Cute Sawyer Story

One day several months ago, I was typing something up on my computer when I got pulled away for awhile. I don't remember who or what needed my attention, but I know that it was a good while before I finally made it back to the desk. When I did, I found that someone had taken it upon themselves to add to the text in my absence.

I wasn't sure at first which of my lovely children would have done such a thing, but as I looked a little closer at the text, the answer became quite obvious (click on the picture to enlarge it if you can't read it).

He may not cover his tracks very well, but he sure does make me laugh!

Look Ma, No Teeth!

We may have to put Lee Anna's Froot Loops in a blender in the morning since the traditional eating method requires teeth. She lost yet another one tonight, to her great excitement! Thankfully, one of the top ones has finally started coming in, so those holes should eventually fill in. But I'll probably be keeping corn on the cob off the menu for a while.

Oh The Weather Outside is Frightful

We are experiencing quite a bleak mid-winter this year. We've had several stormy, rainy days. The temperature has dipped as low as 10 degrees, and the high has seldom been out of the teens. Okay, those are Celcius temperatures, but it sounds cold, doesn't it? (10 C is about 50 F; and 20 is like 68F).

You can see in this picture how many layers of clothes I have to wear to stay warm. I'm wearing a t-shirt, dress shirt, sweater and a scarf with my jacket. I might have even put on socks that day. It was really cold out by the river drinking coffee.

On a rainy Friday, Beth was taking the two big kids to a birthday party. They were driving when is started raining, so Beth turned on her windshield wipers. Sawyer asked "Why are you doing that?" So she explained that they wipe the rain water off the windshield so you can see. "This is what we do when it's raining." Sawyer looked back and exclaimed, rather loudly, "Look Mama! The car behind us is doing it too!!"

We've had three rainy days this week, and we haven't totaled a quarter inch of rain if you collected it in a funnel. But it has been cloudy and chilly.
When Beth's brother was visiting here from his home in Ukraine I really had a hard time convincing him how cold it is. But it is cold here. I promise. This is winter.

The Great Snowball Fight of 2010

As most of you know, we live in the desert. We hardly get any rain, much less snow. In fact, there's not even a word in the local language for snow. They just call it "ice." When they talk about it, which they don't often, because there isn't any to talk about.

So we certainly didn't expect to have a White Christmas. Fortunately, Jason and I both grew up in Florida, so no snow at Christmas is quite normal for us.

But this year we decided to have a little wintry fun and hold the Great Indoor Snowball Fight of 2010. We split into teams (boys vs. girls, of course) and each team had 5 minutes to create as many snowballs as they could. Then we let 'em fly, and, well, you can see below how much fun was had.

I love that the kids never stop laughing!

When we were finally finished, we went into the kitchen for some chocolate milk (our hot-weather substitute for hot chocolate), since the kids had worked up a sweat by that point.

We hosted Round 2 a few days later when Uncle Andy came to town, and he told us stories of fighting with real Ukrainian snow. It sounds like he has fun, but this Florida girl will take paper snowballs in her warm house any day over snow in her boots and frozen fingers and toes!

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!

Two years ago today, Grandpa was here celebrating his birthday with us. Today, he's back on the other side of the ocean, but we did call and sing to him. Two years ago, he was celebrating his 66th Big Day, but I'm not gonna tell you how old he is now.

Happy Birthday, Grandpa!!

A Blurry Day

This morning before breakfast, Sawyer looked out the window and told me it was "a blurry day." It gets kinda blurry around here in the winter time. We've heard that the farmers out in the country always burn off whatever is left in the fields this time of year, and the smoke blows into town and makes everything a little "blurrier" than usual. This first picture is of a clear day in October. The flying things are guys in motorized parachute gliders who were up over the city for a big holiday celebration. (As always, you can click on any picture for a closer look.)

The next photo shows what the grey winter does. Notice how the farthest building on the horizon seems to have disappeared.

And this orange-looking effect was not added by computers. That's what the sky does when we have a sandstorm.

I use the last building I can see as my smog-o-meter every morning. On especially clear days I can see the blue and white colors of some of the window frames. On moderately smoggy days, I can make out the silhouette of the building, but not see window colors. And on bad, "blurry" days, that building just isn't to be seen. Google Earth shows that building to be 3/4 mile away, or just over one kilometer.

Apartment Hunting

Today's post is the third in a series of stories about service providers. These are the people to whom we provide an income, and in return they provide material for story tellers.

I was out with a real estate agent recently looking for a flat for someone else. She had made a mistake in writing down the address so we were looking for building 35 B instead of 35 C. The street we were on is divided into three blocks, so there's an A block, then a B block, then a C block. Building 35 C is not next door to 35 B, it's a block away. Roughly.

