June 18, 2006 at 11:28 Thanks to Ashleigh and her techno-weenie spouse Brad for encouraging and helping me set up an RSS feed button in my Navigation bar. Now those of you with news readers can easily get piping hot content delivered straight off the V-Grrrl buffet.
Let me know if it works, as I'm a techno-fumbler and don't always get this stuff right on my first attempt.
June 16, 2006 at 11:16 At a recent dinner party, the conversation turned to summer holidays, and the French, Dutch, Irish, and Belgian folks around the table discussed their plans to vacation for 3-4 weeks in Turkey, Southern France, and Spain. Heads turned expectantly towards us, the token Americans, to see where we’d be going this summer.
We noted that my husband’s job would take him to Germany early in the summer and we’d all travel with him and tack some family sightseeing days onto the beginning and end of the trip, but other than that, we didn’t have a holiday planned, though we expected to make some weekend or day trips.
A stunned silence accompanied the diners’ blank expressions, so we offered a bit more information. We explained that we tried to avoid the summer tourist crowds, and so we’d spent a week in Paris last fall and a week in the U.K. in April.
Americans, we said, don’t normally take long vacations.
As an afterthought I added, “The typical American summer vacation is one week long.”
Somewhere at the table, there was a small gasp of disbelief. Only a WEEK?! I tried to clarify the issue further:
“People normally only get about two weeks of vacation a year, and they don’t take it all at once. Even if you have a lot of vacation days, taking more than a week off is generally frowned upon.”
Our French companion snorted. “Why not?”
“Well,” my husband explained, “The general thinking is that if the office or business can function without you for two or more weeks, then maybe your job isn’t necessary.”
This observation was greeted with pitiful looks and snippets of indignation. No one vocalizes what they’re all clearly thinking: Americans are crazy and take the whole capitalism thing too far!
Just this week that whole scene at the dinner party came rushing back to me as I read a report comparing European and American work habits.
According to Expedia, the average American works 45 hours a week and gets 12 vacation days. The French get 30, Germans get 27, the Dutch get 25, and U.K. workers get 23.
Out of his 12 vacation days, the average American uses nine and “sells” the remainder back to his employer. Are they pressured not to take their days or would they rather work than be at home?
In many U.S. businesses, you must book your vacation time for the entire year on the company calendar in January. Senior employees get first dibs on the dates and junior employees get to pick from what’s left over.
Even when you have vacation days to burn, you can’t necessarily take them when you want to. The company must always be staffed and serving customers; people have to rotate their vacation days to make sure that happens. The idea of the needs of the business or its customers coming before the needs of the workers’ holidays is an alien concept here.
My first summer here in Belgium, I was shocked to discover many businesses completely closed down for the entire month of August or big chunks of July. Pharmacies, restaurants, and shops stick a notice on the front door, lock things up, and leave all thoughts of work or business behind as they join traffic queues on the highways or at the airport, all heading out of Belgium.
God help you if you need a plumber or mechanic in the summer or need assistance from a government agency. For better or worse, life is on hold in Belgium until September. Even if the workers aren’t ON holiday, they’re either anticipating it or recovering from it. No one seems very concerned about work.
Maybe next year we’ll have absorbed enough of European culture to join our friends and neighbors for a month at the beach. We’ll refuse to check e-mails or answer calls from the office. We’ll leave our cell phones in the suitcase and sit under a big umbrella at the shore. For one month we’ll try to forget the deeply ingrained American work ethic and business protocols and have a “proper” holiday, European style.
© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.
June 16, 2006
June 15, 2006 at 7:51 Only a week ago, THIS was my story. Life without the Big Os.
Enter JMo, a new reader who tracked down a NY bagel company that ships bagels internationally and offered to treat me to two dozen.
I was blown away by his graciousness and generosity. He made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. So over the weekend, we worked out details and my bagels left NY on a plane on Tuesday night. I was embarrassed how excited I was. When I woke in the night, I thought, “My bagels are somewhere over the Atlantic.”
Wednesday night, JMo sent me message telling me he’d checked on the bagels’ location, and they were now in Paris.
Damn, if I knew my bagels were going to Paris, I would have offered to meet them there!
The FedEx tracking page estimated delivery time at noon.
All morning, I tried not to obsess over the bagels, but I couldn’t help myself. I checked the tracking page: they were on the truck, somewhere in Belgium. Every time I heard a car door, I rushed to the window.
