could i vent a minute???

I'm bummed at the moment...i have 2 pairs of shoes here (ok...i have 3 but i never wear the 3rd one)...one chaco and one flip flop...(that I bought at the surf shop in the bigger city here). And I haven't been able to find the flip flops...well I see our neighbor lady is wearing them...she takes care of our trash. I guess she talked to greg about them but greg says she wasn't wearing them when she was talking about them. She was wearing some old flipflops that he didn't know...so he thought she must have mistaken the flipflops for mine...but she must have been talking about my flipflops that were in her house!!!! so today I see her wearing them and she says to me "greg says that it's ok I found these in the trash...i thought they were still good and didn’t' know why you didn't want them." And I said in my best indo..."oh...i didn't know where those went...maybe the kids threw them in the trash...i didn't put them in the trash" and she is smiling at me the whole time and not getting me...ugh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and it's not so much that she can't have the shoes...she can! I CAN buy new shoes much easier than she can...but it's the reputation that I will have here in the neighborhood of throwing things away that are perfectly good and I don't care about money! But I guess I can't explain that! because we do have so much more than anyone in our neighborhood...it's a hard balance...because this is a community of people that are knit tightly together, they know our business (almost better than we do sometimes!) and reputation is a hard thing to give and take with people...yeah??? ugh...i want easy communication!

and then just before that gavin had a hockey tourney at school...but Kinder was only 15 min. long and greg had made us a little late to where we would have to walk fast to get there...well I had asked our neighbor girl earlier in the day if she wanted to go with us...and at the last min...her grandma decided she wanted to come (she had never been to the school before) and so we said "sure!"...but I told her we had to hurry and i was kind of blunt (you know...being american)...hurry is not a word in the indo language as far as action goes...so greg had to go on with the boys and I had to stay and walk like a turtle with her. We only got to see half the game...and it was so important for Gavin that i was there...but it is sooo important that i show respect to my community...it was a frustrating time...and then walking back was just the same...i mean...really...i can slow down but this is like "I have nothing to do today...so I am just going to count all the trees on the way!" I am so frustrated! ....and it's just cultural...i can't really do anything!!!!!!!!!!!! But I am a torn American today! I want it NOW and I want it FAST! speaking of tree watching...as i walked to school this morning...i noticed the amount of large spiders in their webs...i have been looking and haven't seen too many...but this must be the season...they are everywhere! and greg is always down playing my statements "they are larger than your hand" but after i showed him my finds in the trees today...he too wants to take pictures and show how they are even larger than his hands! gavin and paul say "go closer...go closer...i want to see!" and so we do...and then we get a little closer and they have both had enough...they are afraid the spiders will jump on them and then go into their mouths ( i just happened to tell them we eat about 8 or so spiders in our life time!) and yeah...i am not kidding...we saw more than 30 of them on our little mile jaunt to school

Ok...on to other things...we nearly blew up our house last night cooking supper...the cord that plugs in the stove had melted to the stove and had wires exposed...it shocked me when I went to turn it off and all the electricity went out in the house! We found the source and now we are thankful that it did not cause a fire!

We don't have a hot water heater that works...but then again...who does here? It's so frustrating to "Think" you are going to take a hot shower and it gets a little warm and you put the soap in your hair but then you have to rinse and it all goes cold on you and you aren't even half done! So it's just funny at times...nothing goes as planned here...why is that? and then you have someone come to fix it...and of course...it works! grrrr....

we got a call from the our bank in the states saying that our debit card will no longer work here...thank you!

Gavin has another ear infection...and a big cold sore on his lip...looks like 3 on top of another! Yidda! He lets me put that cold sore stuff on them though...no pain no gain...right? does anyone have good "natural" cures for ear infections???? he is allergic to mold...and where do we live? yeah...it doesn't help his state of "being"...poor guy...he needs something other than the norm though...it just isn't working

Paul is our healthiest kid and member of the family...he hasn't even been sick the whole time we have been here that i can recall!!! incredible! maybe all the thinking that he does about super heroes really wears off on him for the better!

Hazel...i put her on flagyl today...scary but I did it...she has had the big D for nearly one month so we needed to do something...she most likely has an amoeba (we didn't take a stool sample cuz it always comes back neg anyway...and she didn't even see a dr...it's all hearsay around here and do any of you know how to convert 7.5mg into ml??? yeah...now we know that it is 3cc...go figure! we had to figure that out on our own but good thing you know you are talking to some smart people here!) but she already seems better and it's the first day! She hasn't said "my tummy hurts" once...tonight will be the test...seems when she lays down for bed...she finally feels the most. And only one poopa today...still the big D but just one! We are making headway!

and i leave you with a bonus...on our way home from the hockey tourney...we discovered a new road that just was finished and it has a great hill for the kids on their skitters! we have to get video of this...they were soooooo happy! and i was sooooo happy watching them cuz their faces were just lit up! i loved it! so in all our culture shock today...we still had a few moments of grace where we can see that it's not ALL bad!