American Mom in Scotland

Not in a UHaul, silly...just in blog land.

See, I feel like a fraud. I am really no longer American Mom in Scotland. I just officially filed my taxes with the IRS in the States.

So it's time for me to leave the warm, fuzzy world of expat blog and venture out to my own, new blog. I tried to do this a few months ago, thinking I would ween myself off this blog and on to that one.

Cold turkey this time, baby. I fear any more delays and they will cart me off to the Betty (Ford, that is)

No fear, come read the continuing adventures, comedy, tales of chance and how we seem to have the most interesting ability to land on our feet...the link is also posted over there by my traveling family. See you in the new digs!

http://americanmom-roberta.blogspot.com/

I have a dream...(ok, that sounds a little bit over the top)

I have always wanted to live in a lighthouse. Ever since I was a little kid, about 6 years old. I went on a field trip to the Mukilteo light station in Washington state. We got to go inside the lighthouse and walk up to the top...then the guide told us people used to live in the stations and man them. I had this romantic vision of life isolated by the sea...

And in the 5th grade, another trip fed this romantic fantasy. A much taller lighthouse with a Fresnel lens...it reminded me of a giant prism.

Right now is about the closest I am ever going to get. Just down the road is the Point Pinos lighthouse. I get to drive by it everyday. I can walk down and sit, or even walk in the house (it is now a museum) and walk upstairs to see the view from the second floor. The lighthouse was built in 1854, the first light being a lantern using whale oil, replaced eventually by kerosene and then finally electric light in 1915. The lighthouse foghorn was officially deactivated in 1993.

I try to go visit the grounds once a week. The docents there are not convinced, however that I would be a good tenant. So for now I am just a lighthousekeeper from a distance.

We (the royal we) have this friend we'll call K. K is very sweet and has had a run of bad luck in the love department. You know the story...divorced, ex-wife took everything...yadda yadda.

Well, when we moved back to the Monterey area, K had a decidedly sunnier outlook on life. Was it the weather? His new job in San Jose? (no, the commute alone would kill me). He was truly a changed person. Was it because his diving buddy had returned?

Nope. He has a new love. After a couple of false starts...K has found love, American style. In Russia.

K has a love of Russian culture, the language...and apparently the wiles of Russian women. The first young lady was a charmer, but her father wanted a dowry. Yes, I said dowry. Now, K is not a fool...the father of this young lady wanted a Lexus, and realizing that he was being reeled in...he said goodbye to bachelorette number one.

Bachelorette number two is from St. Petersburg and has no demanding father, no dowry requirements. This along with a necessary seal of approval from K's teenage kids, and by this time 6 months from now...hopefully we will be attending a wedding.

I will forego the typical jokes made about mail order brides. K is happy and who are we to judge. One member of our circle asked "why?"

I just said "because love and acceptance comes in forms we don't often understand or even recognize, and sometimes you have to just go with it."

K took a trip to Russia last fall, and when describing the adventure, told us we inspired him to jump in with both feet and do more things in his life.

First Lynn and Chuck's restaurant. Now this mail order bride business.

I don't know how good of an influence we really are, people.

But K is welcome to have the engagement party/reception at our house. Congratulations.

Working too much, as most Moms do, I plan and plot to get myself free time.

My Momma didn't raise no fool.

I figure if I rush home, help with homework and get all my chores done...clean the floors, do the laundry, wipe down the bathrooms...tomorrow morning after the kids go to school and before I go to work I get an hour. One glorious hour, all to myself to drink coffee and just relax.

So after cleaning the floors, wiping the bathrooms down and waiting for the last load of laundry...I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. One last kid was even in the shower.

Then, it happened.

The freshly bathed child tried to pull leftover pasta sauce out of the fridge. It fell. It exploded.

Everywhere. Literally 8 feet around the epicenter of the impact on my kitchen floor was covered in red pasta sauce. Including the freshly bathed child in her fuzzy warm Wii pajamas she got for Christmas.

Half a roll of paper towels and a gallon of lemon fresh cleaner later...more laundry in the basket and a slight headache from the cleaning fumes. The headache could also be from yelling at the dog to stay out of the kitchen. I know she was trying to help, but sheesh...

The last child to be bathed this evening missed the attack of the pasta sauce. And the aftermath. She blithely came out looking for a bedtime snack, and yelled from the kitchen "where's the pasta sauce?"

Molly (the youngest of the twins) is famous for her nose. She can sniff out a smell better than a bloodhound at 20 paces. Meaning she is usually first to the dinner table.

Funny enough, she is also the child with the funkiest feet. She is not allowed to remove her shoes during long stretches of any of our travels. Trust me on this. The smell will take the hair off a sweater. Ask my sister. She sat in the back seat with her on the drive through Yellowstone Park.

