Snow hope

We're gearing up for snow, which is forecast for the weekend. I bought the Boy some fleece-lined waterproof gloves today but when I showed them to him he hurled them away in a rage. And apparently the vests (A-shirts) I got him recently aren't the right sort, and he won't wear long-sleeved shirts or a hat of any kind.

What's he going to say when I present him with snow-boots and snow-pants?

Say cheese

The other day we were in a Subway, the sort where you buy sandwiches. It wasn't our first choice of eatery, but everywhere else was full.

Anyway, I ordered a tuna sandwich. Then I remembered what country I live in now and ordered a toona sandwich. Ah! Now we were getting somewhere!

Did I want a 6" or a foot long? Did I want it toasted or not? What did I want with it? There was no end of salad options and dressings to choose from. Then the assistant asked Did I want cheese with it?

What?? Cheese???? Of course I don't want cheese - it's a fish sandwich for goodness sake!!! was (fortunately) not what I replied. I just shook my head, looking puzzled.

For I have since learnt that it is nigh on impossible to buy a sandwich here without cheese. I had lunch with the Man today in a rather posher sandwich place and the options were: ham and cheese, turkey and cheese, chicken and cheese, roasted vegetables with hummous and cheese. Granted they were all speciality cheeses (mozzarella, Swiss, goat's etc) but there was no getting away from it, every sandwich on the menu came with cheese.

By the way, I'm told that should you ever find yourself in a Subway just wanting a cheese sandwich, the thing to do would be to order a Veggie Delight. Without the vegetables.

I am a cider drinker

Veteran's Day - no school.

The Girl had a play-date with a classmate. He lives within 15 minutes' scootering distance of our rented house, so it made a change to go calling without needing to drive. I've been told nothing about what they got up to for three hours, but I gather they had fun.

Meanwhile the Boy and I did a bit of tidying up and supermarket shopping. Then I experimented by making warmed apple cider, which I'd been served for the first time yesterday. Apple cider is nothing like the beverage popular in the West Country (oo-ahr-oo-ahr-ay). It isn't at all alcoholic for a start, it's just thickly pressed apple juice, very cloudy. It's readily available and inexpensive round here because we are in apple-growing country. Heated in a pan with a few cloves, a stick of cinnamon and a sprinkling of nutmeg it makes a great winter drink.


The rest of the day we've just been loafing around indoors because it's cold out: reading, knitting, playing (and/or attempting to cheat at) board games, and making Thomas trains out of empty boxes - including a rather nice wheelchair-accessible Clarabel-the-coach, the Boy's own design.

Thin ice

Every weekend we go for a little hike - lovely family time together outdoors! Every weekend the children make a huge fuss about this, refusing to get in the car at one end or out at the other, until their parents are in a thoroughly bad mood. But lo! every weekend we all enjoy ourselves in the end.

The highlights of today's hike at Five Rivers were the partly frozen lake - the kids loved examining the thin ice at the edges; the frosty boardwalks - mini skating rinks; and the bird tables so busy with customers that you could get right up close to blue jays, nuthatches and woodpeckers and they didn't seem even to notice.

Later we visited the home of one of the Boy's classmates. For the kids it was a great play-date, while for the grown-ups there was interesting conversation and delicious pecan pie. A happy adventure for everyone.

'Luckily no-one was hurt'

The Boy has been in full creative mode today. He started by perfecting this original but precarious train layout. Then he moved on to re-enacting near-life-size scenes from the life and times of Thomas the Tank Engine.

The latter has involved most of the kitchen furniture being connected up with lengths of string, blobs of blutak and strips of sticky tape to form engine sheds, oil delivery points and who knows what else. Since the kitchen is not only the place where we cook and eat but also serves as a through-way to the sitting room, this has caused a certain amount of inconvenience for the rest of us. Plus we have all had to suffer the Boy's frustration every time a piece of string has broken loose or the sticky tape has fallen off. An artistic temperament can be difficult to live with.

The day culminated with a dress rehearsal of Thomas's Birthday Show, a theatrical extravaganza featuring musical numbers and audience participation. The plot is just as scant and only marginally shorter than the show we went to see at the Palace Theatre, but the writer/director/performer is very proud of his work. No doubt he'll be wanting to discuss film rights tomorrow.

Santa's day job revealed

The house buying process continues apace. Yesterday came the survey.

The surveying system is so much better here than in the UK. You don't just wait for an expensive report telling you that you need the electrics/plumbing/roof looked at separately at extra cost. We got to inspect the house alongside the surveyor, which meant that he could explain to us the workings of unfamiliar equipment (furnace, air-con, sump pump, reversible ceiling fans, heatalator) as well as pointing out anything requiring attention.

Our guy came highly recommended. With his beard, rosy cheeks and twinkly eyes he seemed comfortingly familiar - just who was it he reminded me of? And did we really see those deer loitering in the neighbouring yard? Anyway. His voice was so gentle and mellifluous that even if he'd told us the house was riddled with dry-rot and infested with vermin I'd have just smiled and nodded and lapped it up. But fortunately he found little cause for concern, just a few relatively minor repairs to be done.

Next task, this evening, was a meeting with a financial advisor to discuss mortgage arrangements. Here again the system is somewhat different to that at home. Put simply we will be signing up for a 3-year A.R.M. with zero points, adjusted to T Bill +3, and we'll be escrowing our tax. So that's good. I think.

An observation on the human condition

'The problem is,' said the Girl as I went in for the second time to try and get her up for breakfast, 'that bed is so untempting at bedtime, but so tempting in the morning.'

She's right. That is the problem.

I mean, how many times have I stayed up way past my bedtime watching the Travel Channel's 'World's Most Unique McDonalds'?

Well, ok, only one time. You have to admit there's something horribly fascinating about a man who devotes all his leisure time to visiting McDonalds restaurants around the world (he's been to nearly 12,000 to date).

Then in the morning it's so hard to drag myself out of bed to make breakfasts and packed lunches and say to the children thirty-six times get-your-shoes-on-you're-going-to-miss-that-bus-one-of-these-days, when instead I could be lying back and listening to the interminable national weather round-up on NPR (because who doesn't need to know what's happening weather-wise in Arizona of a Thursday morning?).

But what finally gets me up and about and pulling on my woolly socks is the thought of all those amusing Comments that'll be waiting for me when I switch on the computer...


Here's someone else's approach to the whole bed issue.