Day 17 Without the Sun and the Injustice of Science

Depressing weather calls for...

desperate measures.

The 8, no 9, planets in Briana's bedroom sky.

We've been sitting with a cloud on our heads for 17 days now - sometimes dribbling rain, sometimes not. Today we went up the mountain to visit our staff leading a training on service-learning and adventure education to a group of 25 youth workers from Bosnia, Estonia, Armenia and Romania. Then we came home and...well the weather made us do it. While Briana dozed on Dana's arm and he flitted in and out of a movie, I hatched a plan to suspend the planets from Briana's ceiling and I made a solar system soundtrack (with our new friend iTunes) to go with it. Briana's been smitten lately with the human body and space and sometimes blends the two, like today when she told me the solar system was in her blood. And then of course she's confused about the terminus of her food tube and the 7th planet from the sun. When she awoke from her nap we together created each planet with materials on hand (we're most pleased with our version of Saturn) and then went up to her room to suspend the galaxy from her ceiling with invisible fishing line while listening to moon and star songs.

It was going fine until we got to Pluto. Our sun and moon soundtrack* was singing along, "Forces greater than math control us...We’re swimming in a cosmic bath, don’t you know it" and
"Nine planets in the solar system. Some are so darn small you might have missed them, Like my favorite one, that’d be Pluto. It’s so alone and far away you want to put it in your pocket for a rainy day." When we got to a song called "Pluto" by Rocknoceros the sky fell for Briana:

Now after intense debate

Scientists say of planets there are eight

Pluto’s fame will soon decline

Now that it’s not planet nine...

Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune, Earth

But poor Pluto lacks the girth...

Uranus, Jupiter, Neptune, Earth

But for Pluto there is no mirth.

Briana had just gotten attached to poor little Pluto, tiny little planet out there shivering farthest from the sun, and to hear of Pluto's fall from space's grace? It was too much. She started crying. "Daddy, why isn't Pluto a planet?" And then 1/2 an hour later, more tears: "Is Pluto a planet?" So, for now, Briana's sky has 9, and Pluto is her favorite.

* Briana's Solar System Mix:

Moon, Moon, Moon – The Laurie Berkner Band
The Planet’s Song – Ira Marlowe
Clouds – Dogs on Fleas
Rocketship – Justin Roberts
Mr. Moon – Orange Sherbert & Hot Buttered Rum
All About the Moon – Ira Marlowe
Nine Planets – Justin Roberts
Pluto – Rocknoceros
The Moon Song – Dog on Fleas
Sleep Under Stars – Dog on Fleas
Hey, Mr. Moonlight – Brady Rymer
Fly Me to the Moon – Ralph’s World
Nightlights – Lunch Money
Last Night the Moon was Full – Justin Roberts
I See the Moon – Mae Robertson

First Day of School

Off to school, first day...

How was it?


In her own words...

Take 2

Blessed To Receive Too

About 3 weeks ago, a hot day, Briana and I were hanging out in the shade near the shopping carts outside of PENY market eating a pricey ice cream treat before heading home when a teenage boy poked me on the shoulder and handed me a yogurt, "For your child," and a bill amounting to 50 cents and wished me God's blessings. He thought we were beggars, mother and child asking alms from shoppers coming and going. They do sit in the same place from time to time. I was so flustered. I don't even remember what I said. I think I told him we weren't poor, to give the money and yogurt to someone truly needy. He was so apologetic, as if he had offended us. I didn't get to tell him that it was one of the most beautiful things that have happened to us since living in Romania.

When one of our staff persons heard about the incident she commented: "Yeah, you Americans do dress pretty trashy sometimes."

The Grass Withers, The Flower Fades

After haggling with 4 elderly ladies over flower prices, 2 of them ended up calling me back to give me free bouquets. One moment aggressively pushing flowers in my face, demanding money, and the next offering me gifts.

