Chapter 12: Away We Go Awandering...

Two days in a row? New postings two days in a row?!?! Impossible!
And yet it is possible and hopefully the beginning of a new trend as I have promised my wonderful father to post once a day. So, gone are the days of immense postings (probably...I may feel the need for postings of great size and majesty) that are months apart. Behold! A new age of blogging has come!...maybe.
I have two items of interest for today's agenda.
1. Movements of a Nativity scene participant
2. Today's game of futbol/soccer (I'm not trying to be a fancypants European...or member of any country in the world except for the U.S., but it feels weird to call it soccer in this part of the world)
We (well, really I) will address these points in the sequence I observed/experienced them...meaning Nativity stuff first.
Mom and I drove into school this morning along our usual route experiencing a rather uneventful drive (except for the guy in the white van bumping bumpers with us and then speeding away...while there was no damage, both Mom and I were unimpressed by this gentleman's lack of courtesy). As the permanent navigator of our craft, I sit in the front passenger seat which allows me to gaze in gazemazement out the window (which Kristin is well aware I like to do) and today I was justly rewarded. We were relatively near school when I saw a strikingly white donkey peer around an unfinished wall beside the street (the donkey was standing in the place where a gate should have been so as to fully enclose the field/grove the donkey had just vacated). There was nothing strange about this, in fact it would be more odd if we saw no donkeys at all on our drive into school. Sometimes we have to pass donkeys, and their respective riders, as they mosey through the street with giant coffee pots strapped to their sides (it's like a drive-up Starbucks...except they drive up to you, not the other way around...and there's only one option for drinks). I figured this donkey was like the many others we had seen, cleaner certainly, but nothing else. It even had a harness around its head with the usual piece of twine attached to...to...nothing (some of you may have already guessed, but I hope you refrained from ruining it for the others). Just as we passed our four legged friend, I realized the frayed end of the twine was dragging on the ground and as I craned my head to follow Mr. Abi-ad's (abiad is Arabic for white...creative, I know) progress he did not disappoint. Continuing on his morning constitutional, Mr. Abi-ad stuck to the sidewalk and quietly enjoyed his independence.
The second point of interest was today's soccer game during recess. The usual suspects were there (meaning about five or six of the boys and two male teachers) plus a few additions (that's kind of redundant I think). I haven't played with the kids during recess for about a week (for various reasons but mostly because I've been a bit lazy) and so when they saw me in my sneakers (which is apparently the sign that I'm ready for action) the kids got psyched up, so psyched up that two of the girls decided to play too. We'll call the girls Lucy and Susan (I've been reading The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe with one of the kids). Susan is around 10 years old, rather tall for her age, and quite adept at keeping goal as it turned out. Lucy is 8ish, very small for her age (her head comes up to my belly button, no exaggeration), rather Napoleonic, and entirely insane once she joins a game of soccer, as we all found out today. Lucy is of the bumblebee-style soccer, following the ball wherever it goes, and I was worried her head would be knocked off by one of the more powerful kicks (one of the boys is happiest only when he has booted the ball the length of the field...I mean concrete driveway) and the game would end in tears. How wrong I was...
Either the boys were taking it a little easy on her, she's incredibly tough, they were completely stunned by her manner, or a combination of all of these. While she never scored a goal, Lucy was the most vociferous player on the strip. Similar to me, she made noises and cries at any and all movements...even those not connected to the game (ex: a bird flying by, people breathing in and out). She was like me, but louder...so much louder. Between the two of us, we created a symphony of noises that both alarmed and confused the rest of the teachers on the playground. The game ended with the teams tied up, 3-3. I hope Lucy and Susan want to play tomorrow...
Mom is busy making chicken, rice, and the mozzarella-tomato-pecan salad deliciousness and my stomach is busy gurgling. I think I will go juice the lemons necessary for tonight's meal. Farewell...until we meet again...like, tomorrow.

Chapter 11: I'm Back Baby!

It's our first night back in the guest house in the Holy Land and Mom is making her Special Potatoes. They are called special because...well...the are eSPECIALly delicious...and we were eSPECIALly lazy in the naming process.
In other news, I have begun reading a series of books by Dorothy Gilman (I have run out of JAG DVDs and I need something to entertain me) with a title character by the name of Mrs. Pollifax. Mrs. Pollifax is a grandmother from New Brunswick, New Jersey who is tapped in late life as a courier by the CIA (and not the Culinary Institute of America...oh Daphne). It makes for some truly hilarious moments (which I choose to read aloud to Mom when we are waiting in traffic, using my patented accents...which generally all sound French in the end, and not good French, but French like the chef in The Little Mermaid). Good fun had by all!
Switching topics again, I now feel like a real teacher at school...kind of. I write lesson plans, execute said lesson plans, and then observe what was effective and what totally crashed and burned. Luckily, I have not had any flaming wreckages at the end of my lessons and so have not needed to use the Little Black Box (Mom serves as the LBB as her office space is directly next to mine and she can hear everything, if she wants to). I teach one on one classes to 5 boys, all of whom are at different levels in English. They read aloud (I have almost memorized "Dr. Seuss' ABC" book), and we do activities (thank God for Hidden Pictures and the myriad of objects written in english it hides between its pages!), and I read to them (If anyone is interested in discussing Tomie dePaola's Bill and Pete series, just let me know). It's awesome.
My nasal passages are now being caressed...infiltrated?...by the wafting smells of the Special Potatoes. I have to go make Mom her Lingonberry Fizzy to show my deepest appreciation for all her efforts. Before I go, as this post does have a somewhat Bender Bending Rodriguez-esque theme to it....Bite my shiny metal rear! (for future reference, my rear is not made of metal or any alloys)