The Scandinavian Forest

The Young Man and Young Women had a combined activity yesterday - we hiked through the Scandinavian Forest, stopping at the top of the hill for a snack and water break, and then hiked back. After completing the hike, I can say with assurity that "forest" was a strong word to describe the area we hiked through but a good time was had by all.  

I took Willy along and he was a huge hit with the kids who accompanied us. I let a couple of them take turns leading Willy on the leash and, since they all have much shorter legs than I do, they gradually fell behind. 

The highlight of the hike was definitely the Branch President walking up around the bend at the top of the hill, with Willy cradled in his arms. "He got tired and quit", he said. Willy's deep brown puppy-dog eyes win again!

You'll be glad to know that I was a more responsible pet caretaker on the way back down the mountain, and kept Willy with me the whole time. Although he threatened to quit every time we passed a shady spot, he made it back to the car.

look at those eyes! "please don't make me walk back!"

It Burns!

Dinner, breakfast and lunch.  

Twenty-four hours of eating "Flamin' Hot Cheetos" aka Firey Cheetos and my tongue and nasal cavities might never return to their natural state. 

Curse you Mom for sending us these delicious and horrible treats.

One Year Down

I realized this week that I've been in Jordan for a year. Halfway done. It's hard to believe - when I started this it felt like I'd be gone forever and now I'm feeling a little panicky, like there isn't enough time left to see/do everything.

While there are definitely things that I will be happy to leave behind (Jordanian drivers, trash, the phrase "insh'allah"), I still have some things left to accomplish in this next year. In no particular order, a few items on the agenda for the next year:

1.  Learn how to say more than "hello" in Arabic

2.  Get scuba certified and take a trip to Sharm al-Shaykh

3.  Go sailing on the Sea of Galilee

4.  Make and share the 15 brownie mixes remaining in my pantry

5.  Finally read King Lear and Jude the Obscure, which I have been "reading" for the last two years

6.  Visit the last few sites in Jordan on the list (Desert Castles, Dana Nature Reserve, Wadi Mujib, Ajlun Forest)

7.  Learn how to make mansif (minus the goat eyeballs)

8.  Teach Willy to ninja crawl

9.  Take a fabulous trip to southern Europe (short list: Portugal, Greece and coastal Italy)

10.  Finally join the Dead, Med and Red club.

Water, water, every where, nor any drop to drink.

I used to have grass.  Then summer came and the Embassy stopped delivering water.  And then they did deliver water but the pump broke.  And then the pump got fixed but the water ran out.  And then I left on vacation.  And then they stopped delivering water again.  And the grass all got...scary brown (we're holding out hope that it's "hibernating").

Since the outdoor cistern was perpetually out of water, and since they finally told us no more refills for "outdoor water", Susan and I decided to take matters into our own hands and hook the hose and sprinkler up to the "indoor water".  After all, even the most heartless Embassy can't deny a refill of water INSIDE the residence - they don't want us showing up to work stinky because we can't shower or brush our teeth

We couldn't find the right hose adaptor to screw the hose into the sink directly, so Susan constructed an elaborate contraption out of duct tap, a hose adaptor, and the washer in the sink, to allow us to screw the hose in. We threaded the hose through my bathroom window and hooked it all up. 

On the first attempt, we forgot to switch it from "shower" to "bathtub" mode and Susan got a face-full of water. On the second attempt we watched with pride (Susan) and joy (me) as the water started to flow from the bathtub, through the hose and out of the sprinkler onto the lawn. Then, suddenly, the whole thing exploded, spraying water all over Susan. Apparently the water pressure outpowered the duct tape (which, btw, I never knew until today was "duct" and not "duck" tape). 

So we gave up on neatly putting it all together and just duct-taped the hose to the faucet and crossed our fingers.  Here's to hoping that grass can come out of hibernation!

p.s. Many thanks to Mom for that duct tape stocking stuffer!

Service

We had a planning meeting with the YW a few weeks ago and they decided to try and do a service activity once a month.

