Lucky #13

January 9, 1999
Los Altos, CA

This week we celebrate our 13th year of marriage.  What a treasured & amazing journey it's been so far.  And if what they say is true, then the best is yet to come.

Dwaine and I met while teaching 4th grade at Gussie M. Baker Elementary School.  My teaching partner (good friend and future maid of honor) & I, were on the interview committee that gave Dwaine the thumbs up as a potential third member of our 4th grade team.  One of the BEST decisions I've ever been a part of making! (I tried to set him up with her in future weeks...and also with every other single girl I knew, other than myself).

Dwaine had just arrived home from Uganda where he was a Peace Corps volunteer. He moved up to northern CA to pursue this teaching position (as well as one of the 3rd grade teachers who had been a friend of his for several years).  Although things weren't meant to be with Dwaine & Ms. 3rd Grade Teacher, they were meant to be with us.  (In future months, Ms. 3rd Grade Teacher and I would become housemates & good friends.  No love lost there).

We met in January 1998, were engaged in June of that year and married by January 1999.  When you know, you know.  And there was no doubt in our minds from the very earliest days of doing yard duty & lesson plans together, that we were meant to be partners for life.  

One week after our wedding we moved to Massachusetts where Dwaine was mid-way through his first year at UMASS where he'd eventually complete his Masters & Doctorate...and where we'd meet both of our little boys for the first time...and where we would take our final steps off of American soil into the great unknown of international living.

Dwaine Erik Lee.  The love of my life, hero of my heart & the one and only face I will forever be looking for in a crowd.  13 years is just the beginning & I can hardly wait to see all that is in store for us in the years to come.

New Year

New Year's Eve.

It's been New Year's Eve all day long.  Which is why I found it surprising that not until 9:00pm on New Year's Eve did it dawn on me that my two boys (7 and 9 years old) have not ever seen the Times Square ball drop.  They haven't waited in anticipation for midnight, watched the fireworks from other countries around the world while they waited for our own stroke of midnight to come.  Never banged pots and pans together, sung Auld Lang Syne and kissed the pretty girl next to them (for a few more years, let's let that be me).

We were letting the boys stay up a little past bedtime.  Not quite until midnight because, really, if there's no ball to watch drop or fireworks to see ~ what's the point of ensuring that we have 2 crabby kids in the morning?  So just a bit before 9 we had the conversation about all that we are looking forward to in 2012 (Connor turns 10, Daddy turns 40, another Christmas, starting 4th grade & 3rd grade, and ~ of course ~ welcoming Baby Lee).  Dwaine told the boys that in America our families will be staying up late & waiting until midnight to welcome in the New Year.

At 9:00 we turned to CNN and turned off the lights so we could show the boys the spectacular fireworks display in Sydney.  We have a projector rather than a traditional TV...the fireworks display in our den was HUGE.  They weren't as big of a deal as they are for you, right now, in America.  The fireworks from country to country & progressive dropping of the Times Square ball just aren't shown on every (or really any) channel here.  So the New Year's Eve feeling was tough to conjure up...but we tried.

Do you know what these expat boys thought of the New Year's display?  Nothing.  Totally 100% underwhelmed.  In fact, they kept pestering us to return to the Cartoon Network show they were watching before we'd started the whole "You know, New Year's Eve is sort of a special holiday all around the world...." conversation.

And this, to me, is just one more indication that I ~ who thinks I know my children & their growing up experience so very, very well ~ may have some surprises in store when I have grown children who are telling me what their memories of growing up were like.

Truth be told, I have never really put a lot of effort into celebrating New Year's Eve.  It does happen to fall smack between Christmas, our wedding anniversary & Dwaine's birthday.  It sort of gets lost in the shuffle of life events within our home.  I sort of 'dropped the ball', so to speak....

Now that they're older, and clearly have limited experience around New Year's festivities, I think I want to make a bigger deal out of it.  I'm not sure yet how precisely I'm going to do this without the iconic lighted ball, the countdowns, the fireworks.

