The Way It Goes...

OK, I guess it is about time I "come clean" and admit that behind all the geekiness, buried beneath all the layers of "Domestic Goddess", prior to the addition of DDs and DH to my life, even before my "Excellent European Adventure", I was....a rock chick. I will give you minute to digest this and allow you to form your own mental images of this as, thankfully, there are very few pictures of this time. Oh, there are a few polaroids that show the purple streaks in the long blonde hair, and the leopard-print jacket (that I still own BTW, though it has been used as a Halloween costume a couple of times by the kids). And no, I did not wear a dog collar and did not go in for piercings. I was more New Wave techno-rock than hardrock or metal (think Devo rather than Rolling Stones). But I was very much a part of Dallas's Deep Ellum alternative culture scene in the late 80's, going as far as being not only a groupie to a number of bands, but even worked as a roadie and a back-up singer! In fact, one evening at the 500 Cafe, I was onstage for a couple of sets after Edie Brickell and the New Bohemians. If I ever figure out the the connection between Paul Simon and Kevin Bacon, I will have my 6 degrees!

While I am sure there is some bad video in which I can be seen, I am not in possession of it, and most of the photos I have are ones where I was holding the camera, so I can't even show you me onstage. And the one album I was on only came out only on vinyl, and I am listed as an "Executive Producer" rather than back-up singer (meaning I loaned my electronic keyboard and was a go-fur, critic, adviser, cheerleader, tamborine player AND back-up singer!). And even if I could show you such a video clip, I am not sure I am as brave as fellow geek/blogger Jeff. I'm sure at some point my DDs will take a look at this blog and I am not sure if I am ready to endure their peals of laughter at their Mom's wilder days. And so I chicken out and provide you with this link, showing T-4-2 in their post FA days when they actually had a contract with Columbia and made a couple of CDs and went on tour and everything.

So as my contribution to Soccer Mom in Denial's


I give you T-4-2 performing "The Way It Goes". I used to sing and play in this one, but not in this video. I let your imagination run wild! Now I will go skulk away in embarrassment...

09-09-09

The world did not end yesterday, despite what predictions you may have seen on YouTube. I waited until it was "today" all over the world before announcing this, just in case. While I have never bought into numerology or astrology, the significance of this calendrical anomaly has caused me to stop and think a minute.

It represents the last set of repeating, single-digit dates that we'll see for almost a century(next one is January 1, 2101).

No matter how your culture writes the date, in the Gregorian calendar, it is the same all over the world. (In Europe for example we write date-month-year, in the US we write month-date-year, in some computer programs, data is sorted year-month-date.

Lots of folks got married yesterday. I mean LOTS of folks, all over the world. No excuses for those husbands to forget their anniversaries!

A few lucky children in the world turned 9 years old yesterday. Some of them even got their pictures in the paper because of it. How cool is that!

Apple iTunes 9 was launched yesterday. This new version supports Blue-ray technology. I know a number of technogeeks are celebrating.

All 13 albums of the Beatles were digitally remastered and released yesterday. Anyone got €200 to spare (about US$ 300) ? Now for me, this is reason to celebrate! And the video game the Beatles Rock Band was also released, for those who want to try and imitate these legends.

The significance of the number nine should also be examined. It is known that if 9 is multiplied by any other number, from 2 to 9, the two digits of the answer will add up to nine. For instance, 2 x 9 = 18. 18, made up of 1 and 8. (OK, yes, I am a math geek.)

Tim Burton released his new film "9," an animated tale about the apocalypse, yesterday. It is supposed to be the next cult hit.

In some cultures 9 is lucky, but in some it is just the opposite. For instance, in China, nine is associated with long life due to its similarity in pronunciation to the local word for long-lasting. While in Japan, the word for nine is a homophone of the word for suffering, so the number is considered highly unlucky.

One thing you couldn't do yesterday is look for LOLcats. It was declared A Day Without Cats. But you can find them again today!

Numerologists (please note, these are not scientists!) believe that mystical significance or vibrations can be assigned to each numeral one through nine, and different combinations of the digits produce tangible results in life depending on their application. As the final numeral, the number nine holds special rank. It is associated with forgiveness, compassion and success on the positive side as well as arrogance and self-righteousness on the negative. I have not yet heard their self-congratulations on how right they were...

Google, in its new tradition of creating logos for various occasions, marked the event at 9:09 in the US with a special logo . Some folks consider this further proof that Google is run by aliens.

Some biblical mystics also weighed in on this date as being very auspicious, as it is the upside-down number of "the beast" - satan = 666.

