Car Trouble.

Once a car reaches a certain age, it has to pass an annual test. Last spring, our car was due for this "controlle technique," it's called. John's travel schedule was hectic, so I volunteered to handle this whole process and cleared my schedule to do so.

I went, I waited, I spoke french - although it was automotive words, so I didn't speak enough of it or very well. And after the mechanics determined this very fact, they stopped talking to me. I was waved through the test and pointed in the direction of the office to pay the bill. It was only after the big red document came off the printer that I realized I failed.

The people in line behind me tried to help me understand what the problem was, but the information was vague. Something about the headlight alignment, and something else about the parking break. Bottom line, I had two weeks to get it fixed and back to the testing center. I drove straight to a mechanic's shop with my paperwork, where I secured an appointment, for the first available time - which was sometime the next week. They assured me they could fix everything to retake the test and pass.

I went to the appointment, and was surprised to be out within the hour. With only a 15 euro bill for something to do with the lights. "But what about the break?" I asked. "Oh, we don't do that here," I was told, "you'll have to go to the dealership," they said. Hmm. So I drove straight to the dealership. And begged for an appointment for sometime that week. Then I told them I would wait with the car. They hate when people stay with the car, they always want us to drop it off and then it usually takes them three days. Not so easy when you only have one car.

I had one day after the dealership to get the car back for my retest. I went to the dealership, prepared for a long day, and to my surprise, was out of there before lunch. With enough time to go get the car retested. Did I mention it was all before lunch?

Success!

This was all a boring build-up to get to the next part. The following week, the car made that "clicky-clicky" noise indicating that one of the turn signals was burnt out. Sigh. When I took my driver's ed class, I think we learned basic car maintenance, like how to change a lightbulb. But now, when I pop the hood of our Chevy, the inside is so complicated, you can't even see how to open anything near the lightbulb, let alone change it.

On the way to school, the boys tutored me in all the ways to say "light bulb" in french. I drove back to the garage that fixed the light alignment. They were my buddies now. Feeling more confident with my automotive words, I asked for them to change the lightbulb. I used every word that A.J. taught me. Me and the mechanic, we both nodded our understanding. He even had time to fix it right then.

I got back in the car, turned out of the parking lot and heard the "clicky-clicky" noise again. I turned back into the lot and went back into the shop. This time, they got the guy that spoke english. Turns out, the original guy (the one that nodded and smiled a lot) thought I meant I had a leak in my tire and he tested the tire for leaks. There weren't any. No kidding. They said they'd be happy to fix the lightbulb, but didn't have an appointment for that until later that afternoon.

Are you kidding me? How many Belgian mechanics does it take to change a lightbulb, anyway?

I drove home, handed the keys to John and said "I give up. You're in charge of getting the lightbulb changed."

And guess what? Just yesterday, the same lightbulb started making the clicky-clicky noise again. I think it's a conspiracy.

Oui, mon chéri, Paris!

Last spring, we took the kids to London for a weekend. It was an amazing trip, because London is where John and I went for our honeymoon. And this was the first time where all of the kids were ALL old enough to appreciate the city and remember it.

We took them to a Thai restaurant that we ate at when we were on our honeymoon, and the SAME lady still works there/owns it. John makes several trips to London throughout the year, and tends to frequent the same places, so she easily remembered him, and was beyond flattered that he brought his family back to see her.  We went to a show - The Lion King. They were all fun at the theater, but Miss B especially. I assumed she would connect with the actors and dancers, she is all about being on stage. But instead, she turned to me halfway through and asked "Mommy, where do all the dress-up clothes come from?" I explained that there was a costume designer, and she insisted on knowing the name of the person in charge of the costumes. That was pretty cool.

Wait a minute. Wasn't this post was supposed to be about Paris? Hold on, I'm getting to that part.

Monkey especially loved the Natural History Museum in London. He would have looked at, and read about, every single rock if we'd let him. None of the rest of us are really big museum people --Something about large crowds and patience levels I think. And it was a whole lot of rocks. But Monkey was thrilled and couldn't get enough, and it broke my heart to have to hustle him through faster than he would have liked.

I left thinking, we've got to get this kid to the Louvre.

So for his First Communion present this spring, monkey got a train ticket to Paris. It was a tough job, but I volunteered to "take one for the team" and go with him. Monkey and me on our very own overnight date to Paris. I bought a museum pass that would get us in and out of several different museums over the course of two days, the Louvre included - without waiting in line. I cleared my head so I could answer any and all questions he might ask, and ask he did. I stopped counting when we were waiting on the train platform. To leave La Hulpe. He was already at 53.