By 11:20 I was getting pretty hungry, but I didn’t want to snack because I was saving all my love for the bagels.
11:30 a.m. I hear the squeak of truck brakes. I’m flinging open my door before the guy has even started toward the house.
He looked like a New Yorker, had that stocky Italian build, olive skin, hairy chest, and thinning black hair combed straight back, He spoke English and was the perfect bagel delivery man.
As soon as he handed me the box, I got a whiff of the onion bagels. Heavenly.
Moments later, a cinnamon raisin JMo bagel was sliced and toasting and the kettle was boiling to make a cup of B-List Blogger tea. The butter was already softened and ready to spread.
On a drizzly, gray Belgian day, life never seemed sweeter.
Thanks JMo for putting a smile on my face and bagels in my freezer. This blog’s for you!
June 14, 2006 at 2:40 The solemn cold weather colors are stashed in trunks now, and the closet smiles with crisp whites, soft linens, tropical hues and sherbet pastels. June is pure, breezy, and full of promise, like a short, swingy skirt that sashays down the sidewalk with confidence and cheer.
This is a month that brims with optimism and plans. The cameras click non-stop to capture moments and milestones. It’s a time for exchanging vows and rings, for collecting diplomas and leaving home, for celebrating with friends and visiting with family, for finalizing holiday plans and adventures.
Darkness has retreated and our lives are infused with light. The sun rises unbelievably early and sets ever-so-late. We relish the illusion that the days are longer, that time is finally on our side. We take our morning tea outside and breathe a bit easier. We sprawl on the bench at the bus stop, close our eyes, and tip our chins up to the sun. No sighing and glancing at watches. Who cares if the bus is late?
We go for long walks after dinner, linger on the terrace later than we should, and wait for breezes to stir the air in our bedrooms as we drift off to sleep. Our dreams tumble with old friends in new settings, familiar and surprising like a patchwork quilt made from vintage fabrics.
The fields sip the rain, sigh, and perk with life. The bees hum on the roses leaning over the fence. The markets jostle with tanned shoulders and shopping bags crowding around colorful displays. The cash registers ring and the cafés never empty.
We relax our hands and loosen our grips, we let go of old hurts and expectations. We accept who and where we are. We’ve entered the promised land--summer is finally here.
©2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.
June 14, 2006
Seasons June 13, 2006 at 1:19 This is all Neil's fault. His "Bloggers with Biceps" campaign has driven me to admit that instead of deporting my expat fat, I've once again extended its visa by 30 days.
Yesterday I volunteered at Field Day and had lunch with a bunch of nice, friendly school moms.They all ordered garden salads for lunch. I ordered a cheeseburger smothered with onions and some fries. I tried to convince myself I should be proud of my refusal to succumb to group peer pressure and savor my American independence, but secretly I was ashamed of breaking ranks with the healthy salad-eaters. I know better.
The truth is, I have been living on the DARK side--chocolat noir has me under its evil spell. I have been walking 45 minutes to an hour, four to five days a week, but all routes lead back to the kitchen. Unless I walk AWAY from the Cote D'Or truffe noir and lift something heavier than a box of Godiva, all my exercise is in vain. I have got to pull myself together!
You know the stereotype of the vulnerable middle age woman--lonely, bored, and easily seduced? It's (gulp) all true. Last week all the flirting in the grocery store led to a one night stand--with a bag of Doritos. I woke up in the morning with puffy eyes and a bad taste in my mouth. Where's my self respect? My moral backbone? My waist?
Hopefully not lost forever. I'll go searching for it, I promise--after the bagel orgy.
Copyright 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.
June 13, 2006
June 12, 2006 at 1:23 I had a revelation over the weekend: not only is my body spongy on the outside, but my psyche is spongy on the inside.
I read an article by sociologist Martha Beck on Sunday that describes people who are “emotionally spongy.” The term refers to a person’s ability to soak up the emotional energy around them. This can be a good thing: spongy people deeply enjoy and appreciate kind words, warm wishes, and good feelings from friends, coworkers, and others. The problem with being a spongy person is you also experience all the stress and negativity the people around you emit, even if you have no direct connection to the source of their bad vibes. Meaning even when people complain about events you’re not associated with, you feel stressed, as if they happened to you. It’s different from being empathetic to others problems, being spongy means you actually experience what the other person is feeling and are weakened by it.
