Pretty Sure I'll End Up Dehydrated

I have a thing for drinking. It's one of life's essentials. Not many people could just give up drinking and make a go of it for very long.

The problem is, I don't just enjoy drinking, I'm also rather picky about it. When I moved in the 8th grade I gave up water all together. The sulfury nastiness that passed for water in our new home just couldn't compare to the sweet well water that I grew up on. So for all of high school I didn't drink water. Period.

Unfortunately, that only meant that my thirst was generally quenched by something sugary. And, thus, I developed a craving for sweet liquids to carry me through the days. In college, I fed my need with Gatorade Frost, and cheap Shasta Kiwi Strawberry soda. In Hong Kong, I became increasingly fixated on the plethora of fabulous Fanta flavors that the wider world affords. In recent years, I've settled more on things that also include caffeine. Dr. Pepper, Cola, or sweet coffee drinks cry out to me from every direction.

In the Czech Republic, beer is cheaper than water. They consider it bread. Something essential as both food and drink. When you're sick, the instant prescription is to consume copious amounts of hot tea. I didn't get into either of those, and actually managed to drink a lot of water while I was teaching. We had a big bottle, regularly changed, out in the hall, and that worked for me. I even managed to convince myself, on occasion, to leave my sugary sweetness addiction for meals out, rather than stocking up on it daily. (Although, I must confess to a Pavlovian urge to salivate every time I hear a can of soda cracked open. Makes me weak in the knees I tell you.)

The hear and now has further complicated my need to consume liquids. I'm in my store all day, with no chance to go anywhere, so I have to haul in whatever I'm going to drink. We have no fridge to keep things cold. I bought a big gallon of water once, but it's awkward to pour cups all day. Instead, I've fallen into the trap of getting a soda on my way to work. Here's the real bad part, the cheapest drink I can buy is a 44 oz refill for 79 cents at Circle K. It's a real budgetary blessing, but do I really need to consume 44 oz of soda on a daily basis? Um, not if I'd like to continue having a semi decent waist line. But it's so cheap, and so tasty, and diet soda is nasty, no two ways about it. I sometimes blend a sugar/diet caffeine loaded cup, but it's just not as good, so on tired days, I let myself indulge.

The heart of this post, however, is in today. Today, I decided to be good. A customer gave me a tea bag months ago, and I decided to put it to use. It was my only beverage for the day. I boiled the water, I poured the cup and warmed my hands. I enjoyed the beauty of my Sally Nightmare Before Christmas mug, and even persuaded myself that the tea smelled good. But then I had to drink it. Alas, even the perfect cup could not make it tasty, and the fact that it was caffeine free only added to the failure.

All that to say, it's 6. Time to close up shop and head home for the day. And I'm thirsty!

Caught Without a Camera

Today witnessed a tragic moment in time. The Transient Drifter was caught without a camera. It's a travesty really. And also quite unsual. I remember one afternoon I went to lunch with some friends in Hong Kong. These friends were not tourists. They were normal Hong Kong residents, as was I at the time. Between the four of us we had at least 5 cameras. Now mind you, this was before people had cameras on their phones. I'm pretty sure they were mostly digital cameras, but still, that's a pretty high average. Today, however, I was left in the lurch. My smart phone is in the US. My iPad was sitting on the charger at home (and I don't generally haul it all over the place because it's a bit too big/nice for that on normal days) and my digital camera? Well, it was in the pocket of another jacket where I had put it when I was trying to get some pictures of a snowy pathway yesterday. Needless to say, I was more than miffed when I went confidently to pull it out of my bag. I ALWAYS have a camera. It's just something I do. It's not like I'm any sort of extreme professional photographer (although I've always dreamed of taking a photography class) but I just love taking pictures and like to be ready when the moment might come. So now that I've shamefacedly confessed to missing the moment, I'll do my best to describe what I should have photographed. The thing is, I know people like blogs to be something they can read quickly at a glance, and don't want to be muddled down with too many words, and since we all know pictures are worth 1,000 they help to keep my average down. This time, however, you're just gonna have to deal with the written variety. One of Mark's best friends works in a restaurant here in Marianske Lazne. We have visited him there several times, including on Christmas Eve, and have had coffee, but never tried the food. Today, however, Aleš treated us to a fantastic meal. He served us lasagna, cut into lovely little circles and topped with a fresh sauce made from pureed garlic, tomato sauce, onions, roasted red peppers, and fresh spices, along with halved cherry tomatoes. The cheese was melted to a nice crust on top, and the italian sausage added a nice flavorful touch to the whole dish. It was lovely and he was all ready to pose right there in the kitchen with it. But, alas and alack, I missed the chance. We ate out in the little glass pavillion overlooking the snowy yard and pond. As Mark pointed out, it felt like we were at some sort of ski resort. Very picturesque, complete with a curious cat that we watched sniffing around and flicking her ears back and forth in the wind. After positively stuffing ourselves with the lasagna, we came inside and were served a "mini cheesecake." There was a delicate buttery graham-crackery crust cup, filled with that luxuriously creamy Czech berry yogurt I talked about before, and drizzled with a raspberry sauce. While there didn't seem to be any of what I would call a traditional cheese cake filling, it still tasted like it was there. Bizarre, I know, but so it was. Just think of all those pretty photo opportunities missed. The plating would have done Robert Irvine or Zdenek Pohlreich proud. (sigh) My apologies to both the readers of this blog as well as to the chef for having no visiual proof except for the fact that I am so full I can hardly move.

Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah, Food

I missed my cooking lesson today. Oops. I got the run down of the ingredients, so at least I typed it up, but I wasn't there to see how the mixing looks or any of that good stuff. The cake is only half done, however, so tomorrow I get to help with the gelatine and fruit part. Should be interesting. Being a cross cultrual international person is just something that sort of happened to me. I always wanted to travel, but I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be blessed to do so much of it. Especially not with the sort of budget I have. While I firmly believe that people should expose themselves to different cultures whenever possible, I realize my lifestyle is not avialable to most people for one reason or another. Their time is taken up in other ways. That's just the way it is. So I'm not going to say that everyone should travel, because I know that isn't possible. And I won't say that people who travel are better, because that isn't true either. But I know that the traveling I have been blessed to do has changed me in many ways. And one of those ways revolves around food. Today I'm going to talk about something pretty simple. Baguettes and yogurt. These are the sort of things you can get pretty much anywhere in the world. But everywhere you go they're different. I've never been to France, except passing through on a bus ride to London, so I can't speak to the beauty of a true French baguette, but I've had some pretty good ones in my day. I can still remember a time my first summer in Hong Kong, when I went for a little trip to Stanley Market all on my own. I was twenty years old, and so fascinated by being some place so totally foreign and fascinating and beautiful. In my youthful mind I wanted to do something that could be equated to really feeling like a traveler. So I found a little cafe and bought a baguette, then got a bag of the most enormous red grapes you can imagine. I took them to a big concrete barrier near the water, and I climbed on top and sat there watching the waves and the sky and feeling like I was having a very existential sort of moment. I don't remember how the baguette tasted, but I do remember there were huge seeds in the grapes, and that I had a horrible time finding a place to wash them before I ate them. What I really remember is just the feeling of being alive and oh so very present in the moment. I grew up on your basic white wonder style bread. The reason for that was because I refused to try anything more interesting. I loved my mom's homemade bread too, but even there I went for white and fluffy and avoided the crust. It wasn't until my summer in Italy when I was seventeen, that I discovered the beauty of a nice crusty loaf. The bread there was so tough that it took some work to chew, but somehow that made you value the experience all the more. I have now discovered that, in my opinion, a really good baguette should have an almost buttery flavor. The crust should be flaky and crisp but not too tough. Today I ate such a baguette. It was part of my breakfast, and it made a bit of a mess as it flaked away, but it was oh so good. With that baguette, I also had yogurt. Here is where American sensibilities get things wrong. In America, it's all about health. Or someone's idea of what health should look like. Low fat, sugar free, artificial but somehow natural. I've had some good yogurt stateside, but it's nothing like the stuff you can find here. The Czechs, it seems, are not afraid of fat. They aren't afraid to use a nice thick cream, and boy can you tell the difference. The yogurt here is thick and creamy and just all kinds of amazing. So my day started off with a nice crusty baguette and a smooth creamy strawberry yogurt. I'm not really sure where I'm going with all this. I think it's largely due to the fact that I finally finished reading "Julie and Julia" as well as the fact that I've been watching two cooking challenge shows every day all this week. I'm pretty sure I'm not going to turn into one of those people who lives to eat, but it sure is fascinating to watch the people who love to cook get all excited about it. I'm just hoping that one day being faced with the task of preparing a meal for more than myself (since I'm quite happy with another baguette topped with meat and cheese and a nice creamy spread as a meal thank you very much!) won't fill my entire body with dread. Here's to hope says I.

I'm Not a Dancer

No matter how you look at it, I'm just not. I'm not graceful. I can't make my body sway, unless holding a tiny baby, in which case I naturally rock back and forth to that mysterious music that is an infant.
The point of all this, baffling as I'm sure it no doubt is, is that I have a new Denise Austin workout video. I've been a fan for quite a while. It all started in a tiny apartment in Albany, OR. It was a cheap place to live, complete with "special" neighbors, and a gang of children who oddly decided "tu casa is mi casa" or something to that effect. (No Spanish is not a language I have any sort of fluency in.) Seriously, these kids would just walk into our house and ask for candy. Had to start locking the doors and pretending not to be home in order to get any peace.
This is all beside the point. I could do a long post on all the weird that went down at that flat, actually it's part of a book I started writing way back then which continues to sit incomplete on my computer along side quite a few other beauties. One of these days... But I really will focus. The point is, Jessie got me hooked on Denise. There is something about this woman who is now in her fifties and still looks and moves like she's 25 fhat is positively infectious. She has some of the best catch phrases EVER!
"If you don't squeeze it, no one else will."
"Burn that butter."
"Shuffle, Shuffle, Shuffle, Squat."
"You'll look GREAT in a bathing suit."
Just a few faves there. She does it all with a smile. Workouts that make my whole body burn, and the air come in little painful bursts from my body, and she smiles and chats just like you're sitting in a cafe drinking coffee. It's the sort of thing that would generally make me want to slap a person, but you just gotta love Denise.
Beyond all these things, she manages to make every move she makes look like she's dancing. I don't care if it's kick boxing, or basic stretches, the woman has moves! Sadly, I just don't. I'm sure that if anyone actually were to watch me through the lace curtains on the fourth floor (which I swear is literally - and thankfully - impossible) they couldn't help but laugh.
Right now I'm still just trying to get a basic handle on the new routiens. I'm sure that in a few weeks, if I manage to keep it up, I'll at least look slightly less like a bumbling idiot. I'll figure out where she's going next, and hopefully my body will respond in a positive way to the exercise in order to counteract all the heavy greasy food we eat around here. I don't care what people say about American cuisine (or lack thereof) the Czech's definitely know how to lay it all on thick. From creamy sauces and hearty dumplings, to fried cheese and krokety, my only hope is that Denise will keep my rear in gear, even if she can't make me svelt and graceful.
Just a little heads up here at the end, we're heading to Germany this afternoon for the weekend. Time to wrap my mind back around language number three. I did manage to send birthday greetings on the phone to our niece Jenny who just turned 11. Quite a feat actually. At least in person you can rely on body language, but talking on the phone has to be one of the most challenging skills to master.
So, language overload, here we come. Should be good fun. :)

