A special dedication

Dedicated to all those parents and teachers mightily trying to deal with the kids in their lives. Remember, for every problem there is a humorous solution! I bring you: 

Ten Reasons for My Son's School Behavior:

1.     We’ve consulted our Shaman and agree with him that our son has too much Fire and Wind in his aura and not enough Earth. We’re having him sleep outside and adding iron to his diet to help him become more grounded. Can he sit under a tree during math?

2.     Our macrobiotic nutrition counselor has detected an imbalance in his Yin and Yang. She recommends more brown rice (short grain, not long grain!), no fruit, and less acidic foods in his diet.  Please notify the cafeteria.

 3.     We believe the reason our son doesn’t function well in the classroom is because he is the reincarnation of the Buddha. He is not in fact “daydreaming” when he stares off into space and ignores you, he is meditating and cleansing his mind of all you are trying to shove into his head. Don’t be offended—he cleanses his mind of what we tell him too! It’s not easy being The One—especially in Northern Europe where so few are traveling the Lotus Way .

4.     We’ve evaluated the classroom and found the feng shui to be nightmarish. All that blocked energy—there is no flow! No wonder he’s not doing his schoolwork. I think school performance would be enhanced if his desk was turned to the northwest, the shades were raised, the clock moved to the opposite wall, mirrors strategically placed behind the teacher's desk, and some plants added to the back of the room. We are very concerned about all the damp energy emanating from the sink. Can that be taken out? You might also consider adding windchimes above the door. Ding a ling!

5.     We practice acupuncture and know that a few needles inserted into his temples during third period will help him survive language arts. Can the school nurse help us with this? Of course we’d supply the needles—we don’t expect special treatment from the school, though I suppose we're entitled under the Americans with Disabilities Act.  I'm just sayin...

6.     My chiropractor says my son is maladjusted—but not in the way you think. His problem is concentrated at C3 and a few months of appointments should correct his neurological disturbances. He’s just having a little midbrain spasm right now--bear with us.

7.     This is all diet related! After extensive testing, we’ve discovered he reacts to one of the sub-proteins in his morning oatmeal, and this is the root cause of his hatred of worksheets. You’ll be glad to know we’re switching to grits and you should see an immediate improvement!

8.     We didn’t make it to Mecca this year and our cleric was kidnapped by insurgents. I can see the effect of this on my darling boy. Please know his behavior is not jihad against the forces of structured education, but just a bump on the road to lasting peace. Trust us, he loves totalitarian rule!

9.    We’ve consulted our pastor and he thinks God is punishing you by placing our renegade son in your care. We are all praying for you, that you’ll see your faults, confess your sins, accept Jesus as your personal Savior and accept my son as the Cross you must bear on your way to heaven. Shall we bow our heads and pray?

10.   His father and I have carefully reviewed our sons’ psychological test results and his personal history, and we don’t believe he has ADHD. Y’all, the ugly truth is that he’s just a part-time Pain in the Ass (a PITA!), and we’re thinking if you take a daily dose of Zoloft, you’ll be able to deal with it, though Valium might work better for some and estrogen-replacement therapy might be just the thing for others. Consult your doctors. Remember y’all, for every problem, there is a pharmaceutical solution!

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved. You may link to this entry or e-mail it to someone directly from this site by clicking Post Comment below. Thank you!

September 27, 2006

Conversation with the Keyboard

Keyboard: So, what are we going to write about today?

V-Grrrl: Beats me. I’ve exhausted all the hot topics: the weather, the price of watermelons, acceptable colors of nail polish, and what I did on my summer vacation. Yesterday I blogged on how tired I am. When you’ve explored all the really important issues—what’s left?

Keyboard: Um, maybe you could write about something dull—you know, sex, drugs, politics?

V-Grrrl: Ah, I don’t want to write about Bush or bush. The E-Man would freak out.

Keyboard: How about health and fitness?

V-Grrrl: Listen, if I give my expat fat another 15-minutes of fame, it will never ride off into the sunset. It already has a bloated self-image. I’m going to sit on that topic and hope it disappears.

Keyboard: You could blog on your kids….

V-Grrrl: True, if only I could remember all the funny things they say. I don’t want to immortalize their whining and bickering. Right now they’re painting and fighting over whose picture is best,  who’s wasting paint, and who just farted. It’s not a Kodak moment. It’s not a sitcom moment. It’s more a Planned Parenthood moment.

Keyboard: Maybe you should get out of your bathrobe, have another cup of tea, and see if the Muse comes calling.

V-Grrrl: Great idea. Why would the Muse speak to an over-40 chick in dorky glasses with bedhead and Ugg slippers? I need to improve my image and shed the bathrobe. Now where did I put my sweatpants?

August 2, 2006

Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

The oldest of eight in a large Irish Catholic family, my dad was born in Brooklyn and pushed into poverty at the age of 14 when his father died of pernicious anemia at the height of the Great Depression. Soon he and his brothers were working paper routes and odd jobs after school and during the summer to support the family. His mother, her youngest child a toddler when her husband died, did house cleaning, home nursing, whatever she could find and manage along with her family responsibilities.

Still the family often went hungry. As an adult my dad would not let grape jelly into our house because it reminded him of the days when all they had to eat was bread and jelly. In his group senior class photo,  my father is skinny and hollow-cheeked and the only one in the class not wearing a cap and gown. He couldn’t afford them.

