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Late Nights with the Puzzle

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Since Christmas an enormous jigsaw puzzle has resided on our
dining room table. 3008 piece enormous. On the box it says 3000 pieces, but
when I opened it up, sitting on top of the jumble of minute jigsaw shapes was a
small notice reading in several languages: Note: due to technical reasons this 3000 piece puzzle actually contains 3008 pieces. I considered
returning it right then and there. 3000 pieces, yes, but 3008? That’s pushing
some limits, I’m telling you!

We began the puzzle early in January in those hazy post-Christmas
days. I like a jigsaw puzzle going in the winter to gather the family ‘round
and promote camaraderie ‘gainst the dark nights of winter. Or at least I like
the concept. The fact is, despite the strong efforts of the more dedicated
puzzle do-ers of the family, a 3008 puzzle is just really big. And full of pieces. And takes a loooong time to finish.
But…piece by piece, the picture began to take shape. It’s a
picture of an old map of the world, back in the days of exploration when things
like Canada were still a bit sketchy and over the general area of Australia and
Antarctica is written in large black type “UKNOWNE LAND.” I love old maps –
what promise and danger those days and maps held!
So anyway, every day a few more pieces. And remarkable as it
seemed, slowly the pieces added on tipped the balance and there were more
pieces on the table than there were left in the box.
And somewhere along the way it seemed that the puzzle was a
metaphor for a year of homeschooling. Round about late January, a year of
homeschooling also seems like an insurmountable puzzle. Will our efforts ever
take us anywhere? Will it really amount to something if we do spelling lesson
12 today? And I thought. Yes. It does matter. Everyday a couple more pieces in
the puzzle and eventually the pieces add up. Bits of learning, however small
for each day, add up to the point where the pieces on the table, or already
under the bridge, to mix lots of metaphors, are more than those left to go.
So this morning I prayed with the boys for courage for the
day, for motivation to put a few more pieces into our education, and mid-prayer
it occurred to me that maybe at the end of our homeschooling year, when all the
pieces are placed, we’ll finish with a beautiful map of the world! And all the
confusing bits that confounded us, like the piece with a top of a capital ‘A’
that turned out to actually be the top of a ‘U’ will make sense. Wouldn’t that
be wonderful?
Or maybe we just get that map when we’ve put in all the
pieces into the puzzle of our lives. Or maybe we don’t get to see the map at
all. Maybe we’ll only see the big map when we get to heaven. Maybe when we take
our leave of God’s green earth all the puzzle pieces will still look like a big
jumbly mess in the box. I seem to be living long enough to see that things here
don’t always finish up tidily. Not everyone gets the time to place all the
puzzle pieces. 
Or even if they do, maybe they got the puzzle that isn’t a cool map,
just a kitchy picture of horses and flowers. (Why are there always so many
puzzles of horses?)
I don’t know. But I find that I can’t help always looking
and hoping and trying to understand the metaphor.
In the meantime…we are almost done and I’ll get soon my dining
room table back, and we’re also almost to the point where we can see the end of
the homeschool year, off there in the golden hazy distance. So until then…as Noelle’s auntie would say, it’s
Late Nights with the Puzzle. 

Somebody’s getting a little OCD with the remaining pieces.

Almost there.

Camp de Neige

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Ski Camp! Since Zeus and I started helping with the church middle school group this year, we were solicited to go along as counselors on the annual church youth ski/snow camp. Um…Okay! A week in the French Alps, on the Mont Blanc Massif – which you see behind the skiers in the photo. Fabulous bright sunshiny weather and fantastic snow 40 campers and 18 leaders.

Zeus was in his element, getting kids set up with correct boots and bindings and he took the beginner group for two days, giving them Swiss chocolate when they started to flag – just the way I was taught 23 years ago by a great teacher named Peter at the Université de Genève. He had such a great time that although we (the parents) were only planning to stay 4 days, he opted to stay the rest of the week, while I meanwhile, have come home to a quiet house to get some home projects done and write blog posts.

Groupe confirmé

Monday we were in charge of a Soirée Américaine. We fed the campers pulled pork sandwiches and coleslaw with chocolate chip cookies for dessert. And then we taught them American folk dancing! Patty Cake Polka, Oh Susanna, and the Virginia Reel. There were many skeptical faces to begin with I told them that folk dancing is making a comeback in the USA and that it’s really trendy. That helped, maybe. Anyway, by the end of the evening most were convinced and wore big grins as they skipped around the big circles. To get them to stop I had to promise we’d do more soon. Here’s a link to a great website I found for learning the dances and downloading free music and instructions. 

Calling with Laurence
Dance partners
learning the steps

And here is something that was so much stereotype fulfillment that I had to take a picture: Cheese course – at ski camp!

