American Mom in Scotland

American Mom in Scotland http://richberta.expat-blog.net/ Trying not to cause any International incidents.And still make dinner the kids will eat. A diary of life for a native Montanan far from home. Content Copyright Roberta Hickey 2008 richberta 2010-07-20T21:08:56Z American Mom, Moving Again... http://richberta.expat-blog.net/post/american-mom-moving-again... Not in a UHaul, silly...just in blog land. See, I feel like a fraud. I am really no longer American Mom in Scotland. I just officially filed my taxes with the IRS in the States. So it's time for me to leave the warm, fuzzy world of expat blog and venture out to my own, new blog. I tried to do this a few months ago, thinking I would ween myself off this blog and on to that one. Cold turkey this time, baby. I fear any more delays and they will cart me off to the Betty (Ford, that is)No fear, come read the continuing adventures, comedy, tales of chance and how we seem to have the most interesting ability to land on our feet...the link is also posted over there by my traveling family. See you in the new digs!<a href="http://americanmom-roberta.blogspot.com/">http://americanmom-roberta.blogspot.com/</a> General 2009-01-31T07:48:00Z richberta The Lighthouse Dream... http://richberta.expat-blog.net/post/the-lighthouse-dream... I have a dream...(ok, that sounds a little bit over the top)I have always wanted to live in a lighthouse. Ever since I was a little kid, about 6 years old. I went on a field trip to the Mukilteo light station in Washington state. We got to go inside the lighthouse and walk up to the top...then the guide told us people used to live in the stations and man them. I had this romantic vision of life isolated by the sea...And in the 5th grade, another trip fed this romantic fantasy. A much taller lighthouse with a Fresnel lens...it reminded me of a giant prism.Right now is about the closest I am ever going to get. Just down the road is the Point Pinos lighthouse. I get to drive by it everyday. I can walk down and sit, or even walk in the house (it is now a museum) and walk upstairs to see the view from the second floor. The lighthouse was built in 1854, the first light being a lantern using whale oil, replaced eventually by kerosene and then finally electric light in 1915. The lighthouse foghorn was officially deactivated in 1993. I try to go visit the grounds once a week. The docents there are not convinced, however that I would be a good tenant. So for now I am just a lighthousekeeper from a distance. <img src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3057/2613506774_b3aa13a1cd.jpg" border="0" alt="Point Pinos Light, Pacific Grove, CA" title="Point Pinos Light, Pacific Grove, CA" width="415" height="312" /><img src="http://l.yimg.com/a/i/travel/tg/poi/81/500x500_8102da94cf2d831ba02070eb11847b90.jpg" border="0" width="134" height="199" /> Travel 2009-01-31T06:20:12Z richberta Love, American Style... http://richberta.expat-blog.net/post/love-american-style... We (the royal we) have this friend we'll call K. K is very sweet and has had a run of bad luck in the love department. You know the story...divorced, ex-wife took everything...yadda yadda. Well, when we moved back to the Monterey area, K had a decidedly sunnier outlook on life. Was it the weather? His new job in San Jose? (no, the commute alone would kill me). He was truly a changed person. Was it because his diving buddy had returned?Nope. He has a new love. After a couple of false starts...K has found love, American style. In Russia. K has a love of Russian culture, the language...and apparently the wiles of Russian women. The first young lady was a charmer, but her father wanted a dowry. Yes, I said dowry. Now, K is not a fool...the father of this young lady wanted a Lexus, and realizing that he was being reeled in...he said goodbye to bachelorette number one. Bachelorette number two is from St. Petersburg and has no demanding father, no dowry requirements. This along with a necessary seal of approval from K's teenage kids, and by this time 6 months from now...hopefully we will be attending a wedding. I will forego the typical jokes made about mail order brides. K is happy and who are we to judge. One member of our circle asked "why?" I just said "because love and acceptance comes in forms we don't often understand or even recognize, and sometimes you have to just go with it." K took a trip to Russia last fall, and when describing the adventure, told us we inspired him to jump in with both feet and do more things in his life.First Lynn and Chuck's restaurant. Now this mail order bride business. I don't know how good of an influence we really are, people. But K is welcome to have the engagement party/reception at our house. Congratulations. Friends 2009-01-31T05:59:02Z