In Which We Consider the Moon Over Parma (Ohio)

It's weird the things one fixates on when living abroad. The Spouse and I often recall a holiday (October 10 or Double Ten Day) in Taiwan where we watched a Tina Turner concert on television and wept because we were so homesick.

Yeah, it was dumb, but at the time, we were simply overwhelmed by wanting to be in the middle of our own culture. At least for the afternoon. We even joked about beaming home on Sunday nights just long enough to watch 60 Minutes and Murder She Wrote. That would be enough. Then we could come back.

The same sort of thing is happening to me now that the Cleveland Indians are in the ALCS. I have never attended an Indians game in my life. The last time I was even near the Jake, it was still under construction. But I fell in love with them in 1997 when they lost the World Series to the Florida Marlins. I was living in Miami at the time and began the Series as a Marlins fan, enjoying a good-natured rivalry with my brothers in Ohio. But I quickly became disenchanted with the Marlins because they felt as soulless as a corporate boy band. I switched allegiances. A fan was born.

Fast forward to this week, when I, like the distracted expat I am, suddenly realized that the Indians are, once again, in the playoffs. And suddenly I become obsessed with the process, boring well-meaning European friends with details of games I haven't even seen, but have only read about.

This morning, in a burst of fanaticism, I went looking for my Chief Wahoo sweatshirt, only to discover that the Spouse took it with him to Moscow because it is the warmest of his sports-logo sweatshirts.

NB: the Spouse does not purchase sports paraphernalia. I do. I don't watch every sport, but I have a weakness for Stanley Cup hockey and the Indians. Historically, the Spouse will return home from the symphony or the opera to find me, elbow-deep in a popcorn bowl, dancing in front of the couch to Rock and Roll, Part II in celebration of a hat trick, sigh, mutter, "THIS again?" and wander off to bed. The Spouse does get to wear the sports paraphernalia, however.

Next best thing: I pull out my Drew Carey soundtrack CD, and the girls and I sing "Cleveland Rocks" at the top of our lungs, all the way to school (all the while not missing the irony that the original song title is "England Rocks," but whatever).

This song is loaded with sentimental baggage. When we lived in Buenos Aires, Baboo, who was then 2, had her nightly bath in the laundry room sink. We used to play this CD while we washed her, because it was so American. Even then it was an escape home, and now we are listening to it from yet another continent.

So today while we are singing along, Skittles asks, "Was this really Baboo's tubby music?" And Baboo, now aged 9, replies, "Yes. I like it because it makes me feel young."

Aw.

Tonight, Skittles discovered the Big Welcome Kit from one of the moving companies. I showed her it had a coloring book for kids (in French . . . AGS is a French company).

"Oh!" she says. "This is the good moving company. They're friendly. Well, if they weren't, they wouldn't say so."

I'm sure AGS would agree.

In Which I Determine It’s Time to Blow This Pop Stand

Okay, so first I must confess that it seems we are, indeed, moving to Moscow, but don’t ask me anything more about it yet because that is truly all I know. Could be in a few weeks or it could be end of June. But I will keep you posted.

So in the spirit of purging and streamlining, I attacked a set of dresser drawers on Monday. It was long overdue: I jam socks and underwear into the top drawer without folding anything, and I have no idea exactly what I have in there. The middle two drawers are full of shirts, and many of those I never wear. And the bottom drawer holds a mélange of black tights and gym clothes, but also, I discovered, two mini skirts I bought in 1985.

(If I can make an aside, I am proud to say, they still fit! I distinctly remember wearing them while sitting, astride, on the back of various motorcycles in Taiwan, because I refused to sit sidesaddle the way the more demure Chinese girls did. But I digress.)

So I triaged the drawer contents. I was ruthless, and culled a large laundry basket full of clothes that are, practically speaking, perfectly fine, but in all honesty, I just don’t wear. My drawers are now positively spacious.

I further separated out a smaller pile of items that just belong in the trash. I had underwear from before the children were born, and, while cool and even sexy underwear has always been rather a point of pride for me, these items, purchased in the late 1990s, have lost all their elasticity. Imagine, if you dare, what happens to a thong when the elastic dies: it gets really, really long and just . . . never mind. The image is too awful.

Several items did qualify as maternity underwear, tis true. I had purged shortly after arriving here when a Dear Girlfriend caught sight of some of them and sighed. But obviously some things slipped through the net. So out they went along with a maternity unitard (purchased in 1997), a t-shirt with absolutely no shape left, some dead sports tops (the kind with a built–in bra, but now incapable of holding water, let alone doing any real bra work). And two or three pairs of cotton underwear, purchased from Victoria’s Secret before the turn of the century. They had, I confess, holes.