While my dad had dreams of going to college and becoming a doctor, he eventually gave up taking classes at Fordham University and worked fulltime at Grumman’s before joining the Navy and serving in World War II. His plans for higher education and a professional career weren’t realized, but he never lost his work ethic or his love of learning.

He built our family home himself (with some help from his brothers) and all his life he planted huge gardens and raised organic vegetables for us to eat. He liked to cook. He never took a vacation, and I can’t remember him ever taking a day off.  He was stubborn single-minded and loyal, especially to his family. Like many Irishmen, he was a great story teller and loved the printed word. 

My dad was an electrician who came home every night from work and settled into a chair after dinner to read the newspaper, the latest issue of National Geographic, and a library book. He never watched TV. He could care less about sports. He had a sharp mind, an incredible memory, and could quote passages and facts from books he’d read once. He read only non-fiction—books on science, agronomy, nutrition, and medicine were his favorites. He’d sometimes veer into quirky and unorthodox subjects, and he was interested in alternative medicine long before it entered the American lexicon.

I’ve been thinking about Dad a lot lately because I’ve been reading A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. Teebs on her home page at Soul Gardening declared it one of the best books she’d read in the last 10 years, influencing my decision to check it out of the library. Prior to her endorsement, I was familiar with the title, knew it was a coming-of-age-story, but on some level I’d believed it was geared toward sentimental adolescent girls.

I was surprised when I discovered it had been written in 1943. A bestseller in its time and a modern classic, the novel is based on the author Betty Smith’s own life and is set in the early 1900s. It follows the story of a poor Irish Catholic girl growing up in a tenement in Brooklyn with a hardworking, practical mother, two younger siblings, and a charming, alcoholic father who dies young.

It’s a literary story, not romantic in the least. Smith brings the gritty world of the struggling immigrant underclass to life, explores the small joys and daily perils of their hardscrabble existence, and introduces us to Francie, the story’s heroine, a smart and resourceful girl who will use her love of books, her incredible reading skills, and her drive to support her mother and siblings and achieve her own dreams.

The title refers to a type of tree that grew in the tenements. Unplanted and uncared for, hale and hardy like weeds, they thrived in the unlikely places, emerging from cracks in the concrete and littered vacant lots to grow tall and form umbrellas of greenery and shade. Cut down, they’d spring to life again, new shoots pushing toward the sky from the sorry stumps.

That was Francie. That was  Dad. I aspire to be as tough and resilient.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

July 9, 2006

All things brown and beautiful, all creatures great and small....

As regular readers know, here at Chez V, I share my living space with Greenies. My family members never found a living thing they didn’t want to nurture. They have the patience to suspend a moldy avocado pit in water for six months and wait for it to sprout. They operate a plant intensive care unit where there’s no such thing as death with dignity or a Do Not Resuscitate Order. Heroic measures are taken every day to keep spindly, anemic-looking stalks out of the compost pile. They also sweep spiders and ants into dust pans indoors and carry them carefully outside to live long and prosper.

I try not to get annoyed with all their green-living, life-affirming, touchy-feely behavior, but in comparison I’m a bitch that loves the smell of napalm in the morning. What can I say, I’m a “live well or die” kinda gal. And when it comes to insects, I will do no harm to them outdoors, but if they try to get friendly and come into Chez V like a backdoor neighbor, I go all psycho on them and administer the V-Grrrl Foot of Death. (Much to E-Man’s chagrin, I leave their carcasses wherever they fall, like trophies to be admired. I love to see a swaggering spider go two-dimensional when he enters my turf.)

But despite my Apocalypse Now mentality, I would never kill Jessie. Jessie is E-Grrrl’s pet beetle. She lives in a container with a magnifier built into the lid so you can admire her in all her glory as she burrows into dry oatmeal and eats brown apple slices. She has NINE brothers and sisters.

Yes y’all, I am living with a terrarium in MY DINING ROOM that is full of “beetles” that look like ROACHES. And my darling E-Grrrl LOVES them.

Jessie was part of a class science project, and little E-Grrrl has had her since she was a mealworm. You know what mealworms are—they look like maggots who have used self-tanner. They’re what crazy people buy to feed to their pet REPTILES. (I know, who am I calling crazy? Me, I’ve got pet BEETLES and plants on life support in my house! Not to mention a pink-tailed, heirloom-eating rodent! GAH!)

Jessie’s transformation from mealworm to beetle has been lovingly recorded by little E-Grrrl in her pretty pink and green Mealworm Journal. In the beginning, E-Grrrl, like a seasoned biologist, notes that on April 27, Jessie is 2.5 inches long, has 13 segments, two antenna, six legs, and is tannish. (Pardon me while I say “Ewwww!”) Then in a break from scientific objectivity, she notes that Jessie is “very still and sad.”

On April 28, E-Grrrl continues to act as a budding biologist and grub psychologist by noting: “We put our mealworms into a box. I observed that Jessie loves the corner of the box. I think she is shy and scared. She is so cute!” (“Ewwww!”)

Over the ensuing days, E-Grrrl chronicles Jessie’s reaction to light, wet vs. dry surfaces and writes several times that “Jessie does not like to move” and “Jessie is turning white.” (Thankfully, she does not say “Jessie is lazy and pale, just like my mama, who is white and does not like to move.”)

On May 12, E-Grrrl notes, “Jessie is turning into a beetle. She looks very cute.” This is accompanied by a sketch of a six-legged icky brown creature with pronounced antenna. (“Ewwww!”)