My favorites: At the Musee d'Orsay he asked: "Mommy, is the fence around this statue electric?" No, I answered. Three second pause. "Oh, you're right. It's not."  And also from the Orsay: Mommy, why didn't they call this room the "naked" room.  All the people in these paintings are naked.

It was a delightful two days. We walked in and out of museums, just because we could. We made two visits to the Louvre, the first day to the Egyptians and the mummies, and the second day to see the Mona Lisa. We made two visits to the Orsay. We saw Monet at the Orangerie. He asked room monitors questions, in french, to their utter delight. He made friends everywhere (just like his father does). He was a fun dinner date. He bought souvenirs for his brother and sister, with his own money. The only disappointment was when he lost his sunglasses (it is monkey after all, it wouldn't be a trip if he didn't lose something.) And also not being able to find a good nighttime view of the Eiffel Tower (that subway line was closed for repairs and even though we walked forever, we just couldn't see more than the top.) Oh well, I explained, that just leaves us something to do for next time. He agreed.

I will forever be thankful for those 36 hours with my monkey.

The Battle of the Slugs, Continued.

Go back a post or two if you need to, just to catch up and get the background on the slug situation.

But just a quick recap: The beer bowls didn't work. Well, it worked but it didn't really make a dent in our slime population. It wasn't enough. Plus, we were basically just providing free booze to the neighborhood creepy crawlies.

I'd really rather not do poison if I can help it. It's definitely not the first tool I grab in an infestation situation. (See a previous post about rats.) But I've learned to never say never, and sometimes, you've just got to do what you've got to do to take back your garden.

And it was time to take back the garden. I sprinkled it around and it actually smelled good. Let's see what happens, I thought.

Um. The next 24 hours revealed carnage I never thought possible.

So, whatever it is they ingest, causes extra slime trails. Our patio, was a spiderweb of crystalized slime trails.

And.

For some reason (I think it's a conspiracy) they prefer to live out their last moments in the wide-open. As in they come out to the patio (or the middle of the boys football space/net - lots of bald grass spots) to die. And this, mind you, is an extra-oozy, disgusting, writhing death. (I felt bad, really, I did.)

The result was, that we had to implement a "slug-removal squad." Yep. That would be me with a shovel. I have to go around and flick the slimeballs into the bushes before anyone will go outside to do anything. I've been doing this all summer.

We thought the situation was under control. Until the other night, when we had to do another round of chemical warfare. So there I was, the next morning, flicking sluggy critters into the bushes.

Sigh. This is what my life has become.

But then. An amazing thing happened. My three children, who up to this point had been whining and complaining about something or other (for sanity purposes, I stopped listening to the whiney voices sometime last month) banded together.

Somehow, they came up with this system of water and buckets and they worked together....just a minute, let me say that one more time, they worked TOGETHER to clean-up the crystalized slime trails that covered the back yard.

So I did what only a good mother would do. I took that as my cue and slipped into the house, unnoticed. Leaving them collaborating and using their imaginations to fix the backyard.

And it was beautiful.

Good Intentions.

Like a lot of other moms, I'm sure, I began the summer with the best of intentions. I had lists.  One was called "What to do When You are Bored." Another was called "List of Jobs You Can do to Earn Money"and the last one was called "Summer Rules." One of the rules was that if you were bored, you had to read the list of What to do When You are Bored, and/or pick a job from the List of Jobs."

I was going to achieve that perfect balance between activity and laziness. Have enough stuff scheduled to keep us busy, with a few empty days to relax and enjoy not having a regimented schedule. It's ok to be bored. Boredom encourages imaginations, so I said. Boredom might get some of those jobs on that list done, so I hoped.

Boredom also encourages fighting and teasing and plotting and general, all around mischief and trouble-making. Especially when you are four, and you just really want to play with your big brothers. Except that you don't know how and it's just easier to hit them than to try to work it out with words.

It doesn't help that I'm yelling too much. No one is listening to me anymore. Not even me.

They are bored. I'm frustrated. None of the jobs got done. No one is following rules, it's an all out free-for-all. But I meant to do better. Does that count for anything?

It must be time for school to start.

A Summer of Slugs.

We remind ourselves all of the time that slugs are better than mosquitoes. Yes, they are gross and ugly and leave a nasty trail of slime and ooze behind them wherever they go, but all in all, they are pretty harmless.  You just don't ever want to go barefoot in the back garden at night or morning. Or maybe ever. Just in case.

