Category Archive

Steve flew to California today and had to sit next to this guy.  He was even wearing the purple suit covered in question marks.  “I had absolutely nothing to say to him,” said Steve.  No?  Not “dude.  Seriously.  What the hell?”  or “So…Batman still up in your face?”  Or I know! “If there’s so much money just laying around for the taking, why are you flying coach?”

We need a new segment.  So, with a reverential nod to “Steve, don’t eat it!” I bring you:

Hey, kids!  Try this!

When I shop at the Asian Market, I am always just bowled over by the amount of weird crap they sell.  Weird crap that, presumably, someone eats.  They are packed to the rafters with products from Korea, China, Taiwan, Vietnam, Japan, India…So with such a wide clientele to please, they must be choosing what to buy, not just saying “eh, fill up a shipping carton with what you have,” so these must be things that they assume are desired.  Apparently squid, in its many forms, is a hotly desired product.  Pressed, chipped, dried, frozen, pickled…Short of “dipped in chocolate on a stick” I’ve not seen a way it isn’t prepared.  Alas, my vegetarian children are not willing to be subjected to squid, but they ARE almost always willing to try new things that might be sweet.  So today, while buying fresh tofu and frozen dumplings, I got some snacks.

First up:

“Toasted Wheat Cake” also “with purple yam and crispy young rice”  Yet they are wrapped like bon-bons.  How can we resist?  This snack from the Philippines is stamped “Export Quality”–so at least there’s quality control.  We unwrap one.  It’s really pale and looks like pressed whole wheat flour:

Tentative tasting…and YUM!  The texture is just divine, it crumbles to powder and then melts in your mouth.  The flavor is also great and kind of familiar.  I look at the ingredients: Wheat Flour, skim milk, cane sugar, purple yam powder, pounded young rice, and butter.  Oh, it’s shortbread.  Well there you go.  It is met with “Can I have another!” from all three kids.  Sorry children, we have science to do.

Next up, Barquiron!

…with cashew nuts!  Also wrapped like candy.  Also an Export Quality product of the Phillipines (which, I’ve decided, we should pronounce phil-IP-pin-nees.  While I”m getting things pronounced).  Unwrapping these gets a lot of squeals as they are  very crumbly when broken. When whole, they seem to be a cookie with something powdery (and not unlike the wheat cake) inside.

Taste?  Good.  Almost very good, but so close on the heels of those yummy shortbread things that it doesn’t quite measure up.  But tasty and of an interesting texture, which is always good for a bonus point.  All three agree that the wheat cakes are better, though.

And finally, remaining in the Phillipines, but straying from the comfort of Export Quality food, We get:

Regardless of how they turn out, I think “cracker nuts” needs to enter conversation.  “Dude, she went totally cracker nuts on me!”  I was hoping for Adobo flavor, but I was denied.  These are nuts in a thin crispy shell.  Kind of….crackery.  There’s a slightly spicy powder on them, but nothing smoky.

sorry it looks a bit “last known photo.”  Ben loved them.  I kind of like them but think the aftertaste is pretty nasty.  The girls were unimpressed.  They are all looking forward to finishing dinner to score another wheat cake.

Tonight was a Chilean feast, featuring an argument with my 8 year old about the proper pronunciation of Chile. “Chil-lay” says I, and not even with a thick Jimmy Smits on SNL accent. “Mom. It’s Chilly,” he informs me. No, I tell him, it is Chil-lay and if you go to that country I assure you they are not calling the place “chilly” (in fact, they may be calling it El chupacabre for all I know, and I don’t call Germany “Deutschland” so who knows why I’ve taken this stand, but still). He informed me, complete with eyeroll, that his teachers call it Chilly and that is correct. Grr. I am the Mother. I know all! When those teachers feed you and step on your damned legos trying to come read to you at night, THEN they can determine how we shall pronounce the names of South American countries!

The food was less obstreperous (I feel like I’ve just used that word recently in a post…did I ? It’s a good word, but mustn’t over use. Esp when mis-using), I made Empanandas from the Sundays at Moosewood cookbook. And the salsa and Mushroom Stuffed Eggs from the same book. All were super yummy. Pretty far off my current course of eating, but I tried to show restraint. Steve declared the salsa the Best Ever, so that was a hit. All hail Muir Glen Fire Roasted Tomatoes!

In other news…I’m currently listening to Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I’m enjoying it well enough, but it was praised to the heavens when it came out. I’m not loving it and I wonder if it’s partly due to the fact that I’m listening. I think I’ll go get the book tomorrow and see if that enhances my enjoyment. It’s a great conceit with really interesting characters. It’s set in England in the early 1800s, and the basic notion is that in the Renaissance or there abouts, magic was real. It disappeared, for reasons not yet revealed to me, and has begun to re-emerge. It’s gothic and funny and mysterious. When I listen while driving (for example the nearly 3 hours I spent driving to get a guinea pig to and from the vet to have a cyst removed. A wee little growth that was causing no harm. Oy.), I can pay full attention, but when I try to listen while I do things in the house, I lose part of it. I can listen to podcasts of The Bugle or Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me with no trouble, but I think I need to hold weightier books in my hand. I just got some P.G. Wodehouse to load onto the ol’ ipod, that’s light enough to listen to.

