May Day, Fail.

So today was May Day. In Belgium, May Day is a bank holiday and the sun was probably shining so everyone probably had a nice day off from school and work. With maybe a picnic at the Chateau, or a lovely day sitting in the garden sipping French rose wine. Sigh.

Today in Minnesota, I wore my winter coat. I didn't even want to take it off when I got inside the house. I am just so tired of being cold.

In any event, I completely forgot about the May Days of my childhood. The ones where we would leave little baskets of popcorn and candy for our friends in the neighborhood, by ringing their doorbells and running to hide before they could see us. It was the only day of the year where ding-dong-doorbell-ditching was ok.

I forgot about those May Day... until tonight.

The wind outside was blowing. The storm clouds were rolling across the sky, threatening, but not quite delivering anything but darkness.

We're having one of those crazy weeknight weeks where one kid has soccer practice right over dinnertime. The other two were having a dinner date in the kitchen and I seized a quiet moment to run down to the laundry room. (I know, I know. But I promise, we still try to make sure there are more family dinner nights than not.) Anyway, I heard Monkey and Miss B calling me, with terror in their voices.

"Mommy! Someone is knocking on our BACK door! Who could be knocking on our BACK door?!" Miss B's lower lip quivered and as far as they were concerned, I couldn't get to the back door fast enough.

When we opened the door, the branches on the naked lilac bush were waving, but we didn't see anyone, anywhere.

But a small, handmade construction flower lay at our feet. And I remembered.

I explained the May Day tradition to the kids with a smile, and promised that next year we would do better.

So to whichever neighbor thought of us tonight, and successfully left a May Day greeting without getting caught, thank you.

Dealership Differences

It's no secret that one of the biggest challenges we faced in Belgium was dealing with our car. Go back to some of the blog entries about that time some sort of weasel chewed through the electrical wires if you need a refresher.

So when the Chevy dealership emailed me last week to say that there was a recall for my car and I needed to schedule it for service, my first thought was "Thank God I don't have to go to the dealership in Waterloo, Belgium."

Let's start with the phone call. First of all, it was in English. Now, when I say that, please know that I never expected anyone to speak English when I lived in Belgium. I learned French, and could speak it well enough to make appointments. Even if it did make me nervous to call, it was a fear I learned to rise above. But whenever I called the dealership, even if I was speaking French, they would put me on hold. I could of course still hear what they were saying, because they would shout to the one guy that had to deal with us English-speakers that there was "one of us" on the phone. When I called last week to make my appointment for today, they knew who I was, they asked me when I could come (instead of telling me their only available time) and it was within the same week of my call.

When I arrived this morning, they asked if I would be staying here to wait. They didn't roll their eyes at me when I said yes. They told me they would try to get the repair done by 11. They gave me their WiFi code, they offered me coffee and breakfast, and pointed me to the comfy chairs by the television or the work stations in the corner. I want to come here every day!

Then, the shuttle driver came into ask, "Who is going to Savage?" And a lady stood up and went with him. Savage is pretty far away. And a customer just got a free ride there. I doubt if she even realizes how cool that is, (which is fine, by the way) I hope she never has to know.

Here I sit, typing away, drinking my coffee. People smile at me when they walk by. And when it's all said and done, I know I won't even have to pay for it. They told me they would do a complimentary service check, and also run it through the car wash.

So just to recap. Waiting at the dealership in Belgium was frowned upon. They always told me, no matter what the repair, that it would be more than a day. If I had asked them for a ride anywhere, they would have flat out told me I was crazy. If I wanted to rent their car, I had to pay for it. The repair would always take more time than they said. I doubt that if anything on our car had ever been recalled, anyone would have thought to notify us. That sort of burden would have been on the buyer, and when French was our second language, this was a big burden. And if we had taken our car in for a recall repair, we most certainly would have had to pay for it ourselves.

So for today, I feel very lucky to be sitting here in Bloomington, Minnesota, and not Waterloo, Belgium.

I was just told that my car is finished. It's 11:02. How awesome is that?

The good stuff...

I was at a reunion over the weekend - for my college swim team. I had a chance to see friends that were some of the best I've made in my life, that I haven't seen in a long time.

