Walking on sunshine

The weather was so beautiful that when my son A asked me if I could get out and buy popsicle sticks for him to use in a school project, I was more than happy to make the trip The bus to the metro station was late, and I didn’t even care. Parked on a bench at the bus stop wearing my ivory leather jacket and my favorite shades, I tipped my head back to the sun and thought the bus could take its sweet time. No worries.

Once at the metro station, I decided to walk to Stockel instead of take the train. It’s less than a mile away, and the day is so perfect, I can’t get enough of it. Spotless pastel skies and temps around 60. Men walking their dogs, people washing their sidewalks, women pulling trollies to the market, students out of school, teenagers kissing—everyone seems to be in a good mood.

As I stroll into Stockel’s center, I decide to step into Casa, a shop that’s full of housewares and decorative and seasonal items. The whole store pulses with tropical colors. I wander past the potpourri and candle section and inhale deeply on my way to look at dishes and serving pieces. I like the orange, turquoise, and lime green bowls, and the blue, yellow and white striped serving pieces. I pick up two teabag caddies thinking they’d be an inexpensive way to add a shot of bright color to my kitchen but even though they cost less than a euro each, I decide to leave them behind. Because I always see dishes and pottery that I LIKE, I save my purchases and scant storage space only for dishes and pottery that I LOVE or need.

Sometimes Casa has craft items. A bought E-Grrrl watercolor paints and brushes there for her birthday last fall. Today, though, there aren’t any art supplies and no popsicle sticks. I hit the street and cross to the main square. The Tuesday market is going on and I can smell frites. I opt not to wander through the booths because I’m eager to get to Creatine.

I never realized how much Americans are into crafts until I came here and discovered Belgians have very little interest in them. It’s difficult to find craft supplies anywhere. There are no big box stores devoted to arts, crafts, knitting, and sewing. The big discount stores don’t carry art supplies beyond what a child needs for school. Stationery and office supply stores like Club often have basic scrapbooks and fancy paper but not much else. Creatine, a chain in Belgium, is the only craft store I’ve found.

Even though it’s a chain, it isn’t a big shop and it’s not slickly merchandised. It’s cozy in a rustic way. It reminds me of the antique stores in Virginia, places where you had to look hard and concentrate to see everything. Tucked away on a side street, Creatine has a narrow store front and is about the same size as a U.S. convenience store but it’s stuffed full. It doesn’t have a lot of anything, it has a little bit of everything.

I always check out their rubber stamps and inks. They carry a selection from Hero Arts, and once in a while I find some that appeal to me. Today they have a stamp set featuring whimsical cats. They’ve been stocking it for a few months, and I’ve been resisting it but today I just can’t say no. On Saturday I’m getting together with the Stamp Grrrls and it will be fun to have a new set to experiment with.

I wander through the small assortment of kid crafts, admire all the painting stuff, covet the Farber and Cassel colored pencils, and then head into the felt, pipe cleaners, and pom-pom world. No popsicle sticks so far. I go past the mosaic supplies and ceramic paints, ignore the beads, and visit the balsa wood section. Surely this is where the popsicle sticks will be, but I don’t see any. There are dowels, stakes, boxes, and other wood products, but no popsicle sticks. Shoot. I look through it all again to make sure. I think about buying a bunch of stakes and seeing if A can use those instead. He has to make a diorama over spring break.

I continue exploring the store. I resist the fancy scrapbook paper (though I check it out), examine all the paper punches and stencils (but don’t buy any), tell myself I have plenty of brads at home, and look at all the varieties of glitter glue but acknowledge it's not my thing. I notice they have a new Sizzix pad which has a variety of brightly colored papers to use in scrapping and card making. I pick that up. I’m ready to check out and decide to go back and get the stakes.

Just as I’m reaching for them, I notice that in a bucket on the floor just behind me are popsicle sticks. Yes! They cost more than two euros per packet of 100. I need 500. Sheesh. Spending the equivalent of $12.50 on popsicle sticks is hard to swallow, but I’m happy to have found them at all.

Before I leave Stockel, I slip into the pet store and buy Petey his favorite wet food and a replacement for his favorite toy which has been torn to pieces by his enthusiasm. With bags in hand, I head toward home, happy, happy, happy under the blue, blue skies.

March 28, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Conversation with My Keyboard

V-Grrrl: The weather is supposed to be beautiful all week, Keyboard. I don’t think we’ll be spending much time together.

Keyboard: Oh thanks. Now I know what the opposite of “a fair weather friend” is.

V-Grrrl: All the sunshine has me thinking of our summer trip to Virginia and Florida.

Keyboard: Are you going to hit the beach?

V-Grrrl: Yeah, and I can’t wait to cross the dunes and see the waves. I’m sure we’ll be spending time at the pool as well.

Keyboard: Oooh. That means you’ll have to wear a swimsuit.