Lord, I feel like Andy Rooney is blogging for me lately.

Tonight we dined in Brazil. This stew was quite delicioso. We also had cheese potatoes from my Global Vegetarian book. They were a very big hit. I, of course, only had a taste or two. Gotta tell you, finding vegetarian chow in South and Central America is a challege. Sure you have beans and rice and quesadillas, but there’s only so much of that one can take. If nothing else all this global eating is telling where it would be good to travel as a vegetarian. Africa, Middle East, India–no problem! Eastern Europe, South America? Not so much.

Catching up a bit…Ben is sporting that one front tooth gone, one coming in look that I love:

and yes, he is still wearing the piece of yarn and beads he got at Field Day last June. See his fabulous haircut? I took the kids to The Temple for a trim over Spring Break. Ben’s bangs are a bit shorter. Lily is unchanged. But Julianna went shorter and layered. Then the stylist straightened it, which was weird:

She didn’t wash it for 3 days, knowing it would spring back up. She has come to terms with it now, thank goodness, b/c it looked a bit weird, honestly.

And, um…I’m UTTERLY uninspired. Go read Stuff White People Like.

We concluded our African cuisine week with Ethiopian food–one of my favorites.  I made two different stews, one lentil, one vegetable based, both out of Sundays at Moosewood Restaurant.   The book suggested serving them together, which is traditional and all, but they were spiced almost identically.  Luckily it was good, but really there could have been some variety.  Kids loved it, including the friend Julianna brought home.  The injera didn’t come out as well as I’d hoped, but it’s tricky stuff.  It’s a flat, spongey pancake used to pick up the food.  The kids were all over that aspect, but my injera wasn’t really up to the task.  I had teff flour, but it wasn’t freshly groud and apparently it loses its natural rising powers or something?  So I used a recipe that called for baking soda and club soda and we ended up scooping our W’et with thin flat Irish soda bread.  I’m a child of the world, baby.

…was Morocco.  We honeymooned in Tenerife, which is off the coast of Morocco, owned by Spain, and largely populated with the English.  But tonight, Moroccan food!  We had a cous-cous, the national dish, made with fake beef chunks from May-Wah instead of lamb.  It was yummy, and fairly well received.  Also had Dukkah, which would have been better if I’d had proper hazelnuts instead of these weird Chilean hazelnuts from Trader Joes.  We finished with Moroccan Date Cake with generous squirts of Whipped Cream.  Right now, I have teff flour in a bowl, hopefully fermenting, so that I can make injera and round off our week with an Ethiopian meal.  I might need to do a week on/week off, though.  Travel, while broadening, is exhausting.

…well, no it isn’t. It’s Africa still. We did the Western Region today, blithely ignoring Ellen’s suggestion that we eat the groundnut stew (I think it may show up later in the week, and I can have moderate amounts of peanut). We had Nigerian Okra and Plantain stew, which suprised me by actually being good. Everyone liked it. The Futari, which I thought was going to be the big hit–I remembered getting it at Boma (the only place at Disney I’d care to go to again)and loving it–was not especially well liked. Maybe a bad recipe. Also beloved were the Algerian Green Beans with Almonds, but really what’s not to like about oily garlicky green beans? We finished with Ginger Drink, which was okay, but will really sing later tonight when I add mint and rum to it…

The next two nights are 4-H nights, which means I don’t get home until nearly 7. Crockpot dishes from Kenya and Morocco!

And Laura, you answered your own boomerang question before I could get there, but I love Raymond Loewy and if I could go back in time I would study industrial design instead of American Studies and Psychology. Just as likely, I will go back in time and visit the 1939 World’s Fair and see his work there….sigh.

We’re back on our culinary adventure! If you’re just joining us, we began here. We hadn’t taken any more food trips since our actual trip to Aruba, and then I started the Eat 2 Live thing and hadn’t quite sorted out how to cook for that, and then I was just…lazy. But I’ve been in a rut, I’m through the initial 6 weeks of E2L and I think I can live a little at dinner as long as my other two meals are Spartan enough. So today, Lily drew Africa out of the cup. Whee! Off we go. So I sat down with my copy of “Global Vegetarian Cooking” that I got at the Fair Trade Fair (how crunchy am I?) and the internets and planned out our week. No spoilers. So you just get tonight.