This month we combined with the Young Man and helped a sister in the ward open all her packed boxes. We had to look through each box, write a label of what was inside, and then tape it up and put it back in the pile. She couldn't ship them off and go home until it was done so it was a big help to her and a chance for us to do something a little different.

It was a huge job but the youth were all total troopers. And we got to eat delicious cookies at the end!

how cute are they?

sooo many boxes

Yo Ho Ho Ho, A Pirate's Life for Me!

We had a pirate party today and invited a few families in the ward to partake in the festivities.  A rawwwwrrring good time was had by all.  Events included tattooing, creating your own pirate scene out of stickers, and a treasure hunt.  

My personal favorite moment of the evening occurred halfway through the treasure hunt.  The kids were supposed to open the freezer for their next clue but opened the fridge instead - and caught a glimpse of the treasure chest cake that we prepared for dessert.  

"THE TREASURE!  THE TREASURE!!  We found the TREASURE!" they screamed in glee.  

"Well, yes - technically it is a treasure but not the one you are looking for so please pay no attention to the deliciously tempting looking cake in the fridge."

Many many thanks to Susan and Shannon for helping out with a wonderfully wonderful party!

rrrready to eat

Susan's brilliant fingerrrr foods

the scurrrvy crew

delightedly finding the cake

back on the hunt for the non-dessert treasure

boooty!

and MORE booty!!

GYPSIES!!

Susan called out "there are people in the lot next door that looked an awful lot like real life gypsies." I came out on the back patio and, sure enough, there was a whole crew of gypsies crawling in and amongst the wreckage of what used to be the house next door. They were furtively collecting and hauling off steel support cables as fast as they could get them out of the heap of rubble.

All was going well until the manager of the construction crew showed up and then all hell broke loose. Much shouting and hand-waving commenced. The carts were searched. When the stolen metal rebar was discovered, pieces suddenly started flying through the air; the pieces thrown by the construction manager were hurtled towards the rubble pile, the pieces thrown by the gypsies defiantly went in the opposite direction. Suddenly two carts were sent careening down the street, tipping over as they hit the rubble pile. 

The end result was that the gypsies slunk off with just their pre-rubble-raiding load of coke cans. And Susan and I had a very entertaining half-hour of surreptitious picture-taking and eavesdropping.

scavaging

loading

caught

hurtling (note the piece of rebar flying in the upper left hand corner)

a sullen departure

Long and Loud and Clear...

I just started singing "I Love to Laugh" from Mary Poppins and Susan gasped, accusingly: "How did you know that I had that song stuck in my head all during Willy's walk this evening?"

How did this even happen? For the record, neither of us have watched the movie in years.

Although...we did engage in Julie Andrews-style singing** at church when "Choose the Right" came on as the closing hymn...

**This is a seriously fun game that Susan invented, by the way, although enormously distracting to those sitting in front of you. Next time the organist plays any hymn with a tempo over 80, put on your best faux-British accent and glissando and go to town.

Cuddles

Protests...

There was a planned post-Friday prayers protest against the Embassy today.  I drove past around 11:30 and the Jordanian security forces were positioning tanks in defensive positions around the perimeter, unloading a few buses full of police in riot gear, and generally looking pretty ferocious.  

Susan and I hunkered down at a friend's house, cooked pizzas and watched on al-Jazeera as a sizable crowd gathered at a mosque a few blocks from the Embassy, began marching, and then thought better of their plans and turned around and went back to the mosque.  

We then enjoyed Porkapalooza 2012 (the pizzas were covered in a layer of the prosciutto I brought back from Italy AND a layer of salami, for good measure), played with Willy and the kids and their new tortoise, Tank, and then went home and took naps.  It was a bright, sunny and pretty pleasant afternoon.

After watching events spread this week from Libya and Egypt across the globe, I am profoundly grateful for a host and home government dedicated to our safety and hopeful for a future where the legacy of men and women like Ambassador Chris Stevens replaces hatred, ignorance, and misunderstanding on both sides with respect, cooperation and a peaceful co-existence.

