Katrien

The Scat Bandana

That's got to be a typo. I was in the Quivera Council boy scout shop holding a forest green bandana with a price sticker labeled "Scat Bandana". I shook out the piece of fabric and — sure enough — emblazoned on a square to tie around a boy's neck was a handy-dandy guide to animal excrement.

Quick! You're hiking in the mountains and you run across a huge pile of animal poop. Should you be on the lookout for a bear or a moose? Just whip out your Scat Bandana: If the excrement in question is "thick (1.75-2.25" wide) and cord like with blunt ends" then watch out for Mr. Bear. If it's a large pile "with average length of 1.5", then you could have a visit from Mr. Moose. 

Proof that, yes, the bear really does shit in the woods.

Learning to speak Kansan

When we lived in Amsterdam Kellen went to the British School and had friends from all over the world. One of his buddies proudly announced that he could speak, "Dutch, English and American."

George Bernard Shaw said that "England and America are two countries divided by a common language". What I didn't anticipate was yet another language gap on the state level.

Last night my extended family was converging on Red Robin to celebrate a birthday. I was driving one vehicle in the caravan with my brother, Mark, riding shotgun. "Is it on Waco or Greenwich?" I asked, giving the last word its correct British pronunciation.

"Gren-ich?" Mark said, "it's GREEN-witch. You're in Kansas now."

I rolled my eyes. "Oh please, I'll say ArKANSAS River when it runs through Kansas (as opposed to ArkanSAW, like the state) but I draw the line at saying GREEN-witch."

"How do you say 'Eldorado'?" he asked.

"EldorAYdo" I said.

"It's really EldorAHdo."

Okay, he got me there. It all depends on how you learn the words — and what language you're speaking when you learn them. I just happened to be speaking The Queen's English when I learned to pronounce "Greenwich", but most of my vocabulary is Kansan.

My friend Elise returned to her native New York after living in Europe for 20 years and also faced translation issues. "Most of my English speaking friends back in Europe have avoided the slang trap and speak in real sentences that are grammatically correct. They speak an English that is probably just as foreign to Americans as theirs is to the long-term expatriate" she wrote in an article titled Do We Speak the Same Language?

What language do you speak? Do you have another example of a uniquely Kansan word? Leave a comment and I'll work hard to understand you no matter which English you speak.

Exploring Exploration Place

Last Saturday was the last day of the Our Body: The Universe Within exhibit at Exploration Place, and Kellen had been begging to see it. I finally gave in. We hooked up with my cousin Meg and her kids, and toured the display of actual human bodies which had been preserved in all their glorious layers and details with a new preservation system which involves replacing all the body's fluids with plastic. (I think vodka is more fun, but that's a different Wichita hotspot.)

There were several different rooms, each one devoted to a particular body system: the muscular system, featuring hands and feet with skin removed to reveal elegant tendons and metacarpals; the nervous system with the spinal cord slit open and unraveled into thick cords of nerves; the cardiovascular system, with a hanging display of arteries solidified and stripped of flesh, resembling a pair of red crocheted pants with feet.

In a dark corner, posted with a cautionary sign for those of delicate sensitivities, were 5 vials of fluid in which floated embryos and fetuses at various stages of development. The tiny figures were lit from the bottom, thier transluscent limbs glowing, revealing miniature, unfinished bones and organs.

"Mom, why are you taking so long?" Kellen said, "are you thinking about when I was inside you?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I'm thinking about — just a few years ago that was you!"

The kids were getting bored, so we zipped through the rest of the exhibit. I was lingering by a muscled man brandishing a hanger holding his own skin, and an entire body cut into horizontal slabs which looked like a row of T-bone steaks standing on end.

"Mom, let's go!" Kellen was loitering under the Exit sign, and there was lots more to see.

The kids romped through a 3-story medieval castle and bombed the enemy with stuffed dragons. Then we ended up in the Exploring Flight & Design pavilion which was stocked with hands-on exhibits demonstrating principals of flight: a beach ball fluttering in an updraft, several varieties of hand-crankable propellers, a paper airplane test flight area, several flight simulators.

Exploration Place came to Wichita just before I left 11 years ago, and I never visited before I left; I'm glad I finally did. I'm surprising myself by how much fun I'm having in my new/old city, and it's things like this that make it so enjoyable.

Yes, I bought a membership. For Kellen of course.