Internet marketing got a "boost" yesterday. Not sure if this is a good thing, but Stompernet has reduced its membership fee from $800 to $1.99 per month.

There was nothing significant that I noticed in my life yesterday. but if you had something in yours, please let me know.

My Dark Side...

OK, I guess it is time to share one of my dark secrets. I am a closet goth-metal fan. Well kind of. At least I am a fan of one band of this genre, Evanescence and their lead singer Amy Lee.

So, as one of my long-missed entries into Soccer Mom in Denial's


I give you "Broken", which she does with Seether. Gloomy I know, but like singing the blues, it somehow makes me feel better... (sorry you have to go to the link yourself, I still have figured out how to embed a video!)

Letting Go...

Summer is over. Maybe not officially. Maybe not according to the weather in your area. But here, the rains and winds have arrived, and the only soft fruits available on the markets are some pale, imported strawberries and hard but not very sweet nectarines. We are fortunate with our blackberry bush in the backyard that will keep giving my DDs their daily snacks until November. But they ripen more slowly as there is less sunlight on a daily basis now.

The change in this part of the world is very noticeable. Already there is a chill in the air and leaves have started turning and falling in anticipation. I am cold already! For a little while longer it will still be light in the mornings when we get up, but that will not last. We get a short reprieve with the change from the Daylight Savings Time, but as it doesn't occur until the last Sunday in October, (25th October this year) it almost seems like too little too late. By the end of this month it will get darker and darker in the mornings, dawn arriving almost an hour later than it does now.

And as if the weather, the length of days, the lack of soft fruit selections and my aching bones were not enough to indicate that summer is gone, the kids have started back to school! While I have actually thought I looked forward to this (as do so many Moms!), somehow this year I am a bit melancholy. You see this year DD2 started in middle school. She was so excited and has taken the change in venue and routine as a new adventure. Unlike with DD1, she was not at all afraid and not lacking in confidence in any way. In some ways she is a lot more mature than her older sister.

And that, I guess, is my source of anguish. I have lost "my baby". She appears to be wiser and smarter than I think of her. Her favorite phrase lately is "I know Mom!" And she does. And I knew this day would come and have tried to prepare myself. But I find myself mourning for the loss of her childhood just as much as I do the end of the long, warm, lazy summer days...

My Granny, my mother's mother, used to say, "Raising kids is a series of little deaths and letting-go's". I guess she knew what she was talking about.

Can she bake a cherry pie...

Well I now consider it official, summer is on its way. Despite the fact that I still need a sweater because the Dutch weather is basically cold! And despite the fact that my allergies tell me it is still in the middle of spring. Today I found the sign that tells me that warmer, sunnier days are definitely on their way...cherries! Beautiful, dark and bright, rich, florid-, scarlet-, crimson-, claret-, magenta-, vermilion-, titian-, maroon-, garnet-, wine-, cardinal-, burgandy-, ruby- and camine- red-colored fruits, fresh from the orchards. It used to be that strawberries were my heralds of summer. But nowadays it seems with the innovations of greenhouses and artificial environments, those berries can be found almost year-round. And something is lost in them. Rarely these days do you find a container of strawberries that exude the essence of the sun they have captured.

But cherries are still grown on trees, in orchards and still need sunlight to ripen. And that sun, even though it may shine in a different time zone (the ones I found today I think are from Israel) not only turns them those luscious colors, and sweetens them with a natural taste that can't compare to any chemical flavorings that science can come up with, but it also sends a promise...warmer days are coming!


I did think about baking a pie, but a kilo doesn't seem to last very long around here. Maybe I need to go to the market again tomorrow...

Home is Where the Heart Is

There come times in the life of every ex-pat when you get so "homesick" that it could almost be diagnosed as depression. I use the plural here, because it happens more than once, and each time is different and calls for a different "cure".

For new arrivals who are just settling in, the first bout hits about 6 weeks into their new adventure. That's about when the "new" wears off and the supplies from home start to run out and suddenly there are the cravings for familiar favorite foods or TV programs or toiletries or even toilet paper! Kids are whiny and cranky but usually easily distracted by a special treat or outing and they will usually recover within 24 hours. Adults generally need a good "moan" (to use the British term) where they can bend a friend's ear about how ridiculous they find the rules/food/TV programs/prices/traffic/weather/etc. in their new home. With this remedy allowing them to vent their frustrations, they too can recover in a day or so. If, however, their friend happens to be back "home", the the remedy will only prolong the suffering as they will not really get the release they need and often will end up feeling even worse after such a conversation. So the tip here is: If you are feeling homesick during the first 3 months of your ex-pat status, DO NOT CALL HOME!! Instead find another ex-pat who has been here a bit longer and pour out your heart. I promise, you will feel better for it.