I suppose we can count this as my first New Year's resolution of 2012...make New Year's Eve 2013 a little more memorable.  A little more creative.  A little more sparkly.  And you can be sure, I will be the pretty girl next to them who gets the kiss for as many years as possible.


Image from LeSimon Pix

Addendum: I should add that we had been invited to and planned to attend a family party tonight which we couldn't because Dwaine wasn't feeling well.  If there is anything that helps to make an expat kid understand and embrace the 'American-ness' of a holiday, it's celebrating it with other Americans.  Next year I hope that we can join our friends in welcoming in the New Year.

Nairobbery?

Nairobi earned it's nickname, "Nairobbery", fair and square.  We are constantly hearing accounts of people in the wrong place (outside of their own home) at the wrong time (anytime) being robbed.  It happens.  You just sort of get used to hearing the RSO telling Mission employees to "use extreme caution".  So used to it in fact, that you stop listening...just a little bit.

So, Nairobi has a nickname.  But today I found it to be the opposite of it's nickname.

Our family went to Java House for lunch after picking Dwaine up from work.  It's a gorgeous December afternoon.  Fridays at this post are 1/2 days.  (Not because they are slackers.  But rather because the work day starts earlier here. Dwaine makes sure to get his work done in a timely manner so that he can take advantage of the early day.  He did his due in Macedonia where he'd often hold after office meetings with national politicians that ended at 11:00pm. So just you folks with smart aleky comments who may or may not work 'across the sidewalk' shush up.  Half day Fridays. Earned.  Appreciated. Enjoyed. Shush.). I digress.


Picked up Dwaine, went to Java House.  Where I did what every waitress will demand of customers until they willingly or unwillingly obey, I 'hooked' my purse.  All tables have built in hooks beneath them to hang your purse on so that no one walks behind your seat and takes your bag.  Nairobbery...remember?  So, bag hooked, boys playing on playground, conversation enjoyed, delicious lunch consumed, bill paid.

Bag left on hook.  That's one thing to do at Chili's in Somewhere, USA.  Entirely another in Nairobbery.

We drove home and pulled into our the driveway at home and my stomach flipped & quickly sunk down to my toes when I reached for my purse at my feet and found it wasn't there.  We ripped down the roads to get back through the holiday traffic to reach Java House in order to find my purse (...or not).

Mentally taking inventory of what's in my purse.  2 ipods, Dwaine's brand new Bulova watch he got for Christmas that I'd intended to take to the jeweler for sizing, money, id's, credit cards, embassy badge, Kindle, my nearly filled Zucchini market card (hey! It takes a loooong time to fill up the 10 spaces of 1,000 shillings spent boxes!  I've nearly earned a free liter of freshly squeezed juice!)  I was sure that, at this busy restaurant, my bag was discovered, cleaned out and then possibly turned in.  Nairobbery, remember?

So you can imagine my pleasant surprise when we pulled up at the restaurant, I jumped out and walked in to the restaurant where I saw the manager, who we've known since our first week here.  They'd figured out whose bag it was and were busily calling my friends (who, oddly enough, they had the numbers for stored in their own phone) to try to reach someone who could reach me to come get my purse.

My purse, which remained fully stocked with 2 ipods, expensive watch, money, embassy id, credit cards & even my nearly full Zucchini customer card, was not a victim of Nairobbery.  I fully expected it to be. Which goes to show, that you can't always assume a nickname is a correct reflection of a place.

Personally, I'd like to go to Paris or Rome to see how their nicknames hold up....The City of Light & The Eternal City.  In their cases, I hope the nicknames are true.  In Nairobi's, I'm glad it wasn't...at least today.

Traditions (Take 2)

I think a bit of clarification is in order.