Slugs are a novelty for our American visitors, especially the ones that hail from the Midwest. The climate in Minnesota is a good one for mosquitoes, not slugs. So when our cousins from Apple Valley came to visit the first week of summer break, we of course had a BBQ. This BBQ stretched into the late evening hours. And then the slugs came out.

It was funny, at first. To see a big, fat, slimy slug trailing ooze across the patio. The teenagers laughed, and my kids remembered that not everyone has slugs in their garden. However, when our slimy intruder invited his siblings, grandparents, descendants and best buddies, it stopped being funny.

I went out to the patio one night after everyone went to bed to cover the grill and straighten the patio. I'm glad I remembered to turn on the light, because there were at least fifty oozy invaders having an after-party. Had I stepped in the wrong place at the wrong time, I would have brought a whole new meaning to the word "busted."

We'd never had them like this before. What once had been an occasional slug in the garden, had turned into a full-fledged slug infestation. We didn't have much time to worry about it, the same day our guests left us to go on to find more excitement in Paris, we headed off on our own holiday. As a last minute attempt to make a dent in the slug slime, I poured a can of beer into two bowls and placed them strategically in the garden. By strategic I mean, easy to climb into, hopefully not so easy to climb out when that buzz takes effect.

We came home a week later, and to my surprise, it worked. I probably had twenty drowned enemies in both bowls. Yuck. If I thought the living slimeballs were bad, the drowned, fermented, decomposing ones were worse. But one thing was sure, the population had dwindled. I patted myself on the back for a job well-done.

I filled the bowls again (new ones, of course) and went for Round 2. And while I hated to waste the beer, I felt ok with it morally. Yes, I was intentionally killing a living creature, but from the infestee's perspective, it had to be a heck of a good way to go. It's not like I was dumping poison everywhere. Beer bowls in place, we sat outside one evening after dinner. And actually had fun watching the grotesque creatures hone in on the beer like it was a beacon, calling them home. They fell in, and lolled around and got clearly, stinking drunk. By the time we called it a night, there were at least twenty drunk slugs.

And the next morning, I went out to deal with the carnage...and they were gone. As in not in the bowl. I assumed they were probably tucked in their little sluggy beds somewhere with a very big hangover. If our intent was to open the most popular slug saloon in town, then we succeeded.

It was time to consider alternatives. My children were threatening a slug strike. As in, refusing to play  in the backyard if we didn't get the slug situation under control.  My husband was threatening a patio strike, as in, it was too gross to eat dinner on the patio knowing that there were slugs lurking everywhere...waiting. It was the beginning of the summer...I already faced long, dark days ahead of me...and to think...without a backyard...without a patio.

We were approaching desperate times, it was time to take back our garden.

 

My real life story problem....

So just because I wasn't blogging for awhile, doesn't mean that I wasn't saving little story nuggets here and there, so I'll pass along a few of these to "catch up."

This was from early last spring, when our weather was cold and rainy and we never knew if we'd have football practice or not on a Wednesday afternoon. I did not change the names to protect the innocent in this post, mostly because by the time you are done reading it, you won't even remember your own name.

Every Wednesday, the children at the local schools in Belgium have a half-day of school.  The purpose of this is to dedicate on afternoon each week for sports and extracurricular activities.  Every now and then, it is also a good day to have a birthday party.  The result, is that every afternoon, I become a chauffer for the Fowler family. 

This particular Wednesday reminded me of the word problems that were typical on the LSAT (the law school entrance exam) so if you read through and can answer the questions at the end correctly, then you may want to consider applying to law school. 

On this particular Wednesday, Isabelle went home with Victoria, so that Victoria’s mother Isabelle could drive Victoria, Isabelle and Pauline to Alice’s birthday party.  I planned to bring Nico, A.J. and Luke home for lunch at our house, but then Luke went home with Sacha, who lives across the street.  There was soccer practice, so I fetched Luke from Sacha’s house, took Luke, A.J. and Nico to Soccer practice, where I only dropped off Luke.  Then, I took A.J. and Nico with me to pick-up Isabelle, Pauline and Victoria from Alice’s birthday party in Rixensart.  On my way back, I dropped Nico and A.J. off at their practice.  Then I proceeded to Isabelle’s house (Victoria’s mom) to drop off Victoria and Pauline, then, I went back to the field to pick-up Luke.  I then brought Belle and Luke home to start dinner and make Luke take a shower (he was a goalie at practice and it was muddy).  Then, Luke, Belle and I went back to pick-up A.J.  Question 1:  How many kids did I have to make lunch for?  Question 2:  What was the most number of kids I had in my car at one time?

