What a difference a pillow makes

I am a wimp. This will not come as a shock to those who know me well.
I recently discovered pillows are one area in which I am wimpy. When our housekeeper makes our bed, sometimes she mixes up the pillows. And the one I prefer ends up on Kevin's side of the bed. Last night he already was partly asleep by the time I went to bed. So I slept with the wrong pillow ALL NIGHT.
I know, it's a minor thing. But I woke up earlier than I needed to AND don't feel like I slept well. And I'm blaming the pillow.

Does this mean we're old?

We found out today that Kevin is being called to the district council (it's a church thing and, for the benefit of anyone who's always lived in a stake and doesn't know, it's the equivalent of the high council).
To answer my own question, no, it doesn't mean we're old if one considers only three (I can think of) of the 12 guys in the group are older than Kevin. The church leadership tends to be very young here.
But somehow I still feel like my mother.

Laura issues a visa

Not really, of course. But as part of Take Your Child to Work Day on Friday, Kevin set it up so the kids could take turns being visa applicants and interviewers. This was Laura acting as an interviewer.
Another interesting part of the day was a visit by drug-sniffing dogs that were trained and donated to Trinidad by the U.S. embassy. Laura got to hold Sunny's leash as he sniffed out a box of marijuana -- yes, the real thing.

Who knew?

I just saw a U.S. News and World Report story on Yahoo about appliances and other home electronics that use the most energy.
Electric heat is on the top of the list, of course, followed by refrigerators, plasma and LCD TVs, cable and satellite boxes -- and digital picture frames.
We don't have heat here. But I doubt our refrigerator is particularly energy efficient, and we have an LCD TV and a cable box.
And Kevin got me a digital photo frame for Christmas. I guess it's a good thing I don't turn it on very often.

Adventurous people not in the Foreign Service

In Houston, we had some friends who moved into our neighborhood from Nigeria, where they'd lived for the husband's job. The wife, Sherry, and I were in the Relief Society presidency together and became friends.
Later, after we moved to Denver, they moved back to Nigeria. And then I noticed awhile back in the Church News that he's been called as a mission president.
I guess that's an excellent reason to live in Nigeria.

Gary Leslie Neuder, 56, Victoria Island Ward, Lagos Nigeria Stake; ward Young Men president; former counselor in a stake presidency, counselor in a bishopric, branch president and high councilor. Petroleum geologist, Exxon Mobil Production Co. Born in Johnstown, Pa., to Lester and Stella Tilly Rys Neuder. Married Sherry Lee Poole, two children.
A ward Relief Society president, Sister Neuder is a former stake Relief Society president, counselor in a ward Relief Society presidency, ward Primary, Young Women and Relief Society president and seminary teacher. Born in Nicosia, Cypress, to Donald Ellis and Gertrude Josephine Ferrara Poole.

Ear check, anyone?

Laura has continued spending money in her cafeteria account without asking first. Maybe she really does need a cell phone so she can call and ask me ...
Ha ha! She wishes!

I love this photo

Part of my job at the moment is helping plan the embassy's Take Your Child to Work Day. I came across this photo and used it in a promotional flier.

I appreciate the diplomatic pouch. I really do.

But do they have to destroy the boxes we send through?
We shipped ourselves four boxes from Houston. Two of them were opened by pouch inspectors. No surpise there, they're doing their job. But the other two boxes may have well as been run over by a truck.
So I just found myself sorting through a box of pulverized Wheat Thins, trying to cobble together enough 75 percent intact crackers to go with the artichoke dip I made for a Fulbright Scholar dinner party tonight.
Whine, complain.

Cool exhibit for Bond fans

Sometimes I wish we were in London. Of course, the wimpiness of the dollar vs. the pound and euro would complicate life somewhat, so I don't wish for that too often.
But the Imperial War Museum is pretty cool. Last night on BBC TV and then this morning on BBC radio there was a story about a James Bond exhibit opening at the museum this week.
The Imperial War Museum also was the site of a funny conversation overheard back in 2001. I think I've mentioned it in a blog post before, but it's classic.
There's an air raid simulator at the museum; groups of people are sitting in what's supposed to be a basement during the London blitz. Walls shake and cave in, you hear planes dropping bombs, etc.
Three Australian girls/young women were in our group. One asks another, "Who's supposed to be bombing us exactly?" The second ones says, rather incredulously, "The Germans!" Then the first one says to the third (referring to the second), "I think she's lost it."
Although Ian Fleming was in the miliary, I doubt there are any simulated air raids in the James Bond exhibit; he was in the navy. But I wish I could see it to know for sure.

