My Coolest Readers

I occasionally check my blog stats. It's not nearly as depressing creepy as Googling myself. I just want to know who is interested. Really. I'll share with you. I have nothing much to hide. Here are some of my blog stats.

 

If you've been following me, you know I'm big in Germany (see my blog post from3/29/12 entitled "Random German Citizen.") This is reflected here by the green spot on the map of Europe. Great Britain is the other Western European country that seems to understand me. At least one person has been curious enough me to read the blog eight times (or maybe they're curious about whether or not I'm being investigated by DCFS yet.) That's one more British view than all of the views I've gotten in China. To be fair, I might be censored in China...but I doubt it. I have no views on currency manipulation at this point. It's not that I don't care, I just don't understand. Someday I will, then the censors can come after me.

 

 

(It kind of feels like the Olympics looking at this map. United States, Russia, Canada...and China. If it wasn't for China, I'd say it's the winter Olympics, but I don't recall how they did in hockey.)

 

Now, I have to say that the Scandinavian countries are woefully under-represented on this map of readers. I've had a (one time) reader in Saudi Arabia for heaven's sake! Is it too much to ask a Norwegian to tune in occasionally? This map doesn't show all of my readership, but it shows a good majority of it. Looks like China has overtaken Ecuador which is now even with Malaysia and Latvia. but neither of them show up on the map. Believe me, they're there. 

 

Next, we have what internet providers people use. Internet explorer and Chrome are second to Firefox, which is kind of cool actually. I just like the idea of foxes. They're cool animals and flaming foxes sounds like the name of a very cool band, or the nickname I may or may not use for some of the women I work with (not.) Mobile something or other is up there. But I'm really excited by Opera. I mean who wouldn't be excited by Opera? I've been to see a couple of operas and they were actually all pretty fun to watch. All except that modern thing which was kind of atonal and depressing. If I want atonal, depressing singing, I'll switch off the auto-tune on B-96, or listen to Taylor Swift perform live.

 

And finally, this one. This is what operating system you people are using to access my blog. Bravo to you, brave Linux user. I don't know who you are, but you are obviously my coolest reader.

Summer Vacation.

What will my children remember from their family vacations?

We are lucky. Our kids are great travelers. They are wonderful on long car trips. They know how to pack books, drawing implements and car-games (Having their own i-pods and DSi game systems helps when all else fails--sometimes sooner.) Every year I pick a book to read as a family and I haven't gone wrong yet. Last year it was The Graveyard Book. The year before that was Little House on the Prairie--not an overwhelming success with Caleb until Pa got eaten by wolves (my addition.)

This year we read Holes by Louis Sachar. 

The kids were inspired by the book

We also traveled in a foreign country. I hope that they learned something from that. Not everyone will speak your language, but anyone can be your friend. Communication doesn't have to rely on words, although a little bit of Allons nager does help.(Caleb learned this phrase. It means "lets go swimming." He used it a lot. He still remembers it.)

nos amis

We were lucky this year to have traveling companions. Our pals Rosie and Michele from Winnipeg, Manitoba made their way eastward and played tour guides through Canada for us, and campfire buddies in Maine. Michele is an artist, so she and Hannah had a lot to talk about. At least Hannah had a lot to talk about. Michele was great at listening. The two of them worked on projects by the light of a lantern as the rest of us enjoyed the campfire. Win-win!

But Michele wasn't the only one to inspire my daughter! Hannah learned a new move from Rosie. I like to call this move, "The unexpected sign."

The master

The apprentice.

There are often creative ways to punish children who misbehave when you are on vacation. Like this lovely bubble at L.L.Bean. Unfortunately the kids actually liked this. Especially Hannah who has a soft spot for little fishes. And big ones. And cute ones. And ugly ones.

Caleb is not so fond of fish.

Traveling can always be fun as long as you do it with people you love, travel to places you enjoy, and keep an open mind for new adventures.Coming out of Quebec back south we drove through New Hampshire. It was some of the most beautiful country imaginable. We had never seen the White Mountains before. If you remove our huge heads, they are behind us, and they are stunning--trust me. We will have to go back to New Hampshire to get better photos and to do some hiking, biking and whatever it is that New Hampshirites (New Hampshirinos? New Hampsherians?)do for recreation.