May 16 entry begins “Jessie is a BEETLE!” and ends with “She is big and cute and black.” (Hmm, she looks like something that would crunch and stain the floor should she have a personal encounter with my Minnetonka Moccasin of Death.)

The project is officially over. However, E-Grrrl, in a variation of the Stockholm Effect, has bonded with her subject and does not want to let Jessie be set free to eat compost outdoors at school. No, she brings Jessie and many of the other children’s science-experiments-gone-wrong to Chez V to be petted, held, and fed fresh produce.

Late at night, I’ve seen the beetles bumping uglies and know that soon E-Grrrl will be setting up a pink and blue mealworm nursery. (Ewww! Why don’t bugs ever suffer from unexplained infertility? Creatures without brains are the perfect candidates for meaningless sexual relationships. Insert your own Kevin Federline joke here.)

While E-Grrrl helps the ROACHES (I mean “beetles’) live happily ever after in the presence of rotten potatoes, Mr. A., my 10-year-old son, is tending two aquariums full of pond scum and tadpoles. He’s feeding them chopped steamed spinach and they’re growing rapidly in their slimy environment. (Ewww!) They’re all squirmy and desperate and look like giant sperm on steroids. I have to resist the urge to snare them in a condom and flush them down the toilet.

With the tadpoles developing tiny appendages, we’ll soon have frogs at Chez V. Many, many frogs. This means Mr. A will be out with his bug net catching flies and mosquitoes for them to eat. Unless of course, they (ahem) like mealworms and beetles, in which case, life at Chez V would start to make more sense to me.

Ah, the great Circle of Life. I wonder if cats eat frogs? If not, maybe our French neighbors do.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

June 5, 2006

Sacred Places

Our second day in Bath, the weather was nicer. E finally got to do his walking tour (while the kids and I explored on our own), and then after lunch we headed off by car to see one of the world’s most recognized wonders.

Stonehenge rises up out of the broad face of the Salisbury plain, its lichen-covered stones in the midst of a sheep pasture. The sun is bright but the wind sweeps the sky and threatens to blow us away as our scarves flap and our hair whips around our eyes. The spring chill barrels through our jackets, and Stonehenge sits unmoved and unmovable as it as has for at least 4,000 years.

The monolithic stone circle we see on this sight isn’t the first monument that was built here. Archeologists say there were others before it, dating back 5,000 years. The windswept plain spreading for miles under endless sky was once wooded, and perhaps Stonehenge was surrounded by forests.

The stones that tower above the ground were quarried in Marlborough Downs which is 19 miles away, and the bluestones below came from the mystical Preseli Mountains in Wales, 240 miles away. Exactly how the stone was transported is unknown. Why bluestone was chosen is also unknown. How the builders erected single slabs of stone that weigh more than 40 tons each is a secret buried with the builders. The lintels that crown the stone slabs aren’t just set on top, but are fitted using joint and tenon construction. Each pillar is positioned with precision and special stones mark the position of the sun at the various equinoxes of the year. There is an altar in the center and a tall stone that acts like the spike on a sundial.  There are round burial mounds within sight of the circle.

Its exact origins and purpose remain a mystery, but it’s clear this spot has been tended as a sacred place since 3050 B.C. Like the hot spring in Bath, which has been the site of pagan, Roman, and Christian places of worship, Stonehenge represents human effort to get in touch with the Divine, to connect with something greater than a visible reality, to make sense of both the order and the chaos of the natural world.

In Bath, there is a beautiful Abbey, built in the 15^th century on a site that first had a Christian church that was built by the Saxons in the ninth century and later a Norman cathedral. The Abbey was site of the coronation of the very first king of England, Edgar. On Good Friday, we visited Wells Cathedral, the oldest surviving English Gothic Church, dating to the 12^th century. When we toured the Cotswolds on Thursday, we visited several stone churches, built by the Saxons and the Normans, each one intertwined so intimately with English history and politics. In the dim light of one ancient church, I placed my hand on the cold stone of a baptismal font that dated back to the 13^th century. It is still in use today, tying together generation after generation of Christians in this place.

It was amazing to visit these sacred places that have served believers of various religions and origins for thousands of year. How fitting to be there during Holy Week, the week Christians commemorate Jesus’ final days, his death and his resurrection.

My parents had me baptized and set me on my own spiritual path as an infant, and I’ve followed it first as a child and now as an adult. At times I’ve done so with confidence and “blessed assurance.” Other times I’ve plodded along, uncertain exactly where I was going or what my beliefs meant, but committed to accepting my doubts and questions as an important part of my journey.

I’ve seen how religion divides and unites, how it is a vehicle of love and can be hijacked for hate, how it creates clarity and confusion, peace and distress. Even as I embrace Christianity, my faith expands to consider the mystery of the Divine, the relationship mankind has sought with God from the days before recorded history, the truth we still seek to this day.

While rigid, dogmatic interpretations of Christianity grab the headlines and try to explain every aspect of life in detail, I confess I like the mystery of faith. I don’t grip my faith in my fist. Instead I like to hold my beliefs loosely in my hand and consider all I don’t know and understand. I like to ponder what has come before me and all that coexists with my faith and wonder how each of us has arrived at our place as Seekers, as Believers.