We focused on southern Africa and started with a banana soup from Malawi, a papaya soup from South Africa, Vegetables in Coconut Milk from Congo, Coconut Rice from Mozambique, and Spicy Potatoes from Tanzania. You’re thinking, “Damn, woman, that is a lot of food.” And you are right. It is too much food. The potatoes were recalcitrant in their cooking and so came out last. They were picked at. Steve and I liked it all, even if it was a bit sweet. The banana soup was gobbled by Julianna, tolerated by Lily, and reviled by banana-hating Ben. Papaya soup was gobbled by Ben, eaten a bit by Julianna, and avoided by Lily. The veg were given “two thumbs up!!” by Julianna, disliked by Ben, hated by Lily. Rice was beloved by Ben, eaten by Julianna, picked at by a sullen Lily who was beginning to suspect a serious lack of mac and cheese in this endeavor. Potatoes, as mentioned, barely got noticed. I may die of guilt throwing away food meant to be from a place with no food. But they aren’t going to get better overnight.

Drawing the map of Africa was another of those “Huh, what do you know, so that’s where that is” experiences, as well as a “there are two Congos?” one. Steve said, “yeah, nasty civil war in the 70s, don’t you remember?” Yeah. I don’t think I had much of an African history background. But given that it IS in Africa, I imagine it was hair-curlingly grisly and vicious. Did you know there is an Equitorial Guinea as well as a Guinea? And neither of them is home to guinea pigs? Well, I knew the second part. I also did not realize that Swaziland (which I only know ANYTHING about b/c my beloved Richard E. Grant is from there) and Lesotho were islands in South Africa. See? I don’t just get an utterly filthy kitchen with every dish I own dirtied! I get to know new things!

Speaking of my dishes, Laura asked for a pic of the happy plates. I reassured her about the potential for lovely basements in the comments section, but I don’t think I can stick a photo in there. So here they are:

These are just the wee versions, I have full sized plates, too. The mosaic-y bowl is just from the Dollar store, they matched and this lot was sadly lacking in cereal sized bowls. Apparently people in early 1960s could eat only the tiniest amount of Frosted Flakes. Otherwise they’d blow right out of their slim suits and shirtwaist dresses.

Tomorrow, we head for West Africa!

It seems that future me went back to the past to trick present me into tidying the basement. I hate her. Me. Because it’s turning all springy and such, I wanted to fish my happy plates out of the basement. I have a conglomeration of 50s/60s pop dishes, some from Aunt Theresa (thanks! They still rock!), some from junk stores. They have boomerangs and poppy stars and stuff. They are happy. So I packed up the old wedding stoneware (Mikasa Arabella. Yeah, I know, you have it too. And your sister has the one with the fruit), and ventured down to find my plates. I brought up the box marked China, hoped it wasn’t actually a portal to the other side of the world, and opened it up. I unwrapped a lot of my fun stuff, but was missing the plates. Where could they be? They were not in the box marked “funky dishes” b/c that contains the decidedly unfunky but rather beautiful dark brown stoneware from Grandma. Then the looking commenced. And in order to look, I had to move things and in moving them, I started putting them where they actually should be instead of at the bottom of the stairs (if you saw my basement, you’d understand. You want to ditch your load and get back into the light). And before I knew it, I was cleaning. On a beautiful spring day, I was in my basement–in which skeletal hands and rusty chains would not be out of place–sorting out of season clothes. Bleh. And then? The plates were right on the shelf near the steps, all stacked up and waiting to go upstairs. Stupid future me..

I’ve been trying to gather up old sewing machines at good prices so that I can keep them at the school for our 4-H meetings, rather than having the kids (and me) schlepp their machines in every time. Creating sort of a home ec room that I can store in a closet. I’ve avoided the ones in cabinets, even though they come out, b/c I dont want to deal with the furniture, but on Craigslist, I came across one with a really CUTE desk and the machine looked like my old school machines from the late 60s (I did NOT go to school in the late 60s, thank you very much, but I’m pretty sure that’s when the machines showed up) and I recall them as good and solid. So, I made the contact, made arrangements to pick it up (which the weather stymied twice), and got Mapquest directions.

I’m happily listening to Ricky Gervais podcasts , laughing my head off, and tooling out into the wilds of West Virginia. I start making lots of little turns, it gets very dark as I leave the land of buisnesses and highway lights. The road becomes much less paved. The homes become much more mobile. I arrive at my destination (after passing roads named “Riproarin ave” and “Slanty Ln”) and park. The trailer has a little enclosed porch thing that I knock at. The seller comes to the door, wearing bright printed scrubs and looking pretty normal and in her 30s. Not at all the 300 lb shambling mess I was beginning to expect. In an email, she’d asked if I was “handy with carpentry” b/c the sewing machine was hiding a hole in the wall she was going to have to fix before moving. I’d gotten kind of a needy vibe and pretended I didn’t know a Dewalt from a Dewers.