Working in a fish market has it's advantages and disadvantages. I get free fish on occasion, but I come home smelling...

Today I got fresh smoked salmon and ahi tuna jerkey. If you have never had this...it is worth smelling like 5 day old crab to get.

Molly came in the door from school, and immediately would not hug me...but said "I want some fish jerkey Mom!"

That kid should work for search and rescue, I tell ya...

Sunday is poet Robert Burns birthday. So, if we were still in Scotland, I would be enjoying one of my favorite dishes, haggis, neeps and tatties in a whisky cream gravy.

We stopped at a pub coming back from the Highlands on our last weekend there and I ordered this comfort food...the barman asked me if I was sure 3 times. I think he thought I didn't know what I was doing. I explained I'd had it before, was quite comfortable with it and trusted his chef.

I don't think Burn's night is a celebration of the poetry as much as an excuse to drink and be with friends...Scots are good at that!

Awe, I am missing Scotland, can you tell?

QuitYerBitchin...

It's a phrase my Dad used to use all the time. He had a lot of colorful phrases, most of them blue in hue. I won't repeat them here...this is a family blog. Well, most of the time.

I do a lot of reading, early in the morning and late at night. Newspapers of varying degrees of right and left leaning opinion. There is a lot of doom and gloom going on out there.

The economy, jobs...nobody can seem to catch a break.

Here is how I see it, and it may seem a little bit simple and thats ok. We need a new deal...lower the expectations in line with our new lifestyles.

I think it's fantastic you graduated from New York University...now go take that off the resume so you can appear less qualified and get a job that will pay for a meal right now. And you might want to remove the job reference from Washington Mutual, too.

Sometimes it's ok to be underwhelming. My Dad told me that once.

I had biggest, newest, baddest stuff once. The lifestyle that went with it included no time, energy and lots of things and people taken for granted.

In one short day 3 and a half years ago, I thought I'd lost everything. And I was ok with that. Because my husband and my children were alive. Once you cross that line mentally, you can't go back. I currently am sitting on borrowed lawn chairs. Doesn't bother me a bit. In fact, when we decided to move to Scotland and sell off or give away all of our belongings, I didn't mourn anything. People said I would...but I didn't.

After Katrina, we took in a fellow survivor...someone who had lost everything. I just kept hearing in my mind the stories of my Grandparents taking in people and feeding them during the great depression (never mind they had 8 children to feed at that time) My Grandfather would bring them home off the railcars and my Grandma would cook whatever was available. I kept thinking...this is the least I could do...

But it isn't...we have to keep going. Somewhere the lesson got lost. The lesson of expectations got translated into entitlement. There has to be a realistic look at what the lifestyle should be for a hard days work. And I don't mean what Hollywood or Madison Avenue portrays as a hard days work...I mean 8 hours, on your feet...the kind of thing most kids who have spent childhoods in front of computer screens and game consoles can't imagine.

Maybe when we straighten out the lesson between expectation and entitlement...we can have appreciation.

Well, part time at least. Some of you who read regularly may remember that our beloved friends and former neighbors (now relegated to 4 whole blocks of space between us and them) have retaken the family restaurant, Sea Harvest. The eaterey was having some troubles and needed fresh eyes to get back on the boat...so to speak.

It seems even in these rough economic times of 7.3% unemployment and a high immigrant population...they have had a hard time keeping staff that want to work.

Now, I am a Montana gal. I don't know much about birthing no cod. Or squid. Or tilapia. But when friends call for help...especially after all they have done for us...I jump.

Today was my first day. I am a little rusty at wait service...but I had a great time chatting up customers and learning about the fish.

And Nana and Chuck didn't throw me out. I think that is a good sign. They asked me to come back for 3 more shifts next week and be on call if somebody else calls in sick.

To be honest, I am not a big fish fan. Cheese, yes...I would have been a world class cheesemonger.

But when I came home from work today, the dog was really fond of me. I think it's my new perfume.

Thousands of mail order consumers were scammed in Chile by a French woman claiming a kit to make "Magic Cheese" could then be sold for profit to cosmetic companies.

The cheese was actually worthless, and the woman is being investigated for running a pyramid scheme.

I used this expression one day to a friend on the playground whilst waiting for the girls...and she looked at me funny. Scottish folk have their very own turn of phrase and expressions...like "Bob's your uncle" (meaning you are good to go) and my personal favorite..."Bugger off" (no further explanation needed).

That particular day I was feeling homesick and blue and complaining to Claire, and then I said I didn't mean to be a Debbie Downer...but she seemed to get the idea of it anyway, stiff upper lip Brit and all. She quite firmly told me to soldier on and stop moaning and whinging. So I did.

