I have really needed some new shoes for a very long time (see 100 things about me) . The problem that I have with finding shoes that I like is that I like very plain shoes and I am very fond of a certain Dutch brand of shoes – Loint’s – which are hard to find.

Today I went to the big city and- as is my habit- bopped into the store which carries Loint’s. Look ! I actually found two pairs of shoes that I can live with ( the brown ones are Clark’s) and they were on sale. I am one happy person. I now have three pairs of shoes.

But they are indeed very plain. I suppose if I decide that I want shoes even plainer than these, I shall be moving into the ‘brogue’ category. But then, I don’t even know what a brogue is. Perhaps these are, who knows.

Go and wish the Hungarian a Happy Birthday : she is having the birthday from hell. And while it is only a small thing, a tick on her sitemeter may help.

Plus, it is all so …..sad.

Lovely photos of the old stomping ground here.

I thought that those of you who know Han would enjoy this picture : Han in his element.

Now, doesn’t that look like one happy man ?

Mr. Jo and Mr. Jan have just left. The house looks like a scene out of a film entitled ‘ Retreat from Moscow ‘. Mr. Jan arranged the drainage pipes up between the roofs today, and then in the afternoon, worked on recessing the pipes in the downstairs toilet into the wall. There is water. plaster and sawdust everywhere.

Feeling a bit under the weather today, I thought that I would make some stuffed cabbage. Sounded like just the thing, all warm and mushy and tomatoey, a plus being the wonderful smell that would fill the kitchen for a few hours. In the morning I went to town to do my shopping, as usual, but all of the cabbages in town were tiny. I mean eensy weensy. I would have ended up with appetizer sized stuffed cabbages, but hey, no problem, Thursday is Market Day. They were sure to have a fine, bowling ball sized cabbage at the Market, one with ‘ Sue ‘ just written all over it.

The Market ‘ opens’ at 1, so after I sent Mike and Sally back to school after lunch, Meg and I headed for the Market. I found a lovely cabbage, bought Meg some chum ( a new herring with onions, all raw) and the two happy shoppers headed home. To find that Mr. Jan had turned off all of the water in the house. The minutes ticked by ( I need to boil rice), the hours ticked by ( I need to boil the cabbage ), it was 5 o’clock ( I need to cook it for 2 hours ). Dinner time is 6 here, I guess that we will get take out. We can have the stuffed cabbage tomorrow.

It is the small things that make me so very tired of this rebuilding.

Mike has decided that he wants a library, one with thousands of books. There is a catch to this though : they must all be written by Mike.

So far, he has made three.

Keeps him busy.

Last night was the first parent/teachers conference of the new school year. Han and I always go together, as we both need to know what is going on. I really had no idea what to expect : last year Sally’s teacher wanted to keep her back for a year and Mike can be so, well, fey.

We spoke to Ms.Monique, Mike’s teacher first. She started her teaching career the same year that Mike started Kindergarten- she was one of his two teachers. Yes, she cut her teeth on Mike, went through her baptism of fire with Mike, most likely seriously thought of leaving teaching because of Mike. Back then, she had no idea how to handle Mike and Mike is a little boy that needs to be handled.

In a way, this made things interesting, as she can see how far Mike has come. As the talk progressed, we learned that Mike has a talent for math ( which surprised us), is weak in his dutch vocabulary ( which we knew) and has a phenomenal imagination ( which we also knew). He is about a strong ‘B’ student and that is fine with us. He still has to watch his behavior ( it is difficult to get him – for example- to color a picture of Santa when he would rather color one of a dragon), but she found him to be a charming little boy. Fine. One down, one to go.

Next we talked to Sally’s two teachers. Sally has developed into a strong ‘B’ student as well, with a weakness in Math. They are bringing someone in once a week to tutor her now and they expect that to do the job. She is a bit thin-skinned about making mistakes in public, but otherwise seems to be very happy in this class. What a change from last year. Then we spent a lot of time talking about how we handle language in our home, and they told us that Sal was a big help in teaching English to the class : she does all of the exercises with the teacher in front of the class so the kids can hear how it should sound.

We went home pleased and sat and told both of them how it went. In the past, we have spoken to each child privately, but this time the talks went so well that we told them together.

Last night, during dinner, we were following our usual ‘and how was your day’ routine and conversation was bobbing along when suddenly my ears perked up as Sally used the phrase ‘The most popular girl in the school’. Here I stopped her, and with much quizzing ( ‘You mean the one who has a sister who has a cousin in your class ?’) figured out who she meant. Even Mike joined in, saying that this was indeed the most popular girl in the school. He very solemnly added his description as well ‘ She’s vewy tall and has a big bottom’.

This morning as we were standing in the school yard, waiting for the bell to ring, I spotted the most popular girl, and out of curiosity asked Sally who the most popular boy was. There wasn’t one, she said. Maybe there was one last year, so-and-so. I thought that a bit odd, but so far I’m finding just about everything going on in her age bracket a bit odd, so I let that one go.

And then – once again out of curiosity- I asked what made one the most popular girl in the school. She then told me that everyone had to know your name. Now, there are only about 200 kids in this school, maybe less, so this didn’t strike me as being an unusual quality to have, but I let this one ride as well. Sally then continued on, telling me that S.- now in group 7 – for it appears that the most popular girl in the school must be in group 8-, is already campaigning for the title. Sally said this with a look of disdain on her face.

Who needs to go to Papua New Guinea to study odd tribal habits ?

Guess that I should have knocked on wood yesterday.

Meg is crazy about Cinderella, the Disney film. She’ll watch other films for a while, but always comes back to ‘Cinderella’. If I’m feeling cranky, I’ll think ‘there goes another of Disney’s spineless women’, but, you know, Meg’s a kid and watching ‘Cinderella’ never hurt me.

Now that the cooler weather has set in they have all of these decorative gourds for sale, so I bought Meg one a few weeks ago that looks just like a mini-pumpkin. A ‘Cinderella Pumpkin’.She takes it everywhere.

She is laying on the couch now, watching Cinderella, holding her ‘pumpkin’. Does anyone have any idea how long these gourds keep fresh ? She is really fond of her ‘pumpkin’.