Mmmm, hot dog chili

One thing that's not sold here. We bought a few cans while we were in Houston, and a couple of our boxes arrived today. So we had hot dogs for dinner tonight. I don't even like hot dogs, but I like knowing I can get chili to go on them.

The inner workings of my child

Each Friday Laura brings home a slip of paper letting us know how much money she has left in her cafeteria account.
This afternoon she informed me she's down to about $6TT -- about $1 U.S., so not much.
This was big news to me, so I asked what she's been buying and when. She gave me a brief update that wasn't to my liking.
I explained: "You don't even eat the food I send in your lunch. You are NOT to buy food at school again without asking me first. Do you understand?
She responded: "Yes. Can you buy me a phone so I can call you?"

I found this book somewhat creepy.

Creepy, but good.
It's The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. It's set in Britain, and in the damp, foggy parts, it's written in such a way you actually feel damp and foggy. I thought that was commendable.
It isn't a book I normally would have read -- it was picked by our embassy book club -- but it was enjoyable. And although the story was hard to follow at first, by the end, I thought I had it figured out. But I didn't.
Overall, I recommend it. But I must admit there are some parts of it -- such as an obsession with twins -- that just didn't make much sense to me.
But maybe someone who's a twin can shed more light on it.

The downside of leaving my life in the States

This week I'm missing the American Copy Editors Society national conference. I was on the ACES board for several years and haven't missed a conference since Long Beach in 2001 (when Laura was just a few weeks old).
To add to the pain, this conference is in Denver -- and I picked the hotel.
Life is good -- just not always in the ways I desire at the moment.

Perhaps I've been watching too much basketball

Laura and I were sitting in the (air conditioning-less and hard-pewed) chapel at church, watching/listening to Music and the Spoken Word. She asks, "Mom, what is this we're watching? It's not conference." I said, "It's like the conference pre-show."

Easter in Texas

Easter can be a hard holiday for those of us who are very devout Christians but yet let our children live with the illusion of the Easter bunny. I don't necessarily find it hard to reconcile the two sides, but it's unfortunate that all the photos and other physical representations of our celebrations are more about eggs and bunnies than Christ.
But alas, here they are. We dyed eggs at my in-laws' house, and Laura woke up to a well-stocked basket on Easter morning. Later we went to Kevin's aunt's house.

Things you don't want to hear your 7-year-old ask as she peers into the refridgerator

"What's this big hunk of something?"
As it turns out, it was pizza dough I'd gotten out of the freezer to defrost. But for a minute I was afraid there was something I'd forgotten to throw out before we went on vacation.

The zoo survives a Laura invasion

We've spent a lot of time at the Houston Zoo over the past seven years. (I'm pretty sure I'd never been there before Laura was born.) In addition to making fun of its signs (see post below), I also like the animals.
A few of my favorite things from our most recent visit:






The new Hermann Park train is much nicer than the old one. At least I no longer have to wonder whether our little journey through the park will make the evening news.
The "My mom is my ATM" T-shirt was a birthday present from some of our embassy friends. Laura doesn't get the joke, of course.

The Chronicle isn't the only copy-editing gig in Houston

Some of you have heard the story about our ambassador suggesting one of the newspapers here could use my copy-editing expertise.
Obviously whoever produced this sign for the Houston Zoo could use some help, too.
I know I'm obsessive about punctuation. But really, there's just no defense of the use of the apostrophe and second comma in that sentence. (Click on the photo for a larger view.)

More on comments

Per Dee's suggestion, I've changed my blog settings so I have to approve comments before they show up for all of you to read.
I know, there aren't that many comments on here anyway. But this way you'll only see the real ones and not the spam ones.

Thank goodness for food storage

There's a flour shortage in Trinidad. Whether there's really no flour or whether the local mill just can't get it to the stores remains a matter of debate. But either way, the shelves where it's supposed to be in the grocery stores all are empty.
I'm also thankful I ordered a wheat grinder a few weeks ago. It was waiting for us when we got to work today. (Not that I have any wheat stored at work.)

Scooby-Doo -- uh, History -- 101

In Houston we went to see Pompeii: Tales from an Eruption at the Museum of Fine Arts. When we told Laura we were going to an exhibit on Pompeii, she said, "Oh, yeah, the volcano. Scooby-Doo went there."
Well, I've been to Pompeii, too. And this exhibit captures the essence of it pretty well. It would have been nice if they could have re-created a street with walls and such, but short of that, the artifacts are a good representation of a visit to the city.
I was thankful the exhibit omitted the more carnal aspects of life in Pompeii. But even so, Laura probably is on the young end of its appropriate audience.
It's definitely worth the price of admission -- which includes the audio tour. Laura would be happy to accompany you to explain how to punch the numbers into the little listening device.