So my real estate friend called the landlord to ask where the flat was, and as soon as she hung up her mobile, she started laughing out loud. She told me that the landlord had told her the correct address, then told her to look for the building where the doorman's wife was really fat!! She asked me what we were supposed to do, walk along and ask the doormen if their wives are home? "Can I please see your wife? Is she pretty big?" But when we got to building 35 C, we knew we had our girl. She was sitting on the front porch adding a decent amount of gravitational support to this 12-story concrete building.

Fun With Wires

Let me start by taking credit where credit is due: I (Jason) wrote the plumber’s poem yesterday. I thought everyone would know that, since it involved sitting around in a bathroom with 3 men for half an hour, but from several emails and comments it seems that some have the impression that Beth wrote the poem. She surely could have written such a poem, but she didn't this time.

In keeping with the theme of “service providers,” I’ve got a story about our favorite electrician that I’d like to share. It’s a bit less poetical than the water story, but still a little funny, I hope.

We’ve had several adventures with electricity in the past year. When we moved into this flat, the kitchen was really dark, with just one small fluorescent bulb to light it up. So we picked some bright fixtures and asked the electrician to come hang them for us. In the States, this would have been a do-it-yourself job for a Saturday afternoon, but when he’ll come do it all for about $5, it’s hard to find the motivation to do stuff yourself.

We got two matching fixtures that have three spotlight bulbs in each. There was just one connection in the ceiling, and two fixtures, so he put them on either side of the existing wires and added a short segment of wire to reach the first one. Then he saw that he was out of wire. I might have gone back to the shop for another foot of cable, but not this guy. He just grabbed the extension cord that he had brought with him and was using for his drill, and he cut about a foot of cable off the end. He used that to connect our lights, then re-attached the plug to the end of his extension cord and went on working.

On another visit, this same guy was hanging a small chandelier in our bedroom. He put it together too tightly and pinched the wires inside it. This short circuit burned out the light switch in the wall as soon as we applied power to it. Once again, he found a way not to return to the shop. In our living room we have several light switches that don’t do anything at all. So he just put the dead switch in one of those spots and took a good switch from the useless spot and put it to use.

While attaching a ceiling fan to the ceiling, he had to install a big hook into the concrete. He drilled a big hole (half-inch or so) and then put the anchor and screw hook into the ceiling. He tightened the first one so tight that he broke it off. So he drilled another hole nearby and proceeded to break yet another hook! Third time’s the charm, evidently, since the third hook stayed up and the fan has held up just fine.

We keep using this same electrician because he’s better than most that we’ve worked with. He even has his own tools and only occasionally asks to borrow mine.

I don't have any pictures of him at work, but I do have a shot of this lovely mass of wires that sticks out of the wall in the hallway outside our front door. I'm sure if there were safety codes here to be broken, this would probably do it!
Tune in tomorrow for "Service Providers: Part 3."

The Epic of the Water Pump

For about two months now we’ve had no water,

Well, the water is here but it won’t get hotter,

And we can’t take a shower when the water is cold.

Just sit and listen while my story is told.

We live about five floors off the ground

And water pressure in the sky just can’t be found.

It worked pretty well, for a year. Then it changed--

Sometime in October occurred something strange.

The water was off for most of a week.

Not just in our building, but all up the street.

When it came back on it wasn’t very strong,

And so our story carries on.

I called in a plumber and he saw the need

for a new pump motor our water to feed.

He could put one in for a few thousand pounds,

But our doorman said “wait, let’s look around.”

So we looked and we waited and came up with a plan.

We’d get a big pump and share it with the man

who lives up above us—his water’s weak too.

He thought the pump was long overdue.

But when the plumber started the job,

He found the situation was quite miserables.

The pipe to our kitchen made a ready connection

But it was not tied to the shower in question.

So back to the drawing board they retired,

to figure out how this building was wired

and outfitted with pipes when first it was built

long years ago on a bed of river silt.

For an hour or two we heard not a sound

From the guys who were working down on the ground.

We didn’t know what in the world they would do

When suddenly he came and said “We’re through.”

They’d connected a pump to the pipe just for us,

The water is flowing so we shouldn’t fuss.

But the heater that started this story you’re reading

Is still hanging there, and it’s still not heating.

I’m writing this waiting--ever so patient--

For the plumber to come back or at least send his agent

To fix up the problem in our old water heater;

He’s one hour late, he’ll come at his leisure.

Last night, before it was time to retire

An electrician came to hook up the wire

From our bathroom down to the basement below

So we could control the pump and its flow.

The plumbers sat in our bathroom just waiting

For someone to leave or maybe go skating?

For reasons not apparent to this poet

They didn’t want the building manager to know it.

To know that they changed the piping, I guess,

So they waited and sat after making a mess

By drilling a hole in the wall for the pump switch

They waited until they started to twitch.

For a good half an hour we were just killing time

Waiting for The Man to leave or to climb

Out of our garage so they could finish

Their work before their paycheck diminished.

By eleven o'clock they had it all done.

We can now turn the pump on and off just for fun.

Maybe today the water will heat

And I’ll take a shower. That will be sweet.

I love sweet moments like this...