The Challenge of Naming a Child Cross-Culturally

We don't know if the little one that will be born in November is a boy or a girl, but so far we've had more fun throwing around female names. We were pretty pleased with ourselves when all 3 of us seemed to like Sabina Gaia. Sabina is easy to pronounce in Romanian and I liked the nickname "Sabi" (what Briana calls the hot green paste, "wasabi", Daddy likes to mix with soy sauce) and Dana's read lovely theological books on the concept of "gaia", the greek earth goddess, but more recently an intellectual paradigm for the gorgeous unity of the cosmos. Well all that was shot through when we ran the names by our closest Romanian friend. Apparently "Sabina" is a peasant's name (in other words, it's hick), negatively associated with uneducated, insular village life. (Perhaps akin to Bubba or Thelma Lou in the States.) And "Gaia" is part of a popular expression which means, "I'm going to kick your a_ _!"
So it's back to the drawing board.
Granted it's just one person's humble opinion (we'd be glad for other Romanians' thoughts), but for now we've scratched "I'm going to kick your hick butt!" from the list.

Experiments in Social Entrepreneurship

Not to compare our daughter with our dog, but both Briana and Augustina (our husky that was with us from 2001-2005) have been able to do much more for us socially than the fact that we have offered the free Viata Program to over 1000's of young people in this town over the past 10 years. The Viata Program rarely gets us acknowledged in this small community, but both Augi and Briana have brought numerous pleasant social encounters: conversations on the street, well-wishes, unsolicited smiles and chit-chat, shared snacks in the park and free fruit at the vegetable market. We used to talk about driving Augi around on the top of our car, just to melt the social ice that can still chill between us foreigners and the locals, and we're certain it would've been successful. Briana's lemonade stand this weekend was successful in just the same way.

Though there's probably a kid-run lemonade stand on about every corner in North America , I am certain no one has ever seen one here. Or anything remotely like it. So it was with great interest that we helped Briana proudly hang her sign on our fence (Homemade Lemonade for Sale - 5cents a cup) on Saturday and arrange her table, cash register, and cups in the front of our yard. When the first passerby approached, one of our neighbors, I coaxed Briana into approaching him and asking him if he'd like a glass of lemonade. At first he said no, I'm sure he was confused, and then he saw the sign and her little table and cash register and he somehow understood. He didn't have a penny on him so he promised to bring the money tomorrow, and appreciatively emptied his glass. I won't say the rest of the afternoon was bustling, but I think only one passerby declined, and the rest of our neighbors were great sports. We had at-length conversations with 2 neighbors we've only ever saluted, and one neighbor who had hurried by earlier in the day made it a point to come back later, after the stand had closed, insisting on buying a glass. And Briana made a killing when our 9 international volunteers showed up for a 4th of July BBQ (we weren't going to set our daughter up for complete failure...we knew she'd at least sell 9 cups that day).

It was great fun, a great learning exercise for Briana (she made the shopping list, watched videos on how to make lemonade, squeezed lemons, poured, learned how to give back change, eventually, and practiced customer-service, sort of) but most of all it was a great experience of social warmth and openness between us and our neighbors, something we don't take for granted.

Dana was trying to teach Briana the age-old adage: "If life gives you lemons..." "Make a lemonade stand," she replied. I'll drink to that.

Summer So Far

It is the eve of my 39th birthday and I just feel so grateful to be alive, to be immersed in love, to have all that I could want. Dana. Briana. And now this little bud that opens inside of me. So much more that I could say.

I wept hearing this song when I first learned I was with child. And now, it calls to me, tonight as the page turns into a new year, filling me with love and gratitude and calm.

"Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini, Hosanna in excelsis"

"Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the Highest"

Benedictus. From Karl Jenkin's "The Armed Man: A Mass for Peace."

Deja Vou

Winter is here. Again. After vacationing all of January, she decided to return. And we're glad.

The "dead" of winter -

Or so they say.

But winter lives

In her own way.

She leaves her tracks,

She shows us signs.

Not brilliant blooms,

But webs of lines.

Not sprout or splash,

But silver gray.

Winter lives

In her own way.

Icicles are winter's fingers
That form where freezing water lingers.
Icicles are winter's arrows
Pointing out the crows and sparrows.
Icicles are dragon's teeth.
They don't grow up.
They drip beneath.

Snow man.

Snow woman.

They are not real.

They are not human.

They cannot walk,

They cannot creep.

Except when humans

Are asleep.

Winter Eyes: poems and paintings by Douglas Florian.

Grace Comes and We Go

In December Briana and I said goodbye to our best friends in Lupeni, Monica and Bubu. In January we grieved, and sometimes I felt as if we should be wearing black, for we were in mourning. And then we were surviving. Sad, certainly, but making the best of our days and of the company of each other and those nearby. And then they came back.

Grace comes.

And we go.

We had already bought our tickets to be away for March and April. When we return we will have 10 days with them before they go again, perhaps this time for good.

Mourning will come again.

Our daughter's soul's home away from home is with Monica and Bubu. She would move in with them if we let her. I hope next time grace visits we won't have made other plans.

Love Is...

My Valentine's reading came from the Dorothy Day of the Orthodox Church, Mother Maria Skobtsova. Here she qoutes Ephrem the Syrian [ca. 306-373] as found in the Philokalia:

This is what "Thy will be done on earth at is in heaven" means: when we are united with each other in unenviousness, simplicity, love, peace, and joy, considering the furtherance of our neighbor as our own gain, and regarding his ailments, or failures, or sorrows as our own deficiency, as it is said: "Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others" (Phil 2:4).