Food and Crafts

Let me start out by saying I am NOT a food blogger. Shouldn't come as a surprise to most people. Generally speaking, food has never been my strong point. On a wedding gift card my friend Ben pointed out that I'd made the comment: "Food is Fuel." He thought I should change my outlook and see it as something exciting, invigorating, life giving. A little tough to stomach.
But since getting married, or even since Mark and I started our relationship, I've learned that food is important. Part of creating a family requires feeding them, after all. And more and more I've found myself blogging about food. Not just pretty little dishes that I threw together to feed me, or different things that I ate in restaurants, but actual food that I cooked by myself. Not to mention the fact that I've become a little obsessed with shows on the Food Network, and reading Rachel Ray magazine. But despite all I've read and watched and tried to let infiltrate my being, cooking still sorta freaks me out.
Sure, when it comes right down to it, I can make something to eat. My parents have been gone for the past week and Mark and I have neither starved, nor eaten at McDonalds. That's quite a feat considering that our first month or so of marriage we were staying in McMinnville and I bought BigMacs for Mark almost every day. But that's the sort of spending trend that was destined to end. This week he's been served a variety of egg burrito renditions involving pepperoni, not to mention countless pepperoni, butter and cheese sandwiches, and some egg salad for good measure. Still, I'm a long way from being any sort of culinary anything.
Today, Mark said he wanted something chocolate. We were out of anything specific, and so I decided to make chocolate chip cookies. Only problem: no chocolate chips in the pantry. But did I let this stop me? Normally the answer would be yes, but today I decided to do something brave, something bold. I used the internet. Wahoo! I knew we had nutella so I did a search for nutella cookies, and was blessed to find one that only required 3 ingredients. How cool is that? And how could even I possibly go wrong?
So within half an hour of so I was able to serve Mark a platter of cookies.

They're a bit on the crumbly side, and probably wouldn't suffer from having a few more ingredients, but they were even relatively moist.
To make things even more shocking, I decided to create my own variation. I added about a tablespoon of peanut butter to the mixture that was left after baking the first pan full and came up with these little buddies.

In my opinionation (little salute to "Blossom" there ;) you just can't go wrong with nutella and peanut butter. And basically I'd say I was right. While they basically fall apart as soon as you pick them up, they taste pretty fantastic, and went excellently with my Hills Bros. Mocha.
I'm pretty all over the place with the links today, but they add a little something, and I like to give credit where credit is due. As I said, I'm not any sort of expert who will tell you about the brilliant and complex combination of flavors, or the expert plating designs of a dish. It's just a mishap or a magical moment here and there in my own haphazard experiences in the kitchen.
Now on to topic number two. After all, this is my blog, my place to say what I feel like saying, and I can be as mishmashed and all over the place as I'd like. So I'm going to share a recent inspiration/project idea. I've decided, thanks to years of personal experience, to create journals. In Prague I found what might be called, found journals, on display for 300kc+. In American markets I discovered re-purposed book journals for $15+. I've also found different sites online where you can buy handmade journals like one of my current blog faves Gadanke. All of these visions have helped to inspire me with the idea that this is something I could do as well.
Over the past few weeks I've been to a lot of garage sales collecting components for this fun new project. I still have a way to go in figuring out how to really do the book re-purposing, partly because it's hard to bring myself to cut up the lovely old books, and partly because it's hard to figure out how to get the pages securely inside. But I'm working on it, and am slowly gathering ideas on that front.
The past couple of days, however, I have done a lot of work on one journal in particular. Here's a little sneak peak into what I've come up with. It would be my niece Adelia's dream journal for sure:






Beyond what I've already inserted, I want to add bits of my own poetry to some of the pages. I thought about doing famous quotes and maybe Bible verses, but I don't want to risk any sort of copyright infringement, so for now I think I'll steer clear of things like that. With my collection of photos from around the world, I'm certain that I can create unique journals and pieces of art, that hopefully other people will enjoy as well. It's a thought at least. And if no one buys them, then I'll always have the chance to fill them myself...Perhaps at some point I'll even add creative covers using my powers of crochet, or include original artwork by Haley. Always best to incorporate family, right?
The writing dream is not dead. It still resides here in my head. But life proceeds. I just have to do my best to keep up and not go crazy in the process.

HK in PDX

Well, I've managed to get in a few minutes of time all alone. Mark is watching Czech TV, my parents are napping, and Julie took the kids to the pool. Seeing as how I'm allergic to chlorine, I only like to go swimming if it's REALLY hot or I'm in the mood. By the time they got out it was so late that paying just didn't seem worth it. It's about 80 degrees (hallelujah at last!) but according to my phone (which supposedly knows all since it's smart) it's going to be in the 90's next week, and I'd rather save my swimming time for days when I really need to beat the heat.
Last weekend I had the amazing chance to catch up with some of my old HK friends. There have been a few transplants to the Portland area, and our friend Ann, who I met up with in Prague shortly before heading stateside, was here on a business kind of trip, so I decided I couldn't miss out on the opportunity to see everyone. Nothing like a nice long road trip to help me mellow out and process life. I was pretty ready to arrive after 7 1/2 hours of driving, but for the most part, I just enjoyed having the time to watch the world fly by and to think about this period in my life, at least when I wasn't singing at the top of my lungs. It's so different traveling alone than it is when you have a passenger. Don't get me wrong, I totally love having the company, and would have been happy to take Mark with me, but he had work he needed to do in a nice quiet house, and so it was just me and the road this time around.
I actually stayed at Jessie's house, which was also lovely. Nice to catch up and see how much her little beauty is growing. Hard to believe she's two and a half already. They grow up so fast. I was also there on Sunday and got to celebrate Father's Day with their family. I didn't feel like I was letting my dad down too much since I'd been up to visit him just the weekend before. It was just nice to have a sort of family time on the day.
Anyhow, on Saturday I got to go and see some other transplants. It was so great to have a chance to be around other people dealing with crossing cultures. One of my friends is currently feeling a little stranded as his wife was detained in Canada and not allowed to continue back to where they're living in Portland. She's Canadian, and they're making them jump through all sorts of hoops in order for her to return to the US. Not fun. In the meantime, it's their two year old who has to deal with all the complications. So frustrating, but he's super cute and it was great to meet little Ethan who was born after I was back in the US.
It's always so surreal to run into people in different countries, out of context with how you originally knew them. I've now spent time with Ann on three continents. How crazy is that? Next time I'm probably going to have to visit her in Australia.
In the afternoon we spent some time looking around Saturday Market. There were various and sundry people wandering around down there. Lots of costumes, including people with tails or furry ears or even wings. Hmmm... But in the midst of the crazies we did find an amazing little Vietnamese restaurant that served some of the best bubble tea I've ever had. While most places provide flavoring in the form of a sugary artificially flavored syrup, this place clearly used real fruit. While it might have only been canned fruit, it was still positively delicious. Yeah for Bubble Tea!