I was already feeling incredibly lucky that I lived two miles from the event venue, and not an ocean away as I used to be. In talking with some of my friends, it was brought to my attention that some of my most recent Facebook posts and blog entries have, ahem...shall we say, reflected some of my challenges and difficulties readapting to my new/old life.

Now I'm not one for a lot of excuses, I try to own my actions, but seriously. The winter in Minnesota was brutal. And this change, was a big one. But spring has finally sprung - our snowstorm of last Friday was almost completely wiped away by the warm temperatures of this last week and it's time to focus on the good.

Actually, we've been focused on the positive throughout this whole move. (Even if my posts haven't always reflected it.) It has really helped to get us through. We've all had our moments where we are homesick for Belgium. But when we find ourselves feeling sad, we stop, and find something good, and look forward.

Here is just a sampling of some of the good stuff:

The kids really love their new school. The teachers and staff have done an amazing job helping our kids adapt and making sure everyone was settling in to the best of their ability. Their transition into their new school has been beyond our expectations, and this is because of everyone at the school.

An obvious big one is being back near old friends and our family. For the first time in six years, we got to hold and see a brand new baby! Right after she was born! And not have to wait until a trip back across the ocean to meet the newest family member.

There are small things here and there that sneak up on me throughout the day too. For example, when I open a carton of eggs, I don't have to worry about chicken poop, straw and feathers. They are all clean! Every single one of them!

I LOVE my refrigerator. It is three times the size of the one we had in Belgium, and my freezer is probably about ten times the size of my old shoe-box freezer. That means: ice, frozen pizza, more than one choice of meat to make for dinner, ice cream and most important, frozen toaster waffles.

In the grocery store, there are lots of choices for everything, but especially cereal. Cereal that isn't chocolate cereal. (Of course, we still miss A LOT of other stuff from the Belgian grocery stores, but this is a post for the good stuff…)

The organization of Americans. Although at times I'm completely overwhelmed by the email communications from school, it's still nice to get them. And I am going more than a little crazy trying to stay on top of  the emails from the soccer teams. BUT,  did you know there is an app called Team Snap? This is an app for my phone that lets me check-in for soccer practices and matches! On my phone! I just click "yes" if my kid is going to be there or not. And if not, I can say give a brief explanation as to why. That is absolutely amazing!  Not to mention I have a list of all of the tournaments for the next three months, AND the address and directions are RIGHT THERE ON MY PHONE! Simply amazing. For anyone else that's had to wait until Friday night's practice to get the tiny scrap of muddy paper with the match time and location for the Saturday match, and then drive through cow pastures in a random corner of Belgium to get to said match…they would be right there with me to shout the word AMAZING.

And last but not least, today I am at the car dealership. In fact, the car dealership deserves an entire entry of its own. Stay tuned….

Who's that girl?

"Who's that girl…the crazy one that just jumps into whatever random conversation is happening around her, at any time?"

That would be me.

I have a problem. Ever since we've moved back to Minnesota, I have a HUGE eavesdropping problem and I haven't been able to shake it.

During our first week of school after we moved, I was walking across the "Quad" or "Plaza" (at the moment I can't actually remember what they call the area where all of the moms have to wait for their kids to come out of school). And there were two moms that were having a conversation, as they passed one another, about the weather. And guess who had to chime right in and give her two cents? Yep. That would be me.

And whenever I try to work at a coffee shop, I find myself accidentally tuning into all of the conversations going on around me. Last week, a law student named Ryan was interviewing for a clerkship with a solo practitioner. I don't know what the lawyer thought, but he sounded good to me and I would've hired him.

And a few weeks ago, I accidentally "attended" a coffee date with two young moms. Mom A was really worried about her 18 month-old's fear of swimming lessons. Mom B was worried about something with her in-laws. And I was worried that neither of them seemed to be watching the toddler of Mom A who was sitting next to me eating crackers off the floor. Thankfully, I had the good sense to keep my mouth shut during their chat. But in my head, I was an active participant in their entire conversation, answering their questions and telling them not to worry about going away on their upcoming girls' weekend. But how, maybe they shouldn't let their kid wander up to strangers and eat crackers off the muddy floor.

I've tried finding tables off to themselves. But last week a young college student and I found tables next to each other at the same time, and it would have just been awkward to pick my stuff up and move. No problem, I thought, she's by herself anyway. But then her date showed up. I never would have expected to end up on a first date with someone at 8:30 in the morning on a weekday, but there I was. I heard all about how cool it was to see the Dalai Lama speak in person. And I listened as they discussed majors and families and career ideas.