Our Super Deluxe Trans-Border Thanksgiving Birthday Extravaganza!

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Our first Thanksgiving here we had two roast chickens because I couldn’t find a turkey in the market and didn’t have the guts to ask about one. Fortunately our good friends The Caramel Family were visiting and they shared their love and their sweet potato recipe which made up for the lack of turkey.

Last year, I got brave and asked about a turkey at the market butcher counter and after calling around awhile, the man told me that I was too early. Whole turkeys could only be had for Christmas, and if one wanted one at any other time one must order very far in advance. With three days to go and no turkey, I shared my woes at our home group and Jean-Noel said, “No problem, I’ll take care of it.” I was relieved, but it sounded…well, a little mafioso.

Jean-Noel manages a company in the Alsace that makes charcuterie: sausage and ham and paté and all kinds of the delicious kinds of things for which Americans get all excited about when they come to Europe.  Sometimes at home group he regales us with stories of ordering thousands of kilometers of sausage casing and the like. To my knowledge, he doesn’t deal a lot in turkeys, but from his tone and the look in his eye I imagined him calling up his “turkey man” to “take care of things.”

He was true to his word, and with one day to spare we got our turkey. It was petite and delicious and we ate our Thanksgiving meal as a family and then it was done. Then Jean-Noel told me, “So next year, just let me know a little earlier and I’ll get you whatever you want.”

This year what I wanted was a bigger turkey. The whole conversation had piqued the curiosity of the other members of the home group. What is Thanksgiving, exactly? How do you celebrate it? If you are still here next year, we will celebrate it with you.

November 1st of this year I said to Jean-Noel, “Okay, Thanksgiving’s at the end of the month. We’re still here, so I need a turkey.”
“No problem. How big?”
“Bigger than last year.”
“How many kilos?”
And there I had no idea. I still don’t really think in kilos, especially when thinking about turkeys.
“Uh, I dunno, kind of about this big,” I said, gesturing about with my arms.

A couple weeks later, I reminded him about my turkey. The word came back: either a 3.5 kg turkey (7.7 pounds) or a 7 kg turkey (15.4 pounds). If I wanted two smaller ones I should order right away but the turkey man said that the 7 kg ones could be had whenever.  By this time, we were going to be a total of 19 people, since Artemis had graciously consented to combine her birthday celebration with our Thanksgiving Feast. Okay, I’ll go with the 7 kg anytime one. Still, Jean-Noel’s wife Alia said, “A 7 kilo turkey!! That’s enormous! I can’t imagine it!!”

Closing in on Thanksgiving Day. I’d asked for turkey delivery on Thursday, since we were celebrating on Sunday. That gave me enough time to prepare and brine, though I was a little unsure where I’d put it in the meantime. The fridges are petite too.

Thursday morning Alia called me, her voice ringing with disbelief. “Jean-Noel called me. They delivered the turkey. But it’s 11 kilos!!! He says he can bring you that one today or he can send it back and he’ll get you the 7 kilo one tomorrow.”
I got out the tape measure and measured my petite oven.
“Send it back! 11 kilos won’t fit in the oven!”

Later in the day, a text message:  Bad news is that there is no 7 kg turkey and the 11 kg turkey is at our house. Good news Jean-Noel thinks it might fit in our oven.

Thursday night I went to see it. I didn’t know what to think. It was beautiful, but absolutely enormous, even by American standards. Alia kept calling it la bête, the beast.

“When I opened the trunk of the car, I almost fell over,” said Alia.”It was the neighborhood attraction! My friend called her children over to see such a big turkey!” Even Jean-Noel admitted that his work colleagues has laughed incredulously at such an enormous bird. “Those crazy Americans,” I imagined them saying, shaking their heads.

It would never fit in our dainty Swiss oven. We could cut it up to roast it, but wouldn’t that be a shame? I didn’t take it home as planned because where would I put it? And anyway, it was over the limit of poultry meat to bring back into Switzerland. I would need another 3 people in the car.

Our friends live only 10 minutes away, but they live over the border in France. Every person has the right to bring 3 kilos of poultry meat into Switzerland each day. To bring our turkey in legally we would need at least four warm bodies in the car. So our turkey, christened Thomas, spent the night alone in their extra refrigerator, after being visited by most of the home group, cracking jokes as they came about the Mr. Bean and the Turkey episode. Would it end up on someone’s head?

Friday I spent most of the day in turkey denial. Towards evening I visited the turkey again and decided to take up Jean-Noel and Alia’s offer of roasting it at their house. I went home and made the brine roughly following this recipe.  

