Ex Patria

Sad but true

However, things can be made better.  Lots of good people are working on making things better.  If I stopped to believe that, I would certainly not apply for citizenship.

(Hm.  Is posting Bill Maher on my blog going to limit my chances of getting the citizenship?)

Fun was had

Alan's 5^th birthday is on Monday but because his Dad is teaching class at the AUA in the evening, we decided to do the party today.

17 kids, 12 adults. We were lucky enough to have great weather, so the kids were mostly out in the backyard, climbing the play structure and distributing 50 kg of sand throughout the garden and the house. Bratwurst, chicken nuggets, pasta salad. A Batman chocolate cake that is lost to the world because I forgot to put the CF card back into camera and only noticed it in the evening. People seemed to enjoy it, though. Fun was had by all, I think. We had 17 dirty, tired, but hopefully happy kids (Wendy? Yes?) in the end, and one very exhausted mother.

Good night.

Best. Homecare tip. Ever

If you have little kids, you have DVDs. You also have lots of scratched DVDs. You spend a lot of money on those DVDs and it's a real shame that once the kids get their soft paws on them, they seem to simply end up, you know, scratched.

"But I only touched it on the sides!"

Anyway. Here's to the rescue:

Get some white toothpaste -- no red or blue stripes, or gels, just your ordinary toothpaste. (For some weird reason, Tom's of Maine "Silly Strawberry", while not actually a harmless white paste, seems to be pretty much ideal.) Rub a small amount on the DVD, in straight lines from the inside to the outside (radially). Wash off. Polish with microfiber cloth.

It works every time. It's the most amazing thing ever.

Hello? Can someone see this?

I downloaded a trial version of the new Office Suite – mainly because I need an Excel program for some homework and I don't have Excel installed on my machine. My first impression is that it does nice things but I'm not sure about the looks – it all seems rather, hm, playful to me. On the other hand, the Word 2007 comes with a blog publishing plug-in. If you can read this, then it worked. That I like quite a bit.

Husband gets published

If you can call it published when one's stuff is quoted on a blog.

But it's a good blog.  That makes it published, in my eyes.

Now, if he only sat down and collected all his posts and letters on the Balkans in one big piece, it would be a very interesting and publishable (as in, black print on white paper) read.  Husband?  Write that book, please.

Destroy! Myself.

My baby has left us.  His sweet-tempered, calm self went right out the door.  We suspect it in the same place to which the quiet personality of David went, oh so many moons ago.

Instead, we now have another toddler.   

A few years back, our friend Royce sent us a link to a song that went something like this (I'm paraphrasing, and if you can find this song, I'd really love to have it!):

I'm a toddler
My only goal in life
Is to destroy
Everything I touch

I'm a toddler
My only goal in life
Is to kill myself

OK, that makes two goals.  But it's true, oh, it's so true.

What happens to babies who are all sweet and smiles and pleasant and wonderful as soon as they get on their two feet?  Does the personality center in their brains suddenly collapse under all that increased atmospheric pressure?  Did someone ever write a scientific paper on this? It's a Nobel prize worthy topic.

Jacob is still cute and sweet but he's also becoming a very determined, stubborn little creature. Here's what happened this morning.