V-Grrrl: I know. I’ve been avoiding wearing a swimsuit for the last few years because I feel so self-conscious, but you know, that’s just stupid. When I was younger, I vowed I would never morph into one of those simpering middle-aged women who thought their lives were over when they stopped wearing bikinis.

Keyboard: Exactly! Life’s too short to spend time worrying about your pot belly.

V-Grrrl: That's not a pot belly, Keyboard, that's a "love bumper." Ahem! Besides, I've been so busy thinking about the blue veins on my legs that I forgot all about the belly. I wonder if my old suit still fits. I’ll have to try it on.

(V-Grrrl digs through the plastic box under the bed and finds her cute Hawaiian tank suit with the low cut back. She shimmies into it, thinking it’s tight but maybe she can get away with it.)

Keyboard: Hmmm, it’s not awful but it’s not good either. Let me see the back.

(V-Grrrl turns. Her Keyboard gasps and types some exclamation points. !!!!!!)

V-Grrrl: What Keyboard? What’s wrong? (V-Grrrl stretches to catch sight of her reflection) Oh no! No, no, no! I have BACK fat! How did that happen?

Keyboard: Just when you’d made peace with your front fat, the back fat stages an ambush from behind.

V-Grrrl: No lie! Gah! I had no idea that was there! Where did it come from? This looks horrible. We can’t have the Hawaiian tank suit cutting into the back fat like a knife slicing ham. Quick Keyboard, take me over to Landsend.com. I need to pack my back fat away. I need a Slender Suit!

Keyboard: Or a Miracle Suit. Or maybe just a miracle…

V-Grrrl: I'll take whatever I can get. If you find a miracle for sale, charge it!

March 27, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Why we're friends....

In an e-mail discussion on Julie Cameron's latest book of creative exercises:

"Like you, I've shied away from Julie's work because I'm not so good at the daily exercise thing ... replace the word 'book' with 'gym' and I'm the same:  A serial free spirit who is overweight, unfit and undisciplined ... oh, and unashamed :)"

Oh yes, Di, I recognize the similarities. I couldn't have said it better myself. Thanks for the big smile this morning.

Are you a Grammar Nazi or a Pronunciation Princess?

Last week Wordgirl had a post on one of her pet peeves—people who mispronounce or misuse words. She gave some examples that really got on her nerves and invited readers to do the same.

Much to my surprise, outraged Wordies and Grammar Nazis took over the comments section in waves of righteous indignation. Lord, there are a lot of people in the world who are Highly Irritated about the State of the English Language.

But I wasn’t one of them. Yes, I earned more than half my college credits in English and have a degree in communications. Yes, my entire professional career has been devoted to writing and to editing And yes, I even love reading nerdy grammar columns written by people like James Kilpatrick, but my interest in good grammar is outweighed by my interest in good writing. Good writing may or may not be grammatically perfect. Pay too much attention to grammar and not enough to tone, voice, color, and rhythm, and you’ll produce perfectly good prose that’s perfectly boring and frequently ignored.

Unlike the laws of math and physics, many of the laws of grammar change. Dictionaries are edited and style books are updated because each generation shapes the language. That’s why we don’t all speak like characters in Shakespeare’s plays. It’s the same reason I can be in a room with friends from England, Australia, and New Zealand and still not understand all that they're saying.

One of the things I love about language and usage is seeing how they evolve. Words take on new shades of meaning, slang emerges and retreats, and our culture influences how we speak, write, and communicate. A few weeks ago, Neil at Citizen of the Month joked that his blogger friends were a bunch of link whores, and I kept rolling “link whore” around in my head, secretly delighting in it and wondering how long the term would last.

As for pronunciation, I expect public figures and professional media to get it right, but I fully tolerate, and even enjoy, hearing variations on the norm or “incorrect” pronunciations. In most settings, I find mispronunciations endearing and interesting, quirks that tell a story about the speaker. Where have they lived? How were they raised? Where did they go to school? Having lived most of my life in the South, I love Southern accents, from slow drawls and Tidewater melodies to Texas twang. The “mistakes” people make flavor the conversation and often make me smile. Teachers and parents can correct pronunciation, but I think for one person to correct another in any other setting is rude.

One of Wordgirl’s commenters noted that a person may be very well read but not well spoken in terms of pronunciation. The more time you spend alone with books and not glued to the TV, the easier it is to create or imagine a pronunciation that’s one or more degrees off of the norm. There are many words I’m not sure how to pronounce because I’ve seen them in writing but not heard them spoken. It’s been 25 years since I lived in a house with network or cable TV. I get all my information from reading so forgive me if I mispronounce the names of celebrities or towns in Iraq.

So are you a Grammar Nazi or a diehard Wordie? Does the way words are used or spoken get on your nerves or fascinate you? Do you stifle the urge to correct others or let it roll? Are you self-conscious about your speaking or writing?