We really made quite a day of it, just wandering around and exploring different things in Portland. We hung out at a mall for a while, and then went to a Mexican Restaurant for dinner. Sadly, my Love is not the biggest fan of Mexican food ever, so I was glad he didn't have to feel miserable as I enjoyed both the flavor, and the messy, gooey, drippy juice that ran down my hands. Okay, so maybe I don't really enjoy being a soggy mess, but you just can't eat tacos with a fork. Totally doesn't work.
Next stop on our list: Voodoo Doughnuts. Apparently this place is legendary. In truth, I'd never even heard of it. But they'd been talking about it all day, so I definitely wanted to give it a try.
The place really is pretty cool. There was a line that twisted through the store and was backed up out the door, despite the fact that it was after 11 PM. It's an all night store, and apparently is always crowded. Going slowly through the line gave us plenty of time to contemplate the bizarre doughnuts and the fascinating decorations.



If you want a large order for a party you can get them delivered in a coffin box. Seriously, how cool is that?

According to the signs on the wall, they even do weddings. Too bad I didn't know that a few months sooner.
After finally making it through the serpentine, we sat on this coffin bench

and enjoyed our Voodoo Dozen.

Thirteen doughnuts that were chosen for us. No worries, we didn't just sit there and eat all thirteen. We just split a few for sampling purposes before heading back to Brooke and Ephraim's place. It was a bit late and they convinced me to stay the night rather than risking an exhausted drive back to Salem.
Everything worked out for the best, and I just had a glorious weekend. Probably can't afford any travels like that again for a bit, but it was great to see old friends and just get out and move around a bit. Now time to enjoy more fun with the nieces.

Smazeny Kureci Rizek, Bramborovy Salat, a Tatarska Omacka

I think I was a pretty smart kid. I had this idea that I wanted to be a Grandma when I grew up. There are some pretty cool things about being a grandma. There are all those joys of having kids filling up your house with joy, but you don't have to be the one responsible for late night baby feedings, dealing with the stomach flu, or the pesky task of discipline. Instead you get to snuggle sweet kids who are delighted by your presence, dole out the sweets, and buy adorable toys and kid clothes at your pleasure. A pretty sweet gig.
You also get to be known for specialties. There is no need for a long repertoire of meals to prepare, just a couple of basics for holidays (when you have other people around to help pull it off) and some classics like mini pancakes with berry syrup, sugar cookies, and lefse. You manage those things and you're totally covered as far as the kids go. And chances are that if you have a husband he'll be old enough to know better than to expect anything more than jelly toast for breakfast and regular meals out. After all, you're a grandma and you deserve to be treated after all those years of slaving away to take care of your family.
That's where the clincher comes in and ruins the whole perfect scenario. The thing is, you can't just skip to being a grandma. There's a whole lot of other stuff that has to come first in order to acquire that title. That's what I'm learning about now.
By Jr. High I'd come to the conclusion that I wanted the whole getting married and having a family deal to be a part of my future as well. There have always been novelist dreams, even fantastic fantasies involving the silver screen and recording labels. Most of those have chilled, although I've got a couple of books in the works that I'm trying to mull through and figure out how to get them into the hands of the masses. It took a long time to get to the marriage point, but today I've made it three months into wifehood, and I can see that I still have a LONG way to go.
Yesterday, I decided that I wanted to make a grand gesture. The type that hopefully makes up for some of the general mundane existence life so easily falls into. Anyone who knows much about me, or has even read a wee bit of my blog, realizes that cooking is NOT my strong point. Not even close. I can muddle my way through, and given guidance even pull things off for the most part, but it's not with out a lot of failure and a good deal of squeamishness.
My husband is from the Czech Republic, for anyone not aware, and he has been challenged by his foray into American cuisine. He grew up in a small town riddled with four and five star hotels, and even studied things about the restaurant business in school, so to say he has "ideas" is an understatement. I've been well aware since his arrival here, that he has been hugely missing the food of his homeland. We went out a lot when we were back in Czech, and there were certain dishes that he positively adored. His birthday is coming up next week, and it's my dream to recreate one of these dishes for that occasion. In preparation for this task, I decided to start making some attempts at other Czech food.
So, after finding some lovely resources online, including a blog that I think will become my new go-to for all things helpful and Czech, I was able to plan a menu for the evening. Just a brief plug for this blog, it's written by a woman who moved to the US from Czech several years ago and wanted to provide an updated sight for other Czechs and Slovaks who find themselves in the US. I already think she's wonderful, even after visiting her sight a few times. Anyhow, I decided on the above title. For those not familiar with Czech menus, that's a fried chicken steak, potato salad and tartar sauce. Granted, none of these things are like their traditional American counterparts, so I couldn't just cheat and substitute, but had to really work with the recipes.
I started working on it around 5, thinking that it shouldn't take terribly long to throw it all together. First, I started boiling the potatoes. It was a good thing I thought of that first since the internet informed me it could take 40 to 60 minutes for them to be ready, then they would need to cool to make the salad. Did I mention I'm a cooking novice? Anyhow, I at least trusted my boiling egg and potato skills enough not to stare at the pots for the duration, and I mixed up the tatarska. It was a bit sour, but with a few suggestions from my Love, I was able to add some sugar and help it to be okay. Except when making spaghetti sauce, improvising is definitely NOT my strong suit.
Once I had a bunch of ingredients chopped up and ready, I decided to tackle the chicken. I remembered watching the cooking show and seeing Agata Hanychova, a famous Czech supermodel, making the same dish. (I wanted to supply a link, but had trouble finding any with only appropriate pictures...) I decided that if she could get her hands all covered in raw chicken then I should be able to as well. So I forced myself to just go with it. To make this dish the meat has to be pounded, but I couldn't find a meat pounder. Julie didn't have one, and when I called Mom she said she didn't actually have one either. So, with Mom's advice, I improvised. I put the meat between two plastic cutting boards and beat it with a big pan. It was, well, I guess effective. It took quite a while and I never got the meat as thin as I should have, but at least it sort of worked.
In the end, I managed to get the meat all nicely breaded and fried, gently peeled and cut the potatoes and mixed them gently into a salad, and served it up with tatarska on the side. I won't say that it looked or tasted quite like the Czech originals, but it worked. And when I brought it down it was accepted as pleasing and he even told me it tasted really good. I think the fact that it took me three hours also showed him what an act of love it really was.
So at 8 we ate, and by ten I was nearly falling asleep in front of the TV. I can't say that this inspired me to dedicate all day every day to the art of cooking, but at least I managed. I did take some pictures, but they didn't turn out super good, and I haven't put them on my computer yet, but I'll have to have a photo post one of these days. My blog has gotten awfully wordy, and that only works for so long, so I promise to make it more colorful soon.