She lets me in and leads me into the kitchen where I am faced with about 20 snakes, stacked in plastic storage bins. Like pasta, or out of season clothing. I make nice with the snakes, chit chat about a reptile show I’d gone to and marvel at the colors boas come in. And think, “So, this is where it ends. In a smelly trailer full of snakes in West Virginia.” She shows me the machine, cute as pictured, and the hole in the drywall, about which I can do nothing. “I can’t help you much,” she tells me, “because I have a heart condition and bad knees.” I joke that I guess I can’t plead “arthritic hip” and ask her to do the hauling. The blasted thing is heavy, but even worse, has no easy way to carry it. The back is perfectly flat, so I kind of “walk” it out, wiggling it side to side. When it comes time to wrestle it out to the van, though, she picks up the end and helps me get it in. We go back in to get the bench. She’s been chattering the whole time, and has kind of a reedy voice. But now it is flat-out wheezy. And her lips are BLUE. Dude, you have congestive heart failure! What in the HELL are you doing?!? Oy. I start chattering so she’ll shut the hell up long enough to breathe. The color returns to her lips. phew. So. out.of.there. I get out, while everyone is still alive. And you know what? I think I have enough machines now. Thanks.

Photos! At last! I had all this written, then the whole thing crashed and I couldn’t find a draft and I was wailing and gnashing my teeth and I stormed off. Today, it came back! yay! So here it is:

If you’re on dial-up, just give up your day, ’cause here come the photos…

Maggie really wanted to go too. She thought that hunting lizards would be awesome. And maybe they’d have pudding, too!*

*for those who did not hear the tale…Because of a sale, I had six boxes of pudding mix in the basement on the shelf for excess food. Because I don’t always read well before I click “add to cart” I had about 11 boxes of ice cream cones on that shelf as well. Steve went down one night to get a bag of Trader Joe’s hot mustard won ton chips. The bag turned out to be totally empty, with a wee mousie hole in it. That’s when he noticed that ALL of the pudding and ALL of the ice cream cone boxes were also empty. We realized that the reason why the cats never catch the mice is that the mice are giving the cats pudding. in ice cream cones.

On the way from NJ to NY, we stopped at the Liberty Science Center to kill a couple of hours. From the balcony, you can see the Statue of Liberty, which impressed Lily quite a bit. In person, it seems much closer; in the picture, it looks like we were standing in Indiana.

There were cool interactive exhibits, including one in which you could generate a headline with a photograph to put up on a big board for all to see. This was mine:

Oh for the love of Pete (Best, not Sampras), why is she not showing us any photos of the damned island?! Oh, all right. Here is the view from our hotel room balcony:

Why yes, that IS a rainbow over the Carribean Sea. On our first day. Those Arubans know how to treat a guest. The lazy river and pool was right below us:

The majesty of the hotel iguanas. This one might be Octavius. Or, it might not.

I think this is Sheldon.

This was how we spent the bulk of our time:

There aren’t any photos of me in the river, so imagine me in a big ring like Steve, but with my feet propped in Lily’s little ring, eyes closed, bumping into everyone and not caring even a little. This is before I got in the pool and snagged it:

After the just-cooler-than-a-bath temps of the pool, the Sea seemed chilly. In fact, it was really warm:

But Ben still wouldn’t go in, so he isn’t in the family shot.

Did I mention before that Steve is not quite 4 ft tall? No? Well, there you go. He seems taller b/c of his shoes.

The hotel property goes down to the water, so there are lots of little umbrella tables and chairs with awnings. This photo was from one of the disposables the kids had. Disposable Cameras, the Official Last Known Photo Cameras.

(this is where the original post fell apart. So now is the actual Sunday post.)

Aruba in general was deserty-er than I thought it would be. The landscape isn’t very colorful, but everything else is. Even, as stated in an earlier post, the shopping carts. How flippin’ cute are these?

The houses were really bright. My house is a boring old white colonial compared to the houses there:

That was a fairly representative shot of the roads off of the main drag through Oranjestadt. Deserted and brightly colored with an air of decay. It seemed that if you wanted a house or a business, you just build a new one. There’d be bright shiny new right next to abandoned and derelict. I’m sure we could have asked, but I wasn’t sure these guys would give us the best info:

My only regret is that I wasn’t able to go poke around a cemetery. They all had locked gates, but look how lovely they are:

bright colors and such. And all above ground, of course. I’ve lost Ben as a gravestone buddy. He just doesn’t want to poke around the dead any more. Sigh.

There an ancient volcano in the middle of everything, and that looks pretty odd:

The kids thought about working up some anxiety about it, but luckily that passed. “Look at it. Does it look as if lava has flowed there recently? And by ‘recently’ I mean ‘within the last million years.’”

