Conversation between two teenaged boys

Dude. Mothers are amazing, but creepy.

Dude. Why are they creepy?

Because they know everything.

Dude. You're right....they DO know everything. So why are they amazing?

Dude! Because they make cookies!

Good point, Dude.

Befy Update #2

Per the once a month phone call rule, I called and spoke to Bethany for about 30 minutes today. She sounded decidedly happier and more relaxed about her stay in Venezuela. She caught me up on what school was like and the friends she is making (mostly boys). She gets up around 5 am every day to get to school by 6:50 am. It doesn't take her that long to get ready, and the school isn't that far away. She says the traffic is terrible and they spend a lot of time in the car trying to get anywhere. Her day is spent at school in "salons" made up of classes of students who have been together since grammar school. They have PE only once a week but they have a "recess" every day during which they can eat a snack. She says she loves the epanadas and that the avocados, some biggerthan grapefruits, are practically given away because they're so plentiful. Sounds like heaven to me!

Below is a post that she wrote for her Facebook profile. She said she forgot how to post to her blog so I guess she's writing about her experiences on Facebook.

Mì primera mes en Venezuela (My first month in Venezuela)

4:35pm Thursday, Oct 4

Hello everyone stuck in the boring United States! It has been one month since I arrived in Venezuela and I can't believe it. It is absolutely beautiful here. I'm living in a house in the mountains in the city of Carrizal, which is about 30 miles (or 3 hours because of the monstrous traffic jams called colas) from Caracas. The temperature is always around 60 or 70, and it rains almost every day. My host family is absolutely awesome. My host father is chubby and funny, his name is Ezequiel. My host mother, Milagros, is what the Venezuelans refer to as bochinche, which as far as as I can tell means party animal, she loves to dance and talk until around three in the morning. I also have a host sister, Maria Luisa, who is quiet and shy, but we get along very well.

I started school two weeks ago and I am so happy! The school is a big and very well kept Catholic school, with about five hundred students. The kids learn in salons, which is like a homeroom, and the salons have been together since the first year of school. The students accepted me whole-heartedly, and I already have costillas (which literally in Spanish means ribs, but is a saying for really good friends). This weekend is already totally full, and on Monday we´re going to the movies. An interesting thing about school is the way girls and boys interact, boys and girls who are friends will hold hands, give each other massages, stroke each other's hair, etc. It took me a while to get used to, but now I feel comfortable.

The first two weeks here I was very homesick, since I was alone most of the time in a big house, and my Spanish was really bad, but since I've started school, the only thing I have to complain about are the mosquitoes, and the fact that all of you aren't here.

Venezuela, despite being a beautiful country naturally, is very run down. People litter all over the streets, there's graffiti on all of the buildings, and a lot of bad stuff goes down in the cities. For example, two teenagers were shot randomly on a bus in Los Teques (a town close to mine), I've been warned about a drug from Columbia that people touch you with and you lose your memory and free will, and basically do whatever that person says until the drug wears off. There's also a law here that if there are rooms in your house that nobody is sleeping in, anybody without a home can come in and live there. It's kind of a scary place, but also a welcoming one, because most of the people are so nice, and will give you the clothes off their back. Also, I'm never afraid because I'm never alone, I'm always with family or my friends.

So in summary: Venezuela-beautiful, host family-nice, school and friends-super awesome. I miss everybody lots! My phone number here is (removed for security reasons), but you should only call me once a month. I love you all!

44

That's how many years I have lived, as of today. I've celebrated so far by having a Pumpkin Spice Latte (thanks, Mom, for the Starbucks gifts card!), an omlette for breakfast (thanks George!) and a nice, long, ALONE run (also thanks to George).

Running helps my mind flow. I typically work out little problems (like what we need from the store), untangle the complexities of parenting both toddlers and teens, and how to handle client stuff.

But today, I let my mind run (no pun intended) with the whole birthday thing. I started thinking about how LONG 44 years is and what has changed in that time. For example, in high school I took typing (now it's called "keyboarding") on a real typewriter and used that skill to prepare my own and others' research papers in college (aahhh, the smell of White Out and typewriter ribbon ink). In grad school I learned to use a computer, which was seen as an improvement, but my papers came out on dot matrix printers and took forever. And right now I'm typing, oops! keyboarding these, my thoughts, on a laptop in my kitchen and when I'm done, the wireless router in our house will distribute this post to the Internet once I click on "publish post." A-MAZING.

I thought about how being born in 1963 technically classifies me as a Baby Boomer (1946-1964) but how sometimes I feel a little more like a Gen X-er (1964-1976). I counted how many times I've moved since birth (23), how many schools I've attended (11) and how many hairstyles I've had (lost count early in the process). In my 1 life I've had 2 careers, 3 mates, 4 children, and 5 cars. (I could actually go on, but you'd stop reading).

I thought about how much I've changed in 44 years, and how much I've stayed the same. I thought about what a comfort it is to know that my basic personality has been with me since birth, so I can know myself, but that I can also transform a few of the less-than-lovely parts. I'm pretty sure I'll always have freckles, though.