Plan B: (In case there wasn’t practice due to rain, cold and mud):  A.J., Luke and Nico would come with me to pick-up three girls (including my own) from the birthday party.  I would then drop Nico, Pauline and Victoria at Isabelle’s house, because Nico’s mom (Nathalie) was already coming there to pick-up Sixteen, Nico’s sister who was there to play with Eiselene (Victoria’s older sister.)

Bonus question:  Who ended the day by sitting in the kitchen with a big glass of wine and her kindle?

I don’t know how to make this next part type upside down, or I would try.

Answers:  Question 1:  I only had to make lunch for two and it was very quiet.  Question 2:  The most kids in the car at one time was five – the three girls after the party and Nico and A.J. before I dropped them off at practice.  By the way, the three girls were all sugared up and giggled and blew their party horns all the way home.  The boys just shook their heads in amazement and I think it was a glimpse of things to come.  Bonus Question:  Me. I was the one in the kitchen at the end of the day with a big glass of wine and my kindle.

Wait. I forgot about the blog....

Umm....so....yeah. The blog. I didn't really forget about it. It was always there, waiting, whispering my name every now and then saying "come back, come back."

And now I'm back.

Here's what happened. I was really, really busy. And not just with anything -- with my writing. Or maybe a better way to say it is that I was distracted. Very distracted.

There are a few things in my life that are very important to me. I've also found that I am the happiest when I've achieved a certain level of balance in each of these areas. Sometimes I feel like a juggler, trying to keep everything going smooth, flowing evenly, all at once so that it doesn't all crash down around me. Each ball is labeled with one of the following: family, writing and exercise. If I don't work out regularly, I explode. If I don't write, I implode. And if I don't keep an eye on what's going on with my family, well then they sort of do both - a wicked combination of imploding and exploding and it's just better all around if that doesn't happen.

Over the years, I've learned that the time and attention needs can vary for each of these. For example, there aren't any babies and/or toddlers running around (hooray! I love my kids but I am so glad to be done with babies and toddlers). In any event, the family needs are a lot less than they used to be. And, I even get to sleep. But I've also found that if I give too much to one category, that can be as bad as not enough. For example, I've learned that I can't train for long distance races. No marathons or half-marathons for me. Ever. Even a 10K is pushing it. Because I get too obsessed with something like that. I am happiest with a regular workout routine - just enough exercise to keep me sane and not feel guilty when I eat frites. Bingo. Balance.

And now my writing. I've been working on a certain manuscript for quite some time now. A long time. There were times when I put it down. For a long time. And then a few years ago I picked it up and decided it deserved to get finished. So I did. Then I rewrote it and finished it again. And then I started researching and writing the sequel. About 18 months ago I took the first book to a mystery writer's conference to pitch it. I walked in with my head held high, feeling as though I were on top of the world. (Cue the sound of angels singing from the heavens and picture me, bathed in a heavenly glow). I wrote a manuscript! I finished my book! I was halfway done with the sequel! And it was all good!

Or so I thought. (Cue the sound of brakes screeching to a halt.) They told me to rewrite it. So I did. And I finished it again. And this time it REALLY sucked. Sigh. But if I hadn't rewritten it, I never would have found the most awesome critique group I've ever had (which I almost didn't join because they were the ones that told me it REALLY sucked) so all in all, it was a wrong turn very worth taking. I reverted to the original version, and made it better. And then I finished the sequel, incorporating all of the new writing stuff I was learning from the aforementioned very awesome critique group.

And now here I am. Finished. Again. With not one, but two manuscripts! (Please don't cue the signing angels).  Because now I know that someone else will probably tell me they suck and I'll have to go back again and rewrite them. Which I know I will do again and again - as many times as it takes - because that's how much this all means to me and that's how much I believe in my idea. And for heaven's sake, it only takes one person to like it. I just have to find that one person.

But in the midst of doing all the rewriting and finishing, I had to be incredibly careful with every second of my time. Because if I wasn't, the juggling balls would have all crashed around me and my mental health couldn't afford for that to happen. So my "writing" time was completely and totally occupied by my ghosts and gangsters. I just didn't have room in my brain for the blog. (As I'm sure you probably noticed that the quality of the posts was dwindling, even way back then.)

I can't promise that it won't happen again. I have a few new ideas that I'll play around with for new plots and characters, but none of it needs to occupy as much space in my brain as the others did. So for now I'm back to my blog and I hope you're happy to have me.

I'm gonna need it....because a sea change is a'coming.