Saturday dawned and I was still in turkey denial. Meanwhile I’d been diligently preparing other stuff: cranberry relish, gravy, sweet potatoes (following Mrs. Caramel’s recipe!) and the girls were helping wonderfully with potato peeling and piecrusts. In the afternoon, we had a kids’ club meeting at Jean-Noel and Alia’s house and while the kids munched on crèpes in the other room, a turkey conference was held in the kitchen.

Thomas the Turkey could just squeeze into their oven. But how to brine it? And stuff it? And roast it? And then transport it across the border when it was all done?  I imagined the border guards asking if we had anything to declare while turkey aroma wafts out of the car. “Um, no…not really. Just this ginormous cooked turkey that we’re taking out for a drive.”

It fits!  (just barely)
I wondered aloud about coming over early the next morning to stuff the beast. I didn’t want to stuff it the night before — isn’t that how people get salmonella?? Then Jean-Noel offered to get up early to stuff the turkey and put it in the oven.  
“Okay,” I agreed, (somewhat reluctantly…would he do it right?) “It’s kind of your fault, anyway,” I said, “I didn’t want a turkey that big,” and he agreed. 
And then, while sitting there on the floor with Alia taking pictures, I had a lovely feeling. This too, I told my friends, is part of Thanksgiving. All the fuss about the turkey, how will it fit? how will we cook everything else while it’s in the oven? Working in community to make it all work out. That right there made it feel like Thanksgiving.  
“After all,” said Alia, “it’s a story we can tell our grandchildren! We celebrated Thanksgiving with the Americans and had to transport the turkey over the border!” 
Brining in the garden bin.
So I left Saturday night, leaving Thomas the Turkey in their capable hands and with a written set of instructions. And here, Dear Reader, is the beautiful part. 6:20 am Sunday morning, an SMS with no text, just this photo:  

Ah, the turkey was being stuffed! It would go in the oven on time! And do you know what I did then? I rolled over and went back to sleep! It was beautiful. Into my dreams came the bing, bing of another message…a photo of the turkey going into the oven. I rolled over and went back to sleep again.

The rest went like a dream…I got a few more text messages to prove that he was roasting well and being faithfully basted. I went over to visit once during the morning. And then after the others arrived from church, Turkey made his border crossing with no passport and no problem, wrapped in foil inside a couple industrial food crates.

Oooh! Ahhh!

The tables wait.

With the tables waiting and the apéro drunk, the men were sent into the kitchen to carve up the beast in time honored fashion. Everyone else crowded in too, to watch and exclaim and to snitch preview bits of juicy turkey from the platter. And that too, felt like Thanksgiving. The beautiful turkey was, as several said, “just like in American films.”

And it was absolutely delicious. I’m not sure if it was the happy French turkey or the brine or the combination of both or the collaborative effort, but I’m certain it was the tastiest turkey I have ever eaten.  The rest of the day evolved in time-honored fashion…lots of eating, game playing, couch napping, a walk for some and a pick-up baseball game for others.

16 candles!

Then dessert and “Happy Birthday” and eventually a guitar and Christmas carols. And at the end of the day, as our guests departed joyful, content and stuffed, it felt like Thanksgiving in my soul.

Now thank we all our God
With hearts and hands and voices
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom the world rejoices
Who from our mothers’ arms
Hath blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love
And still is ours today.

If you would like to see more photos of our day, please go here.

Prayer

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A few days ago, a friend here had her baby. And to celebrate I went for a sail, alone, on a little catamaran on a little nearby lake. I was alone with the water, the wind and God. And He and I talked.

Once, months ago, Marie and I talked about how being pregnant and feeling your baby moving around inside your belly, is like having two conversations at once, or like living in two separate worlds at the same time. All the while you are living your life, doing your shopping, talking with people, you are having a quieter but also very real conversation with your baby: You’re awake now. Ooo, that’s a big stretch for such a little person. Why are you playing hopscotch on my bladder? No one else hears, no one else knows, and there is nothing else quite like that sweet intimacy. The duality of those two simultaneous conversations, one very normal, one very private, is probably the one thing I miss about being pregnant.

So it struck me, as I was sailing around on the little lake, talking to God, that our life with Him can also be thought of in terms of the same metaphor. Prayer life, at its best, is a private conversation that I have with Him as I go through the normalcy of everyday life and have the conversations of every day. Oh, Lord, thank you for that tree, it’s so pretty. Lord, Help me speak a kind word to that person; I don’t want to. Lord, I’m sleepy now, thank you for bringing me safely through another day. 

I am like the little unborn baby, stretching my muscles, jostling, hiccuping, banging on the walls. And as I do, I am talking to my Father through all the moments, quietly
telling Him about stuff that no one else will hear. He listens, He loves me and He answers me quietly with words just for me. 