Towards the end of the run my mind started to wander towards the future and I realized that I didn't sense any anxiety or questioning. I thought "It's been 'all good,' (yes, even the crappy, painful stuff), and it will all be ok. Then I decided to enjoy the sun on my face, be grateful for it shining down on me and for the One who made it.

The love affair continues.....

What's Cookin' Wednesday

Quinoa!

Even though George pronounces it "kih-no-ee," it's pronounced Keen -wah. We discovered it while eating at one of our favorite restaurants in Champaign, Radio Maria.

Quinoa is a grain native to South America and has been cultivated for more than 5,000 years. It has been called a "super grain" because it's protein content is 22% for one cup (compared to 14% for wheat and 7.5% for brown rice), and because it has an adequate quantity of lysine (an amino acid), which most grains lack. That makes it a source of complete protein, the issue many refer to when expressing concern about being vegetarian. It's also higher in other nutrients and minerals than other grains. Here's what it looks like growing, harvested raw, and cooked:



The nutrition aspects of quinoa are important to us but even more important is the ease of preparation and how it tastes. Quinoa is very versatile, is as easy to cook as rice, and tastes really good. It's also becoming more easily found at the regular grocery store and not just at the health food store. I saw it Mierer the last time I shopped there.

Here is one of our favorite recipes for preparing quinoa:

Quinoa and Black Beans

INGREDIENTS

• 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
• 1 onion, chopped
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
• 3/4 cup uncooked quinoa
• 1 1/2 cups vegetable broth
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• salt and pepper to taste
• 1 cup frozen corn kernels
• 2 (15 ounce) cans black beans, rinsed and drained
• 1/2 cup chopped fresh cilantro

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat the oil in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Stir in the onion and garlic, and saute until lightly browned.
2. Mix quinoa into the saucepan and cover with vegetable broth. Season with cumin, cayenne pepper, salt, and pepper. Bring the mixture to a boil. Cover, reduce heat, and simmer 20 minutes,
3. Stir frozen corn into the saucepan, and continue to simmer about 5 minutes until heated through. Mix in the black beans and cilantro.

How much do you love me?

I've done a lot of stupid things, but what I did last night earns me the Idiot of the Year award.

There's a gravel road (actually more like a trail) near our house that runs between two corn fields. It's part of one of my favorite running routes and looks like this:


I've been running this about once a week because I love watching how the fields change with each season and I love scaring up flocks of birds, grasshoppers and an occasional bunny as I go by (probably from my loud, heavy breathing). The only problem is that I don't know how far it is. You might think it doesn't matter but most runners are a little nutty and we want to know exactly how far we've gone each time we go out.

Well, I was driving home from seeing clients last night and had the "bright" idea of driving around those barricades and up the gravel road and back so I could find out it's distance. You non-idiots probably see the problem with this idea immediately, but I thought it could work. I've seen other vehicles go around those barricades and drive down the road. OK, they were large-ish work trucks and not a Toyota Corolla. Oh, and also? It was about 8:30 pm -- pretty dark, even with the high beams on.

So I start in, cautiously (I'm not THAT nutty), but pretty soon find myself stuck in a lot of mud. I don't panic yet because I'm a seasoned winter driver and I know that you just have to sort of "rock" the car back and forth, find the tiniest bit of traction and you can get out. I guess that only works with snow. I get out and look for something in the trunk to put under the tires to give it traction. Ah! a towel! That will work! Nope.

I finally realize I'm going to have to call George. Ohhhhhh this wasn't going to be good. You see, the car I was driving was his car (yeah, yeah, yeah, it's "our" car, but it's really his car). And if you know George, you know that he is......how does one say.....fastidious. He's understandably upset, but comes to my rescue and gets the car out of the hole. I didn't realize how bad it was until I went back to the scene of the stupidity:


See that concrete barricade right there? The cute little gray Corolla was about 6 inches from it. George only groused a little bit....I expected a lot more, because what I did (or tried to do) was really, really stupid. Later, when I came home from washing his car and filling it up with gas, I apologized again. He said, "Well, sh#t happens, you weren't thinking, and besides, one of the things that made me fall in love with you is your sense of adventure."

For this, and many, many, many other reasons, George is my ONO (One 'N Only).

Priviledged

Here's what I saw on my run today:

• a big pile of what looked like dryer lint
• a can of Cheez Whiz (I didn't stop to see if it was empty or not)
• a wadded, mud-encrusted blue and white dish towel
• a flattened PB&J sandwich with one bite out of the corner. Granted, it was made with that flavor-less, texture-less white bread.....I probably would have thrown it away too (or composted it)
• one blue tube sock covered with grass
• numerous piles of dog poo and fast food bags
• lots and Lots and LOTS of the typical trash (cigarette butts, beer bottles, plastic wrapping, the ubiquitous Wal-Mart shopping bag, etc.)
  

Only in a wealthy nation can people afford to throw away this kind of stuff. Maybe it's time to bring back this commercial