I don't know about where you are, my friends, but spring is literally in full bloom in the Hill Country. Quite pretty, if you can keep your allergic and dripping eyes open long enough. My first clue to the seasonal change is the inevitable allergies. Ironically, I had finally adjusted to the spring in France - full of mimosa, cherry, almond and peach blossoms, all of which made me miserable for a few weeks - the year before we left. Now we're having to re-adjust our sensitivies to include pecan, cottonwood and who knows what else - probably dried deer dung. Sjaantje has been affected the most with nightly sniffles, sneezes, coughing and headaches - bless her heart!
In spite of that, it's been a fun few weeks! To begin with, Henk went with Chris to George Kraus's art show in Houston. Sure, it was a 3 1/2 hour drive each way but it's not every day one gets a personal invitation from a famous artist for a showing! Henk was on Cloud 9 for days afterward. "Was it because the subject matter consisted of life size nude photographs?", you may ask. No. Of course not. The thrill came from being surrounded by well traveled, educated and artsy people - something which has been missing in our lives for a while. To top it off, George took Henk and about 12 other people out to a late dinner after the show. Henk feasted on marrow bones followed by stingray with a brown butter caper sauce. Two of our favorites from France. (I, meanwhile, stayed home with Sjaantje. We had fried chicken.) I'm not jealous. Nope. Not me.
Henk has been spending a lot of time in Dallas lately, working with his son to develop a new (and quite ingenious) medical test. While he was doing that (over two weeks' time), Sjaantje and I perfected our game of Uno, watched the entire Twilight movie series (not necessarily recommended) and tried to figure out how to fix broken plumbing...
One morning, after realizing that our new dishwasher hadn't actually washed the dishes, I decided to wash them by hand in the sink. ("Warsh" would be the preferred colloquialism.) As I finished, I noticed I was standing in a rather large puddle of water. Thank God I wasn't blow drying my hair.
Looking under the sink, I saw the that the downspout was completely disengaged from the horizontal arm, which meant that each time I rinsed the dishes the water just poured directly into the cabinet underneath the sink. Joy beyond belief. It would have been quite simple to fix except for the fact that the pipes are incorrectly installed in the first place. Under the sink, the downspout is only 1 centimeter long as opposed to the minimal 1 1/2 inches it should be; and that downspout must connect to a horizontal arm which then turns down and goes to the drain. After repeatedly and unsuccessfully trying to make the horizontal arm stay attached, I placed "Crime Scene" tape over the sink.
Lucky for me, Sjaantje had a friend over whose father, Roy, came to pick up said friend a few hours later. Roy is the poster boy for the Jolly Green Giant - I mean that in a good way! He's a single father who is raising a lovely 11 year old daughter and just one glance at Roy would convince you that he, of all people, would know how to fix this defunked plumbing.
About 25 seconds after looking at the plumbing, it was fixed. Astounded, I said, "How did you do that?!!" Very matter-of-factly, Roy said, "Well, clearly you gotta have you a can o' saddle soap, acting as a sort of lever, to keep that there pipe (the horizontal one) hooked to the other one." I had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. "Looky here" Roy patiently told me. So LOOKING, I noticed that the pipe had originally been supported by a can of saddle soap; without it, the pipe simply fell and aquatic chaos ensued. I thanked Roy and explained that I never thought to look and see how the pipe was actually supported. Roy responded with a wink and "Well, you gotta live here a long time to figure these things out." Roy is a good man.
Last weekend, we spent Saturday morning at Charis and Justin's (our new South African friends) to teach Justin how to make crepes. Most of you know that Henk makes fantastic crepes; and if you don't know by personal experience, my condolences. We were 45 minutes late to our rendezvous only because Henko lost his glasses. He has this silly habit of hooking them on his shirt as opposed to using the very nice, Italian leather glasses case I bought for him. So he hooked his glasses and then threw a bag of trash in the big bin. Glasses gone and somewhat camouflaged with their tortoise shell color, we spent 45 minutes looking for them. Emptying the trash bin was disgusting because we had: a) emptied the ashes from the fireplace and b) emptied the vacuum filter (think Wuzzy hair and debris). Finally we found the glasses, now squished, under the refilled trash bin. Anyway, the crepes were delicious and we learned a new way to eat them: the South African way - Brown sugar with a squeeze of lemon. Delicious and light! It was a fantastic morning.
The other day, as I picked up Sjaantje and Hannah (Dalana's daughter) from the bus stop, Hannah opened the car door and said, "Look! My tooth is so wiggly that I think I'm gonna lose it!" This was followed by, "Oh! I fink I wost my toof!" as the blood started flowing and the lips didn't quite match up. Taking the tooth from Hannah and giving her a napkin to stem the blood flow, we went to our house. A couple hours later, Dalana came to pick up Hannah and I showed her the tooth. "Wow! Normally she freaks out! The tooth fairy will definitely give Hannah a couple of dollars tonight!"
As we were sitting at the table and chatting, one of our dentally challenged friends came by and, seeing Hannah's tooth, gave Dalana a ten dollar bill. While cleverly disguised as the tooth fairy, Dalana was supposed to slip the ten bucks under Hannah's pillow that night. "No, that's too much money. It's going to mess up the system!" Then, perhaps feeling a bit emboldened, Dalana said to our anonymous friend, "I mean, how much money do YOU get every time you lose a tooth?!!!!" This was followed by silence - although I was literally biting my tongue and pinching my thigh to keep from laughing. "Just kidding. But seriously, don't you need this more than Hannah?" Dalana asked as she offered the tooth as a gift. Pinch my thighs, bite my tongue and walk away.
Tonight Sjaantje is performing in a concert at school! She is playing the recorder (erroneously called a flute in France) with her 5th grade class, plus the 4th graders. Sjaantje is not looking forward to it as she simply abhors being on a stage. On the other hand, Henk and I think this is yet another stepping stone on her conquering Selective Mutism. More power to her!
Let's all wish her luck. In any case, I'm so proud of my sweet Monkey, Sjaantje Emile. I really don't know what kind of a person I would be if I didn't have her in my life.
Cheers!
Wend
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