Sunday September 14, 2008

Driving through Lupeni, if the streets are lined with flower vendors we know something’s up. We feel really good about ourselves if we happen to know what the city-wide celebration is, like for example September 8 we knew that it was the day to honor Mary’s, Jesus’ mother’s, birth, and to thus honor all subsequent Marys (which include all Marias and Marianas in Romania, amounting to about half the female population…a good day to be a flower vendor). But most of the time we drive through town feeling really stupid, that after 9 years of living here we still can’t get the holidays down. Like today. Yesterday was the Orthodox day of the Holy Cross, but that didn’t make sense of the flowers being sold all over town today. And at church no one had flowers. So I asked a vendor. “Don’t be upset with me, but which holiday are these flowers for?” The guy looked at me dumbfounded. “For tomorrow [duh].” “What’s tomorrow?” I cringed. Now he was clearly disgusted and trying to get away from me to sell some flowers to some ladies in the know. “School starts[double duh].” Right. I forgot that at school’s opening, parents arrive with flowers for their children’s teachers. This is very cynical, but isn't that a form, albeit a mild one, of corruption? Paying off teachers at term’s beginning? Maybe we're cynical because our very first year of living here an employee asked for his salary early so that he could “pay off” his son’s teacher in time for report cards – buying A's & B's for his D's & F's son. So when we see parents marching to school with fancy flowers in their arms twice a year, we kind of frown upon it. But is this any different than the apple of yore, placed on a teacher’s desk? Or is it any less sweet and innocent than the fabulous dollar store gems my sister used to accumulate at Christmas from her first graders? Anyway, I’m not really sure how to think about it now. But I think when we go to Briana’s new preschool tomorrow for the Opening Festival (we think we’ve found a place we can feel good about sending her 2-3 mornings a week) we will carry two bouquets of these gorgeous garden flowers, pictured. And if her teachers are pleased with our flowers, then we’ll feel good about bringing them. But if they register disappointment, or offense taken at us bringing mere garden flowers rather than the much more expensive and ghastly fluorescent-died, celophane-wrapped carnation arrangements, we’ll probably continue to frown upon these must-bring-ugly-and-expensive-flowers-to-your-teacher-days from here on out.

For us these matters are kind of an issue of timing. Giving an apple or a kitschy snow globe or flowers on the last day of the semester says, “Thank you for being such a good teacher to my child.” Offering gifts on the first day of the semester seems to say, “Please be as-good-as-my-gift-to-you-is to my child.” And then of course there is the matter of those whose scarce money would be better spent on a nutritious meal for their family then a gaudy bouquet, here today and gone tomorrow.

Strata Tusu, Number 5: One Year On

God bless the house,

From site to stay,

From beam to wall,

From end to end,

From ridge to basement,

From balk to roof-tree,

From found to summit,

Found and summit.

from Carmina Gadelica

It's been a year since we moved into our beautiful, wonderful home here on Tusu Street just outside of Lupeni. Neither words, nor pictures, can express how grateful we are to the 125 families and individuals that made this dream home come true for us. It's been a wonderful year. Thank you and bless you. Here are pictures of our home - your home to us - one year on.
Brandi, Dana, Briana, Kitty & Linda

Summer 2008 Highlights

Briana and I recently brainstormed some highlights of our wonderful summer and have selected some pictures to share with you. Here is our list:
1) Briana's 3rd birthday.
2) Homemade fruit buttermilk popscicles.
3) Kiddie pool with Carla and Bubu.
4) First garden, especially beets.
5) Playing with Madal in Germany.
6) Visit to America: Ma Ging, Pa Jack & Ma Carol, Auntie Holly, Baby Julia (esp. "Little Red Caboose"), Auntie Kiki, Uncle Greg and Muffy.
7) Splash Park, Bouncy Castle, High Tea, and Hannah in Oxford.
8) Going everywhere in Oxford with Pepe the Stroller.
9) Picking blueberries, making muffins.
10) The Klepac's visit.
11) Our 15th wedding anniversary.
12) First hike up Straja Mountain, with the Viata Program.
13) Wearing underwear all summer.
14) Camping in Fagaras Mountains with Janelle & Daniel.
15) Eating dinner outside all of August under perfect skies.
16) Having Brandi's melanoma caught early and completely removed.
17) Dana's 40th birthday bash.
18) California Zoos.
19) Going everywhere with Baby Doll.
20) Our puppy Linda.
21) Icecream!

We belong, at least one of us.