richberta It's NOT Safe To Go Back In The Kitchen...Or, American Mom Survives Terrorist Pasta Sauce... http://richberta.expat-blog.net/post/it-s-not-safe-to-go-back-in-the-kitchen...or-american-mom-survives-terrorist-pasta-sauce... Working too much, as most Moms do, I plan and plot to get myself free time. My Momma didn't raise no fool. I figure if I rush home, help with homework and get all my chores done...clean the floors, do the laundry, wipe down the bathrooms...tomorrow morning after the kids go to school and before I go to work I get an hour. One glorious hour, all to myself to drink coffee and just relax. So after cleaning the floors, wiping the bathrooms down and waiting for the last load of laundry...I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. One last kid was even in the shower. Then, it happened. The freshly bathed child tried to pull leftover pasta sauce out of the fridge. It fell. It exploded. Everywhere. Literally 8 feet around the epicenter of the impact on my kitchen floor was covered in red pasta sauce. Including the freshly bathed child in her fuzzy warm Wii pajamas she got for Christmas. Half a roll of paper towels and a gallon of lemon fresh cleaner later...more laundry in the basket and a slight headache from the cleaning fumes. The headache could also be from yelling at the dog to stay out of the kitchen. I know she was trying to help, but sheesh...The last child to be bathed this evening missed the attack of the pasta sauce. And the aftermath. She blithely came out looking for a bedtime snack, and yelled from the kitchen "where's the pasta sauce?"   General 2009-01-28T04:42:29Z richberta What's That Smell? http://richberta.expat-blog.net/post/what-s-that-smell Molly (the youngest of the twins) is famous for her nose. She can sniff out a smell better than a bloodhound at 20 paces. Meaning she is usually first to the dinner table. Funny enough, she is also the child with the funkiest feet. She is not allowed to remove her shoes during long stretches of any of our travels. Trust me on this. The smell will take the hair off a sweater. Ask my sister. She sat in the back seat with her on the drive through Yellowstone Park.Working in a fish market has it's advantages and disadvantages. I get free fish on occasion, but I come home smelling...Today I got fresh smoked salmon and ahi tuna jerkey. If you have never had this...it is worth smelling like 5 day old crab to get. Molly came in the door from school, and immediately would not hug me...but said "I want some fish jerkey Mom!"That kid should work for search and rescue, I tell ya... General 2009-01-27T07:57:28Z richberta Haggis, Neeps And Tatties...And Poetry... http://richberta.expat-blog.net/post/haggis-neeps-and-tatties...and-poetry... Sunday is poet Robert Burns birthday. So, if we were still in Scotland, I would be enjoying one of my favorite dishes, haggis, neeps and tatties in a whisky cream gravy. We stopped at a pub coming back from the Highlands on our last weekend there and I ordered this comfort food...the barman asked me if I was sure 3 times. I think he thought I didn't know what I was doing. I explained I'd had it before, was quite comfortable with it and trusted his chef. I don't think Burn's night is a celebration of the poetry as much as an excuse to drink and be with friends...Scots are good at that! Awe, I am missing Scotland, can you tell? General 2009-01-25T10:09:05Z richberta Where the Lesson Began... http://richberta.expat-blog.net/post/just-a-thought... QuitYerBitchin...It's a phrase my Dad used to use all the time. He had a lot of colorful phrases, most of them blue in hue. I won't repeat them here...this is a family blog. Well, most of the time. I do a lot of reading, early in the morning and late at night. Newspapers of varying degrees of right and left leaning opinion. There is a lot of doom and gloom going on out there. The economy, jobs...nobody can seem to catch a break. Here is how I see it, and it may seem a little bit simple and thats ok. We need a new deal...lower the expectations in line with our new lifestyles.I think it's fantastic you graduated from New York University...now go take that off the resume so you can appear less qualified and get a job that will pay for a meal right now. And you might want to remove the job reference from Washington Mutual, too.Sometimes it's ok to be underwhelming. My Dad told me that once.I had biggest, newest, baddest stuff once. The lifestyle that went with it included no time, energy and lots of things and people taken for granted. In one short day 3 and a half years ago, I thought I'd lost everything. And I was ok with that. Because my husband and my children were alive. Once you cross that line mentally, you can't go back. I currently am sitting on borrowed lawn chairs. Doesn't