That’s me.
In my first job out of college, I had a mercurial boss prone to outbursts. Sometimes he’d loudly chew someone out, other times he’d leave memos on your desk where you were verbally lacerated in silence. Most of the people in the office could listen to him spout off in a rage and then let that moment go and get on with their jobs. Some could laugh about it. Me, whether I was the recipient of or the witness to his belittling comments, I felt sick, truly sick over them. I absorbed all his frustration and anger.
I’ve written about how I can’t watch emotional movies let alone full blown tear jerkers without paying a price. Long after the credits roll, I carry the character’s losses and grief with me. The more intense the movie, the longer and more acute my emotional hangover.
This is also why I’m not a regular at Web sites and blogs that focus on celebrity snark. Now I won’t pretend I’m not interested in celebrity gossip, but The Superficial, Perez Hilton and Go Fug Yourself can really bring me down. Sure, sometimes they make me laugh, but often I just feel the writers are just mean and not funny and their cruelty saps me.
While my husband isn’t an aggressive driver, he’s a verbal one. From the moment he gets behind the wheel, he’s prone to narrating all his gripes and grievances with other drivers. Not just dramatic incidents involving being cut off on the freeway or someone tailgating or running a light set him off, it’s smaller things too. Before we’re even out of the neighborhood, E will have complained about how people parked their cars, how so-and-so didn’t come to a complete stop back there, how cars veer to the outside on that curve, how people are driving too fast for a residential area, how the posted speed limits aren’t appropriate and on and on and on. For me, it’s unbearable.
All that complaining and negative energy fills me up and puts me in the worst mood. Sometimes I get physical symptoms, like a headache Most of the time, if I remind him, he makes a conscious effort to plug his word hole so I don’t get stressed out. I want him to let go of his narration, if not his opinions, on others’ driving. But sometimes he gets annoyed with me about it.
Because he’s not spongy, he doesn’t understand why he can’t talk about driving when he’s in the car. “What’s the big deal? he asks, “I’m just making some comments.” And to be fair, I want to make it clear he’s not yelling or cursing or shaking his fist. He’s just calling a crabby play-by-play of the driving scene. For me, all the irritability underlying the comments is contagious. When he starts his monologues, it’s like having someone sneeze in my face.
Years ago my daughter was on a soccer team. I didn’t know the other parents so I tended to set up my chair on the sidelines and flip through a magazine while E-Grrrl practiced. The first day I was there, the woman behind me aggressively castigated her daughter before the practice, and sighed for 15 minutes afterwards. Now everyone has rough days and rough moments, but I quickly learned this woman was ALWAYS mad at the world and tough on her daughter.
The irony—she was a Girl Scout leader and had been for years. Week after week after week she sat somewhere behind me and bitched non-stop about Girl Scouts, about the parents, about the kids, about the volunteers, and on and on and on. I left every practice exhausted by HER mood. E-Grrrl wasn’t even in scouting then, and I vowed she never would be as long as this person was involved. In my mind, this woman was like a smokestack that spewed soot over everything in her vicinity.
According to Beck, the sociologist who wrote the article I read, spongy people have to arm themselves against emotional assaults. She describes a long list of techniques that involve acknowledging and distancing yourself from the bad energy, visualizing happy moments or scenes when you’re under fire, and releasing tension and practicing peace through meditation.
What she makes clear is that spongy people are not neurotic, they don’t necessarily have unresolved issues, they’re not mentally ill—they’re just spongy. The key to dealing with it isn’t to see it as a fault but just as a trait. If you’re interested in reading the article and learning more about the research and treatments for spongy types, check out the June 2006 issue of O Magazine.
June 12, 2006
Leftovers June 9, 2006 at 5:36 Next week my kids will finish school and summer will officially begin at Chez V-Grrrl.
This fills me with equal parts anxiety and excitement.
It will be a relief to stop the merry-go-round of school, sports, and scouts, and have far fewer commitments on the calendar. I will love rolling over in bed in the morning and catching a few more ZZZZs. For my kids, it will mean freedom to explore some of their personal passions. They never lack for things to do. Creative types, they’re always planning and executing some type of project of their own design.