In which we accidentally cut off the tail of a lizard

I was in bed when Susan (resident Disney Princess) called out that she had caught a lizard, who looked like a tiny and adorable alligator.  Naturally, I had to put on some shoes and investigate.

After taking half a dozen pictures (and highly agitating the poor thing), we decided to let her/him go.  And accidentally cut off her/his tail in the process:

A traditional man-dog...

Willy is traditional - he prefers his women to be spending all their time in the home, catering to his every need (taking him on walks, scratching his belly, playing tug of war with his favorite lobster/shrimp toy, cooking him tasty tidbits).  

Most of all, though, he insists on his women having free flowing and luscious locks of hair.  Firm in the faith that "if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given her for a covering", he will go to great lengths to ensure his women are covered:

Om, Nom, Nom, Nom, Nom

I wore a pair of jeans while cooking our Mexican fiesta yesterday. I wore them again today (gasp!), when I went out to watch the Bourne Legacy.  

During our daily pre-bed cuddle-fest, Willy clearly found something interesting on the pants, because he spent a good eight minutes licking up and down the length of my leg. I will spare you the video we shot but will attach a few pictures below (note the action shot with the tongue):

Ay Caramba!

To cap off our week of domestic goddessness, we hosted eight fellow branch members for a Mexican fiesta.  

We cooked two pounds of chicken and two pounds of beef for fajitas and traveled to six different grocery stores to procure the beans (refried and black), tortillas, sour cream, avocados, salsa fixings and chips.

You know a dinner is successful when everyone leaves and this is all you have left:

Now to the dishwashing which is much more bearable now that I have someone to help out - thanks Suzu!

Domestic Goddess

I made cookies with my sister for the first time in...years...tonight. This used to be a Saturday-ly ritual. We would always make a double batch so we could eat as much dough as we wanted and still have some leftover to actually make some cookies (what did we do with all those cookies every week?).

Clearly the burnt first batch indicates we are out of practice.  But given that I have six pounds of chocolate chips in my pantry, I think we can remedy that.

thanks for the pink mixer, Mom!!

despite the distress on my face, the dough was quite tasty

we'll be returning to the "double batch" method next time

a tragic waste of 12 cookies

Humiliations Galore

Is there anything more embarrassing for a dog than being dressed up in tiny cute outfits? 

A Disney Princess Tale

Susan has taken over as my gardner.  She has also taken over as resident Disney Princess.  In the last week and a half, she has discovered a tortoise AND a turtle living in the backyard.  

The tortoise, Theopholus P. Thornton, is adorable and particularly fond of hibiscus and grape leaves.  The turtle, Skeksis, is rather evil looking and has since disappeared from sight.  I suspect he's living in the cistern and coming out at night to steal poor Theo's grape leaves.

Skeksis - note the terrifying claws

Theo with some wilted refrigerator lettuce (his least favorite food)

Along with the discovery of the new backyard residents has come the discovery that Willy both fears and hates tortoises.  Theo has become Willy's mortal enemy, except when he moves, when he morphs into Willy's greatest fear, as evidenced by this video in which, if you look closely, you can see Willy's legs trembling in fear.

Umm Qais

Susan and I headed to Umm Qais this weekend, taking Willy with us for his first Jordanian adventure.  It was about 97 degrees so we ended up not being quite so very ambitious or adventurous as we had planned at the start of our trip.  

After a nice lunch on the terrace overlooking the Sea of Galilee, the Golan Heights, and Lebanon, we wandered through the site a bit, finding an adorable little ampitheatre, a basalt basilica, the hills that were (supposedly) the site of one of the castings of demons into swine (sadly, no swine left), and the Roman road to Tiberius.  Willy managed to find small animal bones wherever we went (its his gift of the spirit).  He also managed to find every tiny sliver of shade and, when found, would settle himself in, showing no inclination to move.  

stretched out for a nap

trying to convince him to leave the shade...

three feet from the car, he gave up and refused to move

Lake Tiberius, Israel and the Golan

hitching a ride to Tiberius

just your average Roman shopkeepress

see if you can spot the cross in this picture