CupCakeFlop...

I know there are a lot of people out there who have trouble believing that being a housewife, homemaker, stay at home Mom, or what have you can be a real job. I remember once when I was doing a lesson on job values with a class they were supposed to evaluate each job based on a number of different criteria. They were based on things from level of importance, salary, difficulty, etc. One of the jobs included on the list was "housewife." I was curious to see where my Czech students would rate this career choice on their priority lists. In a country where they pride themselves on their work ethic and allow three years of maternity leave followed by instant enrollment into "kindergarten" I had the feeling that most of them wouldn't be able to see the importance of staying at home to raise your own children. The funny thing was that they went a step further than I had even expected, basically assuming that this was a made up job title. They had no concept of what a housewife could possibly be.
I know that in our world of enlightenment and liberation, there are a lot of women who find the belief that they would even want to stay home insulting. They have fought so long and hard for the right to be out there making a living so they can afford to pay for the highest quality childcare. I'm not at all saying that women shouldn't be allowed to work or anything like that. If that's your drive and your dream, go for it. All I know is that, if I ever have kids, I want to be able to stay at home with them. Not just because I want to be the one who raises my children, but because, even without children, this taking care of the house business is excessively time consuming.
I've taken care of myself for a goodly long time now. I'm pretty low maintenance. I like my place to be clean. I like to eat mostly healthy food. These things aren't that hard to manage for a person alone. But you add just one more person into the equation and suddenly it seems to take every waking moment just to manage things. And I still don't even have a "job."
On Sunday I decided I wanted to add one more thing into the mix and make cupcakes. Basically that meant I didn't cook any other meals in the day so I was able to do this project. Honestly, I have no concept of how people end up with multiple meals on the table every day without literally spending all their time in the kitchen. Rachel Ray might claim there's something called a "30-Minute Meal" but I'm quite convinced that belong prepackaged salad or PB and J sandwiches, if you're trying to feed more than yourself it takes an excessive amount of time!
Anyhow, I did find the recipe for these little goodies in the Rachel Ray magazine and they didn't look too terribly difficult so I thought I'd give them a go. There were two parts to this recipe. One was a batter that could be used for multiple dishes and the other was the recipe that the batter was to be added to. It looked simple enough.
The recipe was supposed to make 6 cupcakes which I thought was rather silly because who only makes 6 cupcakes? Besides, I've watched enough Cup Cake Wars to feel like they can't be all that hard. Right? So I was going to double the recipe. The only thing was, I just needed to double part two, not the batter part. But naturally I doubled the batter bit and then realized how stupid I'd been.
However, since this batter had multiple applications I thought, if nothing else, I could make myself pancakes instead of just eating a mini bowl of yogurt at some point during the week. Only problem was, when I went to add my cupcake ingredients I dumped them in the batter. That might not sound like such a big deal, but with the doubled cupcake ingredients I only needed two cups of the batter, and I dumped them right into 5 cups. Not being accomplished in baking rescue missions, I was in a bit of a quandary. I didn't have enough ingredients to quadruple the cupcake bit, so I just threw in some extra flour so it wouldn't be a soupy mess, and decided to throw it in the oven anyway. The result? Big fluffy Muffcakes I think would be the best description. They're pretty eggy, and definitely not cakey enough to fall into the cupcake category. It was an interesting experiment to say the least, and once again shows that just being enough to read isn't enough to save you when you lose the ability to concentrate and reason and all of that good stuff. They still tasted okay, but calling them weird would be a bit of an understatement.
So the battle over capturing life and making it my own continues. I still feel like I haven't a clue how to manage it all. But I'm trying. I honestly am.
Tonight's plan is to make fajitas. Let's just say the ball is mostly in Julie's court but I'll do what I can to assist.

A few notes on revision

Well, I've pulled through. I've managed to get all the way through Daughters of the Pond and to make some much needed changes. I can't believe the number of times "once again" or "for a moment" or just the words slowly, gently, etc. were repeated. Maybe it's because I just wrote it in small segments and didn't remember the exact phrases I had already used about a bazillion times. Or maybe I just couldn't think of any better way to say it. There is something to be said for doing book revision more than a decade after the first draft. While I'm still attached to the story, I was much better able to be harsh with 17-19 year old me in order to straighten some things out.
I just have to add how much it always drove me crazy when the books I used to teach English in the Czech Republic would use the word "revise" in place of "review." Okay, I can accept the fact that this is the word used in British English, but it was one of those differences that always wore on my nerves. Sorta like "have got." It always worked it's way up under my skin and gave me the shivers.
As a little report on the progress of life, I've managed to make it on the early morning school walk three days in a row now. The kids don't have school the next couple of days, so we'll see what I manage to do for the rest of the week, but I was pretty proud of me for that. Today was all about worm carnage. It was rainy and gicky and the worms had fled to the sidewalk. Little thin ones, enormous fat ones, all strewn willy-nilly. There were so many that it was hard not to step on them if you lost your concentration for a moment.
I was holding Rowan's hand and he was intent on finding the biggest and fattest one. He picked it up excitedly, telling me how it kept trying to wiggle and squiggle out of his hand. He had big plans for this worm. He was going to take it to the bridge we have to cross and throw it into the swollen creek so it could have a "wild death." I wasn't too sure this was the best idea he ever had, but I wasn't exactly going to pull the worm out of his hand either.
The worm, it seemed, had other ideas. After maybe five minutes he opened his little fist to check on it and noted that he had been slimed. There was white goo all over his hand. His first reaction was to fling the worm into a little puddle by the sidewalk, but his mom stopped him and he hung it in a bush instead. Not sure how better that was, but Julie seemed to think it would be able to find it's way down better than it could have swum out of the raging creek. Oh the joy of kids.
After two days of making dinner in a row, there are enough leftovers tonight for that to suffice, and I'm definitely glad for that. It gave me more time to really focus on getting this book all finished up. Now I get to start the ever so thrilling task of trying to find a publisher. I remember the futile experience I went through back when I was a Junior in High School, and must confess I don't look forward to this very much, but you just never know. Maybe good old DOP will make it to the best seller list ;) Never fear, I'm still on the search for a day job...
One final note, last night Mark and I watched "Demolition Man." If you've never seen it, it's a futuristic crime/action flick from 1996 with Sylvester Stalone and Wesley Snipes. My main reason for bringing this up is because there is a huge thing about Taco Bell in it. Mark had seen this movie many times when he was younger, and since Taco Bell isn't the international superstar that McDonalds is, he had no knowledge of it except as portrayed in this movie. If you're in the need of a good laugh, just imagine Taco Bell as your image of American fine dining. Ha! But I love it all the same!