It wasn’t a large pile, and all of it fit into a plastic grocery bag. I took it to the trash and forgot about it.

Yesterday (Tuesday), I was in the back yard, cleaning the guinea pig cage. I happen to look into Pani Babka’s garden. She’s my 80-something neighbor who speaks no English and who, in spite of a genuinely kind heart and generous nature, manages to repeatedly, although unintentionally, humiliate me.

There is laundry hanging on the clothesline in her garden . . . underwear . . . huh . . . remarkably sexy underwear for an 80-something woman, now that I think about it . . . MY underwear!

Pani Babka has trashpicked my underwear.

It is, indeed, time to leave Bratislava.

New Topic:

This morning, Baboo announces, “I just realized! I’ve never been this old before!”

You and me, both.

Another New Topic:

I am now brunette.

In Which I Take a Break from Talking About Sex

I know you are disappointed, but this past week was just rather normal. I've had a cold for about a week now, but Thursday I went swimming anyhow. I have no idea how far. My friend counted her laps, and said she did 64. She was really moving, so my guess is maybe I did 40. It took 40 minutes anyhow.

That was a feather in my cap, but what I am really SOOOOOO proud of myself for was getting the Spouse’s bike fixed!

Last weekend he and Baboo rode to Hainburg (which is only about 20 km). She isn't very fast, and I could tell he was itching to do more, so I told him to ride home, too. Which he did, but not too far from home (although too far to walk a bike) he hit something glass and sliced his back tire. I had to bring the car to collect him. Now his tires were the original ones that came with the bike in 2002, and, frankly, when I looked at them that morning, I thought they were bald in a scary way. So regardless of the flat tire, it was time to replace them.

After swimming, I took the bike to this shop in a village near Bratislava because I know I can park right in front. And that was true. I dragged the bike in the shop and told the first poor guy I saw, in my bad Slovak, that terribly sorry, but I don't speak Slovak, I had this bike, the tire was kaput, and could I please buy two new outside parts. He was very kind, spoke slowly and clearly, and told me, in Slovak, that he was going to call his English-speaking colleague.

So said dude arrives and totally dealt with me. Helped me pick two new tires based on the surfaces Spouse rides on, got me a new inner tube, and told me if I just hung out for 30 minutes, the service guys would deal with it right now. I had them tighten the handlebars, too, since they have always been wobbly. It cost me 1200 crowns (which is about $50). And they were all as pleasant and nice as they could be. I sort of wanted to look around the shop, but figured it would only depress me with things too rich for my blood. (I want to get us both some longer tight type things for colder weather, but suspect they will run about $100/pair.) So I went across the street to a tiny grocery store, got me a Diet Coke and a roll, and sat in the car and put photos in an album until it was time to collect the bike.

I don't know why I'm so chuffed about it, but I am.

On a funnier note, I have 25 kilos of potatoes in my foyer. About this time of year, folks come around with vans full of potatoes or onions and sell them door-to-door. When I saw the guy, I thought he might have onions, but he didn't. Don’t know why I bought the potatoes, but here they are. They remain in the foyer because, although I have biceps like Václav Havel's liver (so says my trainer), 25 kilos is heavy! The cat plays with them. The kids, at least, have discovered the joys of baked potatoes, so I see a lot of those in the future. I also learned a fabulous and oh, so simple recipe from my friend, VW, this summer. You peel and slice potatoes and put them in a buttered dish, layered with onions, salt and pepper, little dabs of butter, and shredded cheese. Pour in a small amount of cream (my preference) or milk or chicken stock (I use maybe 1/3 to ½ a cup) and then MICROWAVE it all for about 15 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. It’s really a very wonderful dish and a big hit.

My cold dragged on through the weekend, and on Saturday I really felt my worst, so much so that I decided there was not going to be any bike ride in the hills for me this weekend. Gorgeous though the weather was, I can possibly get some times in this week. But poor Spouse, who has been in Moscow, deserved a go.

Now most children will generally tell you that a Disney property qualifies as the Happiest Place on Earth, but to me it’s this place. It was the icing on the cake of my Ideal Sunday. Really. What could be better that a relaxing Sunday morning with classical music and a bacon and omelet breakfast made for you with love? A wonderful cup of coffee, with real cream? Okay, I don’t get the Sunday New York Times delivered to my door (that, my friends, is the definition of civilization), but I can read it and do the puzzle on line. Which I did. I've lost my reading glasses (grumble, grumble). I think I let them fall out of the car at the swimming pool parking lot . . . so while I can read on line just fine, words-on-real-paper is just unpleasant without them. The real newspaper would have been wasted on me this weekend anyhow. Ah, the silver lining.

I also puttered around in the kitchen and made some of my favorite things: beet salad with feta cheese and roasted endive wrapped in prosciutto ham.