Not to be a Debbie Downer...but 2 things are playing in my mind. Barb (of The Wee Mad Road blog) and her darling daughter are fighting a battle right now. See, Barb's daughter has cancer and it has spread. That evil disease has touched my own life and I just want to go pick the family up and give them a great big hug and take their cares away. But I can't. The only thing I can tell them is that cancer can't take away the ability to laugh, hope, smile, or love. Cancer cannot steal memories or experiences and cannot take moments from you that you are living right now. Cancer does a lot of things...but it can't break the human spirit. I am pulling for you every day...

And the second person in my thoughts is a dear former co-worker, Cheryl. She passed away suddenly last week, cause unknown. She was my age. She worked at the veterinary clinic here in town and was such a sweet spirit, loved animals of any kind, but especially her two little dogs...her family is also in my thoughts.

I always try to show appreciation for life and how precious it is. It just doesn't seem fair that the sweetest amongst us are put through so much.

Now go give someone you love a hug. And tell them you love them...and Bob's your uncle.

In my very own neighborhood.

I stopped at a stop sign to let a woman cross...the woman looked up at me and waved in appreciation...and, *GASP*...it was Shirley MacLaine!!!

Actress, Broadway dancer...author, and existential explorer...

My personal favorite films of hers are Steel Magnolias and Postcards from the Edge.

We see celebrities here quite often, it takes a minute to register who they are sometimes because you don't quite recognize them off screen. Most of the time, I am about 10 paces past them before it dawns on me who I just saw. Not this time.

She was walking up from the beach side...it was all I could do not to jump out of the truck and say hello.

I kept my cool and waved back though. I waited until after I drove on to scream in delight.

We lived overseas for a year...in that time, we voted in a new President and went from being "ugly Americans" to being cool again. At least a little bit.

You think I am kidding.

The day after the election I was literally stopped on the street in our little village, grabbed by the hand and congragulated...one woman told me "America is great again!". At the Tesco down the road in Eskbank the clerk actually smiled and said kind words to me as well as soon as she heard my accent and discovered I was from the U.S. (Tesco employees don't smile, I think it's in the employment contract). Talk about surreal.

Tonight I watched the farewell speech of President Bush. It was kind of an accident. I have had a falling out with our 43rd President since Hurricane Katrina (He let me down when he said things were being taken care of) and our dearest friend John Hartman was killed in Iraq.

People have deeply held political beliefs, and when you ask someone how they feel about a President...ultimately you get a response based on the effects, cumulative and anticipatory, that a President's decisions have had, or will have on them personally. President Bush gets profound responses...and President-elect Obama also elicits profound response.

Tonight, I couldn't help but get the feeling that people listened out of respect for how tough the job is, how tough the decisions are...but that as soon as the door closes...cheers will erupt from behind it.

I was startled out of a sound sleep this morning. 6 am-ish.

Apparently the new class at the Army's Defense Language Institute is bad. Really bad. They are being punished.

Running and cadence is not something normally heard at this hour, in my neighborhood.

It took a second of thought and contemplation...then thankfulness as I snuggled back down under the nice warm covers...relieved I wasn't dreaming and it wasn't me out there.

10 minutes later they came back around the block, a new cadence being barked out...

Either somebody really screwed up in class or this is my new alarm clock, complete with 10 minute snooze button.

And enough soldiers to invade Hawaii.

Here is a new collection of questions emailed to me about our expatriate experience and repatriation extravaganza...

Did your spouse get fired from his job? No. He was, however, released from a clause in his contract requiring us to repay any relocation expenses during the first term of the contract. That meant instead of being tied to Scotland and losing money steadily month by month...we could pull the trigger on a new job and come back...thus preventing us from starving and/or going broke. He gave his company 30 days notice just like normal and left on decent terms.

Why do you move so much? Honestly...you have to speak to my husband. He is the high wage earner in our household and the industry he is in depends on government and corporate funding that isn't always fluid. We go where the money is. He also is not one to let the grass grow under his feet...he likes professional challenge. And he is part gypsy.

Would you ever expatriate again? Yes, but with much more information, planning and a visit to the country before moving there. I had never been to Scotland before the move and would have had a better idea of what we needed and what to negotiate for if I had a visit beforehand. I also think we would have done better in a more challenging environment...possibly something non English speaking. This sounds nuts, but there is a method to my madness. A focus on adjusting and immersing into another language might have helped.

What did you take with you home from Scotland? 10 suitcases. Seriously. We went over with 9 and came back with 10. It's funny when people ask us that...clothing is easily replaced...we brought back some souvenirs...pictures and items collected over our year there. Furniture and household goods are easily replaced...it is the memories and experiences you take with you.