bother me a bit. In fact, when we decided to move to Scotland and sell off or give away all of our belongings, I didn't mourn anything. People said I would...but I didn't. After Katrina, we took in a fellow survivor...someone who had lost everything. I just kept hearing in my mind the stories of my Grandparents taking in people and feeding them during the great depression (never mind they had 8 children to feed at that time) My Grandfather would bring them home off the railcars and my Grandma would cook whatever was available. I kept thinking...this is the least I could do...But it isn't...we have to keep going. Somewhere the lesson got lost. The lesson of expectations got translated into entitlement. There has to be a realistic look at what the lifestyle should be for a hard days work. And I don't mean what Hollywood or Madison Avenue portrays as a hard days work...I mean 8 hours, on your feet...the kind of thing most kids who have spent childhoods in front of computer screens and game consoles can't imagine. Maybe when we straighten out the lesson between expectation and entitlement...we can have appreciation. General 2009-01-25T09:15:53Z richberta American Mom Becomes a Fishmonger... http://richberta.expat-blog.net/post/american-mom-becomes-a-fishmonger... Well, part time at least. Some of you who read regularly may remember that our beloved friends and former neighbors (now relegated to 4 whole blocks of space between us and them) have retaken the family restaurant, Sea Harvest. The eaterey was having some troubles and needed fresh eyes to get back on the boat...so to speak.It seems even in these rough economic times of 7.3% unemployment and a high immigrant population...they have had a hard time keeping staff that want to work.Now, I am a Montana gal. I don't know much about birthing no cod. Or squid. Or tilapia. But when friends call for help...especially after all they have done for us...I jump. Today was my first day. I am a little rusty at wait service...but I had a great time chatting up customers and learning about the fish. And Nana and Chuck didn't throw me out. I think that is a good sign. They asked me to come back for 3 more shifts next week and be on call if somebody else calls in sick. To be honest, I am not a big fish fan. Cheese, yes...I would have been a world class cheesemonger. But when I came home from work today, the dog was really fond of me. I think it's my new perfume. General 2009-01-24T10:04:22Z richberta Because Beans Were Not Enough... http://richberta.expat-blog.net/post/because-beans-were-not-enough... Thousands of mail order consumers were scammed in Chile by a French woman claiming a kit to make "Magic Cheese" could then be sold for profit to cosmetic companies. The cheese was actually worthless, and the woman is being investigated for running a pyramid scheme. General 2009-01-22T08:40:14Z richberta Debbie Downer... http://richberta.expat-blog.net/post/debbie-downer... I used this expression one day to a friend on the playground whilst waiting for the girls...and she looked at me funny. Scottish folk have their very own turn of phrase and expressions...like "Bob's your uncle" (meaning you are good to go) and my personal favorite..."Bugger off" (no further explanation needed).That particular day I was feeling homesick and blue and complaining to Claire, and then I said I didn't mean to be a Debbie Downer...but she seemed to get the idea of it anyway, stiff upper lip Brit and all. She quite firmly told me to soldier on and stop moaning and whinging. So I did. Not to be a Debbie Downer...but 2 things are playing in my mind. Barb (of The Wee Mad Road blog) and her darling daughter are fighting a battle right now. See, Barb's daughter has cancer and it has spread. That evil disease has touched my own life and I just want to go pick the family up and give them a great big hug and take their cares away. But I can't. The only thing I can tell them is that cancer can't take away the ability to laugh, hope, smile, or love. Cancer cannot steal memories or experiences and cannot take moments from you that you are living right now. Cancer does a lot of things...but it can't break the human spirit. I am pulling for you every day...And the second person in my thoughts is a dear former co-worker, Cheryl. She passed away suddenly last week, cause unknown. She was my age. She worked at the veterinary clinic here in town and was such a sweet spirit, loved animals of any kind, but especially her two little dogs...her family is also in my thoughts.I always try to show appreciation for life and how precious it is. It just doesn't seem fair that the sweetest amongst us are put through so much.Now go give someone you love a hug. And tell them you love them...and Bob's your uncle. General 2009-01-22T08:07:20Z richberta