But what about the Happy Place? I sent the Spouse off on his bike, and then, a few hours later, I put the kids in the car, put John Mayer in the CD player (I still maintain Continuum is the perfect CD . . . it has shoved Jose El Frances’ Somos Perfectos right off my Top Ten List), drove through the Austrian countryside on a sunny afternoon with the leaves just beginning to turn and the fields full of pheasants, and met him and a few other friends there to taste some of their lovely sparkling wines and snack on some local specialties . . . or specialities as the Brits would say.

We shared a plate of soft cheese, paper-thin slices of a local ham that was topped with a mound of freshly grated horseradish, a mushroom terrine, and a meat terrine, garnished with tomato-lavender jam. On another plate we had grilled sausage that was almost white and creamy inside, but brown and crisp on the outside next to a serving of mashed pumpkin with dill. All wonderful.

Before, during, and after, we tasted the house sparkling wines (well, I had a teeny, tiny glass because I had to drive, but the Spouse got to taste three or four). Although I have been to tastings at this producer many times now, I always learn something new. This time I learned the following:

Champagnes are categorized as Extra Brut, Brut, Extra Dry, Sec and Demi-sec depending on their sugar levels. Blame the French if you must, but this is rather misleading to a novice like me, because by the time you get to Dry you are actually drinking champagne that is more on the sweet side. I did not know that. Brut is always drier (less sweet) than Extra Dry. Extra Dry means, in Champagne terms, extra sweet. So there’s your lesson for the day.

We bought two boxes, one of Grüner Veltliner Brut and one of Zweigelt Extra Dry. The second is, interestingly, a sparkling red, and, although I just told you that extra dry = extra sweet, everything is still relative, and this is not at all like red pop even though I was suspicious at first. So stop by and make me pour you a glass before we drink it all ourselves. Or, better yet, come with me next time. I’ll get us a bus.

The Gauntlet Has Been Thrown Down

Oh, the Internet is a mighty small place, my friends. Do they honestly think I will never see this? In fairness, I see the majority of the posters coming to my defense. And, in truth, any publicity is good publicity, right?

But brace yourselves for the truth, Faithful Readers: I know who you are AND when you read my blog . . . heh heh. No. Really. I do. I have a statistics counting program, and it tells me where my traffic comes from. Sometimes I can tell by looking at the ISP who the guest was. I can certainly say that this Slovensko forum has sent a LOT of traffic my way. And that's a nice thing.

Speaking of funny things on the Internet, this is a current favorite of mine. These images are so weird, but some of them made me laugh out loud.

On a different and less hostile subject, I have a slight cold. Not enough to keep my from my normal activities (I did go swim with Canadian Friend today, although I probably only did 40 laps to her 64), but just enough to impart a wonderful, sexy, cigarette-and-whiskey quality to my voice. Think Lauren Bacall, please, not Selma Diamond. I'm sorry I can't keep it like this. I'm not quite up to Bacall's method of going out on the MGM back lot to shout while Louis B. Mayer's wife sat with a book to ensure she did it (if my memory of Bacall's autobiography serves me). But it's nice while it lasts.

Call me.

Mystery Solved

A Vigilant Friend forwarded me this local solution to the digestive issues I suffered after the Goose Gorging:

It is nice to have a cup of cold drink after a meal. However, the cold water will solidify the oily stuff that you have just consumed. It will slow down the digestion. Once this "sludge" reacts with the acid, it will break down and be absorbed by the intestine faster than the solid food. It will line the intestine. Very soon, this will turn into fats and lead to cancer. It is best to drink hot soup or warm water after a meal.

I see! And that ice cube will never melt once I eat it either.

Went to my first ever Pilates class today. Goodness, what a workout. However, I was pleased because I could not only "assume the positions" but maintain them as directed.

Tomorrow, I go swimming with my Saturday Biking Companion. I'll be curious to see how I will be humiliated. The possibilities are endless.

On a final and totally unrelated note, I found this item in Tesco. Okay, the instructions I had were in Slovak, not Czech, but you're all smarter than I am. You can figure out what to do here:

Durex Play Vibrations je vibrační kroužek pro zábavný a radostný sex.

Durex Play Vibrations byl navržen tak, aby svým chvěním stimuloval oba dva partnery. Snadno se zapíná a vypíná. Určitě bude velmi zábavné experimentovat s jeho ideální pozicí tak, aby vám přinesl maximální potěšení.
- až 20 minut stimuluje oba partnery jemným chvěním
- stimuluje klitoris partnerky
- může podporovat erekci
- nasazuje se na kořen penisu
- může být použit s nebo bez kondomu
- jednorázové použití
- baleno po jednom kuse
150,-

Worth every crown. Really.