21 October 2006

Boyhood Adventures and More Food




Last Saturday the kids rode horses to a swimming hole. The dads took the non-riders to join them. Roland introduced them to the joys of taking a horse into deep enough water that it’s actually swimming rather than wading. I introduced them to the joys of a rope swing. There were moments when we were pretty sure we were egging them on to levels of adventure that would have concerned their mothers, but they had a great time.

Roland and Emmy and Karen and I sit out on the patio or at a Starbucks with a cup of hot tea and enjoy the cool evenings and congratulate ourselves on actually getting to enjoy this time together to which we all so looked forward for so long. It’s good.

I’m still this weird little poverty-stricken Arkansas kid thrilled and fascinated by grocery stores stocked with exotic foods. Today I went grocery shopping with the women. On the one hand, they apparently have a fairly extensive Greek population in Australia, so the shelves were loaded with varieties of olives and feta cheese and yogurt. Also, crustaceans are apparently quite plentiful in Brisbane Bay, so the seafood section has a wide variety of prawns (shrimp) and other shellfish, and even more than one variety of oyster.

On the other hand, after extensive searching, I must sadly announce that there is not a pinto bean to be found anywhere in this modern, thriving metropolis. I’ve found something that looks close, called a Bortillo bean, but according to Wikipedia, it’s not a pinto. They have almost no dry beans at all, and the canned beans are either navy beans or kidney beans, and not much even of that. Where I come from, that’s like a city where no one sells bread or milk. And outside an oriental market, nothing here is spicy. Salsas and other foods that here declare themselves to be fiery hot will contain half of one percent jalepeno. Nothing reaches beyond what a Texan would call medium.

Still, it’s hard to complain when we haven’t had the same main course twice in the past seven weeks, except for two Saturday nights that we had hot dogs and maybe three Saturday nights that we had pizza. Think of that – 50 days and 47 main courses.

We visited a new mall today, or rather, one that has just opened a new section that makes it 3 times its former size. It includes three supermarkets as well as smaller stores selling only breads or meats or fruits and vegetables. Every food place was giving away free samples, so at 5pm with no meal served since breakfast, I’m still full. Somehow, magically, I still only weigh 158 pounds, which is about 73 kilograms, I think.

What can I say? God is good.

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