A Small Accomplishment

It's kind of funny how much Mark and I have enjoyed cooking shows. On both sides of the world, we've found shows about culinary greats and wannabes that have highly entertained us. In Czech there was the celebrity cooking show as well as a couple shows with chef Zdeněk Pohlreich who helps restaurants improve the quality of their kitchens or challenges chefs to be the best they can be. Over here we actually have the Food Network. Can I just say there are a ridiculous number of highly entertaining cooking reality shows. From "Cupcake Wars" to "Chopped" they've got all kinds of kitchen drama.
I even occasionally look at my friend's food websites. Whether it is Crystal with her beautiful food photos and recipes, or Robin constantly wowing me with how many projects she manages to do while still producing a blog explaining how to get it all done, I'm more than impressed by what so many women manage to do.
While it may be true that in Hong Kong I often had to cook for as many as 15 people, what I produced was far from something spectacular. Basically, it was something to get them through evening shift without starving. Not that it was inedible, but it certainly wasn't anything exciting either. Basics. Pure and simple. Things quickly chopped up and served cold or thrown together at minimal risk and tossed in the oven for a while. Those are the sort of things that work for me. I was always thankful when there were enough people around that I only had to cook twice a month. Those days when I had to write up the schedule and sometimes put my name down more than twice in one week made me want to cringe.
Needless to say, cooking isn't my passion. I recently was reminded in a wedding card that I once said "For me, food is fuel." And that's the truth. It's something that my body has to have in order to keep going. Not that there aren't plenty of tasty dishes out there. Those Food Network shows even manage to make me salivate every now and again. But the thought of going out of my way every day to put something fantastic on the table is a huge stretch for my imagination. One one side food is fuel, and on the other side cooking is stress.
But these days I find myself a wife. That has to mean something, right? For a while in Czech I got all excited about wanting to cook for Mark, but life there was complicated and it just didn't end up happening very much, so that flame sorta died. My kitchen wows in Cheb focused on the likes of fruit salad and hot open faced sandwiches. So it's a bit of a struggle for me to suddenly need to feed more than just myself.
Now we come to the main point of this post. Beyond the fact that cooking doesn't give me any sort of thrill, I'm excessively paranoid about touching raw meat. It's just gross. Slimy, unsanitary, ugh. But yesterday...yesterday I cut chunks of fat off raw meat. I held it in my hands, I got goo everywhere. Then I put it in a crock pot under the direction of my sister Julie, and I produced an honest to goodness dinner. It's not likely that anyone will give me the honorary title of chef any time in the near future, and I'd likely even fail at "Worst Cooks in America" but it's a step in the right direction...right? And if nothing else, I've gotten really good at making the Czech version of Turkish coffee. If only Starbucks would get back to me on that job ap...

Fashion: A Luxurious Lifestyle

And now, without any further ado, I welcome you to Stockholm, Sweden.


It's a place of high priced residential areas

Luxury Liners (This one is now actually a hostel)

And fashionable shopping districts. (To be pictured in a later post.)
Since we've stuck around in Europe longer than expected, Mark and I were invited by my lovely friend Malin to come and enjoy a few days in the Nation's Capital. It was quite a change of pace from the last time I visited her at Christmas in '07 when we spent out time in the far north where the houses were few and far between and darkness fell around 2 o'clock in the afternoon. This time we were in a bustling city full of life and activity.
Shortly after our arrival we were whisked off to a dinner at a trendy restaurant (Vapianos) where we feasted on pizza and enjoyed the fashionistas all around us. Having started our day at 5 AM with a three hour train ride in which we were joined in our small compartment by 6 noisy teens who enjoyed that we spoke English and therefore didn't understand them (hahaha) followed by the 80 minute flight and then an 80 minute bus ride, we were pretty much exhausted and therefore there are no photos of this part of the trip. It was nice to have a chance to hang out with Malin and her boyfriend Anders who had to leave on a business trip to Italy the next day and therefore wasn't around for the rest of our time.
Thursday we were off on our own from the beginning because Malin had to work as well. The free map we got at the airport ended up being a saving grace for us, and we used it to traverse the high priced neighborhoods with their fancy cars and multiple embassies. We were highly amused to discover that the Czech Embassy is just around the corner from Malin's house of all things. Too funny.
We didn't get far before we came across this lovely church. We didn't go in, but I couldn't resist snapping a few photos from the outside. I could definitely make a lot of calendars with different themes from all my travels.