I never realized how noisy conversations could be. But I guess it makes sense that after only hearing French, English would just seem to be noisier. In Belgium, I used to love writing in coffee shops. I was productive, typing out scenes with impressive word counts. But everything around me was happening in French. I had to concentrate hard to understand everything, so eavesdropping was just too much effort. I got spoiled.

And now, I have to remind myself that no one is actually talking to me. And strangers probably don't care what I think about x, y or z.

Sigh. Maybe I should just go find a library if I really need to write a scene without distraction. A library with posted "no talking" signs.

New numbers….

It's funny, when you get new phone numbers for everything, the chances that those numbers used to belong to people who owe other people a lot of money must be pretty high. 

I say that because for the first two months, the only people that ever called our home phone were looking for a John or Jane Doe. (All names in this blog post have been changed…mostly because these people must have enough problems already, they don't need me adding to their angst.) One call was actually from their neighbor, who was traveling, and was calling to ask if I would please move his car for him during the upcoming snow emergency. After a few minutes of confusion (it was a snow emergency, and a lot of our neighbors were traveling) I figured out before he did that he had the wrong number. In the process of convincing him that I was not answering the phone on behalf of Mr. or Mrs. Doe, he gave me their address (an apartment building not far away from us).   

It got to be so bad that I turned the ringer off of our home phone for the first month. When the kids started giving their home number out at school, I finally figured out how to set up our voicemail system. There were 25 messages for Mr. or Mrs. Doe. It was quite an eye opener to listen to them consecutively. Some were from telemarketers. Others were polite, requests to call the banker and/or debt consultant back to help get back on track. One guy had a system, he called once a week at the same time every week (in my opinion, not a very good system if you are trying to find someone). And finally, toward the end of the month, the messages started out with, "if you are not Mr. or Mrs. Doe, please do not listen further…" Which, would probably usually be met with the response, "Yeah, right." But I chose to abide and not listen further. Mostly because I just didn't need to know any more about these poor people anymore than I already did. 

I felt  a little bad that I hadn't been more diligent in answering the phone. The calls I've gotten on my cell phone for a Mr. Smith (also a pseudonym) were somewhat more annoying but subsided more quickly, probably because I had to answer the calls. One was an an automated call, where I was directed to sit on hold so I could talk to a "debt planning consultant" - which I did so that I could tell them that it was a new number. Ugh. Although, the call I answered a few minutes ago was really sneaky. Someone pretending to sound like they were a friend…but the tone changed immediately when I explained that I must have Mr. Smith's old number because I've been getting all kinds of calls for him.

So I've learned a few lessons: 1.) I never want to be that person who has to make those calls; 2.) I never want to be that person they are calling; and 3.) If I am ever that person they are calling, I'm going to get a new phone number immediately. Although, on second thought, making someone else have to deal with those calls must run up quite a big bill in the karma department. I think I will just make sure I'm debt-free...in all respects.

St. Patrick's Day Fail.

On Sunday, my brother picked me up at 10 and we drove more than five hours to Illinois for a funeral. We were there long enough for the wake, dinner after and the morning service. Then we turned around and drove home again - to try to beat the next snow storm hitting the Midwest. It was a lot of time in the car, but the last time I took a road trip with just my brother was…well…never. So there's that.

I got home just in time for dinner (thanks again to my mother-in-law for staying with Miss B for the day and starting dinner). The boys had their first day back at school after "spring" break.

When I came in the door, my mother-in-law said, "I'm just going to run out to the store, I tried to get Lucky Charms earlier and they were all out."

"What?" I said. "Why do we need Lucky Charms for dinner?"

"Well," she said, "I guess Monkey told John he was the only one in the class who didn't have them for breakfast and he wanted me to get some for him."

And what we have here is a game of "telephone" gone horribly wrong.

As it turns out, Monkey explained that it wasn't anything about cereal, he was the only one in his class who did not get a visit from a troublesome Leprechaun.

Sigh. Really?

I just cannot keep up with the moms here. They are so much better at everything than I am.

