I cannot think of a clever title for this one

Hello all,

 

It's been a while since I updated my blog so it's time for some news.  October is always a busy month for us with birthdays, Henk and my anniversary, Halloween, travel and life in general.  To top it all off, I now actually have a job. (What is this world coming to?!) Just as I had Henk trained to let me cook every night, little by little he's been usurping my kingdom; taking full advantage of the fact that my time is now more limited.  What nerve!  I must punish him severely.

 

Sjaantje celebrated her 11th birthday this month and Henk and I our 10th wedding anniversary.  (Hmm.  Can you tell I didn't major in mathematics?)  Sjaantje had 8 little chicas here for a sleep-over party.  They of course played games, made soap, destroyed the inside of the guest house, painted their fingernails, created their own pizzas, roasted marshmallows over a bonfire and annihilated a pinata. The girls seemed to have had an excellent time until 2:30 in the morning when I found them (heard them, rather) outside, scantilly dressed as cave girls, cooking mud pies over the newly resurrected fire. Short of etching prehistoric animals on our walls, their cave girl impersonations were quite convincing. Wuzzy was clearly frightened of them but did help me herd them back into the guest house.

 

Henk and David went to Costa Rica for a week, supposedly on a business trip.  Since when was the word 'business' defined as "going to a foreign country, checking out the beaches, restaurants, volcanoes and doing a little shopping"?  I promise, I've looked the word up in the dictionary just to be safe and most assuredly the true definition is nothing like that.  So why is it that Henk wants to convince me that his trip to Costa Rica was a 'business' trip?  I'm open to your thoughts on this one. 

 

The 5th grade at Sjaantje's school organized a "Teacher Appreciation Luncheon" for, you guessed it, the teachers.  Not to bore you with the details of that amazing event, I'll just say that I've never seen that much pasta in my life - even when in Italy.  Spaghetti with tomato sauce, spaghetti with meat sauce, chicken spaghetti, lasagne with meat, vegetarian lasagne and pasta salad...too, too much pasta!   The only reason I mention this is to share a newly discovered lasagne recipe with you: "Boil you some lay-sag-nuh noodles.  Then you just get a can of Rotel tomatoes (canned tomatoes on the Mexican side of spicy), some Velveeta (a 2 lb. brick of American processed cheese) and slap some'uh both between the noodles.  Bake it - and you cain put some more Velveeta on the top." Yummy, yummy.

 

In addition to my new favorite recipe, I learned a technique for cutting those cloy, fake whipped creamy store bought pie things:  If the plastic knife you're using to cut the pies becomes a bit loaded with gunk, simply lick the knife before you cut the next slice.  Works like a champ!  Times like these make me realize how fortunate I was to never get a teaching certificate.

 

There is a new butcher shop in town!  Appropriately called "The Butcher Block", it's the only place besides Central Market where we can find veal.  Their prices are competitive and they have quite a wide range of meats - gotta love it, Lyle! They also smoke some meats and sausages on the premise.  But what is it with cheese and crackers here?  When we went last week to get some veal shanks for Osso Bucco, one of the workers kept shoving pieces of smoked pork tenderloin at me and telling me how great it was when served on a cracker with some cheese.  That onslaught left me so exhausted that I had no energy to quiz her on why one would want to obfuscate the flavor of the pork with a cracker and some cheez-whiz.  That's the thing about immersing yourself in another culture:  You are constantly amazed yet somewhat confused, often entertained but a bit judgemental.  A real brain exercise. Kind of like visiting a freak show in the 19th century, I would imagine.

 

Beside cheese and crackers, the other "recurring motif" in this town is the name DAVID.  First, we have David Fountain, Henk's friend and our reason for moving here in the first place.  David has a son-in-law named David plus a step-son named David who, when they visit, create a cacophony of confusion.  Then there's David, the arrowhead hunter from a previous blog. David, the husband of Henk's late sister lives nearby. The father of Sjaantje's new friend, Lauren, is David and that David's brother-in-law is yet another David.  The air conditioning repairman is David, his partner the same: D&D AC Repair. And now I find out that Dean's brother is named (take a wild guess)...DAVID!  (David Tolfrey, do you now understand why I insist on calling you 'Davey'?  So much less confusing. Plus, you're just a little fella and the name fits.)