March 25, 2007

© 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambaut and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Planning for a month in the U.S.

In July I head to Virginia with my family, my first trip back to the U.S. since I left in March 2005. We’ll be in America for a little more than a month.

I’m excited and overwhelmed with thoughts of all I want to do, people I’d like to see, and how being “home” might feel. My niece Rock Grrrl is a high school teacher and will be coming to Belgium to house sit, take care of Petey, and explore a bit of Europe with her girlfriend and her main squeeze.

Meanwhile, E and I and the kids will be staying in her condo in Virginia, which is about an hour’s drive from our old stomping grounds. We’re still trying to figure out how we’ll get around. We can use Rock Grrrl’s geriatric car for local travel but it may make more sense to just rent a car for a month. Still figuring that one out.

A month sounds like a long time for a visit, but there’s a lot on our agendas. Naturally, we want to get together with friends and neighbors in Virginia and see if we can hook up with some of my far-flung siblings. We’re also planning to go to the beach, get in a visit to E’s mom in Florida, do back-to-school shopping, get glasses, check in with the orthodontist, eat bagels, hit Michael’s craft store, and maybe do some tourist stuff.

We have to check on our house, arrange for repairs if needed, and set E, the master gardener, loose in the yard to handle landscaping issues. We’ll be cruising the home improvement stores shopping for new flooring because the last vestiges of the original carpet need to be torn out and replaced when our tenant moves out.

This leads us to the Enormous Decision hanging over the whole trip. Will we or won’t we move back into our old house when we return to Virginia in 2008? Do we sell it or hang onto it? We love this house and it’s paid for (woo hoo!) but the location is so impractical. We’ve talked about moving closer to E’s office so we can reduce his commute. This a big decision and one we hope to gain some clarity on when we’re back in the States.

When we lived in our old neighborhood, E got up at 4:30 a.m. every day to catch the first train heading to Washington. The combination of driving to the station, finding parking, riding the train, and walking to the office meant he had a two-hour commute ONE way. And that getting up at 4:30 not only meant he was always tired, but that the kids never saw him in the morning and that he crashed shortly after they went to bed every night.

Y’all, we’re getting way too old for this life style!

While I had the advantage of working from an office in my home, our kids attended a private school that was 20 traffic-clogged miles away, so I had a nasty commute of my own to deal with. Dropping them off every morning and picking them up each afternoon meant I spent almost 2.5 hours a day in the car. My back did not appreciate all the driving, though I admit it was a great time for us to listen to books on tape and the kids could do homework in the car.

We know we’ll need to make some changes when we return which may include some combination of the following: Move to another house? Select a new school? See if E can telecommute two days a week?

Something has got to give. For the last two years, E has lived 15-20 minutes from his office and the kids are 10 minutes from school. We've had a wonderful quality of life here—reduced our stress levels and enjoyed time together as a family. When we’re in the U.S., we intend to check out the schools and real estate market close to D.C. and see what we think.

So July will be a month of reunions, decisions, shopping, planning, driving, relaxing, and culture shock. Stay tuned. There will be plenty to blog about—if I can find time for it!

March 23, 2007

© 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

Reflections on being an expat

It’s been two years since I boarded a plane in Washington, D.C., took off in the midst of a thunderstorm, and landed about seven hours later in Brussels on the first day of spring. Today I’m pondering what it means to be an expat.

The moment the plane’s wheels touched the tarmac at Zaventem, I became a member of the “third culture,” one that is neither fully here nor there. To be an expat is to be someone who makes a home in the space between where you’re from and where you are. It’s to live both inside and outside the world beyond your door.

Expats are both bold and careful. They go where they’ve never gone before, but they watch their steps. They observe quietly. They glance over their shoulders. They substitute smiles for words. They imitate and participate. They try to be good guests on their way to being good citizens. They are more than tourists but less than natives.

Like sci-fi space travelers, expats experience life in multiple dimensions at once, building bridges between familiar and unfamiliar customs, native and foreign terrain. It’s hard to feel fully yourself when the context for all your interactions has changed. This is why expats spend so much time exploring their inner geography. To live abroad, you have to be willing to rewrite your story, envision alternate plots and endings, and yet know what’s unchangeable in the shape of your character.

Expats are like hardy plants with shallow roots. Plucked from native soil and transplanted in new digs, expat lives are thoroughly topped and pruned in the relocation process. After the initial shock, we manage to grow back greener and fuller. Sure, we may occasionally wilt, but ultimately we thrive in all sorts of conditions. Expats are people who bloom where they are planted.

March 21, 2007

© 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Check it out

Natural Light is an artistic collaboration between two expat blogging friends here in Belgium. More than just photos, it highlights the creative process and shares the stories behind the art. Check it out.

