expect me to kiss them.” “Is it 2,3 or 4 kisses?” and when they come up from behind you with no warning “F**k! I’m caught!”.


We see the Spanish friends often enough that I remember upon approach all the kissing etiquette of Spain. Shortly after we arrived and greeted the Spanish friends, the Greek friends arrived. Unfortunately I was backed into a corner and unable to escape from the kisses (which I know is incredibly rude, but it really makes me uncomfortable). I kissed the Greek man and the woman was next. I assume it was my faux pax, but she started on the wrong side and we kissed on the lips. (Imagine you are leaning to kiss someone on their left cheek and they also lean to kiss you on your right. Yep, that’s a full on lip kiss!)


For the rest of the party, I did my alternative of parking myself in the center of a long table so that I could just wave, or at the most shake hands with people as they arrived. I was hiding out in trees (literally!) when the German arrived, because, unfair or not – I avoid her like the plague. It’s all fun and games until somebody touches my breast!

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Just another drunk chick out in her underwear

A few days ago, Jenny, The Bloggess posted about her experience showing up at a live news show in costume when no one else was dressed up (which is totally hilarious and you should go read it NOW! But make sure you come back after, don't be like my husband and leave me for Jenny, oh wait.). This reminded me of my own embarrassing costume experience, but not wanting to overshadow Jenny ('cause you know, I'm just as wildly popular as she - in my own mind) I waited a few days to post it.

At Halloween our first year in Poland, my sons' teachers at their two separate schools encouraged the parents to dress up. I have a Wonder Woman costume.

A little back story here. Poles do not celebrate Halloween. Not really. They are just recently getting into the idea of sending children around collecting candy, but are never too sure about dressing their children up, let alone their adults.

I showed up at my son's Polish preschool in a Wonder Woman costume. Poles do not dress up unless they are completely drunk AND they don't celebrate Halloween AND I had to park down the block because there was no parking available AND they don't know who Wonder Woman is since they were under communism when that TV show came out. So I was just a drunk woman wandering around in red, white and blue underwear walking the 1/4 mile down the street in a residential neighborhood to my son's preschool. At noon, on a Wednesday.


I look amazingly like Lynda Carter. People think we're twins.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Wordless Wednesday


Just have to add that the chipboard piece in the corner has silver glitter on it that did not show up in the scan.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Daddy, I want to go to the "new" beach

So my husband, being a wonderful husband...and a man...comes home and says that he and the boys are going to check out a beach this weekend. I said, is it a nude beach? He just laughed.

But because Seth overheard, he said, "Daddy, I want to go to the new beach." And continued to repeat it all weekend long.

So Sunday AFTER CHURCH, we go looking for the "new" beach. Now, mind you, Warsaw is landlocked. We have a river that runs through the middle (which is ironically named "River"), so all "beaches" are actually river beaches...which I would NEVER EVER swim in.

Anyway, I said, You know, even if you find this nude beach - which was dated information the LAST time we were here - it's going to be all men right? Like when D walked through the Tiergarten in Berlin and said, "It's full of naked men. Is this some kind of cultural thing that I am not aware of?"

He said, "You're probably right."

I said, "Can I take pictures and mock you incessantly on my blog?"

He said, "Yes."

So here it is, the nude beach:

We never actually found the beach.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Tagged and decided to do this one:).

Robin AND Judy tagged me with this one, and since I figure they tagged me specifically to find out where in the world I have been (and because Yolanda was wondering too) I decided to go ahead and do this one.

Ten Years Ago: I was 24 and was the thinnest I have ever been in my life. My husband was deployed to Bosnia and Pamela and I lived in Germany. My Great Aunty Dot came to stay with us from Australia and we traveled all around Germany, Austria, and the Czech Republic (but not Poland, amusingly enough).


Five things on today’s to do list:
1. Organize my scrap space.
2. Write a creative blog post.
3. Remove boys’ winter clothes and replace with summer clothes (boy, do I miss warm climates, where you don’t have to switch clothes).
4. Fill out that darn job application (for a job that I will most likely not get).
5. Call the bank about student loans.

Snacks I enjoy: Bread, muffins, bread, crackers, bread, pancakes…yeah, I kind of like carbsJ.