As you can see from the photos, the weather was positively gorgeous. What you can't see is how frigidly cold it was. After weather in the 20's C for the past week or so in Czech it was a bit of a shock to our systems to now be facing temperatures scarcely above freezing. But we did our best to fight the wind that challenged us off the water, and took it all in stride.
After a nice wander around some of the lovely museums (I swear you could quickly break the bank if you actually went into all these amazing places!)

we decided to go on the boat tour. It took about an hour and we had English pumped through headphones to inform us of important historical facts, as well as the fact that we were passing the house of one of the band members of ABBA. Here are a few highlight pictures from the cruise (unfortunately they told us it was the ABBA house after we had already passed it so no picture of that.)




If it doesn't make a whole lot of sense, the first picture in that set was of a tree loaded down with Heron nests. When I was a kid out in Horse Creek we had a tree with three nests in it that we called the Heron Condo, so it was fun to relive the experience a bit.
The last picture there is of an amazing amusement park which sadly wasn't open. We did come a bit after the tourist season, and it's so cold now that it might be dangerous to ride, but we were a bit disappointed that we weren't able to try it out.
After a quick lunch break we headed to the Old City. I could have taken pictures there for hours, but I only got a few at this point in time. It was a bit hard with the glare in some places so I wasn't able to capture the Royal Palace. Of course, it isn't exactly the castle most people would like it to be, but according the tour it has something like 160 rooms, so I'm guessing it's a pretty nice place, and the royal family use it mostly only for events, preferring to reside a short way outside the city instead.
We went into an old church and I was intrigued by the massive statue of Sir George and the dragon. This guy must either have gotten around or at least have been very popular because he's seriously everywhere. There are large statues of him in Prague as well. Just interesting.


We stopped for tea at a cafe that ended up being exorbitantly expensive right in the heart of old town. We later saw pictures of ABBA standing in front of the cafe so maybe it was a bit more special than we could ascertain on first perusal. Anyhow, from there I led us a bit astray, thinking it would be a short walk back around the old city island. Instead we ended up pretty far out in the middle of nowhere, but at least we got a nice view of this monumental building.

We did make it back to town where we stopped at a much cheaper cafe for coffee before heading back to meet Malin for dinner, but I'll save our food consumption for a later post.
For now I'll end with this comment about fashion. From what we were able to grasp, the current trend includes skinny jeans, converse, and big scarves. The coats were typically black, but in a variety of shapes and sizes.
Despite all the trendy people, we did discover, however, that there are also lapses in judgment that lead to sights like this:

A little gift from the sea.
And that completes day one/two of our lovely visit to Stockholm.

Sumava Rocks

This past weekend I went with Mark to Susice, a small town in south Czech, to visit his grandmother. As I wrote in my last post, there was a crazy storm here that did a lot more damage than I had realized. When we went to the train station we were informed that we would be delayed a good twenty minutes and would have to take a bus because the tracks were littered with debris (meaning large trees) that had been blown about during the storm. So, we were off to a bit of a rocky start, but were still eager to see what the trip had in store for us.
Before leaving we had been told a little bit about his grandmother's boyfriend, and we were both curious to see what the man was like. I think precious is the best word to describe Fanda. At 87 years of age, he is quite the character. Shortly after our arrival in Susice we were being served a huge meal (we'd eaten in Plzen on our way there because of the train delay and weren't exactly hungry) but how do you say no to a sweet Babicka? So our plates were filled and we were promptly informed that there was more available if we wanted.
For the first round of lunch drinks I was able to get away with drinking only water. Quite sufficient for me really. But Fanda used to work in a bar, and is Czech through and through. He couldn't seem to understand that I really wasn't interested in drinking beer, and so after my water was finished he promptly (or as promptly as an elderly man can manage) refilled my glass with beer. Again I ask, how do you say no to a sweet little old man with his encouraging smile and twinkling eyes? He then insisted that we must have music. So he put in an old cassette of classical Czech folk music and began to sing along in a shaky old man voice, pounding the table for emphasis when the music required it. This, however, was not quite enough. Music was made for dancing, wasn't it? And dancing is what he had in mind. His ideal partner? Well, apparently that would be me. So after being stuffed with a hearty Czech meal, served a small glass of beer and an unsolicited shot of peppermint liquor (which tastes like drinking mouthwash)a dance was clearly in order. So dance I did. That is if you can call what I did dancing. Definitely won't be winning any competitions, but I managed not to ever be stepped on too seriously. And all the while Mark just laughed and cheered Fanda on.
After the entertaining first meeting Mark and I headed out to see some of the town. The whole place was full of memories for Mark. It was really wonderful to be able to see so many places that were important to him as he was growing up. We hiked up a mountain to a lovely little chapel. Mark told me the legend of the place. It was originally designed to be a lookout over the town to protect from attacks and disasters. One day a boy was playing there and he was bitten by a poisonous snake. He should have died, but an angel came and saved his life, so they built the chapel there to give thanks for his deliverance. We weren't able to go inside the building, but we enjoyed the view and had a nice walk around.




We headed back to the house and Mark visited with his grandma, who naturally insisted on giving us more food :) It's amazing we were able to walk after being so stuffed, and she always made sure to let us know that there was more if we wanted. Super sweet.
Around 8 we headed out for the music festival. The sky had grown dark and there were a few drips of rain so we both had umbrellas along, but were hoping it wouldn't be too serious since we were going to an outdoor festival called Sumava Rocks We bought our tickets and listened to the first girl up for a while. Then there was a break so we went for a little walk. While we were out the storm began to settle in. At first the rain wasn't too heavy and the thunder only seemed to be competition for the festival drums, but it quickly began to grow in intensity. We went back to listen to the second band and the rain really started to come down heavily.
Charlie Straight provided us with some serious amusement. A group of boys who looked about 17, trying hard to act like real rock stars. We're talking tight pants and bad dancing, trying to get the crowd to clap as they really only wanted to stay dry under their umbrellas, even an over the top entry into the crowd whilst playing the guitar. It was...special to say the least. It was hard to tell if the drunken crowd was making fun of them or honestly encouraging them, but when they cheered for one more song at the end it was pretty evident that, regardless of how ridiculous we felt them to be, they had a fan base.
By the end of their show the rain was coming down in buckets. Sadly, the band that Mark really wanted to see was coming up next. We left the grounds for a few minutes, and found a roof to huddle under. Mark was already soaked to the skin, and I wasn't far from it, my feet sliding around inside my sandals making every step an effort. But we really wanted to give it a try, so we waited until we thought they should be up and headed back.
Things hadn't gotten any better in the few minutes we'd been away. If anything the rain was coming down harder than ever. Each time I thought it couldn't become any more torrential, it would seem to double in its intensity. There was a question over whether the band would be able to go on or not, but, after another ten or twenty minutes of us watching the water rise up from the ground around our feet, the crowd surged back around us as Ivan Mladek and his banjo band took the stage. I'm not sure if the link will work, I was having some issues with it, but I'll try to describe them a bit. We're talking an ancient group of musicians, straight from a Czech folk sorta fest. I was the only one in the crowd who couldn't sing along with every word. They were definitely classic showmen. It was a lot of fun, and the rain definitely POURED down.