Subsequent bouts of homesickness will occur over the next 18 months, but generally none will be as severe and during these times it will often help to touch base with the folks back home to find out that you are not missing as much as you thought you were. Some families even return for a visit during this time and find out that they have already adapted to their new ex-pat lives so well that they have things they really like about living in their new country. In fact, this can be a fairly idyllic phase, allowing the ex-pat to appreciate the things about the new life while still cherishing a lot about "home". If departure for home occurs at this time, it will be with a small amount of relief, few regrets, and a lot of good memories. Most of the frustrations will get lost in the mist of time and chaos of new adventures and there will generally be no lasting bad impressions.

However, after about 2 years in a foreign land, an ex-pat starts to find that things they have been a bit irritated about or disliked slowly become true annoyances and points of contention. It usually starts out slow, with a build-up of frustration over a number of small things, but at some point it becomes a real rage accompanied by tears, curses, angry tirades and outbursts often at some undeserving target and it is not really as recognizable as "homesickness" until one gets down to the real root cause of the anger and discovers the pain. In the depths of one of the meltdowns, the sufferer will inevitably utter the phrase "I want to go home..." at which point it becomes clear: Phase 2 Homesickness is in full manifestation.

For those ex-pats who can see the end of their exile coming within a year or so, such an interlude can usually be suffered through with the promise of relief circled in red on a calendar. Kids can be helped by getting to actually count down the days until they know they will be back on familiar territory. Adults can be ameliorated by mass quantities of alcohol and/or chocolate, and phone calls to friends and family where they make plans for when they have returned to the fold.

But there are those ex-pats who face a longer term of re-location, possibly with no definable end in sight. For these poor suffering souls, the "homesickness" can take on new depths and can last for up to a month. While the standard remedies mentioned above do provide some relief, they are not sufficient. A higher level of intervention is required, namely: "Find home where you are." By this I mean that those cravings that have been suppressed, those longings and the feelings that you are missing out on "life", those deep urges for your "native culture" need to be met in some fashion. I have a few suggestions for this:

1. Find other ex-pats from your home country, preferably some familiar with where you were living, and spend some time with them.
   
2. Eat comfort foods you grew up with. This may mean paying the high prices for ingredients that you find in ex-pat shops (I mean $3.50 for Kraft macaroni and cheese?!!) but consider it as medicine rather than food.
   
3. Have your family and friends back home send you care packages including the local newspaper, Sunday comics, books, magazines, favorite cereals and candy, special treats that you have been missing.
   
4. Put together photo albums of your ex-pat life including pictures of things that are so different and unusual that the folks back home would not believe it without seeing it. As an alternative, you can blog about it some of your experiences or write in a journal or newsletter home. Taking yourself out of the experience to look at it as an observer will help to relieve some of the tension that has built up from living it.
   
5. Watch TV programs from your home country. Search them out on the internet, or rent video compilations. Even if all you can find is local news programs online, get yourself a good dose of your home culture and daily life. If you can't find TV, then read newspapers from home or magazines or watch an old movie you saw originally when you were home. Indulge yourself, get immersed in it, recall the feelings of being "home". And if all else fails,
   
6. Go somewhere else for a while. Take a long weekend or a week vacation in a different country. Experience anew the uncertainty and frustrations of a foreign country and you will come back to appreciate how well you have adapted to your adopted home.

A word of caution here: Despite how tempted you may feel to run back "home" to try and relieve your symptoms, this solution usually will only backfire and cause your misery on returning to your ex-pat life to be compounded. So while a trip to a different country can help, a trip to the home country will usually only make things worse and cause the homesick period to last a lot longer.

After more than three years as an ex-pat, the bouts of homesickness come at random and sometimes unexpected intervals, but primarily they are mild and can be headed off with one or more of the suggestions above. But...

Every once in a while, something will happen to trigger a very serious episode where thoughts of just chucking everything and running back to your "old familiar life" become almost overwhelming. And even after living overseas for over 23 years now, I find myself succumbing to this sickness and thinking totally irrational thoughts. And the really ridiculous part is I have lived as an adult overseas now for longer than I have lived as an adult in what I still somehow consider "home". But there is no explaining that to one's heart.