The Butterfly Farm was a favorite. The kids nearly used up their disposables there. And, of course, once I developed them, I found I had about 80 photos of blurry green foilage with the occasional arm, finger, or –if the aim was true–wing in them. Here are a few of my favorites from MY camera:

That’s a male and a female of…something. This one of the little cabinets they have for the butterflies and moths to hatch in. When they find one on a plant out in the “farm,” they carefully move them to the cabinet. They’re just a little creepy looking.

here’s a scarlet swallowtail that just hatched out!

We kept remarking on how butterflies, at fluttering distance, are pretty pretty! like flowers that fly! and up close they’re BUGS! GAH! I have many more photos, but I’ll spare you. For now. All bets are off if you visit.

We went to the “flea market” right where the cruise ships let off. Quality stuff. Lily checks out the lizard that will soon be hers, while Ben stands limply and complains of the heat.

“Mommy look! It has an iguana!”

hey look, Dora and Garfield are vacationing together! Seriously, copyright violation never gets old to me. It’s my favorite part of any carnival–ill-drawn cartoon characters airbrushed on the rides.

Now photos of our mediocre dinner on the beach! Look, there was a rack for our shoes:

Seriously, we were ON the water:

This was our view. It’s a house you can rent. No electricity or running water, but who cares?

And the sun set right there, much better table-side entertainment than the sax player that later showed up:

This was a couple of houses up from the restaurant. That’s the Aruban flag in his hand, so I guess it’s the guy that fought for them to have their own constitution. But damn, people, that’s some patriotism.

Abandoned playgrounds are never not creepy.

Couple of cool photos from Baby Beach, where we went snorkling:

I’m going to skip over submarine pics b/c they’re all…blue. Not very good. Once I mess with the video, I’ll see if there’s anything worth sharing. So on to Natural Bridge!

So, the Natural Bridge collapsed in 2005. It used to look like this:

Now it looks like this:

Not nearly as majestic, is it? Well, there’s a smaller version forming a few yards to the left. It looks like this:

here are the grandparents with Ben and Lily on it, to give you some scale:

As I mentioned in a previous post, there were all these stones atop other stones. Here are Ben and Lily with one WE made. Because we are horrible followers who come to the islands of others and mess up their rocks:

Ben was so happy climbing rocks. In the car, later, he sighed and said “I’m just so happy.” Which, if you know Ben, is rather a big deal. By nightfall, he was mad about something and declaring it The Worst Day Ever, but for a while, it was nice.

It was a wild and wooly coastline. I guess it’s coral? Really rough and porous:

Wild donkeys! They never moved, except to wiggle an ear or tail. I told the kids that they were actually animatronic. Which they believed. I sometimes forget not to lie to them.

A quick stop at the Bushiribushi Gold Smelter ruins for more rock climbing…

Last night on the island. sigh.

The girls enjoyed the sand one last time:

And Ben enjoyed his hair.

This is the sight that greeted us at the airport. Thats our plane, btw.

This collection box was at our gate. They were all over the island:

When I have the time, I’m going to add the word “terrifying” after the “are.”

There you have it. A quick picture tour. Come visit for more. and now, back to your regularly scheduled winter.

I thought I asked you people to do something about the weather. It appears to be winter here. The icky, no snow kind. Sigh. I’m in NJ, we’ll go home to Frederick tonight. Then the photo onslaught will begin. Our hair liked Aruba. I had thick waves, Ben looked like Shirley Temple. Now, my hair is stick straight and wispy. All this and frozen grass! I prefer frozen drinks, to be frank. And iguanas.

The flight was mostly okay. When we arrived at the airport in Aruba, there was thick black smoke billowing up from what looked to be a runway. Almost never a good sign. Apparently, it was a trash burn. I’m thinking a different location might be the way to go, just for traveler contentment. We had to go into a holding pattern over JFK and it was…turbulent. I was not well. I didn’t have to grab the airsick bag, but I was certainly thinking about it. All the while the kids were going “Whee!” I’d try to focus on something still, and I’d see the Fasten Seatbelts sign, all wiggly and jolty just like it is in the movies just before the plane goes down. Whee indeed.

But we’re here, safe and sound. The first blast of cold air felt good, bracing. The second one just felt cold. I stood on the airtrain from the terminal where we landed to the one where we were to catch the shuttle, looking at the people. Everyone was in black, no bright colors anywhere (but on us–Ben in red, Julianna in turquoise, Lily in teal, me in salmon. Steve was in black. joiner.) nothing but black and grey. We need some technicolor, stat. Andi, can we borrow Hazel’s sleeper?

I got three mosquito bites. I’m done. We’d gone the whole 6 days bug free, so I think they’re running me out of here. Fine. We have to check out by 10 am and be at the airport by 1 (THREE hours before the flight. ugh.). I’m doing our laundry and gathering all the bits of coral and other caribbean detritus.