But (and there’s always a “but”), having more than one creative type under the roof 24/7 can get a little crazy. Once they conceive of an idea of something to do/make, there’s NO REST until it is completed. If I’m “paged” to help provide materials or expertise with one of their projects, I better be willing to drop everything. If not, their incessant interruptions and requests will ping on my brain all day long and whatever it is I hoped to accomplish that day will be lost in the fray.
The other side of the equation, where they act independently and don't consult me, is a problem in an entirely different way. If they’re quiet and fully engaged with some creative pursuit elsewhere in the house, the temptation for me is to become fully engaged in a creative activity of my own (like blogging!). However, if I don’t occasionally trudge up or down the stairs and check what’s going on in the attic craft room, the basement workshop, or their bedrooms, I regret it:
“This is no place to play with splatter paint! Look at the walls!”
“No, you may not make crystals without supervision. Those are strong chemicals! You didn’t get that on your hands did you? Where are your goggles?”
“You’re making bread without a recipe? Is that why there’s flour EVERYWHERE?”
“Who spilled nail polish on the floor? Hurry up! Get a paper towel!”
“Where are my scissors? And why is the kitchen knife in the backyard?”
You get the idea.
I know what you’re thinking: why don’t I just park them in front of the TV or computer and enjoy life? Why don’t I send them to camp for six weeks? Why don’t these kids have Gameboys and Play Stations to keep their hands busy and their butts in one place? Good questions
It’s because in theory I thoroughly enjoy how innovative, motivated, and imaginative my kids are. I say in theory because in reality, letting kids build forts, do carpentry projects, run clubs, make jewelry, sculpt stuff, cook meals, design hamster mazes, take apart electronics, and catch critters is as messy and exhausting for me as it is exhilarating and exciting for them.
So to survive summer, I either need to get cable or a satellite dish and ruin their minds with nonstop cartoons and children’s programming, or I need to channel their energy and insist on some structure in our days.
Seeing as my kids are anal retentive like their dad, an engineer, I’m going to try and come up with a weekly schedule that gives us all time to pursue our interests without making each other nuts. I'm not a Martha or a "Family Fun" magazine kind of grrrl, so it's got to be simple if I'm going to stick with it.
Admit it, in theory, having a schedule is a great idea. So stop laughing and wish me luck. It might work.
Stay tuned.
© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.
June 9, 2006
Family June 8, 2006 at 1:10 Boy do I miss bagels—there’s nothing quite like those Big Os of Chewy Dough.
Bagels are to Americans what croissants are to Belgians—indispensable. They’re the perfect breakfast food and a favorite snack to have with a cup of coffee. Just like croissants in Belgium, bagels are ubiquitous in the U.S. You can buy them anywhere and everywhere
However, that’s where all similarities end between the two classic foods. Croissants are light, airy and buttery—flaky and tender. Bagels are dense and chewy with a unique shiny crust and they never leave a crumb on your plate. Croissants are normally served at room temperature but bagels are best toasted and buttered, though unheated and smeared with cream cheese is OK too.
While the only variation on croissant I see here is chocolate-filled, bagels come in a wide variety of flavors from sweet to savory to exotic. Onion, garlic, cheese and poppy seed bagels compete with cinnamon, raisin, blueberry, and chocolate chip. Unusual flavors like pumpkin and cranberry turn up in the fall and Tex Mex tastes and California cuisine have sent jalapeno peppers and sun-dried tomatoes into the bagel dough. Sweet or spicy, they’re all good, but my favorite is the basic-but-never-boring honey wheat bagel. Just typing the name makes me sigh with longing.
In general, America isn’t known for its outstanding bread bakeries and our croissants are pathetic, but nearly every good-sized town has a bakery devoted just to making bagels. I was surprised to discover that despite all the bakeries dotting the landscape in Belgium, none that I’ve visited have sold bagels, which originated not in America but in Eastern Europe.
Popular history dates bagels to the 17th century, when a Jewish baker in Austria produced the first bagel for the King of Poland to thank him for saving his country from a Turkish invasion. Because the king was an accomplished horseman, the first bagel was shaped like a stirrup, and its name derived from the German word for stirrup, “bugel.”
Bagels arrived in the U.S. with waves of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe in the late 19th century. Not surprisingly, New York established itself as the center of bagel consumption and production. In the early 20th century, bagel bakers formed their own union, and initially only the sons of the union members were allowed to apprentice and join. New York bagels remain the gold standard for which all others are judged.