 

This last David is the owner of the moonshine factory I mentioned in another blog.  OK, it's not actually moonshine - it's rum.  And for my new job, I simply had to go interview him, take the official tour.  When I publish the story in two or so weeks,  you'll get to learn more about this particular David.  Although I have an anti-magnetism to rum,  it was a fascinating visit and David's product is stellar, thankfully tasting more like Calvados than rum. 

 

I should mention my new job - for those readers who don't already know -  I am the Austin Culinary Travel writer for an on-line publication called Examiner.  Go to Examiner.com, the city is Austin, Texas.  Click on 'Lifestyle', then 'Travel'.  My articles are listed there, under my fantasy name: Wendelyn Tilleman. (Sounds cool, yes?)

 

As predicted, the eggs of Petunia the pet spider have hatched and the offspring have grown though Petunia is nowhere to be found.  At last count, we have 6 new inhabited cobwebs on our front patio and unfortunately one on the upstairs balcony - right at face level, which I found out the hard way yesterday.  To add to our Halloween decorations, Henk and Sjaantje carved a couple of jack-o-lanterns and with that particular combination, I'm sure we'll scare away any possible trick-or-treaters. 

 

I'm sorry to tell you that I have no Dean and snake stories for this post.  Dean is in New Mexico (or somewhere else further west) with a couple of friends, riding horses for 5 days.  He did, however, promise to return with lots of stories hopefully involving snakes.  Just before he left, he gave me and Henk this advice, just in case we ever went on a 5 day horse ride: "Take you a bunch a'them baby wipes.  Cuz being clean?  S'impossible.  Them baby wipes gives you that moisture ya need plus they keep ya clean. Since ya only got that one box there, you gotsta not waste 'em.  In the mornin', wipe your face with one - then when you go to the bushes, you use the same one again.  Just make sure you be doin' it in that order."  Cowboy wisdom. 

 

A friend of Dalana's stopped by the other day.  A very nice, small of stature, tatooed and dentally challenged yet very talented guitar player, Stephen needed a phone number which apparently I had.  Wuzzy, assuming his normal catatonic position, suddenly raised his head as Stephen walked past.  To put it mildly, Stephen then jumped back about 12 feet, completely frightened.  When he caught his breath, Stephen said, "Wooaa!  I thought that there was a bear rug!  But it's alive!" 

 

Yeah, well, that's about all of my news. 

 

Bisoux -

Wend 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thilk

Hi friends!

 

I hope these past two weeks have been as interesting for you as they have for me.  Personally, I've learned a few jokes, been instructed in matters pertaining to health as well as recreation, observed various hobbies and decorative styles and remain thrilled with the many nuances of the English language. Oh, and I have another snake story.

 

Sjaantje had a homework assignment on 'Idioms' a few days ago which, by the time she finished, was about as much fun as a rousing round of 'Holiday MadLibs'.  For me anyway.  OK, I admit it: Bless her heart, Sjaantje has a small problem understanding American sayings.  Her assignment was to fill in the blanks in sentences, using a list of given words and then explain what each phrase meant.  Her confusion in the meanings was understandable - considering that she filled in some words incorrectly in the first place.

 

His tongue is worse than his bite.  (That means he needs to brush his tongue as well as his teeth.)

The new student spoke in a foreign bark.  (He's obviously upset about something.)

Don't count your chickens before they hatch.  (Count the eggs.)

You can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. (Honey is sticky, vinegar is liquid.  The flies might drown, though.)

 

Quite frankly, Sjaantje's interpretations are completely understandable if you consider her background...In France, when an English phrase is translated into French and then that French translation is ver batum translated back into English, the result is this, for example:

 

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush - English

Un tiens vaut mieux que deux tu l'auras - French translation

A hold is better than two you will hold it - back to English, from the French words

 

Sjaantje did correct her mistakes before she turned in the assignment - episodes such as this only amuse me.  Besides, it is not important/ca ne mange pas de pain/it does not eat bread.