Today, while I slept too long and had weird-ass dreams, Steve and the kids went out to catch the “Iguana Interaction.” We’d figured the hotel iguana wrangler would herd up a couple and give a talk about them. Steve asked at the desk “Where is the iguana interaction?”

“oh, out there somewhere between the two hotels. They move, you know.”

“And when will it be?”

“sometime between 10 and 11.”

So, “out there somewhere at some point.” Caribbean.

After lunch, Grandpa, Grandma, ben, Lily, and I headed out to the Natural bridge. The famous one collapsed in 2005, but a new one is forming right next to it. It really was a beautiful area, on the ocean side of the island–wild and rough. On the way in, we noticed that everywhere there were little stones piled on top of larger ones. Sometimes only a few high, sometimes several feet high. It was odd, like druids or aliens had been through. We asked at the gift shop. The woman told us, a bit testily, that apparently the tour guides tell people to stack a stone and make a wish. “It’s not OUR custom. We don’t come to YOUR country and mess things up.” oKAY. Just askin’, mon. I prefer the druid story anyway.

Leaving the bridge, we stopped and climbed around in the ruin of a gold smelting factory. It looked like a medieval ruin, but apparently was used until the early 1930s. Anyway, fun to climb on the rocks.

Dinner was back to Bugaloe, where we ate two nights ago. And now back. sigh. It’s COLD back there. I know, I\m the one that likescold, but tropical breezes…they are nice.

Eep! Only one more full day. I bum. Today was submarine day–it was cool. We went down to 150 feet (so they said, truthfully, it could just be a big aquarium 20 feet deep, how would we know?) and saw a shipwreck and lots of fish. Many of our favorites from snorkling (you’re right, Nell, it’s such a great word), including my beloved parrotfish, which Lily kept calling The Rainbow Fish (a hateful book if ever there was one). We saw divers holding an octopus. I learned that I do not want to spend much time in a submarine.

Home, reading, pool, dinner. We had a Thai place to ourselves. The owner (8 foot tall Dutch guy from Curacao) made the pandan ice cream from pandan he grows himself. It wa tasty. but best of all, all three kids discovered they love Pad Thai, so we can go to Thai food now and again. but not for a long time. because we are leaving all of our money here.

As they say in Les Miz, One day more!

A few things I’ve forgotten:

Andi, Hit cookies are lovely, but a mere substitute for the real deal–the Prinzenrolle. It’s the same deal, but better. And I just got some, b/c I’m in the Netherlands, apparently. (And what a great name for a country–the Netherlands. There be dragons!)

In the gift shop, I leafed through an Aruba cookbook. I’ve always found that a cool thing to bring back, but desert climates tend to be a bit critter-heavy in their native cuisine. No exception, this one. “Iguana Stew” ingredients list starts with “one iguana, medium sized.”

We walked along the beach one night and Lily was following a set of paw prints (frankly we’d pay to pet a kitty at this point. We’re so animal-love starved, Julianna and I tried to pat the fishies). Lily said “How far do you think these paw prints go?” And Steve said, “All the way to the dog, I imagine.” He has waited so long for a nice set-up like that.

If a native of Aruba went to maryland, would he think he was in a black and white movie? There is so much color here. The landscape is drab–desert, you know–but the house exteriors are colors most people wouldn’t even wear, let alone put on a house. It’s delightful. Step up, Americans, No White Houses!

First, two things (to go with the two days worth of posting)–one, seeing my house on my header, with snow in the gable creases (real architecture term) and no leaves on the trees…it is bumming me out a bit. Earlier, I was reading some P.G.Wodehouse, a love I share with Mr. Jerry and I was thinking that when I got back home and saw him at the pool, I’d see if he’d read this one too. But I will not see him at the pool, for the pool deck is covered in snow. Two–I’m typing this one on my father-in-laws grown-up sized laptop and I’m much happier. Having the weeny keyboard slowed me down enough to think and lord knows THAT doesn’t help my writing any.

So, I didn’t post last night out of a dread of the third world PC. I’ll fill you in now b/c I know you are nearly frantic at having had to wait so long. Yesterday, we decided to hit the “flea market.” Turns out it was not so much a flea market as a row of stalls selling identical crap about 200 yards from the cruise ship port. So it’s guaranteed to be quality merchandise at discount prices, right? Well, the prices weren’t horrid but the stuff was pretty ratty. Once I get home and get the photos on the ol’ Mac, I’ll have to treat you to a picture of my youngest child holding a hash pipe. Don’t panic, it was the one with the iguana on it, not the one with the supernaturally endowed Rastafarian headin’ for his lady friend’s waiting back door. The sun was insanely hot, the breeze was blocked by the buildings, Grandma was shopping, Lily didn’t feel well, the menfo’k had gone for a walk, I couldn’t find a wrap made of anything but rayon, and while I could get a backpack with both Dora and Garfield on it, I couldn’t seem to get one with both Minnie Mouse and Popeye. Disappointing. I did score a chess set which pits the Incas against the Conquistadors. Which is pretty awesome, you have to admit. Doesn’t really say “Dutch Caribbean colony” though.