The trigger for this, ironically, was our quick trip back home to visit family during the May break. We only had 13 days, and that was already taking DD1 out of school for 3 days. But after traveling time and jet lag there were only about 10 days and despite cramming in an activity or visit almost every day, it wasn't enough. I barely got to gab with my best girlfriend, I didn't get to visit more than 15 mins total with my sister-in-law, I was limited to a lunch visit with my best guyfriend and his family and a quick overnight trip to see my favorite cousin. I feel like I hardly had any time with my Mom. And of course because I was traveling with my family, I did not get to overindulge (like 3 or 4 times) in eating my favorite foods, or have a chance to just gab and gossip without being constantly interrupted, or do any real shopping (the trips to Walmart to stock up on necessities and groceries with family in tow DO NOT COUNT!!). And it rained almost every day so I did not even get to experience the usually warm Texas weather. In short, despite being "home" I did not get to feel "at home". It was, like all vacations for mothers accompanied by their families, a short period of intense stress and chaos and with very little downtime.

And instead of feeling like I was recharged by my visit, I came back uneasy and irritated and mad at all the daily life irritations that I usually just ignore. I hate the traffic. I can't find anything that I want to cook or eat. I absolutely despise the weather and can't seem to get warm enough, despite it already being June. There is nothing I want to see on TV. I can't even stand the songs on the radio. And I am so tired of speaking a danged foreign language I cannot tell you. I find myself becoming stubborn and critical of everything and almost paralyzed at starting anything. I don't sleep well at night, and I am tired and cranky during the day, and I am generally just a miserable person to be around these days.

So I find myself following all my best advice, indulging in moan-fests, eating comfort foods, catching up on American sitcoms on the internet (including programs I don't really follow regularly but have heard about), pouring over US magazines that I rarely even glance at on the newsstands, and still I find myself angry and depressed and frustrated and generally just hating my life.

Therefore I have finally "broken the emergency glass" and booked a trip back home, alone, for 3 weeks, did I mention by myself? Now if I can only hold out until 10.July without driving everyone around me crazy, maybe I will recover enough to come back and I won't have made everyone so mad here that they will actually be glad to have me come back.

"...If you’re traveling with a child, place your mask on your face first, then assist your child.”

"...put on your own oxygen mask before attempting to help those around you." If you have ever travelled on an airplane, you have heard those words or other similar emergency instructions. And if you are like me, you have listened to them and known they made sense. And Oprah has had various shows counseling the wisdom of such advice in other situations, the message being "Look after yourself first so that you can be in better shape to take care of others."

But whoever wrote those words obviously was not a mother. Sorry Oprah, I know you mean well, but until you have been a parent, you don't know what you are talking about. Or maybe you do, as I don't know the sacrifices you would be willing to make for your 4-footed babies.

It isn't just the daily interruptions: answering questions while we are on a phone call, missing our favorite TV programs in order to calm last-minute homework meltdowns, interrupting our bath ritual to stop a squabble between siblings, letting our kids have the last cookie or finish the ice cream telling ourselves we don't really need the dessert, forgoing that pair of shoes for ourselves so that we can afford to give our offspring that wardrobe item that would break our budget.

But tell me what mother, what parent for that matter would deny their child blood, bone marrow, kidney, lung liver, skin.... anything that could be given that would help their child in need. The costs in money, health, emotional distress, job security or anything else be damned.

We all do it. We consider it part of the job as a parent. You give yourself to your children and pay no attention to the toll it takes. And even when you do know, when you realize that you are on your last nerve, you are draining your batteries, that what you are doing or what your child is putting you through is raising your blood pressure, aging your body, greying your hair, making you a nervous wreck, driving you crazy...do you stop?

I don't know how you answer that question for yourself. I know that everyone has their own limits. But for me, as long as I hold out hope that whatever I am doing, all that I am going through, all the frustration and stress and worries and tantrums and breakdowns will eventually lead to a better life for my child and a light at the end of the tunnel (even if I can't see it), means that I will sacrifice myself, my health, my sanity, my self esteem, my happiness whatever it takes.

And make no mistake, dealing with a teenager means you sacrifice a lot. Dealing with a troubled teen means the cost can be very dear. Which is to say that my health is suffering. Weight problems, blood pressure issues, fatigue, listlessness, mood swings, low resistance to every germ and virus that comes around, etc. And while I know what causes it, and what I need to do about it, I have not yet gotten to the point where I can "put on my own mask first".

I know I need to. I plan to. One of these days I will. Soon. I promise. But right now I just don't come first. I blame Mother Nature.