Sometimes I envision all of us as holding pieces to a puzzle, each piece a perfect but incomplete glimpse of the Divine. Some believers have many pieces, some have just a few. We gather them all our lives, we inherit them, we share them with others. Maybe on the last day we’ll bring what we have forward and see how they all fit together, all reflect something so much bigger than we ever imagined. We’ll see the Big Picture, see the Divine, appreciate our gifts, and recognize the sacred in every face, every faith, every place.

© Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

I smell a rat.....

When my son asked for a hamster last spring, I told him no, no, and no. No rodents in the house. No way was I co-habitating with a nasty, poop-producing, salmonella-carrying, gnawing nocturnal rodent. It had taken mankind millenniums to finally get the rats out of the houses—only to reach the “modern” age where we domesticate vermin and call them pets.

But my son, Mr. A, is nothing if not persistent and persuasive, and he kept pinging us on the hamster until I thought my brain would dissolve and run out my ears. And his father, aka St. Francis of Tervuren, is as soft on animals as he is on plants. I could tell he liked the idea of a pink-tailed, beady-eyed, whisker-twitching fur ball sharing our domestic bliss.

Why me? I should have married a metrosexual—a guy who could give grooming tips, style my hair, and help me find pants that minimize my ass. What am I doing with these spider-saving, plant-loving, pro-life in all forms Greenies? Gah! I’m surprised they let me use disinfectants in the bathrooms. Their next crusade will be to save the poor defenseless E. coli and flu viruses from the Lysol! Freaks!

Seeing as the Greenies had me outnumbered, we ended up getting a hamster.  The hamster’s cedar bedding and food found its way into every room of the house, and my son’s habit of letting it run around on the carpet had me screeching, “GET THAT RODENT OFF MY RUG!” and issuing dire warnings, “You’re going to kill that hamster with kindness. Put him in his cage. NOW!”

Well my son didn’t kill that hamster with kindness, his sister did—with her big, honking, Stride Rite extra-wide foot of death.  Mr. A had been letting his hamster run around on the floor and E-Grrrl stepped on him. In an instant I had wailing, sobbing children and a shuddering rodent taking his final death gasps in my hand.  It was awful.

Where was St. Francis of Tervuren during this family tragedy? England!  Lucky me. I got to handle the dead vermin and funeral arrangements all by myself. We buried the hamster in the backyard in a metal tin lined with a doll blanket. Lots of shoulder-shaking sobs and my lame attempts to compose a Prayer on the Death of a Hamster. Mr. A made a cross out of sticks to mark the grave. The hamster had survived in our home all of three weeks—and no sooner was the dirt patted down on the grave did Mr. A request a replacement.

I dug in my heels. No, no, and no! Hamsters were too fragile to be handled by my kids. Besides “No rodents in the house!” Mr. A’s cavalier attitude toward letting his hamster run around had proved my point. Plus I was tired of sweeping up seed and bedding and cleaning everything the hamster touched.

But while I may not care about rodents, I love my son. Watching him grieve over this hamster rubbed a tender spot on my heart. St. Francis of Tervuren, that clever opportunist, wormed right into the soft spot and suggested maybe we could try again after a month or so and give Mr. A a new hamster for his birthday.

And so we did. Sigh.

To his credit, Mr. A was very careful with Lefty, cleaned his cage without fussing, and played with him every day. I still had hamster bedding and hamster shit showing up in odd places, but Mr. A was in heaven. He carried Lefty around in his sweatshirt pocket, made him toys, bathed him, gave presentations to his class and to his Scout troop on hamsters, and used his camera to take pictures of him in cute poses. For Christmas Santa brought Mr. A a new cage for Lefty.

But yesterday, Mr. A faltered. We were on our way out the door to catch a bus. I told Mr. A, who was carrying Lefty around, to put him in his cage and go get his socks on so we could scoot. Apparently, Mr. A decided to put his socks on first, put Lefty down on the bed, and then he forgot about him.

We were gone for hours and when we arrived home in the late afternoon, Mr. A went to check on Lefty. When he saw the cage was empty, crying and finger-pointing ensued, with Mr. A doing what comes naturally—trying to blame his sister. Basically I told him to shut his pie hole and start searching.

I looked downstairs while Mr. A and E-Grrrl looked upstairs. Unbeknownst to me, they were pulling apart every box in the storage room, turning the craft area upside down, tossing pillows off the bed and onto the floor, and spreading hamster food all over the floor in every room to lure Lefty out of hiding. Good Lord. When I went upstairs to insist they go to bed, I saw the damage they had done. I was up until midnight hamster hunting, sweeping up seeds, and trying to clean up the storage room.

Where was St. Francis of Tervuren during all this? Out of the freakin country, that’s where! Same place he was when Alfalfa, the first hamster, met his untimely end and when Peeper and Popper, Mr. A’s pet frogs, died of heat exhaustion in the terrarium. St Francis brings the pets into the house, but I get to carry them out feet-first and take my kids through the four-step grieving process.

So this morning I get up, and there’s still no sign of Lefty. Mr. A prefers lying on the sofa wondering where Lefty could be to actually getting off the sofa and looking for Lefty. His sleep-deprived mother is not happy. And when mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. I tell him and E-Grrrl to start cleaning because their Dad is coming home tomorrow and will expect a clean house. In the process of cleaning, we should find Lefty.

E-Grrrl diligently works on her room and Mr. A sporadically searches for Lefty but does no real cleaning. He’s much better at pulling everything out of a closet, bookshelf, or cabinet and leaving it there. I toil away in his room for hours, determined to cut the clutter and get things straight. The more the kids search for Lefty, the messier the house gets. Mama ain’t happy.