Let us take care to acquire the eternal blessings promised us. Let us be zealous about it, before it turns dark, before the market closes. Let us make friends of the poor and destitute for our life there. Let us buy oil from them and send them there ahead of us. For it is here that the widows, the orphans, the sick, the lame, the halt, the blind and all the beggars sitting by the church door sell oil for our lamps there.

Mother Maria Skobtsova, Essential Writings, Orbis, 2003, pp. 51 -52

Cabin Fever 2 (for moms and kids in a similar predicament)

Our favorite musician, Bruce Cockburn, has a song "How I Spent My Fall Vacation." What follows is our rendition: "How We Survived Our Winter Vacation." My guess is that parents weren't part of the decision to grant kindergartners a week off just one month after Christmas' month off and smack in the middle of winter's slump. But here Briana and I were home alone, the weather turned our adversary and our friends turned elsewhere. We did the best we could, going some days without seeing another face but Dana's (thankfully he has a pretty face), and at the end of the week I was surprised that we'd not only survived, but actually had a really nice time. We were kind of sorry for the song to end.

"Dr. Ramona" giving a very pregnant Dana an ultrasound she created from our cat's scratching post. A lot of babies were born here last week.

Dana went for a 2 hour hike so he wouldn't have to smell any lotions or polish while Briana and I closed the door on the gray, lit some candles, drank warm milk with honey and ate fruit salad tub-side, and called it our "Su-sauna time."

Traveled to foreign lands: ate "chinese" food in our "japanese" kimonos. (Thank you Ma Ging & Janelle.)

Played indoor sports that eventually morphed into yet another concert. Briana loves making up new verses to this one: "I'll buy me a foldy-roldy,tildy-toldy, seek-a-double, use-a-cozza roll to find me. Roll, Jenny Jenkins, roll."

Unfortunately this is her favorite version,

while I prefer this one.

And that's how we survived our winter vacation.

"I Have Been Terrified Every Day Of My Life" (Subtitle: How a Friend Came to Shoot Battery Acid Into Her Eye With a Syringe)

Romanian Stray Dogs Portrayed in the Media

Romanian Stray Dogs Portrayed in My Brain

Briana and I tried to enjoy a nonchalant walk along our river today and up a hill into a meadow to look at the clouds and grass and jump in some puddles, but I couldn't relax and kept looking around, my bristles up, for what I would grab to fend off a dog attack. Stray dogs terrify me and have every day that I've lived in Romania. They are everywhere and because I tend towards fear (that might be an understatement) and don't understand animal psychology, and because a couple of friends have been bitten, I've suffered too much of the past 10 years from a dog-induced agoraphobia. So for me to go for even the bittiest walk alone with Briana, I feel triumphant and lucky to return home alive.

Not everyone is as afraid of the dogs. Actually I know only one other person whose fear matches my own, and like me she's never been bitten. Most everyone else has a much more balanced view.

The most recent dog story I've heard has such a tragic and surprising ending that one doesn't know whether to laugh or cry. An acquaintance of ours was recently with a group of friends and venting about her hatred of an aggressive street dog that camps outside her apartment building. One of her friends suggested that she poison the dog with battery acid: "A little bit of acid on a piece of chicken, and wala, no more dog problem." This sparked a lively conversation about how one would actually go about doing this. "But if you put the acid on the chicken it will eat through the chicken before you can get it to the dog..." In the end this dialogue eventuated in this friend scurrying down her staircase with a syringe full of battery acid in one hand and a piece of chicken in the other when she tripped and somehow syringed the battery acid straight into her eye. She's fine but she had to go the hospital and wear sunglasses for a few days. Dogs, 1 - humans, 0. (This is a true story.)

Lots of people say killing the dogs isn't the answer. I don't know. It seems to me like it might be a plausible solution. (That's my extreme fear talking.) The popular strategy is to "Trap Neuter and Release" (TNR) - I don't see why Trap Neuter and Retain wouldn't work just as well. I recently ran across two organizations that come to Romania, much like the short-term service teams that come work with us, on neutering trips. It would be interesting to try to bring a group here to Lupeni and to organize a community-wide neutering-outreach project. Anyone interested? I'M SERIOUS!

Some of our local IMPACT kids believe that stray dogs (they are called "câini comunitari " - community dogs - in Romania) are trucked from other cities all over Romania and dumped in the community of Lupeni. (I guess that would be called a Trap 'N Relocate program.) One of our IMPACT members says she saw a truckload of strays being released here. That's encouraging.

Georgia O'Keefe said, "I have been terrified every day of my life." But then she had to say, "But that has never stopped me from doing everything I wanted to do." I want to go outside with Briana and look at the tree limbs and dew drops. (I also want to go jogging and biking by myself but that's OUT of the question.) So I will do my best to gird myself with Georgia's courage, and a thick stick and iron boots, and venture outside. But I'm sure I'd be more relaxed if I knew that the dogs all around me, whose ceaseless barking drowns out the birdsong and whose proximity disrupts my peace, would ne're parent a pup. I already have a name for a future neutering service project: "Mâini comunitari" (community's tomorrow).

Cabin Fever 1 (for moms and kids in a similar predicament)

We love winter. But we're having a hard time with these endless January days of April showers and March mud when we're supposed to be sledding and bundling up. So Briana received her first umbrella and we've gotten pretty creative with indoor fun, thanks to a lot of space and a pretty good Internet connection. This little medley is for any other moms and children out there in the no-one's land of not-winter, not-spring. Hang in there! This CAN'T last.

Lovely song by The Nields, "Who Are You Not to Shine"

Pollywog in a Bog, Barenaked Ladies, album Snacktime!

Feist counting to the number 4, Sesame Street's 39th season