Everything else does, though. I find it odd to see everyone here at the Marriott compound wearing Aruba shirts and Aruba hats and Aruba skirts/shorts carrying Aruba bags…It’s, I don’t know, it seems kind of like pinning your phone number to a toddler in case he gets lost in the train station. The urge is strong to say, “Hey, where’d you get that shirt?” But they’d just point me to the gift shop in the lobby, I imagine. Or the Flea Market. I guess my idea of a souvenir is something OF the place I’d been, a product of the island, in this instance. But I’ve really not seen anything like that. Aloe is a big product, but I don’t think burn cream is what I’m thinking of. Today we picked up a bunch of shells and some sand. White sand of Aruba to go with my black sand of Tenerife. And pictures, lots of those. Brace yourselves.

ANYway, as I was saying before I wandered off on one of my superior rants (really people, enjoy your T-shirts. If it makes you happy and doesn’t hurt anyone, it’s okay by me. Just know that I will mock you), it was wretchedly hot and Lily was sick, so we headed back to the hotel. We thought about heading out to see what was once the Natural Bridge and is now the natural almost-bridge, but Steve fell asleep, I was reading my book, Lily was resting (which is to say, watching TV) , and Ben and Julianna were similarly unmotivated. We managed to drag ourselves down to the pool around 3. At 4, I left them with the Grands to go get ready for dinner.

Dinner! We had a reservation at a restaurant on the beach. Our table was right at the water’s edge. A boat came through, making a wake, and all the sand washed out from under us and tipped our table. Crabs came up and checked up out. It was quite a view. And the sun set right over the water…gorgeous. The food? Well, the view was very nice. The Dutch influence was strong and there seemed to be a cheese or cream sauce on everything, competing with the flavors of the food. Our waitress was an insanely cute Dutch girl we named Heineke. She had dimples and a fabulous body and a sweet waitressing gig on a Caribbean island. She is happy here. Go figure. We hung out until it was dark and the saxophone player showed up. Live music is so often my key to leave. In addition to having had a little rack on which we could hang our shoes, they had a wee footwashing station as we left. Little things please me. The food was shit, but there were washcloths for my feet! I give it a 10!

Back home, a night of indigestion and the (quick, squeamish guys look at the sidebar for a minute!) surprise arrival of my period. As always, I was caught unawares and unprepared. Grr. Oh, and did I mention that I didn’t pack underwear for myself? I didn’t. I have one pair that I wash every night. So thank goodness I had THIS on top of it.

Today, today was snorkling day. We have a new favorite thing. People can there be a better activity than just floating, still in the Carribean while tropical fish swim up to you? If we could have found a way to eat or drink beer at the same time it would have been HEAVEN. None of us had snorkled before and oh man, we are hooked. FISH! Now, they weren’t quite tropical coral reef quality, but they were a far cry from those brown minnows that bite our toes in the lake. There were big tangs that were silver with electric blue outlines, little purple and yellow fish, fish that look like that peanut butter log candy,and these great big fish with huge clearly outlined scales like they’d been drawn by a five year old. And they were just THERE. Right by my face. It was like swimming in an aquarium. My very, very favorite thing was when a school of little silver fish swarmed around me and I was just surrounded by them and they stretched off into the distance. Really magical. Loved it. And did I mention I just had to hang there? Ben and Julianna took to it like the children of lazy people that they are. Lily was utterly unconvinced that fish were worth a wet face and had no part of it.

Back at the hotel, the in-laws went out to dinner and Steve and I took the kids to a bar/sandwich place on a pier over the water. The food was okay, the view and the breeze were incredible. Just that perfect tropical breeze. And Lily danced. She twirled around in her flowing sundress and sang to herself. Steve said, “Will this ever get old?” And I said no, but I now think that it probably would be kind of sad if she was doing that at like, 35.

And now we’re sending them off to bed and I’m realizing that this was our only day without the pool. Hmpf. Tomorrow morning we have our rescheduled submarine. We might go to the park after that. Or we might just hang out here until it’s time to go. Back to the snow-covered pool deck.

So today was supposed to start with a submarine ride. We got up bright and early, got a cab because we can’t fit all three kids in the rental, and arrived at our dock. but alas, the a/c was broken on the sub so they cancelled the ride. we’re rescheduled for Friday. The assembled New Yorkers were bitterly complaining. but we are cheerful folk from the mid-Atlantic region, so we just went on our way.

We decided to visit the Butterfly farm instead, but after lunch . To have said lunch, however, we needed to go to the grocery. Howard and I headed out. I’m always uncomfortable when it’s he and I…well, not uncomfortable, but just really aware that I look like I’m his second wife. And given my age, onlookers must wonder if I’m not about to get thrown over for a new model. I don’t want their pity, damn them. Steve just called me a “second-place trophy wife.” Thanks, man.