80 page views on Thanksgiving

A few weeks ago I installed a few stat trackers on this blog and got used to seeing 2 or 3 hits a day. So imagine my shock when I came back from Branson and saw that there were 80, count 'em 80 hits on my last post, Do the turkey dance. WTF?!

A bit more investigation on my eXTReMe Tracking overview revealed 17 unique visitors from places like Kincardine, Canada; Budapest, Hungary and Birmingham, United Kingdom. I have no connections to these cities so folks had to be following a link from somewhere. But where?

The referring site was some place called Alphainventions, run by Cheru Jackson, "a regular working guy with an apartment and an old car with a big imagination." Cheru's vision is for individuals to be able to comment on a post as soon as it's published, so they have a better chance of catching the webmaster online. New blog posts pop up on the site, only to be bumped off when an even newer post appears in cyberspace. Readers can click through to the site if they're interested.

Sure enough, all my mystery visitors appeared between 2:58 and 3:17 on Thanksgiving afternoon. Complete strangers from Hungary and England were reading about my son's turkey story!

The funnest part is that I get to play webmaster, learn more about people reading this blog, and how to create more traffic. So if you're from Renkum, Netherlands and you read my Thanksgiving post: thank you!

If you're reading this post now — thank you, too.

Do the turkey dance

 

Kellen and I were showing Darryl his turkey drawing on the webcam.

"Did he make a turkey where you draw around your hand?" Darryl asked.

"I was just thinking about that!" I said. Ahhh, the hand turkey with the thumb-head and the finger-feathers.

No, Kellen got to Draw & Write About a Turkey. Here's his fill-in-the-blank story:

Once there was a turkey named chicke

He was cute

He was unlike other turkeys because he could fly

He could also shak his bootey

Have a bootylicious Thanksgiving, everyone!

Kellen's new twin

   "Kellen, I want to tell you something about our new president." Kellen was eating his waffles this morning, wrapped up in his blue star blanket. 

"Look, Mom! These stars glow up in the dark." He throws the blanket over my head.

"Hey, they sure do. I didn't know that." I toss the blanket off and reach for the front page of yesterday's Wichita Eagle. "Listen Kellen, look at this picture of Obama. What color is his skin?"

"He's our first black president! Kiera says it's a good thing but Gracie says it's a bad thing."

"Yes, he's black, but did you know he's also mixed? His mom is white and his dad is black, just like you." Kellen holds his hand next to Obama's face in the photo. They are both the color of creamy caramel. 

"His hair's even like mine. He could be my father — or my twin!"

"Yep, you look a lot alike." I say. "You remember when we were talking about the slaves in America?"

"Yes."

"Well some people are still prejudiced against black people, like your friend Gracie. Prejudiced means they judge people before they even know them, just because their skin's a certain color."

"Some white people feel a little bit kicked out." Kellen says.

"That's exactly right. Black people all over the world are inspired by Obama because they think if he can be president maybe they can be something too. Just think, you could even be president someday! Or anything else you want to be, whatever you want to be."

Kellen stands up tall, wraps his blanket around his shoulders like a cape and parades around the kitchen crowing, "I'm the blue star president!"

More thoughts on the new America from overseas

After reading herself quoted in yesterday's post, Anne had this to add:

"I think that the historian is missing a point. For me and for many others (I think) its not that America is the land of opportunity and miracles happen, it is that America is a land of principles again, a land where it's power can be used wisely and for the betterment of all people in the world. Not just for the enriching of a few at the top and with a foreign policy that seems to be based upon principles of greed and self interest.

"Thats why the German newspaper said "make this world a better place" because the president of America, more than anyone else in the world has the possibility of doing that."

Anne Parker is owner of Amsterdam-based ExpatEase, cultural consultants and trainers, and a very good friend of mine. 

Thanks for your thoughts, Anne!

The world celebrates America "where miracles happen"

I just got off the phone with my friend, Anne, a Brit married to a Dutch man in Amsterdam. "I walk down the street and everyone's saying 'Obama won! Obama won!'" she said. "Even in school the kids ran up to me saying, 'he won! Obama won'!"

"Really?" I said, "I had no idea it ment so much to people there."

"Oh, yeah," she said, "I feel the most hope I have for many many years. My first thought when I woke up this morning was, just imagine if all the slaves who lived 100 or 200 years ago could see this happening today."

Among my Facebook network the most passionate Obama supporter these past weeks has been Liek, a Dutch friend who today lists her status as "amazed...happy...crying...dancing...:):):)" Shea, a black American in Amsterdam is "alive to see it happen" and posted a link to the New York Magazine article, "Europe Is Finally, Totally, Awesomely Jealous" with the comment "interesting...wonder what my european friends think of this...". 