 

One day last week, as Dalana and I were enjoying a chitchat and a cup of coffee, a man sitting next to us said, 'Thpell thilk 3 time' thin a row.'  'Spell what?', I inquired. 'Thilk.'

 

My response was 'T-H-I-L-K, T-H-I-L-K, T-H-I-L-K', which apparently was the correct answer and unfortunately encouraged the jokester to ask another question: 'Wazzacow drink?'   Not wanting to engage in this conversation any further and hoping to baffle the jokester with my matter-of-fact-ness, I replied 'Ponds'. 

 

If there had been more teeth and less hooch in the comedian, the joke would have gone like this: Spell 'silk' three times in a row. S-I-L-K x3.  What does a cow drink? And the answer that would most likely pop into your head would be 'milk' (and 'tis true for baby cows) but the answer should have been water.

 

 

Henko is an excellent cook and when he does, he listens to the music of Norah Jones at full iPod speaker volume. Not at all a slap to Norah but Henk is fairly deaf in one ear and pretty much can't hear out of the other. (Exaggeration perhaps with the deafness, but also a main point of my story.) So, the other night as Henko was cooking, Sjaantje and I decided to go out on the upstairs balcony to look for deer.  The balcony door slammed shut, followed by this fateful clicking noise.  After glancing at each other momentarily, we both grabbed the door handle in an attempt to go back inside.  Nope.  Stuck outside, in the cold, about to rain, wearing our pajamas on the second floor balcony. Having the extremely long legs that I have been blessed with (no), I slithered my appendages through the balcony railing and attempted a minuscule toe tap on the dining room glass. Go figure, Henk didn't hear it.  We could see him chopping, sauteing and sort of dancing in his own primitive way with the music.  No chance he's going to look over to us.  What other options do we have but to start yelling? Needless to say, that was a futile attempt. But we did manage to scare off the deer.  Nearly an hour later after the dinner was served and shocker, no one was at the table, Henk finally ventured upstairs to find us.  

 

And now for a health tip which may be news for you:  If you suffer from arthritis, the best way to cure the pain is to catch a bee in your hand.  Then, cupping the bee in your palm, simply place your hand (and therefore the bee) on the pained joint.  Once the bee stings you, the arthritic pain simply goes away.  Who would've thought?

 

While briefly using one finger to apply gentle upward pressure to the tip of his nose, Dean shared yet another snake story with us a few days ago...

 

'You know when Scott and me was out there clearing some brush at the cabana, Scott found him a puff adder snake.  S'also called a hog-nose, like this (demonstration).  Anyways, Scott knows them are harmless snakes and this poor snakey fella was downright scared of us!  So waz Scott do?  He decides to give the snake a bath - he didn't use no soap or nothin', just his hands, a sponge and the water from the crick.  Then he was just petting that there snake, rubbin' it's belly and cuddlin' it like a newborn kitty.  Next thing ya know, that there snakey fella just died - of FRIGHT! (pause, as in a moment's reflection) So I's told him, "You don't need to be doing that to the snakes!  You done killed him!" Reckon he won't be bathing no more snakes when I'm around.'

 

God bless our friend Dean.  You really must meet him. 

 

Let's see, what else....

 

Last week, Sjaantje asked Henk, 'Dad, what exactly is margarine?'  Henk obviously replied, 'Fake butter.' Bewilderedly, Sjaantje replied with 'What the heck is fake butter?' She did not like the answer. 

 

Do you know that some people here refer to a Pinot Grigio as 'Peanut Gringo'?

 

We met a man who picks up roadkill and takes them to the taxidermist.  He then decorates his house with the masterpieces.

 

I guess that's all my news. Hope all of you are doing fantastic! 

Missing our European friends and family and enjoying our Texas ones -

Big kiss,

Wend