Finally I send him and E-Grrrl upstairs to watch a movie so they’ll be out of my way and I can make some real progress. I’m in E-Grrrl’s room surveying the disaster that is her dresser top when I here scratching. I listen, trying to figure out where it’s coming from. I get down on all fours and look under her dresser but nothing is there.

I cock my head and listen again. Sounds like it’s coming from her trunk! How is that possible! I lift the lid on the closed trunk and get slapped in the face with the nasty rat smell. Smells like the college psychology lab. Whew. I know Lefty is in there. He had apparently climbed up the back side of the trunk and entered into it through the large air holes drilled there by the safety-conscious St. Francis of Tervuren. Those air holes are close to the trunk lid, a good two feet up. That rat is an acrobat.

I call Mr. A and tell him I’ve found Lefty. He bounds into the room with a big smile on his face and begins digging in the trunk until he sees dark beady eyes peering out at him. His whole face lights up.

Is V-Grrrl the non-Greenie, rodent-hating, spider-squishing bitch happy? Not really. She’s looking at that trunk full of linens and thinking how long it’s going to take her to wash all of them because her energy- efficient, environmentally-friendly, water-conserving European washer takes more than TWO HOURS to do a freakin load. Grrrr.

I start pulling the linens and blankets out and notice there are bits of fluff coming up with them. I get to the bottom of the trunk and see the enormous pee stain on its bottom as well as a pile of shit that couldn’t possibly have been produced by such a small animal in a 30 hour period. Sheesh. I tell Andrew to get the disinfectant because he’s removing the poop and scrubbing out that trunk himself.

But that pile of shit wasn’t the worst of it. Oh no. The worst shit is yet to come. Remember the bits of fluff? Those were from the only articles of clothing my late mother ever crocheted for me: A beautiful fringed poncho that I adored and wore all through elementary school and two two hand-crocheted children’s sweaters that I loved and that little E-Grrrl, who never met my mother, had sometimes worn.

Not only had Lefty gnawed big holes in those items, he’d also tasted a baby quilt and chewed holes in E-Grrrl’s sheets. Grrr.

My mother, Lord rest her soul, was a Greenie but had no tolerance for animals of any kind in the house. I can only imagine what she thinks of pet vermin shredding the items she’d made with love for her youngest daughter that had been passed on to her youngest granddaughter. I can hear her cursing in Italian from here.

All I can say is that Lefty better start praying. Big Lou in the Great Beyond was known for giving any creatures that violated her domain and the cleanliness of her home “the business.” I’m sure she’s taking a hit out on Lefty, and even St. Francis won’t be able to save him now. His days are numbered. He better behave. He better beg forgiveness. You don’t cross Big Lou, especially when the ground in the backyard pet cemetery will be thawing soon.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

March 20, 2006

Locked in, locked out, going nowhere

(To mark the one year anniversary of our arrival in Belgium, I’ve written a series of entries. The first was on how we became expats, the second detailed mishaps on our first day. Today’s entry is the third and final installment in the series.)

As we were preparing to move to Belgium , an American working for my husband’s organization here in Brussels volunteered to help us with the transition. He gathered information for us, made contacts and set up appointments for us to handle administrative tasks, checked out the apartment we were considering renting to let us know if it was OK, stocked it with some groceries before we arrived, met us at the airport, and showed us around. We arrived just a few days before he and his family left for a vacation in Russia , and he generously offered to let us use his car while he was gone.

Ah, freedom! A chance to buy groceries and not have to carry them home. The opportunity to look for a house and to venture outside our neighborhood. A way to attend events at the children’s school. We were excited.

Our first outing with the borrowed car occurred five days after our arrival. With a mix of anticipation and trepidation, we all buckled up, ready for E to tackle driving and navigating in Brussels .

The car starts up, we all smile, we’re on our way! E brings it around to the exit for the parking garage underneath our apartment building and confidently points and clicks the garage door opener--and nothing happens.

He tries again—no luck. Amid flashbacks to the day we were locked out of our apartment, we wonder what could possibly be wrong. The door opener had gotten us into the garage the day before, why couldn’t we get out?

E and I get out of the car, looking along the walls and columns for a button, a keyed lock, a latch, anything to give us a clue on how to get out of the garage. Nothing! E goes upstairs to our apartment and calls an emergency number--no response!

Back down in the basement, E backs the car up the exit ramp and re-parks it. Finally, after shuffling about, we realize power is out to a portion of the garage even while it's on in the rest of the building. E suspects a thrown circuit breaker and calls someone to check on them.

Meanwhile, we decide to load some items into the trunk of the car, which is Italian, not American. Without a thought, E puts the car key into the lock, but the trunk does not open. We’re flabbergasted. We’re starting to wonder whether we’re starring in some bizarre reality show. Our constant difficulties with locks seem too crazy to be true.

We contort ourselves into wacky positions inside the car while we hunt for a trunk release. It’s not on or under the dash, it’s not on the floor, it’s not on the steering column, it’s not next to the seat, it’s not on the driver’s side, it’s not on the passenger’s side, it’s not in the back seat. Where the hell is it?

Oh, of course, it’s INSIDE the glove box. Just where one would expect it. Not!