Things I would do if I were a millionaire: Hire someone to clean my house AND write REALLY amusing blog posts that make me look like a genius comedianne who really wastes her time being a millionaire blogger.

Places I have lived: Starting from birth Sydney, Australia (9 months), Houston, TX (20 years), Illesheim, Germany (3 years), Damascus, Syria (2 years), Washington, DC (9 months), Warsaw, Poland (2 years), Houston, TX (1 year), Accra, Ghana (2 years), and Warsaw, Poland (1 year and counting!). I also once got reprimanded in a class for reciting my list of places I had lived just like this, and yet I continue to do it.

Friday, June 20, 2008

The Job Interview (or how not to get hired)

I was the first to enter and the woman says to me:

L: "Hi, I'm L. I think you live in the building next to me."

Me: "Um, no, I don't think so." (Knowing full well that she is not a Swedish family.)

L: "Yeah, you moved into J.'s building."

Me: "No. I know where she lives and I live outside of town."

L: "Oh, I really thought you lived in that building. So how do you like Warsaw."

Me: "Um, it's good. I've lived here for a year now, so I'm pretty well settled in."

L: "Oh, I thought you were new."

Me: "Ohhhhh. I think you have me confused with Phoebe. Who is 60. And moved here for a particular job at the embassy. And therefore would not be looking for another job. Or at least her supervisors would be pretty ticked to know that. And it would be pretty hard to hide that she decided to take another job with another office in. the. embassy. But thanks."

So I didn't get the job (don't really know yet, but trust me...won't be totally surprising. People don't like it so much when you tell them they're stupid).

Thursday, June 19, 2008

People, STOP TALKING TO ME!

Whenever I am on my bike on the lovely trail that we have between my house and Toby's school, people stop and talk to me. Usually they ask me directions, often they ask me where I was able to find that trailer (I tell you, I am a spectacle!). Sometimes though, they ride up next to me and want to have a conversation.

My Polish is very limited. I can tell you how to get to the park ("Straight. Hotel name "Ant" turn right. Straight still, up hill."). I can tell you where I bought the trailer (in VERY limited Polish, consisting only of "In Germany.")

When those people pull up next to me and start conversing with me, I usually just smile and nod. If you are ever in a foreign country (or in your own for that matter) and speaking with someone who smiles and nods, they don't know what you're talking about. You can just stop talking to them.

This was much funnier in my head:).

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Wordless Wednesday


It's not entirely wordless because I just wanted to tell y'all what the journaling says:

"These are nowhere near the best pictures taken of our time in Syria, but I like them because they give a "Lawrence of Arabia" feel to the whole experience. They look so old. They were only taken in 2001 (I'm guessing) but could have been taken 50 years earlier. I don't even remember where in Syria we were!"

Monday, June 16, 2008

I'm going to jail, who's coming with me?

While I was visiting one of my children's schools the other day, I ran into a friend of mine from Denmark. She was talking with another mother that I didn't know and said to me "Thank you so much for the stuff you brought me! Our towels smell so good now."

Then she turns to this other woman and says, "Kylie is my super cool friend who illegally smuggles in American goods for me so that I can have great smelling towels and pancakes for breakfast."

Then the other woman says, "Hi. I'm Frida (not her real name) and I'm with the embassy too."

And then I'm totally like "Good. That's good. Did you get the spelling of my last name? Let me spell it out for you. You want to make sure you get that right when you turn me in. It just makes it easier on the investigators."

Yeah, I'm totally going to jail.

Sunday, June 15, 2008

Driving in Poland



Is it sad that I think this is normal driving?

Friday, June 13, 2008

The little thief! - edited so my daughter won't hate me anymore

Today I was at my daughter's 8th grade graduation because, in the words of Mr. Incredible, "They keep creating new ways to celebrate mediocrity." I mean, it's great that she "graduated" from 8th grade, but seriously?? And it's not even like she'll go to a different school. All three schools are under the SAME ROOF! Next year she only has to walk about 20 extra feet further from the house.

Anyway, after a 3 hour torture of sitting through EVERY.SINGLE.AWARD.POSSIBLE. (none of which went to my daughter) they finally got to the graduation part. Pamela was in the 2nd row, so I knew she would be toward the beginning (which was also good because I had to get the heck out of there for yet another thing I was late for!).

