Thursday, September 27, 2007

Camp Fun and Games

I went to the meet-the-teachers night at Hannah’s school last night, but I didn’t really get much out of it. The parents assembled downstairs, where the principal said something something something (I was standing at the back of a crowd consisting of the parents of over 130 fifth-graders), and then the band played “Linus and Lucy” and the theme from “Pirates of the Caribbean.” My enjoyment of the music—and you know I love me some sixth-grade band music—was marred by the smell of CO2 (lungy!) and cigarettes coming off the man next to me.

Afterwards we all trooped upstairs to our kids’ respective classrooms to meet the teachers. They all wore nametags, minus the subjects they taught, but they seemed to have skipped the part we were all waiting for, where they took turns standing at the front of the room and introduced themselves: “I’m Mr. So-and-So and teach This-and-That.” I recognized Hannah’s homeroom teacher from the first day of school, and the biology teacher actually made the rounds to meet those of us who were not so forward as our counterparts, but otherwise the teaching staff stood at the front of the room and waited for us to come to them. In theory, not a bad idea, but they ended up being monopolized by a certain sub-set of the parents. I’m not confident enough in a German-only setting to jump right in there and put myself forward, so I didn’t manage to introduce myself.

When I got home, Hannah had my glasses on the desk. I asked why she had them out. To look through. “You can’t see through my glasses!” (Not without incurring brain damage, I’m told.) She has explained that when she looked at things close up, they looked little but smudgy, which means she doesn’t need glasses. Who needs an optometrist when you have logic?

I am still waiting for my cayenne peppers to ripen, but they are staying firmly green. A bit of googling tells me it takes 80 days. 80 days! The first ones were already full-sized when we left for Scotland, so that was about 60 days ago, but really, you can get baby mice faster than that!

There are very few shows I make a point of watching, but I am addicted to Avatar: The Last Airbender on Nickelodeon. They started playing Season 2 episodes back in March, and we *still* haven’t seen the very last episode. As a matter of fact, they hadn’t even started the last 7 episodes until about 2 weeks ago, so we’ve been watching the first 33 episodes of Seasons 1 and 2 over and over and over for about 6 months. I couldn’t stand the wait, though, and read all the Season 2 synopses at the Nick site and on Wikipedia. Season 3 has just started in the US, but there’s no telling how long it will take for the episodes to get translated into German, so it’s back to haunting Wikipedia for my Season 3 fix.

And I know I shouldn’t admit this, but I am also looking forward to Season 3 of Winx starting in October. John teases me about it, but I point out I am not running out and buying the full set of DVDs; I am enjoying it for the low-low price of 5 cents or so an episode, if viewed as a percentage of our cable bill. The shame of watching is the only thing he can pin on me.

John and I take turns doing the weekly shopping, and I can always count on him not knowing what is currently in our cabinets and buying duplicates of at least one item (last week it was raisins, almonds, and something else). I can also be sure he will buy a fresh fruit or vegetable he thinks we should eat, without planning a way of preparing it or adding it to the meal plan. Last week he bought 4 giant leeks at the store. Then he passed a farmer’s stand on the way home; this means he came home with 20+ pounds of potatoes. “What am I going to do with 4 leeks and 20 pounds of potatoes?!” “But they’re German potatoes!” There is no such thing as a direct conversation when this happens. Fortunately, I found a recipe for a leek and potato casserole, but how much casserole can one family eat before the potatoes start going bad?

With my last 2 outings, I’m up to 16.26 miles on the road to Rivendell. That means I haven’t even finished Day 1 yet. *sigh*

We played the Simpsons version of Clue after Hannah finished her math homework this afternoon. What does it say about me that I always play Mr. Smithers/Mrs. White?

I am Mrs. White

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