To recap...A pool-side pal and I had a conversation regarding traditions & how the challenge of striving to create a memorable, special & family focused time together can sometimes be overwhelming.  It can, sometimes, make us Foreign Service type folks feel guilty (insert word of your own choosing) that we aren't doing more (read, "what our own families did for us").

Not because we don't WANT to.  Not because we wouldn't if we could.  Not because we've disregarded the need or love of traditions in general.  And certainly not because we have forgotten or don't hold dear those simple things that our family has done over the years that make holidays significant in our own special ways.

But rather because we simply cannot.  Some we can...others we can't.  And that's the part that, for the first time in nearly 10 years of trying to re-create the holidays for my own little branch of the family tree, I've finally been able to say, "That's ok..."

Pool-side pal summed it up beautifully when she said, "Some traditions are for the present, some are for always & some are for this year only".  That's the fluidity I'm talking about.  And that, for me, is a very freeing thought.  Because I have tried (across 2 different states, 3 countries & in a total of 9 different homes over a span of 10 years spent apart from extended family) to force our Christmases to fit the mold of what we both grew up with.  And that is exhausting.  And, according to my own inner judge, I never seem to get it 'right'.

There are portable parts to the holidays that we can tie into the fabric of our family life.  The most important of which, to us, is making certain that our family focuses on the meaning of the holiday. Whether we're talking about Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter or 4th of July...we want to make sure that it's more to them than turkey, presents, Easter eggs or fireworks.  There is always a story that goes with it.  And as American kids living in a non-American world, it's important that they know the backstory.

And we want them to know that they are loved not only by us, but also by a whole, whole lot of people around the world who are related to them by love or family ties.

Traditions matter.  (...I wasn't saying otherwise).  I'm simply more aware now than other times, as a globally nomadic mom, that the more loosely I hold onto them the more joyfully we can allow the old ones to shine when able & the new ones to find a welcome place around our tree.  And, hopefully, I'm also allowing my own globally nomadic children, a place to add to that which our family chooses as their own traditions.

Traditions

This afternoon a friend and I lounged by the pool soaking up the equatorial December sunshine while we watched our kids cannonballing into the water.  Perhaps it was their white washed little sun screened bodies or perhaps it was the exceptionally non-wintery scene set before us, but somehow our conversation turned toward family traditions.

• What kinds of traditions does your family have around the holidays?
• What kinds of traditions did you grow up with?
• How do you work traditions (which are generally non-portable by nature) into your portable lifestyle?
• How many Christmases have you spent away from extended family? (Our answer is 13 years combined)

There is no doubt that this overseas lifestyle has shaped our perspectives on some things.  Traditions not withstanding.

The Foreign Service lifestyle makes tradition building as a family challenging.  As, I suppose, a military lifestyle would as well.  Lots of moving means that you really cannot do anything the same way year after year after year.  And this can cause a fair amount of sadness, guilt, nostalgia, melancholy (pick one...or pick them all...) in the heart and mind of a mother who is wanting to give her kids something tangible to hold onto.  Something that when someone asks, "What are some of your family traditions around the holidays?"  their child isn't scrambling for an answer.

Because really, our kids are never going to be able to say things like, "When I was a kid we'd always go to the same Christmas tree farm and choose and chop down our own tree. We tied it to the top of the car and sang Christmas carols all the way home."  We did. They won't. And for the first year ever, that's fine with me.  

As pool-side friend and I got to chatting, we realized that reading the Facebook posts from so many friends and families who use the words "traditional" or "annual" in regards to something they've just done, have in the past made us long to be "home".  Such as (choose one)  Christmas tree chopping down, cookie baking with extended family, annual Christmas concerts, annual Christmas sleigh rides, Christmas light drives...and on and on.  But, as we got to chatting, we realized that where we grew up ~ where we visit each year for home leave ~ isn't "home" anymore.  And we aren't exactly sure when along the way that happened.

But this year, after many many years of living on the other side of the ocean from our friends and families, we realize that though we miss the people we spent the holidays with, neither of us seems to regret not having long-standing annual traditions.