Her friends replied:

"I love it! You can walk with an extra pep in your step now and laugh in the face of anti-American comments!

"It's GREAT!! :-D"

"thanks America! what a Fantastic result!!!!! as a Brit i am VERY excited by this !!!! (wish Gordon Brown looked and acted like Obama)

When I was still living in Amsterdam this past summer I knew that a few of my more international European friends were following the US elections, but I'm totally blown away by the exhilaration in the international community. In Britian the attendance at Operation Black Vote meetings has gone from 40 to 400. Kenya declared today a national holiday. "Good morning, Mr. President — Make the world better!" read the front-page headline of the German best-selling tabloid "Bild".

The New York Times has an article titled, "For Many Abroad, An Ideal Renewed". They quote Tristram Hunt, a British historian who says Obama "brings the narrative that everyone wants to return to — that America is the land of extraordinary opportunity and possibility, where miracles happen."

Even Kellen has come out in favor of Obama. Yesterday he wore his "I Voted, Kids Vote Too!" sticker emblazoned on his chest and exclaimed, "I voted for Orack Obama!" 

Tonight when Kellen gets home from school I'm going to explain to my son that his new president has a white mom and a black dad, just like he does, and anything is possible.

America the beautiful (Gratuitous flag waving alert)

I walked into the church yesterday on a gorgeous fall afternoon. Autumn trees were in full splendor; the Kansas wind chased yellow and orange leaves past the "Vote Here" sign. Average Americans were strolling into the polling place. Moms, accountants, mechanics — normal people taking a few minutes out of their day to vote.

It's so easy to take for granted: We vote, eat a Big Mac, watch American football and Friends reruns, just another day. But I know different now. I've lived in a place where the national cuisine is cheese broodjes and bitterballen (fried balls of gravy) and where the whole city erupts in cheering when the national foetbal team scores a goal. A place where people go to work on 4 July and the fourth Thursday of November, just like it was any other day — because for them it is.

I never felt so American as when I lived in Holland, and — like a typical American — it just made me more proud of being one. The Dutch are more reticent about their nationality; they don't share the assertive patriotism we have. Patriotism. Another thing I took for granted.

So I'm proud to say that I mist up when reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at Kellen's Cub Scout meetings. I participate in the peaceful transfer of power every four years. As a Democrat in a red state (and a red family) I have plenty of opportunities for friction with those around me, but I relish the climate of openness we all have to express our opinions, and respect others for having them, even when I don't agree.

Today is a historical day for Americans; we've exercised our rights and put new leaders in power.

Just a normal day in America.

Canadian Geese and other neighborhood perks

One of the advantages of walking Kellen the three blocks to his school every morning is watching the Canadian Geese that forage in the park next to the school. They wheel over us like the Blue Angels in "V" formation and land in unison. I told Kellen to watch his step around the goose droppings on the sidewalk, then explained a little of their history.

Flocks of Canadian Geese migrate to the US every winter where their loud honking signals the onset of fall. They fly hundreds of miles from their summer breeding grounds up north in — you guessed it — Canada. They are monogamous, typically mating for life. The geese take advantage of man-made bodies of water on golf courses and parks, where the lack of natural predators and warmer climates have contributed to their becoming non-migratory pests in the northern half of the US.

Having the opportunity to share Canadian Geese with Kellen is just one of the great things about our neighborhood. We're living with my brother, Mark, and his wife, Anita in a house in West Wichita. It's a split level ranch-style home worthy of the Bradys on a quiet, suburban street. 

Kellen has already made a half-dozen friends his age on our block, and the doorbell rings daily with a large-eyed child asking if Kellen can come out to play. "I never knew there were so many kids in the neighborhood until Kellen came to live here," Anita said. Kellen will never realize his dream of riding the school bus as long as we live here, because we're so close to his school, McLean Science and Technology Magnet. McLean was second on my list when I was researching Wichita schools and it just so happened that Mark and Anita live in the heart of the school district.

School districts are something I never gave much thought to in the past. If I had my choice I would live in a condo in the center of town or in a funky arts district, but watching Kellen running outside, shouting and playing with his friends makes me almost as happy as having a cafe and bookstore two doors away from a fourth-floor walkup. 

When Kellen goes to college I'll have plenty of time to migrate to my urban stomping grounds. Until then I'll settle in and enjoy the fall in our new neighborhood.