Sunday afternnoon

The howling wind swept the ozone away and brought clouds, hail, blue skies, rain, sun, and snow squalls past the windows--all in the course of an hour.

E-Grrrl, eager for some sort of celebration, hosted a family party to welcome spring. She used a three-ring binder to organize her ideas and make shopping and "to do" lists. Yesterday she helped me pull out all the pastel ceramic dishes and bowls I have featuring bunnies and flowers and everything bright and cheerful. (Go Fitz and Floyd!) She filled them with Fruitella candies and Belgian taffy, cut fruit, and home baked muffins. She hung streamers and set up craft centers where we all colored paper doilies, signed cards for Grandma, sketched spring scenes, wrote books, and made stick puppets. As they used to write on the society page of the local newspaper in Oklahoma, "A good time was had by all." (And anyone who did not have a good time does NOT get to be quoted, thank you very much.) 

After the party, the boys headed off to the woods and I visited the computer to check my mail, read a few blogs, and debate whether or not I should order the charming but expensive Hanna Andersson PJs I'm longing for with every fiber of my sleep-loving, cotton-craving, cozy-Grrrl self. Sure they cost way more than I've ever paid for sleepwear, but I keep telling myself that they're worth it because I spend more time in PJs than any other item of clothing (shhh, don't tell anyone). Besides, my all-time favorites were purchased from Eddie Bauer almost ten years ago, so if I pro-rate the cost of the Hanna Andersson ones over that same time frame, they don't seem expensive at all! Bliss for only $7.40 a year! How could you go wrong! That fun floral print is so unabashedly cheerful that it's bound to deliver sweet dreams.

Damn, I'm so good at economics, psychology, and rationalizations, I ought to run for President. But that would mean changing out of the PJs and wearing a suit all day, and you know, I'm just not up for that...

March 18, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Friday means leftovers

Petey is dozing on my desktop. I love the way he tucks his nose under his paw, which reminds me of the way I pull my flannel sheets and red fleece blanket across my lips at night, my pillow angled just so, and Petey curled against me and the darkness, purring us both to a happy place.

We had five glorious, sunny days in a row, which makes today’s cloud cover seem especially dim and heavy. The cherry blossoms, though, are so many kinds of perfect: from their five-petal shape to their pale pink color to the brown leaves that frame them to their intoxicating scent, I can’t get enough. I’m wearing my brown and pink suede sneakers in their honor today.

My heart is fluttering this morning, sporadically beating against my chest like a moth against the light. Not good.

My raspberry colored Woolrich sweater is so cozy, but the berry scented candle burning on the kitchen table is nauseatingly sweet. The air smells like Jell-O, and the only thing I like about this candle is that my little Grrrl bought it for me with her own money for my birthday, which makes it sweet in a whole other way.

She also bought me a stuffed Eeyore because she knows I relate to the one and only depressed character in the Hundred Acre Wood. And she bought me a Heffalump, because if you have Eeyorish tendencies, you really need a smiling, purple elephant on your dresser.

Happy Weekend.

March 16, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.

Maybe we should bind their feet too...

No more organic milk and Flintstones vitamins. No more high protein breakfasts, whole grain bread, and healthy snacks. No more “Eat your vegetables” and “Have a piece of fruit.”

From now on I'm feeding the kids Pop Tarts, Kool-Aid, and lead paint chips. They’re growing way, way too fast. We need to cut back on nutritious food at Chez V.

Five months after buying my 11-year-old son an entire school wardrobe, I had to replace it. That’s three pairs of cargo pants, two pairs of jeans, a pair of sneakers, a pair of loafers, two sweatshirts and a handful of t-shirts. Ka-ching.

Ditto the Grrrl, who at age 9 is heads and shoulders above most of her classmates. Halfway through the school year, I had to replace all her pants, jeans, and skorts, and most of her t-shirts. She desperately needs new shoes. No matter what she picks out, she wears two to three outfits constantly and outgrows others before they ever make it onto her short list of “favorites.” The only thing worse than buying all the clothes is seeing some of them discarded with the tags still on them. Ka-ching.

We buy socks and underwear the way some people buy bread and milk, which is to say all. the. time. What isn’t outgrown is destroyed by the extremely hard water here in Belgium. Wash an item three times and it will look like you’ve owned it for years. Grayed. Pilled. Dingey. Crunchy. Ready for holes. Our laundry looks like it should be hanging from a clothes line in a tenement somewhere.

My credit card company is smiling because last night I ordered spring clothes for both kids from Lands End and LL Bean. Today’s task is bagging up and organizing the outcasts and hand-me-downs pulled from the closets and drawers. And I need to get to the grocery store--for bread and water. I'm thinking Pop Tarts and Kool-Aid may be TOO nutritious.

March 15, 2007

Copyright 2007 Veronica McCabe Deschambault and V-Grrrl in the Middle. All rights reserved.