I was already feeling overwhelmed by all of the people who seemed to dedicate an entire weekend to celebrating St. Patrick's Day in a drunken-stooper, and keep in mind I was gone for 24 hours of it. On Saturday morning, they began an exodus through our neighborhood to the nearby Irish Pub. The party started Saturday morning and went into the late hours on Monday night. That's a lot of drunk people wandering around our neighborhood. It was enough to make me not want to drink again. Ever.

But then, to find out I was supposed to orchestrate the antics of a Leprechaun too? What has happened to this holiday while we were out of the country? Apparently, if you don't have kids you are supposed to drink all weekend. And if you do have kids, you have to spend your weekend concocting a Leprechaun Trap. I guess I vaguely remember seeing a few posts last year on Facebook - about said Leprechaun Traps. And I even remember thinking they were cute and clever and how those kids were lucky to have such fun parents. But that was before I knew I was expected to be a similarly fun parent.

So I asked him, "Do you REALLY believe in Leprechauns?"

He got a goofy grin and shook his head no.

"Good, how about I buy you a box of Lucky Charms tomorrow when I go to the store and we call it even," I said, stealing John's original idea.

He gave me the thumbs up and we now have a box of Lucky Charms in our cupboard. And there is still half of a shamrock-shaped cake leftover - but that was complements of Grandma Sue, of course.

Metaphor Moments.

Sometimes, life crashes a lesson over my head, and it's just too good not to blog about it.

While I've declared the move officially over, that doesn't mean I actually know where everything is, or that we have everything put away in the right place. And that gets frustrating. Our basement is a disaster, and it's just too cold right now to go down there and do anything about it.

I spent the morning being frustrated about not being able to find some important books. I knew I needed to go for a run, I know that after I work out, I feel better and can deal with frustrating situations much better.

Ever since the last snow storm and cold snap, I've been running inside. I've found a community center where I can buy a track pass to use their indoor track. It's small, 11 laps equal one mile so it's hard not to feel like a hamster on a wheel, but it's a human temperature and I don't have to risk life and limb watching out for ice (and cars.) I can only get there a couple of times a week when the kids are in school, and this week was spring break so the indoor track was out of the question.

But over this last week, it warmed up. A warm-up in Minnesota after that much snow means a lot of standing puddles of muddy, ookey-gross water. But we were on day four of the defrost, so the sidewalks were sort of even dry. It was just too nice not to try, so I ventured out for a run. I managed ok for awhile, but eventually, I got stuck waiting for a stoplight to change at a busy intersection.

If you are from Minnesota, you can probably guess what happened next. A car sped up to make the light, sending a tidal wave wall of muddy, ookey-gross water all over me. Sigh. I spent the rest of my run thinking about how much I miss running at the Chateau de La Hulpe, and how it really hasn't been easy to re-adapt to Minnesota. And cars rushing through intersections splashing water all over me don't help much.

But, by nature (whether a curse or a blessing depends on the moment) I can't help but find the silver lining in just about anything. And the silver lining here was that it was warm enough to have puddles and melting snow. Sigh.

Today, it was time to venture out again. The sidewalks are pretty dry, and today was just a little colder so the melting snow has momentarily stopped melting. I had great expectations for a good run. Any Minnesotan attempting to run during the spring, knows they have to be good at dodging two things: icy patches and puddles. Today, there was more ice than puddles. About three blocks from home, I ran myself right into a huge patch of ice, made more dangerous by being melting snow that had refrozen into a slick solid smooth stretch of ice. I had been going too fast to realize that there was no good way out, or around it -- no grassy edge or snow chunks to jump onto to keep going. I was able to slow carefully to a stop, but my legs slipped right out from under me and I promptly fell on my ass.

I sat there for a minute, assessing the damage. And I cried. I didn't care who saw me (no one did), I just needed to cry. I let myself cry for two minutes and it made me feel better. And then I tried to figure out how to get up. It was just like that preview from the movie Frozen where the reindeer gets stuck on the pond and can't get up. But I eventually got up on my own. I could have limped myself home and called it a day. But anyone who knows me knows I'm too stubborn to ever do that. So I ran it off and by the time I got home I already had the silver linings figured out. I could have been hurt a lot worse than the giant bruise that is sure to form on my bum. And I had myself a new blog entry to write.

Spring is coming and I'm just going to keep running.

Oh, and as a side note, John found all of my missing books for me.