After three or four songs Mark was so freezing that as much as he loved it, he felt it was time for us to go. And a good decision it was. As we tried to rush away we were soon confronted by a serious stream of water that used to be the trail. With squeals and shivers we plunged ahead, the water surging around our ankles with every step. A few times it appeared as though we were going to rise up from the water, only to discover we were passing through waves. We were getting closer to home, but suddenly the water went more up to my knees. It was definitely an act of God that we turned from our chosen path at that moment. We would later see in the morning that had we continued in our current direction the trail would have become the actual river and we would have been facing more serious problems than just being wet. We slogged our way through a playground and finally made our way to the street where we fared a bit better than on the path. What a relief to finally make it back to the house. Unfortunately sleep wasn't an easy thing to find either. Not only were there constantly people shouting in the street (rather a shock considering the weather) but at about 3 AM an air raid style siren went off ordering evacuation. They apparently said something about fire, but it was actually about the river. We learned later that it was a warning for the people who were camping for the festival.
When we got up in the morning we looked out to a crazy watery world. We could see then that our path disappeared directly into a raging river. We were definitely thankful that we'd been rescued from that disaster.
After a small breakfast with "Babi" we were taken on a little trip by Fanda. I remember how frightening it was the last time I rode with my own grandfather, and that was a good many years ago. This was...well...worse. We set off in the ancient red Skoda, praying that all would be well. There were no seat belts in the back of this classic beast, so prayer really was what held us together.

I'll spare you the details of the drive, but harrowing would be a decent word as we wound our way up through the forested hills to the small village of Dobra Voda to see the museum dedicated to Dr. Simon Adler, a Jew who died along with his wife in Auschwitz. He was a very important man back in his day, and his sons had sponsored this museum about his life and the lives of other Jews who had lived in the region.

It was pretty interesting, as was the nearby church that we learned had housed horses during Communism. The whole area had been off limits during that era because it was near the border so only soldiers were allowed to be there. It's now a very peaceful farming area complete with hillside fields surrounded by thick woods and filled with a variety of brown cows ranging from deep maroon and white to a soft honey color. I tried to concentrate on the lovely region rather than the somewhat questionable driving. But the driver was precious and he did manage to get us safely back to the house where, of course, there was more food ready for us, and we were also instructed to warm up with "Grog" (a shot of rum mixed with boiling water, lots of sugar and a little lemon juice). I sipped mine gingerly and was thankful for the warmth having run about the countryside in shorts and a t-shirt, totally freezing because my jacket and capris were still soaking wet.
After lunch Mark and I took a little time to look around the town. It was a lovely little place and we're hoping to have a chance to visit again.

Here you can see a picture of the house where we were staying, and how it's so close to the river. By the time I was taking pictures the water had already gone down dramatically. You can also see the path we were taking in the night. In this photo there is still some water crossing over it, but in the night the entire area was part of the river. Pretty scary really.


Overall it was a really interesting and emotional trip. Before we left I had another dance with Fanda and after it he said that I was "Nase" which means "ours." He was pretty much ready to keep me there. He drove us to the station, where, I'm not going to lie, the back door of the car popped open in transit. Fortunately I was able to close it (and no, it wasn't the door on the side of the car that I had entered so I really wasn't to blame.) But again, we got there safely and said a sad farewell. Mark and I both agreed that it would be good if we could go back again before we head to the US. Family is so important after all.

Maminka a Tata je tady!

Well, I should probably be heading off to bed, but I've decided to do a quick post. I'll be sure to put up better updates later on, but for now I just thought I'd share a few pictures of the trip thus far. Mark and I picked Mom and Dad up from the airport in Prague on Thursday and made sure they had a good traditional Czech meal their first night. Mom had KnedliVeproZeli (Dumplings, Pork and Sauerkraut) and Dad tried some Cesky Gulas with bread dumplings. Good way to start them off.


Friday morning we hauled all the luggage to the train station and headed off for Dresden. Unfortunately no one told the weather that it was supposed to be nice and sunny. I mean, we even stayed at the Sunshine Hostel (once we managed to find it) but we were still followed by ugly gray skies and dripping cold weather. We've been followed by a mixture of rain and snow since they arrived. Not the ideal weather for traipsing about Europe, but such is life.
We had a great time in Dresden all the same, and enjoyed taking in the sights. I'll just toss on a few photos here to give a sampling of the amazing things we saw.
These first two photos show us posed by Martin Luther with the amazing backdrop of the Frauen Kirche. Almost completely destroyed on Valentine's Day 1945, it has only recently been rebuilt to reflect it's former glory. We were all most impressed.

We saw pictures where Martin Luther was on the ground, completely separated from his feet. Pretty crazy.
Here's one of me and Mom on the S bahn, and a really lovely one of some dried hydrangeas. Mom really liked the flower one, so I made sure to post it here for her :)


And now I'll just close with a few shots of the town. It's a pretty impressive city with a very interesting history. Amazing how the people have finally been able to rebuild.



We headed back to Cheb on Sunday, with a very lengthy complicated train ride, and today I took Mom and Dad out to Sokolov where we picked up a rental car so hopefully our travels will be a bit easier and more predictable. The only problem now is figuring out where to park. It can be a bit complicated. I've left Mom and Dad sleeping at Tammy's place, and now I'm off to get a few zzzzs before tomorrow!