Bagel baking is both an art and a science. Bagels originate with yeast dough that is shaped into rings and then cooked in simmering water before being baked in the oven. Early in my marriage, when I still found the domestic arts fascinating, I tried my hand at bagel making. It was a time-consuming and disappointing endeavor. It’s no wonder that bagels weren’t mass produced until the 1960s. Bagel making is a tricky business and automating the process wasn’t easy.
Back in the U.S., I had a favorite bagel shop where I’d often stop in the morning for a cup of joe and a buttered bagel. A loner by nature, the bagel shop gave me a place to be with others and yet be by myself. I loved to move through the long queue and then sit at the counter with my purchase and unfold the morning paper. Whenever work colleagues needed to get together informally to discuss projects, we met at the bagel shop. I often took my kids there to do their homework after school. In December, I sipped coffee and wrote my Christmas cards from a table there, careful not to let butter drip onto the envelopes. Sometimes I edited articles while I sat watching the door swing open and shut. I knew all the staff by face if not by name. The bagel shop was the closest thing I’ve ever had to a hang-out.
I knew I’d miss the shop when we moved but I had no idea I wouldn’t be able to get bagels in Belgium. (I’ve tried the ones sold at the commissary bakery in Chievres but alas, they’re not like the ones at home.) Bagels were the last food I ate before flying to Brussels in March 2005, and I’m sure they’ll be the first food I request when I get back to America.
Long live the Big O’s!
© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.
June 7, 2006
June 6, 2006 at 14:38 Today I attended the elementary award ceremony at my kids’ school. As in most award programs, it seemed the same 10 kids collected certificates over and over again. From music, drama, and art to reading, geography, and volunteer work, some kids were continually out of their seats, making their way to the front.
I used to be one of those kids.
Starting in 8th grade, I was the type of student teachers loved to have—diligent, motivated, hard-working, high-achieving. I was in the gifted program and took special classes at a local college beginning when I was 15. In high school, I was the class valedictorian and voted most likely to succeed. In college I earned several scholarships and snagged the top writing awards from the English and mass communication departments as well as from the university’s literary magazine. When I graduated, I received the highest university award for academic achievement and community service.
Sitting in the audience today, I considered what my school awards had meant to me. How had they made a difference in my life?
Not in the way people expected, that’s for sure. A number of years ago, I went back to my university to attend a banquet for all those who had once received the university’s top award, and while many of my peers had gone on to advanced degrees and somewhat impressive careers, I had not. Frankly, I had nothing conventional to show for my early promise—I wasn’t rich, famous, successful, or newsworthy.
I hadn’t climbed a corporate ladder, run for public office, started a business, written a best seller, or improved the lives of my fellow human beings in any dramatic way. You see, rather than propel me on an upwardly mobile path, my awards had driven me to consider what I really wanted my life to look like.
After all, those perfect GPAs came not from natural genius but from unrelenting effort on my part; I sacrificed a lot to make them happen—and their glow faded quickly. Did I want to continue my college work habits and spend most of the hours in my day checking off things on a professional “to do” list, working endlessly toward a tangible business goal, or did I dare to pursue something where success couldn’t be quantified or measured, where I focused on the journey, not the destination? This was the question I tried to answer throughout my 20s.
My sister died when I was in college and my parents died when I was 30. In the wake of those losses, I didn’t feel like I had time to waste—life seemed fragile. How did I want to spend my time and my talents? I chose to invest more in my relationships than in my career and to allow myself breathing spaces in my days. There were voices inside and outside my head that forever had me questioning whether I was successfully pursuing my own vision or making excuses for being an underachiever. Was I selling myself short or getting real? It took years for me to learn to live MY life and not the life people expected me to lead.
I wish I could say I’m always at peace with my choices, that my life is balanced, and I have no regrets.
Not quite. In real life, there are no perfect GPAs.
What I can say is that I’m pretty happy most of the time—and that in itself is worth something. Maybe not a certificate, plaque or bonus check, maybe not a mention on the business page, but definitely a heartfelt smile, bright and wide, stretching from ear to ear.
© 2006 Veronica McCabe Deschambault. All rights reserved.
June 6, 2006.
Midlife June 5, 2006 at 0:59 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