With relief, we push the trunk release--and nothing happens. We feel like we're experiencing a bad practical joke or the ultimate test of our patience. Why won't the trunk open? Why indeed? Well, through trial and error we finally discover you have to push the trunk release AND use a key to open the trunk.

Grrrrr. Well at least figuring out how to open the trunk kept us busy while we waited what felt like forever for someone to show up and check the electrical circuits. Eventually, we get out of the garage (applause, please!), and E manages to get us to our destination without killing anyone or being killed (take a bow!). We come home like warriors from a successful expedition, proud of all the hardships we’ve overcome in going to the library and grocery store (thump chest, raise arms in victory!).

Little did we know, our adventures with the car weren’t over. On Tuesday morning E had an appointment to meet with someone outside the Brussels area. When he went to start the car to get there, the battery was dead. He returned to the apartment and debated what to do.

He’s fairly certain that the car’s owner is a member of Touring, the European equivalent of AAA in the States. So he calls Touring, who tells him they can’t confirm whether his friend is a member or not without the car’s tag number. So E hangs up, goes all the way back down to the parking garage, writes down the tag number and calls Touring back.

Ah yes, the woman says, our friend is indeed a member. Someone will be there to help us within an hour. E, while tense about the incident, relaxes a bit. Help is on the way.

Or not, as it turns out.

No one shows up. When E calls Touring to inquire what’s up, he’s told there is no record of his service request at all. So he gives them the car tag number again to start the process over, and the person on the phone announces they have no record of this car being in the system at all. No, she tells us, our friend is NOT a member of Touring.

Grrrrr. So E combs the yellow pages and then calls a mobile car service place to see if he can get a jumpstart. Oh sure, they’ll come, but it will cost 270 euros, which is well over $300. No way! We’re not going for this! It’s just a dead battery!

As a last resort, E starts calling people on his short list of American contacts to see if anyone can come to give him a jumpstart. No one can.

Angry and frustrated, he calls to cancel his appointment out of town and grabs a bus to go to his office. I sit on the sofa and have a good cry.

That night E returns home a bit more upbeat. The next day a coworker is bringing him a battery charger. E will be able to recharge the battery and reschedule his appointment—no problem! He lugs the battery charger and a long extension cord home with him on the bus the next day, changes his clothes, and then dashes down to the parking area. I’m astounded when he reappears a few minutes later and tells me there is not ONE outlet anywhere in the entire garage.

How we kept from banging our heads on the wall at that moment is a mystery. Now we can laugh about it, but being locked out, locked in, and going nowhere was an uncomfortable metaphor for expat life during those first few months.

Trying to read signs and menus, navigate bureaucracy, understand traffic rules and patterns, locate items we needed to buy, learn how to bank, understand local customs—everything was a challenge. Yet, here we are, a year later, with the sun shining and spring valiantly trying to make an entrance. Much to our surprise, we’re firmly planted in Belgium , and despite the hardships, we are blooming.

The key to success—PATIENCE. If you're becoming an expat,  pack extra in your suitcase. 

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

March 16, 2006

The Tao of Laundry

Dedicated to Granola Grrrl 

Gentle Readers, this is not for those who brag they can take things from hamper to hanger in half a day but for those who linger on the journey from Unclean to Enwhitenment.

Now, in a perfect world, all dirty clothes would begin their journey in the hamper. But, as we know, the world is full of Suffering and only half the dirty clothes are in the hamper. Only you can decide if the hamper is half empty or half full, Little Ones.

You must ever be a seeker and seek that which you should find: dirty clothes may be next to the hamper, behind the hamper, on top of the hamper, on the floor of the bedroom, in the toy box, mixed in with clean clothes, piled on the trunk, sitting on a chair, or waiting on the basement stairs. The world is full of Confusion. As you can see, the first step down the laundry path is the hardest—identifying and gathering all that is Unclean and bringing it to a central place.

Next we must identify the true essence of our uncleanness. Even as we seek Oneness, we must divide to conquer. And so Little Ones, we sort. Coloreds from Whites. Permanent Press from Knits. Delicates from Heavy Cottons. Towels from Sheets. Warm from Cold.

The piles may stretch all along the upper hallway and cause dismay. Do not think of the piles as obstacles, they are an essential part of the journey, way stations in life. Inhale. Exhale. Release your tension. Accept that it may take days to move to Enwhitenment.

Yes, before we can ascend to the White, we must first descend into the Dark. Down, down, down the curving basement  stairs we carry our burdens, one load at a time, and we become One with them. In the dark, all is crammed into the washer where the gentle tides of the front-loader will separate the dirt of the earth, the sweat of the body, and the stains of bad moments from the fabric of our lives. Turn, turn, pause. Turn, turn, rest. This is our Mantra. This is our life.

When will it end? When will the Laundress release us from our wishy-washy existence and take us to the next station on the path to Enwhitenment? How long must we sit? Minutes? Hours? Days? It is up to the Laundress to decide and no one, not ONE, has understood the mystery of her timing.

Finally, all is pulled coil by coil from the bowels of the Great Washer and tossed into the Dryer to be refined by heat and tumbling, to shed its Damp Nature, and unfurl all the creases of its consciousness. Remember Little Ones, the beep at the end of Dampness does not signal Completion. Be wise and know that it signals patience and waiting. One does not emerge from the Dark Place of Drying immediately, one may have to linger--minutes, hours, days--before one is freed.