If it isn't too personal, how has this effected the family dynamic? Well, for the oldest, Meg, especially this has been the toughest move. She is at an age where her friends are her social life and she had made some really close ones there. Her friends Jocylen and Claire are actually coming here for her birthday this summer. She was quite rebellious when we started talking about it...but she also has been through this before. She knows the drill. We have practical reasons to do what we do...and all around the kids adjust. Not to say we don't have moments. It takes patience and a a lot of talks on the way home from school. The best thing we do as a family is put down the moving chores and go out and explore and get in to what is around us. As far as the family dynamic...we are weird...our home is where we are, not where our house is. Addresses, phone numbers are fluid. It makes us pretty tight as a family.

How many miles have you clocked as a family? Well, I'll take that as me and the girls, because generally speaking, Rich has to be at his job and looking for residence and we are still in transit...so let's see...ok...if you include the cross country drives and the AlCan highway...the overseas move...wow....glad I had a calculator...34035 miles. 2/3 of that is driving miles. Music passes the time...The kids are well versed in music from lots of genres. How many 9 year olds do you know that like Muddy Waters, Jimmy Buffet and Nina Simone?

Do you have advice for someone wanting to move overseas? Research, research, research. The problem with the internet is there is so many varied opinions and the laws and regulations and visas change all the time. The be all, end all of what paperwork you need will be that particular countries immigration division. Leave yourself enough time and money to deal with potential problems that can arise from visa and permit problems. Don't rely completely on the advice of the company you will be working for. The U.S. state department and the IRS (yes, I said the IRS) can be a great resource for information on tax relief and if you have a feeling you are being sold a job opportunity that is too good to be true. Make sure you have the correct customs information as well. I have an informant that was held in Dubai for medication she brought in illegally, even though it was prescribed legally by a physician in England. The medications ingredients were banned in Dubai...so be careful.

Why do you move with kids? Because it's illegal to leave them behind alone. And they keep following us. Seriously, We want our kids to have a bigger view of the way the world is...and to have experiences and have seen things outside the normal field trips offered in our schools. And we want our kids to be able to take whatever the world throws at them. Half the problem with the world today is people afraid to operate outside a comfort zone...we want them to have the tools to operate in any environment.

Did you have a hard time driving back on the right side of the road? Honestly, yes. Turning into and out of parking lots that aren't clearly marked sometimes causes me to stop and think for a nanosecond. It is strange how quickly your brain adjusts to driving, shifting and turning from a different position in the car and on the roadway. I even confronted a roundabout on the Nevada/California border...I had to stop (no cars were behind me) it was going the wrong way...I broke out in flop sweat. You will be glad to hear I have adjusted quickly. It took about 2 weeks to retrain my brain...most of it in rural Montana.

What is your worst travel experience? I have actually 2...both in the U.S. The first was a flight out of Seattle to Anchorage...we came too close to the KLM jet in front of us and ended up with the jet on it's side over Puget Sound. That was the first time in years of flying I felt sick to my stomach. And the second was a series of delays from Seattle to New Orleans. We took a standby with vouchers in Seattle thinking the leg in Dallas would be a breeze. Not so. Dallas had weather delays and instead of getting in to New Orleans at 6pm...we arrived at 1 am. With 3 tired kids. And a bleary eyed Mama. We had started the day in Seattle at 6 am. It took us just as long from Scotland to Seattle. To top that off, a security guard argued about our luggage being locked up in the baggage claim office. He said we could come back the next day for it, I said no, Rich said no...we rolled out of the airport in New Orleans with our luggage.

Well, enough for now...more from the email bag later...

No, I didn't get to jump on a plane at the last minute and go to my Mom's 70th birthday party. I've been whining about it all week, and pretty much feeling sorry for myself. Are you sick of me yet?

Don't answer that.

Today was little Kaedan's very first birthday (and party). Kaedan is Nana and Chuck's grandson and Jacob the great's little brother. He is just about the sweetest little boy...for a drool machine. I honestly don't remember that much clear liquid coming out of my kid's mouths...I must be blocking it out. He makes all those sweet little baby sigh noises still and says "bye bye" and "dadda"...I tell his Mom Melissa it is just because he hasn't learned to talk back yet...they aren't so cute after that. Then they turn 13 and form opinions about politics and no longer have parents. Good times, good times.

So, we went, ate cake, watched him smother himself in said chocolate cake and generally got to feel a little bit better about missing a party 1200 miles away. He is such a jolly little guy he even let all his cousins open his gifts. Again, I told Melissa...wait a couple years. That will change. Enjoy the early years...

Wishing you another 70 at least, Kaedan...Happy Birthday.