Caroline turns 3

Our Caroline is a three-year-old! This was her first year to have her very own party--not a family celebration or a joint gathering with Barret but a bona-fide birthday party with her friends. She decided to have a Little Mermaid Princess Tea Party. I decided it would be at the ice cream shop near our home since it's new, it's usually empty during the early afternoon and it has gorgeous ice cream cakes. Fortunately, Caroline told me what theme she wanted while we were in the US this summer, so I was able to buy Little Mermaid party supplies. Otherwise she'd have had a Hello Kitty-meets-Snoopy party, as those seem to be the main heroes here. She invited five girl friends to dress in their finest princess attire. They had a luscious strawberry ice cream/red velvet layer cake (with a Mermaid candle on top, of course) and enjoyed pouring each other "tea" from minature tea sets. Yes, extreme girliness at its finest. It always amazes me that I, the girl who played more in the mud puddles than with the dollhouse, should have a daughter that dresses head-to-toe princess or ballerina everyday, loves pink nail polish, sleeps with a collection of Barbies and baby dolls, and takes great delight in matching her shoes, hairbows and outfits for preschool. While I was typing this, she just came in, took a look at my baggy sweatshirt and old jeans, and sympathetically offered me her golden crown. (I'm wearing it. It is a vast improvement.) Of course, I've always had a thing for make-up and gorgeous evening wear (I've been known to play dress up on more than one occassion). So maybe, despite my pony-tailed hair and uniform of t-shirt and jeans, there's some girliness in me, too.

Here is a video of some post-cake, sugar-induced spinning with her friend Sarah. It really was a nice party, thanks to our dear friends and our funny, fiesty, Princess Caroline:

Thanksgiving 2007

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Hope it was a great one for all of you. Here's how ours went:

On Thursday morning I walked the five blocks up to Barret's school to pick up two pumpkin pies ($18US) from the school sale--I truly am thankful for this resource in our land far, far away from Krogers and Wal-mart! I wasn't sure how to get to the school kitchen and started wandering around, for some reason heading down to the basement and up a back staircase where I found an employees-only entrance. The kitchen staff were quite startled when I appeared among the industrial mixers and wire racks like Alice in Wonderland popping out of her rabbit hole. But they were happy to give me my pies--two greenish brown circles that tasted kind of funny but filled my mandatory Thanksgiving requirement for pumpkin pie. Walking back from school, I grabbed a coffee from the newly opened Dunkin Doughnuts (another thing for which I'm thankful!), then dropped by the vegetable stand at the street market for carrots and cherry tomatoes for our nibble tray. I began the final two blocks back to our apartment, nobly balancing my two pies, bag of veggies and coffee, congratulating myself on how well I function without a car these days. Then, a gust of wind hit me, and I had to sacrifice the coffee to the wind in order to hold onto the pies. There was a time when I would have felt embarrassed by the dramatic splatter of latte all over the walkway in front of a nice shop. But considering the offerings of doggie doo also on the sidewalk, I figured the coffee smell was an improvement.

Once home, I thawed out some lasagna for our lunch, then pulled out my horded supplies, procured from 3 different stores at a cost of $9.00US , to make one medium-sized green bean casserole--again, I was grateful not just for finding the can of French's french-fried onions but for this reminder of "back home." At 3pm, we loaded the family into a taxi with our pies, veggie nibble tray, green bean casserole, bottle of wine, McLeod's laptop and projector for watching recorded football games, our outfits for changing into for the annual Christmas photo, and various things the kids might need to stay clean, dry, thirst-free and happy. We headed over to another expat family's apartment, where we spent the next few hours enjoying time with the two other families there, snapping photos, pulling together a fairly traditional meal including a real turkey that did NOT have its head or feet still attached, and getting ready for some football. Then, the obnoxious neighbors decided our group of seven kids (all but one of whom were under age 5) were too loud playing in the courtyard at 5:30pm.

What option did these disgruntled not-so-thankful neighbors choose in dealing with our unpleasant noise level? Did they call or go talk to the building supervisor? Did they yell down from their third-floor balcony? Did they send the local cops to issue a warning to those squealing two-year-olds? Nope. They turned on their garden hose and sprayed the little guys. Poor Caroline came running in with a puzzled look and said, "Mommy, why did it rain on my dress?" I just scooped her up and made a quick check to verify that it was indeed only water that had been sprayed on her (add that to the thankfulness list, though I can't say I was exactly happy at that moment). Next began an exchange of remarks in English (our side) and Chinese (their side) about noise, children, and water hoses--with my friend Mary throwing in a valiant, "Ting! Ting!" (which means both Stop! and Listen here! in Chinese). Kim, the friend hosting us at her apartment, came in wide-eyed after a few moments to say, "Maybe Steve (Mary's husband) needs to go out there with Dana (her husband) because he is getting really angry." Steve, the prototypical strong, silent type, went out as moral support for Dana, but when the balcony water-blasters began shouting even more loudly at Steve's wife, he had suddenly had enough. In a voice I never imagined our quiet friend possessed, he boomed, "You better stop right now or I'm coming up there." Which he, Dana and Dana's landlord did. Armed with a digital camera.

Things get a little fuzzy at this point. All I know is that two hours later, the men returned having gotten both the local police and the Foreign Affairs police involved. Our friends decided not to press charges but are hopeful that a report has been filed somewhere if something should happen again. They are also holding onto some lovely photographs of the two people trying to hide their faces, which will be circulated around the neighborhood if needed. Meanwhile, as the drama played out across the courtyard, McLeod had been diligently fighting a losing battle with wireless Internet to set up the football game he'd taped via Slingbox--Dana's last words before heading to the errant neighbors' were, "I'll give you the Wi-Fi code as soon as I get back." So for two hours, instead of watching football, we kept the kids entertained with a slide show of our last vacation including movies of Barret and his friends feeding fish from the pier. By the time all the real-life drama was over, we were ready to load up another taxi and head home--after all, who needs football when you can have it out with crazy neighbors? Truly memorable evening in good ol' Taipei. (Dana and Kim, we'll be sure to bring the Super Soakers and water balloon cannons next time we visit. Thanks for helping us celebrate Thanksgiving, even if it wasn't how we imagined it would be. But sometimes that makes for the best memories later.)

I had planned to update the blog with notes and pictures from a few recent trips, but this weekend's Thanksgiving excitement kind of sent me in a different direction. I'll try to get those up in the next week or so, though. In the meantime, love and blessings to all of you.