At the right time, the Laundress from above will descend into the Darkness to lead you out to the Light. And yet the world is full of Uncertainty. If the Laundress is in a Great Hurry, only that which she desires in the Moment is brought into the Light and that which is not in that Moment becomes for a time Not Essential and is left on top of the dryer to consider its usefulness.

Yes, the road to Completion is long. Once carried out of the basement Darkness and into the Light, laundry often has ample time to be still and meditate in yogic positions on the sofa or the bed, to observe the sad state of that which is still piled on the floor, to wonder when its disorderly state will become ordered, when it will be permitted to rest in the everlasting comfort of neat Dresser Drawers or hang in bliss in the Closet of All that Fits.

Likely it will be moved once or twice before being folded into proper Alignment. And then once folded, it will experience yet another time of learning Patience and Surrendering of Expectations.

Will it finally reach the Bliss of its Proper Place in the World? Or will it be prematurely snatched from the laundry basket of life and forced to begin the difficult journey again, gathering dirt from the earth, sweat from the skin, and the stains of awkward moments?

Karma is a mystery. The cycle of laundry, like the cycle of life, is endless and sometimes exhausting. Have compassion. The Mighty Laundress feels your pain. She too is seeking everlasting Enwhitenment and an end to all suffering along the Lotus Laundry Path.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

March 13, 2006

Learning the Hard Way--Our First Day in Brussels

(Last Thursday I related the story of how we were led to a life in Brussels. This week I pick up with our first day.)

Our plane arrived in Zaventem at 6:30 a.m., which is just after midnight in Virginia. We were dazed and yet wide-eyed as we rode from the airport to our apartment in downtown Brussels. I had never lived in an apartment before, and the kids were excited because we’d be living on the second floor, and they’d get to ride an elevator everyday. For them, this was the height of glamour, and they argued endlessly over who got to push the buttons.

I loved the apartment at first glance. In a renovated older building, it had 16-foot ceilings, enormous windows, and hardwood floors. The furnishings were modern yet cozy, the big leather sofas inviting, the bedrooms simple and streamlined. It was small, and the children had to share a room, but we didn’t mind. It was a surprisingly bright and airy space. Though the sun was streaming through the windows, we crashed into bed and slept. When E woke me a few hours later, all I could mutter was “You are not my friend!” E, the veteran traveler, insisted we get up, get outside, and walk around to reset our biological clocks. I knew he was right but it seemed criminal at the time to leave our beds!

Soon we were moving in a herd down the sidewalks of Brussels, gawking at everything and trying to get our bearings. My brain was in a fog, as if the part that organized and stored information had been unplugged. I felt like I was watching TV without the sound. I was going through the motions. We explored parks in the neighborhood, scouted out places to buy groceries and found restaurants with appealing menus.

Back at the apartment, we unpacked our suitcases and washed up before going to dinner. We had three keys to the apartment, and before we left, E and I checked to make sure we each had a key in hand before letting the door swing shut behind us. What we didn’t know was that Belgian locks operate differently than Americans ones.

Back in the States, we always left our extra key inside the house, stuck in the deadbolt. We had no clue this was a big no-no in Belgium until we trudged home after dinner, put our key into the door lock and discovered it didn’t turn.

Convinced he had inserted the key incorrectly, E tried reversing it, jiggling it—no luck. I pulled out my key and it didn’t work either. How was this possible? We’d used the keys earlier in the day and everything was fine.

By now it was 7 p.m. In the past 24 hours, we’d had less than three hours of sleep, and we were beyond exhausted. Having just arrived, we did not have a cell phone, and we also didn’t have any phone numbers in hand of people we could call. All our contact information was in the apartment. We felt both foolish and vulnerable, not sure what to do next.

I noticed an emergency maintenance number posted next to the elevator. and we wrote that down on our restaurant receipt. We walked through the apartment building looking in vain for a public phone. E and our son A decided to walk back to the restaurant where we’d eaten and see if they would allow him to use their phone.

I sat on the steps outside our apartment with little E-Grrrl who kept saying, “Belgium is not what I expected.” And I kept assuring her that everything was going to be fine even as I fought back the urge to cry. At the restaurant, E was told he couldn’t use the phone, and he was sent to use a pay phone. Finally locating one, he learned pay phones don’t accept coins.

Back at the restaurant, a sympathetic waitress told him to go to a tobacco shop and buy a phone card. E found a shop, bought a phone card, and figured out how to use it. Happily the building’s maintenance man answered E’s call and headed on over. What was lost in translation when E described our dilemma was that we had locked ourselves out by leaving a key in the inside lock. So when the apartment guy showed up with the master key, we weren’t any better off than we’d been before.

Sighing, the maintenance guy asked whether any windows were unlocked. E never leaves ANYTHING unlocked under any circumstances. But fortunately, I was fairly certain I had left a window unlocked when I was checking the apartment out earlier in the day.

The maintenance worker let himself into the adjoining apartment, opened the window, and stepped out onto the tiny balcony over the street. He then had to swing a leg over the rail and step out onto a narrow ledge and creep along the building’s face toward our windows. E and A watched the drama unfolding from the cobblestone sidewalk below. E was puzzled because the man seemed to be stuck, and then he was moving ever so slowly.

Thank God, he eventually reached our windows safely, one was indeed unlocked, and he was able to open it from the outside, climb into our apartment, and let us in. When E greeted him downstairs and thanked him for his efforts, the man was perspiring heavily and confided that he is terrified of heights. We felt awful for putting him in such a predicament but ever so grateful to finally be able to get inside and collapse.