Just as they announced that graduation was to begin, Blaise vanished. I didn't worry too much about it, I mean where's he going to go? But just as Pamela's row stood up, he returned. With a juice. From the cafeteria. Which he did not pay for.

When I told Pamela about it, she was all "How did he do that?" asked in a tone like "I haven't been able to figure out how to steal from the cafeteria and my two year old brother figures it out in a day."

(And for the curious few who want to know what happened next, a lovely sweet neighbor of mine went back and paid for the drink so that I could stay and watch my daughter "graduate".)

Thursday, June 12, 2008

I think it's called Hyperactivity disorder...

So the poor chinchilla, whose cage is too f*cking big for any other place in the house, is sitting in the middle of the living room. Chinchillas are nocturnal. Oh, and they are easily frightened by lots of noise. So, of course, this is the perfect place for a chinchilla.

The chinchilla has been awake since Friday...you know, 'cause they are nocturnal and they are supposed to be in quiet areas with air conditioning (right.) and we have it in the middle of the living room in a house with 6 + people (3 of whom are under the age of 6).

It has begun to switch back and forth between being seriously hyperactive (doing leaping circles around it's cage) to laying in a corner and squeaking and jumping at every little movement.

So the cage which looked like this:


Now looks like this:


And all is peaceful in the house again.

I promise, soon I will have a non chinchilla post.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

What do you call it? Strawcolate or Chocberry?

The other day Blaise dumped all of our Strawberry Nesquik into the Chocolate Nesquik, in an apparent attempt to create a new flavor. We haven't chosen a name for it yet, but I prefer Strawcolate. Ironically, Blaise doesn't like the new flavor.

A couple of you have been outraged by the chinchilla story. I cannot begin to answer your questions here, so be expecting an email from me. I will say, since "Where was the mother?" was a resounding theme in your comments, that I did talk to the mother of alarm girl yesterday. She was lied to under the impression that I had given my permission for the chinchilla.

I've learned two things from this experience:

  1. I know this girl MUCH better than her own mother does.
  2. If this should ever come up again, ALWAYS talk with the other parent YOURSELF.

and actually a third one. It's pretty hard to be funny when you are totally annoyed about a situation:).

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

For your 14th birthday - an unplanned pregnancy!

Not really...but surprisingly similar.


See, for Pamela's birthday, her friends conspired and got her a chinchilla. They did not inform me of this until the day before in a situation where I could not talk to them about why this was a bad idea.

So, we now have a chinchilla. On the way back from Berlin, Dylan and I were finally able to have a conversation about the chinchilla and explain to Pamela how her friends have set her up for failure. They didn't mean to, but in a way this is like an unplanned pregnancy.

Dylan: So do you want to keep the baby or do you want to give it away?

Pamela (near tears): Yes, I want to keep it.

Dylan: Well, now you have to feed, house and bathe the baby (chinchillas can't take water baths and require a special "dust bath"). Do you have the money to do this?

Pamela: No.

Dylan: So how do you suggest that you will take care of this baby?

Pamela: Maybe you could loan me the money?

So that's where we are now. Loaning her the money to take care of this unplanned baby.

One of the friends (alarm girl) who conspired is having a birthday party on Friday. I think a good present for her would be an incontinent cat.

Monday, June 09, 2008

Ich bin ein...

As you all know, I unplugged for a "few days" last week. Well, that turned in to a whole week, with a small break where I was able to check out some blogs:).

Here's where my weekend was spent:

Don't know where that is? Here's another hint:

Yes, we went to BERLIN! It was an unexpected trip. We got a call from Dylan's brother on Friday saying that he was in Berlin and could we meet him there? So we piled BACK in the car and made the 6 hour drive to Berlin. But it was cool, and very fun to see Dylan's brother.

I've been to many capital cities (I really like to do this now...it's a thing for me) and Berlin was the coolest trip I have made. If I had known that I would like Berlin so much, I would have made this trip EONS ago.

Anyway, I'll be back at you tomorrow with some funny stories:). Today is my baby's birthday and I have to spend some quality time with him.