Here's why.  Well, the obvious one is that we can't.  Plain and simple.  For every new country we'll go to, the weather is different (enjoy sleigh rides one year,  boat rides the next), the food items available are different (Christmas turkey...?  Maybe, maybe not), the churches are different (Christmas eve candlelight service?  Perhaps....).  It all depends.

This is the first year that both my pool-side pal and I have felt a flip-side to traditions that we are witnessing on Facebook.  For the first time we are seeing that there is a great deal of freedom in not having events that each and every year our children participate in.  One day, our kids will grow up and leave the nest.  If we have created a large number of family traditions, how is it that they'll be able to not be a participant in them?

If I have photos of them from birth to 25 choosing their Christmas tree together with the family at the same place each year, following the traditional breakfast at the same place we've gone to together since they could say, "Pancake stack with syrup", will it not be hard for them on their 26th year to say, "Hey, Mom & Dad, this year the wife and I are going with her family to get our tree somewhere else."?  I want them to have that freedom.

I know this is random and convoluted, but my point is simple really.  If there is an expectation (be it ever so warm & fuzzy) that a particular seasonal activity be participated in each and every year by our children, we came to the conclusion that it stops being something fun we like to do as a family and starts to become a way that we contain our children and ensure that we spend future years doing what we like to do as a family.  (I've often wondered how some of the families I know with girls who've grown up in homes heavy in traditions, who've gone on to marry & have kids & continue in the yearly traditions, would respond if one day ~ hypothetically speaking, of course ~ the young husband wanted to spend the season with his family...doing what they do.  The young wife might be ok with it...but would the parents of said young wife?)

I happen to have boys.  The day will probably come when they will marry women who would love nothing more than to spend every Christmas with her family.  I might have to *gulp* share them.  And pool-side friend  (mother of, count 'em, FOUR boys...with a fifth on the way) and I concluded that if we keep our traditions loose and fluid, our children will grow to be men who embrace parts of the season that we've made special in our homes, but will feel the freedom to also create their own family traditions one day. (And, being the mothers of boys that we are, we hope that one day our boys will want to also spend Christmas with us & that said young wife will love us soooo much that she will too).

For today, the small realization that traditions can be made and re-made year after year depending on where we are geographically and in life took off the pressure from my own shoulders to make the holidays~be it Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter or Groundhogs Day~the same from year to year and call it "Tradition".

Freedom in Fluidity.  (Slogan courtesy of the poolside venue).

Shake, Rattle & Roll

This afternoon we went to a movie at the mall.  It was all decked out for Christmas and extremely crowded (which helped me to get over my longing for the 'hustle & bustle' of the holidays real quick).  But this post isn't about Westgate mall.

We saw this (well, the kids saw it.  I think Dwaine & I both napped through a lot of it).  But this post isn't about going to the movies.

We parked our car at the top level of the parking structure as opposed to the underground parking.  We're safety conscious that way (because everyone knows that if a car bomber wants to take out a building they'll go to the basement.  3 floors up gives us that extra sense of safety, albeit a false sense...we'll take what we can get).  This post isn't about parking security.  That will & should be another post all it's own.

This post is about our car and the man who drives it.

When we parked our car and left it there, it was fine.  When we turned the ignition on it was not fine.  In fact it felt like a volcano was about to erupt inside of our car.  It felt as if Alvin and the Chipmunks & their friends the Chippettes were rocking out to LMFAO Party Anthem.  There was something most seriously wrong.  And it had not been wrong when we'd parked our car a couple of hours before.

That's not our car....but we were afraid that between the mall & home, it would be.

Which led the two of us, highly mechanical car aficionados that we are, to the simple conclusion that someone had messed with our car.  I purported that someone must have done what we've heard often happens when gas prices rise.  They siphoned gas.  Then replaced what they took with water or some other wet product that would make our gas gauge look full.  In fact, it looked suspiciously too full....we filled up 3 days ago.  It shouldn't still be on F, should it?