The Band of Stalwart Companions

But, no matter where we go, I don't think we'll find better traveling companions. Our Boler Buddies (Michele and Rosie) turned a good time into a really great a memorable time.

Honestly, I was having a hard time planning this year's family trip. It was my first vacation without Mom waiting at home to hear that we had gotten home safely, to cluck over the amount of money we spent and to kindly indulge in viewing our vacation photos. Rosie was a hero, rescuing me from my doldrums of vacation ennui by planning the portion of the trip that took us through Ottawa, Quebec (visiting her cousins at Vignobles St. Remi--Bonjour to Natalie and Fabien, our wonderful hosts, and their beautiful, friendly kids) and then to Freeport, Maine where we camped and visited L.L.Bean and enjoyed campfires and Lobster (although I think at least one couple at the Lobster Pound of Unimaginable Carnage* might never be the same.)

What will my kids remember from all of this? Probably the fact that their mother has the ability to embarrass them anywhere in two countries.

 I think that they're just lucky I didn't find a "Free Tibet" sign. I mean, have you ever checked out the airfares to Tibet? I'll take it free any time.We can test our non-lingual foreign language skills there next.

Happy summer vacation.

*"the Lobster Pound of Unimaginable Carnage" is not the name of the lobster pound, just a description of Rosie and Michele's first experience in eating live lobster--which was actually dead at the time.

Membership Has its Privileges

First, let me say that I am happy to report that my children fear nothing. By nothing I mean dead animals and live bugs (unless said bugs are arthropods that begin with a 'centi'- and end with a 'pede.' They also fear tornadoes, but that's another blog.) 

Cadaver beetles eating a dead bird.

Caleb and a dead bird.

We went to the Field Museum member night this past weekend. The member nights alone are worth the price of membership, and whenever we are members we try to stop in for one of the nights that they open the back rooms to we curious and intrepid explorers who want to know more and see more than there is room to display in the museum. So Friday night we headed downtown.

Hannah and a dead bird.

I learned a lot in our hours exploring the museum. I learned that Hannah's shoes don't fit any more. She complained about it quite a bit. This is important because we just bought her new shoes and I am not pleased. Her feet hurt by the end of the night, and so did mine, but my shoes fit just fine.

I also learned that Caleb's hair is long enough to put into a ponytail. This coupled with his purple shirt had several people address him as "little girl." He got a kick out of it. "Little, eh. Maybe," he told me. "Girl, no way!"
"Get used to it," George griped.

The back of Caleb's head. Note the ponytail.

The kids got to hold a live tarantula and a hissing cockroach. I was busy in the anthropology department learning about X-ray spectrography and Girl's Day in Japan. I'd rather look at dead people than hold a tarantula. However because of this hangup, I didn't get any photos. There are some on George's phone because he likes bugs a lot more than I do.

Because one of the big draws right now is the Genghis Khan exhibit, they had Mongolian dancers. It was very cool, but Hannah and Caleb were not as entranced by the music as wereGeorge and myself. It was a great moment to talk about different tonal scales and how different cultures have more limited musical tonality than western cultures. I think they got it. In any case, George and I liked the music. We all liked the dancers.

Three dancers (not yet performing)and curious onlookers

Mongolian dancer. Skulls on her head and three eyes. Very cool.

I didn't discover this, but I was reminded that this is a pretty cool place to live.

Random German Citizen

Over 1,000 views on my blog. Thank you all. Seriously. Thanks. Thank you to all of my United States readers (according to Google, you are the majority--and you should be as you are mainly my family, and you keep tabs on me. I'm sure most of you are reading just to make sure that I'm not talking about you, but don't worry. I'm just talking about my kids because they're not computer savvy enough to object yet.)

And thank you to all my my Canadian readers--also a significant number. I love you guys, and yes, I am teaching my children that you are a foreign country and should be respected as such. Really. That's why I'm homeschooling. It's all because of you.

And thanks to my German reader...whoever you are. I didn't think I knew anyone in Germany, but that's the country that Google has flagged as having an occasional reader. I love you too, random German citizen. I love you too.