Visit to London – with Literary Tints (Part 2)

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All that walking, and it was still only 9:15 when I ended up at Westminster Abbey, which opens for visitors at 9:30. No photos are allowed inside, but even if I could have taken pictures there’s no way it could do it justice. It’s a magnificent building itself plus the fact that it has been the place of coronation of every English King since Edward the Confessor (right before William the Conqueror – 1066) and besides that Everybody who was Anybody in historical England seems to be buried there. I got to walk by the tomb of Elizabeth I who actually shares a tomb with her sister Mary! One can only imagine how they each feel about that.
In Poet’s Corner there was a special surprise for me. Right under a large monument to Handel was this modest one to my namesake – or rather, I am hers.

 Then back outside and onto the Houses of Parliament and the Thames.

I was by now a little tired of walking and since there were river boats leaving from just in front of Big Ben and one just about to depart, I bought a ticket and hopped on. It turned out to be a very nice way to see the city.

Barges, I would like to go with you
I would like to sail the ocean blue.
Barges, have you treasures in your hold?
Do you fight with pirates brave and bold?

We passed Shakespeare’s reconstructed Globe Theater.

And something else famous, which for the moment did not appear to be…

 …falling down.

We floated along until we came in sight of Tower Bridge…

and then London Tower itself.

The Tower of London surprised me by being more blockish and castle-y than tower-ish, but I suppose that back when the original bit was built, it towered over the scrappy little houses that stood nearby. The bit of arch that you can see in the left foreground is the Traitor’s Gate, in fact the printing on the quay reads “Entry for the Traitor’s Gate.” All sorts of famous tragic characters came through there by boat, including Elizabeth I when her sister Mary (who now lies beneath her as previously noted) still was queen.

Judge me if you will, but I decided that after the unplanned large block of time I’d spent at Westminster Abbey, I just wasn’t up for the 2 1/2 hour tour of the tower and the gory stories involved, even though it meant missing the Crown Jewels. (I do hope to go back some day.) At that point, what I really needed was some Lunch. So, after some sustaining potato leek soup in view of the entrance and a little visit to the gift shop, I began walking again. Walk, walk, walk, through old parts of London that I had floated past earlier.

 I liked this sign: very English and to the point.

 These helpful signs were painted on the streets wherever a hapless tourist might be crossing.

And then I was at St. Paul’s Cathedral.
All around the cathedral the saints and apostles
Look down to the street far below
Although you can’t see them, you know that they’re smiling, 
When somebody shows that they care.

Feed the birds, tuppence a bag.

“Mary Poppins? Never ‘eard of ‘er!” — Pigeon

 A few more narrow streets and I came to the Old Bailey ~ for any Dickens readers.

 Here’s the inscription over the doorway.

 Then I saw a bus that was more remarkable for its destination than its double-deckerness – the name of my old hometown! I did pop on a bus though around here for a short while and I sat upstairs and pretended that I know all about riding double-decker busses in London.

Then onto the British Museum – and my legs are about falling off here, but I made it. How could I not go when I could see – with my own eyes –

 The Rosetta Stone!! oooooo!

There were also some astounding artifacts from the Assyrian Empire. Do you see those young whippersnappers on the left?? They were patting the winged creatures! Shocking! I tattletaled on them to a guard, and he kind of laughed and looked at me like I was some sort of busybody. Well, maybe I am, but….they’re really old!

Past the winged creature Assyrians, I came to the room with the other big attraction for me: the Pediment marbles that were originally on the Parthenon in Athens. They’ve been studied in every art history class ever since, including mine.

Look at the folds of fabric!! Carved out of stone!!

There was an interesting brochure defending the case for keeping these statues at the British Museum. Greece would rather like to have them back. But apparently, when the British guy who brought them back originally saw them, the Parthenon was being used as an old storage barn and the statues were falling apart. No body really cared about them. The guy, whose name escapes me, realized their artistic value and asked the authorities if he could take them down, which they quite willingly let him do. “And now,” the brochure ended, “they remain in the British Museum where millions of visitors see them free of charge every year.”  Exactly how accurate the story is, I am not sure, but as it was right about then that Greece was having big riots, I was quite grateful that they were safe in the British Museum and that I was there looking at them.

Then it was time for me to hurry and take the underground and go meet Zeus to catch our taxi, train, and flight back home. But just before I left I took a picture of me with my twin sister. 

A little bit like this one, that I took of a shop window the night before. A little bit…but not much.

This was very strange, actually. And has nothing to do with literature as far as I can tell.

So there it was… a wonderful, if very quick introduction to London and Great Britain. And strange nymph toilets aside, I do hope to return someday and visit a little more thoroughly. Maybe go to Jane Austen country or see where Poirot and Jeeves and Wooster lived, and Peter Wimsey, and Beatrix Potter, and….