Paradise Lost

Hello friends!

I'll start with the bad news: For the past 4 or 5 days, I've noticed a particular cluster of hairs on the top of my head which have a frighteningly grayish tint. Due to my poor eyesight and of course hoping for some reassurance otherwise, every morning I ask Henk, 'Are these gray hairs!??' 'No', he responds, then snortles and says 'You WISH you were as cool as me.' But I promise you, they are not blonde. They're gray. And I'm already cool.

Forty-one years old, never a gray hair - only blonde in the summer - and once I leave France, I turn gray. And to add insult to injury, 15 year old Sagey is now a whopping 5' 8" tall. And blonde. I'm still struggling to push my 5' 3 1/2" body another 1/2 inch upwards in order to match my driver's license stats plus I assume I'll soon have to change the notation about my hair color. Oh, and I have to renew my license this week. Looking forward to it.

Guess what?!! We found a decent bakery! 'Phoenix Rising' is about 15 miles from us and they sort of know how to bake bread. Out of bread desperation, Henk bought a very tasty loaf - which is the equivalent of a round Fourquetain loaf - for $6.00. The baguettes were not available until the following day and their price would be $2.50. Missing the bakery in Fourques.

Sjaantje has developed a new gourmet taste: corny dogs! For you English/French/Norwegians, that's a hotdog sausage surrounded by a cornbread breading (for lack of a better term), skewered and deep fried. Coming from her background, this is what Sjaantje calls exotic food. She manages to still be considered appropriate for the children's menu at some restaurants (thanks to her mom's genes) and therefore eats corny dogs whenever we're out. Impressive to say the least: I'll have the beef carpaccio, followed by the veal chop with peppercorn sauce plus a side of lightly steamed asparagus with fleur du sel and tiny shavings of aged Parmesano; my husband would prefer the soft shell crabs with gribiche sauce coupled with the wasabi creme sauce, followed by the tenderloin of beef medallions with a side of fresh sauteed foie garnished with quince compote, raspberries and the reduced port wine sauce; and please, a bottle of your best wine; plus a coke and a corny dog. As if there was a restaurant here with that sort of menu.

Sagey arrived last Tuesday and since then, I think she's spent her spare time wondering why there is no swimming pool. I explained to her that we do have one, it's just very small and shallow. Until Sunday afternoon, neither Sjaantje nor Sage ventured into the pool because it was a bit on the primordial soup side of life. Not to worry! Saturday I cleaned it with 2 toothbrushes and 14 scrubby sponges.

Admittedly it took me the best part of 4 hours but needed to be done. Now we have a very clean, 'no diving allowed', extremely shallow cooling off watering hole. Speaking of watering hole, I took the chicas to David's mother-in-law's house last week. 'Grandma', as she is affectionately known, lives on a private creek. This creek has a 'swimming hole' which is about 9 feet deep (3 meters) and features a ginormous tree with a rope. The rope is not for hanging yourself, rather for grasping, swinging, letting go over the water and splashing down into the deep and mysterious waters of the Cypress Creek. The girls had a blast and 94 year old Grandma is their new best friend.

Henk and girls went tubing Saturday with a rather large group of people. (Obviously, I was busy doing other things.) They had a great time: floating in an inner tube at 2 mph, swimming occasionally, watching people drink Bud Light through a 5 foot long funnel and waiting two hours to finally be expunged down a single rapid. Henko was wearing a sleeveless t-shirt for some reason. Sunday morning, I noticed that he was quite sunburned with a full blown farmer's tan (arms and neck only). Henk said, 'Oh. Next time I'll just wear the sleeves and my tan will even itself out.'

I must say that I am amazed at the overwhelming understanding of the people here, especially when it comes to family. For example, when Sagey arrived and we first visited the grocery store, I explained to my new favorite cashier that Sage was my granddaughter and Sjaantje my daughter. Normally, this would be cause for speculation from the receiving party and giggling on our part. But here in Wimberley, the cashier just said, 'Yeah? I got me a grandson, he's 'bout 12. I'm only forty-two. You musta started 'fore I did.' Gray hairs?

Yesterday, being Father's Day and all, the chicas and I planned a nice day for Henk and, vicariously, for Wuzzy. We started at a dog show in San Antonio where the prospective Newfie breeder was showing some of his dogs. Wow! What gorgeous animals! We met the breeder, Bill is his name, as well as the future girlfriend of Wuzzy. The bitches (the technical term for a breeding female, I promise) are all chocolate brown, beautiful and were winning all kinds of awards. We take The Wuz next week to the breeder for a bit of an inspection. Bill told us that Wuzzy is of excellent pedigree and northern European at that - which we obviously already knew - and it would benefit his kennel to mate with Wuz. More on that later.

After the dog show, we had lunch at a Mexican restaurant on the Riverwalk - which is a rather large collection of restaurants and shops, all nestled on the river - and decided to sit outside to engage in a bit of people watching. In 15 seconds, I counted 6 extremely obese people who happened to waddle past our table. Imagine if I'd been counting for an hour! That is one malady that I simply cannot blame on being in the water because clearly these people are drinking lots of sodas instead. I don't mean to sound judgmental or anything like that; I'm simply not used to seeing so many 300-400 lb people after being in France (or Holland) for 6 plus years. It was simply quite noticeable.

We went to visit a real Moonshine factory! (Remind me to put that on our list of 'Things to do while in the Hill Country') They actually make rum - which is for some unknown reason vanilla flavored - in their barn. If I understood their process correctly, they are fermenting molasses and then adding water and vanilla beans. There's that water thing again. It was one incredible set-up, I must admit. Supposedly they're waiting for permits and the like.

Jill! Yesterday, I broke down and ordered Patak's Lime Pickle on line, from some outfit in Chicago. Then this morning, I received a call from the local grocery store who has been trying to find it, saying they bought a case for me! By tomorrow afternoon, I'll have 8 bottles. I'm so happy. The reason the grocery store could not find it easily is because it's called Lime Relish in the States and here I was insisting it was called Lime Pickle.

Good news! This morning we received an email from our infamous car shipper and supposedly our car finally shipped out today! Unfortunately and definitely a cause for worry, it was put on a boat called the 'Shanghai Highway'. Henk is concerned. The car has been sitting on the dock for what, 5 weeks? FYI, when we shipped our car from Charleston, S.C. to Europe it arrived with 122 extra miles on the odometer. I really don't think they were driving the car around on the boat, more likely someone took a small roady with our car. So knowing that, what do you think could have happened in five weeks?!?!?!! Be afraid; be very afraid.

Is Martin practicing the guitar? Ted? Just because I'm now 6000 miles away doesn't mean that I'm a neglectful teacher. One way or another I'll find out, you know.

Our love to all of you.

Wend, Henko, Sjaantje, Sage and Wuzzy