My husband is the first in our family to have the "badge of belonging" placed on him by our neighbors here on Tusu Street, a dusty country road along 2 rivers just outside of Lupeni. And it only took 11 months to happen, which is about 7 years quicker than it took in the Lupeni Communist block apartment where we lived for 8 years . Upon delivering 2 loaves of bread to our elderly neighbor – she is in her 80’s and is considered “Momarlani”* - he was bullied (if you can call a toothless woman hunched over her branch-cane, already half inebriated in the early evening a bully – you can!) into drinking 2 cups of her homemade plum brandy retrieved from a filthy barrel sitting in the middle of her living room floor with a dirty ladle into a questionable cup. I say bullied because despite every ounce of him that did not want to partake (and Dana is not so culture-shy that he can't usually find a way to politely turn down something...he's gotten out of eating raw pig's ears and lard jello over the years), refusing this time just wasn't possible. So he drank it. And now he belongs. I wonder in what form mine or Briana’s rites of passage will take?

Momarlani are the original peasants from this region of western Transylvania. “The Jiu Valley was settled even in Dacian times [around the time of Christ], but before the modern era was a zone of dispersed peasants practicing stock keeping and subsistence agriculture. These people call themselves and are called by others ‘momarlani’, a term derived from Hungarian for ‘those left behind’, as they stayed in the [Jiu] Valley after the post-World War I withdrawal of Austro-Hungarian forces.” (Our friend and anthropologist, David Kideckel)

Women's Work

Our Neighboorhood Washing Machine

Photo by Holly Baumann: Holly Baumann Photography, http://hbaumannphotography.com/default.aspx

Our New Laundry Room

As of this August, we have a real laundry room and we purchased the first washing machine of our lives, single or married. I have to check myself in how much I think about our Whirlpool. It will be the middle of the day, middle of the week, quiet here with just Briana and I puttering around the house, and I'll hear it humming along and find myself humming along with it, thankful for its presence as if it was an additional member of our household. Meanwhile our neighbors (litterly if I had a stronger arm I could throw a rock against the side of their house from our kitchen window) have an outhouse (because our home was formerly a B-n-B we have 4 bathrooms in our house!) and some of our neighbors do their laundry in this antique wash basin (photo by Holly Baumann) powered by diverted river water. Our house is so very comfortable and I'm grateful for these daily reminders, comparisons, that keep discomfort alive in our house as well.

Beet & Beet Green Salad

Beets (and lima beans) were the only foods I detested as a child. Now I cannot eat enough beets. We were going to save some beets from our garden for the winter, but have ended up eating all of them (along with their greens - Romanians think we are so weird as they consider these greens only suitable for animals) in this salad.

Beet & Beet Green Salad (from a Mothering magazine some time ago)

4 large beets (I do 2 or 3)

1/4 cup pumpkin or sunflower seeds, toasted - I do more

1 bunch beet greens (I do all the greens of the beets I use)

2 scallions, finely chopped

1/4 pound feta cheese (optional) - I do more

Dressing

3 T. extra-virgin olive oil

2 T. balsamic vinegar

3/4 t. Dijon mustard

1/4 t. freshly ground pepper

1 T. finely chopped fresh basil

Wash beets. Remove greens but leave beet tops and roots intact. Place beets in large pot filled with water and bring to boil. Lower heat and simmer until beets are tender (about 1 hour). Set aside to cool.

To prepare beet greens, wash by submerging the bunch in a sink full of cold water. Shake off water and drop greens into simmering water (I just use the water I've cooked the beets in). Let them cook for 30 seconds, until tender or juicy. Place greens in a colander and gently run cold water over them to halt cooking.

Toast seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat. Keep seeds moving to prevent burning. Seeds are ready when they begin to pop and give off a nutty aroma. Remove from skillet and set aside.

Place all dressing ingredients in a jar and shake well. (I double or triple the dressing amount.)

Peel beets by cutting off the tops and slipping skins off...slice beets. Squeeze excess water from beet greens and chop. Place beets, beet greens, pumpkin seeds, and scallions in salad bowl. Pour dressing and toss gently. Crumble feta cheese. Serve at room temp or chilled. Makes 6 servings.