It had been a long day, a long journey to this moment. Thus our first day in Brussels was memorable and educational in more ways than one. My first lesson as an expat: never, ever, leave a key in the deadbolt of your Belgian home.

© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.

March 9, 2006

Happy Anniversary

Today E and I celebrated our anniversary. Here's the story behind the story.

Flashback: Labor Day Weekend 1979

I was spending a Saturday with my high school friend Vicky (aka Low Maintenance Grrrl). Low Maintenance Grrrl and I had been friends all through high school and had just started our senior year. We were both dedicated runners and co-captains of the track team. Our school didn’t have a cross-country team, but we trained year round anyway, running road races together in the off season. We thought that after going to the local Labor Day festival, we’d do some jogging, so we tossed some running gear into the back of Low Maintenance Grrrl’s car.

After cruising the festival in the afternoon, we ended up in the local Catholic church for its 5 p.m. service. Low Maintenance Grrrl wasn’t Catholic but she knew 1) if I didn’t go to church on Saturday night, my parents would drag me out of bed at 6:30 a.m. to catch the first mass on Sunday morning, and 2) she’d heard through the Protestant grapevine that Catholics would go to hell if they missed mass on a weekend.

Being my bestest friend, Low Maintenance Grrrl did not want me to lose sleep OR a shot at heaven, so she willingly set aside her Church of the Brethren beliefs for an hour to keep me company at St. Patrick’s. Of course, the fact that there were two all-male colleges in our town, and the Saturday night mass attracted considerable numbers of potential dates had NOTHING, absolutely nothing, to do with our decision to attend church. We were just Good Grrrls gathering up all the grace our sweet little Southern souls could hold.

This Saturday night was notable because we had a new priest and this was his first service. The church was full of young people seated in the back and this priest’s first order of business was to get us all to move closer to the front. Not exactly what we were expecting—but we dutifully shuffled a few pews forward as did two guys who were behind us who moved in front of us.

During a Catholic mass, there’s a moment when parishioners are supposed to turn and “greet one another in the name of Christ.” This generally translates to kissing the cheeks of family members, hugging friends, and shaking hands with people in the adjacent pews.

Being Good Grrrls, we followed the protocol and noted that one of the guys in front of us turned to shake hands but his buddy did not. Hmmm. That was a little cold. What was up with that guy?

After church “that guy” and his buddy came over to talk to us in the parking lot. Well actually, the buddy did all the talking. He asked us if we wanted to grab a bite to eat together (as his friend elbowed him in the ribs, channeling his severe embarrassment at attempts to pick up girls at church). Low Maintenance Grrrl and I had planned on going running at this point, but after some chit chat, we agreed to meet the two guys at a local college hangout for dinner.

Dinner went OK. The quiet guy was finally talking a bit and both guys were filling us in on their stories. S, the more outgoing of the two, was from Maine. E, the one who was initially shy gradually warmed up, and gave us some convoluted story about having been born in Africa but his family had lived in Virginia but now they had moved to Florida over the summer but E didn’t live there. Whatever. They were roommates, seniors at the local military college.

As Grrrls are known to do, Low Maintenance Grrrl and I took a restroom break and had a pow-wow over where the evening was going. We both agreed that the blond guy was cute (that was E) and his friend was OK. We decided that when we got back to the table, we’d see if they wanted to go running with us. It was dark, but we could run at the track which had lights.

While the Grrrls were in the restroom, the guys were having their own discussion. S asked E, “Which one do you like?” E said, “I like them both. They’re nice girls.” S said, “The redhead is too thin for my taste.” (The redhead being V-Grrrl and the “too thin for my taste” probably meant “isn’t stacked.” Which was true then and is true now. Whatever.) So E, ever gracious, agreed to focus on “the redhead.”

When we got back to the table, Low Maintenance Grrrl and I broached the topic of going running together. E was immediately interested. S was not. The night had clearly taken a bad turn from S’s point of view, but E convinced him to go along. So Low Maintenance Grrrl and I get into our track gear and E and S head back to their room to do the same. On the track, S drops out after only one lap. Low Maintenance Grrrl and I, distance runners, are secretly disgusted. What kind of military guy can’t crank out a few miles? S has ruined his chances of ever going out with either of us. He’s a baby.

Meanwhile E is not only cranking out the laps but is full of friendly chatter. In what has to be one of the worst lines I’ve ever been handed, he says, “So, is it true what they say about redheads being passionate?” I was floored. Was this the same guy who wouldn’t even shake my hand a few hours earlier? Geez. Being a feisty thing, I countered with my own question, “Hmmm, is it true what they say about blondes being dumb?” E loved this response. I was scrappy. Hah! He later told me he loved my spunk. The sassy attitude hooked him.

The rest, as they say, is history. E and I dated our respective senior years. He went into the Army. Low Maintenance Grrrl and I got matching scholarships, chose the same college, and became roommates as well as running buddies. During spring break of my sophomore year, I married E in a small ceremony at the church where we’d first met. The priest who helped bring us together officiated. Low Maintenance Grrrl was maid of honor at my totally low maintenance, low key wedding. S, then in the Navy, was E’s best man.

Twenty four years later, E still finds me scrappy. I still think he’s cute. And he now knows whether redheads are passionate, but he’s not telling because, you know, he’s still kinda shy.

March 7, 2006