Totally worth it, though, because we went to this great little Dutch grocery with cheerful bright carts and food with many vowels and oddly placed consonants. My German helped some, in that I could read the ingredients list and try to guess what that combination might taste like. It led me to the positive find of “coconut bread” which is candy, but it also led me to buy “hard foam” which was not tasty and freaked my mouth out a little. The staff in the store was largely Dutch, which just seems weird. but oh, how I love a foreign grocery store.

The butterfly farm was lovely. Smaller than I thought it would be, but just charming. Our guide, marco, seemed to really like working around butterflies. It would have been such a bummer to get a spiel from someone that is just sick of these damned bugs. They aren’t native, but are from all over the world. Pictures, once I get them on a computer.

I made dinner in, since grandpa went out with his first wife tonight. I’ve promised the kids we’d go on the lazy river after dark…

Sorry these posts are kind of dull diary entries, but this keyboard block my brain. I’ll try using Howard’s tomorrow.

Nice lazy day today, we hung around in the morning while the menfo’k went to buy some groceries. It’s a Dutch island, which means good cheese and mediocre beer. Around 10:30, we went down to the pool and floated around the lazy river for a couple of hours. Julianna took it upon herself to name all the iguanas. Sheldon, Octavius, and Emerald were very relieved to have names at last. You could just tell. In addition to the iguanas, there are these cool little guys that are grey-green with electric blue polka dots and/or stripes. Lizards everywhere, which is making us all happy.

We headed down to the beach for another hour or so, swimming in the Caribbean. Which, you know, cool. The back to the pool for 90 min or so. Then I napped while Grandpa took the kids to see a shipwreck. Then dinner at a really uninteresting Chinese restaurant. It looked very fancy, but was, as Steve put it, a “Long Island Chinese restaurant.” It’s just never a good sign when they put out the wonton strips and ducksauce at the beginning.

It stood to reason that it would be reminicient of LI b/c everyone here is from New York. Steve has dubbed the island “Mooks and Kikos.” Our hotel skews pretty old, too, so I get to see lots of walnut brown old dudes in Speedos. Often wearing baseball hats and smoking cigars. It’s a good look. One that pairs nicely with the well-coiffed matrons in visors and gold jewelry setting off their gilded bathing suits.

but even I can’t pull off cranky here, so you know it must be lovely. Tomorrow: submarine!

Well, it’s really just the first day. We’re in Aruba! And yes. it is pretty darned awesome. I’ll tell you about it, but first an apology for any weird spacing and lack of capitalization…I’m on our OLPC–One Laptop Per child–and the keyboard is sized for teeny third world fingers. My giant fat white lady fingers are just making a mess.

Anyway, we left our hotel room near JFK at 6:30 this morning. That is early. The kids LOVED the shuttle ride. Our Slovenian driver hurtled us sideways at like 70 mph around hairpin turns. Whee! At the airport, we killed time by riding the moving stairways (I am The Power Walker, lesser known superhero!) and building with the legos that were at one end of the terminal. Lily was concerned about the bag scanner. She had picked up that if you had anything you weren’t supposed to have the TA would keep it. What she didn’t pick up was that they are unlikely to suddenly decide that twistable crayons are a threat. She was convinced that those bastards were just on the job to get good stuff. “Oh sorry, your watch has been determined a hazard.

Speaking of watches, Ben is…into digital watches again. He periodically becomes focused on them and cannot rest until he can get to the dollar store and get one. Well Grandpa lent him a diving watch and now the child is calling out the time every couple of minutes. “It’s 2:54…..It’s 2:56…” boy, if I wanted to know the time, I’d WEAR a watch.

So anyway, we were packed into the plane (”mommy is this First Class?” “Yes.” “So are we second class?”) , nearly full plane, we took up a row. I had a stranger next to me, on the window, but she was small and sleepy. Lily dumped Sprite on me twice (why such a big mouth on airplane cups? and such a small base?), I dropped my ipod twice. The big mook in front of me reclined into my lap for the whole 4.5 hours, leaving a space too small to get anything out of my bag. Lily squirmed and chattered endlessly. And Tony Soprano was behind me telling his second, younger wife that he was going to “bash [some guy's] fookin’ headdin”He then loudly told a neighbor about how they had had two bloody Mary’s before boarding. At 9 am. And I had heard him order two vodkas (”plain, mixer roons it”) on the plane. He grew increasingly loud.

Turns out he was joining his fellows. I have heard more NYC accents here than I did in NYC. They’re swarming this plcace. This place is, by the way, gorgeous. 82 degrees, breezy, colorful. There are iguanas just hanging out poolside. There’s a lazy river. The water is perfect. Photos and further updates soon!