We rumbled, shook & wobbled about 1/2 way home.  But when it seemed like we might possibly not make it home we called the person on our speed dial who would know the answers to our car problems.

Fredrick.

We called our driver. On a Saturday.  When he's not supposed to be thinking about us, our car, or which mechanic would be most likely to help us at the last minute.  And yet he did.

In fact, he did more than that.  We hadn't been home for more than about 30 minutes.  (And to be honest, we were *this close* to making the boys get out and push us up that last steep hill into our neighborhood).  When ding, dong (we don't actually have a doorbell...that was for theatrical effect).  Frederick is at the door.  On a Saturday.  When we had not asked him to come.  He came to look at the engine.  Which is good because he actually does know about our car & how it runs.

Do you know what this man brought with him?  His own car.  Do you know what he left with? Nothing.  He came to our home, on a Saturday, to deliver his car to us, & take a matatu home. And do you know what happened 15 minutes after he left?  It started to rain...African rain.  Totally it's own species of downpour.  So somewhere between being a good Samaritan & arriving home, Frederick was caught in a storm.

I don't know what's going to happen with our car.  I'm sure it will get fixed.  But I do know what's going to happen with Fredrick.  He's going to get a nice fat tip on Monday when he gets to work.

There have been many quiet days in our life when I've wondered why we need to employ a driver.  But I see now that over the 2 and a half years that we've lived here & spent 5 days a week being shuttled around by Fredrick, a friendship of sorts has been built.  We did not ask him to come help us.  We did not ask if we could borrow his car.  And we did not ask if he'd come back tomorrow, on a Sunday, to get our ailing car to the garage for us.  He offered.  And I am grateful to have someone like Fredrick looking out for us a little bit.

PS~ 2 Days Later~  It seems that the trouble was far more simple than we'd thought.  One of the spark plugs had somehow gotten water on it & malfunctioned.  No gas siphoning conspiracy.  No engine explosions.  And no dancing Chipmunks in the inner workings of the car.  Simple spark plug.  Grateful & a wee embarrassed that it was such a tiny thing.

There's My Girl...

Introducing Little Lady Lee.  25 weeks of tiny sweetness.

Or, as Dwaine has dubbed her based on her first profile shot, "Turtle".

Outrageous Olfactory Powers

Someone near me is wearing the Clinique fragrance "Happy".  And by 'near me', I mean someone within this large, outdoor restaurant where the "nearest" person is about 30 feet from me...the nearest woman about 40 feet.

I think I'm bionic.  Or that I have a super power and may one day single handedly save the world with my amazing sense of smell.  All-Powerful Olfactoress, could be my super power name.

I'm about 6 and 1/2 months pregnant.  And in the past month I've seen a spike in my smell abilities.  Did you change your socks, my son?  I can tell.  I walk past a room (not even into it) and tell precisely what mixed drink Dwaine may be enjoying while watching the news.  Have fried eggs for breakfast?  I knew it at the word, "Hello".

This is sort of fun in some ways.  I mean, don't you put on perfume or cologne each day in order for it to be appreciated by others?  And Clinique "Happy"...such a nice smell. Not to mention from someone sitting so far from you that you can't identify who it is you caught a whiff of.  But it's also a Super Power I wish I could turn off.

I smell people smells.  And sometimes it's gross.  I know if you haven't washed your hair in a couple of days.  I know if that sweater should be washed.  And in a crowded market, I can't stand in the line of a certain check out clerk because it makes my eyes water to wait my turn.  And there is very good reason why I don't encourage bean eating in my home, if you know what I mean.

This too is temporary.  But if for a time you find me standing down wind from you, don't take offense.  My olfactory powers won't last forever.  But our friendship might if I choose not to mention that you should consider a new, more fragrant, laundry detergent.