We’ve had our Belgian Fleegan for over two weeks. She met my parents last week. It went a little something, no, it went EXACTLY like this. She and I went over for dinner to mom’n’dad’s. Dad barely spoke and mom was all, “HI. MY. NAME. IS. LAURA.”
Dad and I laughed at mom.

Eventually we were talking about how French words sound so pretty and fancy.

“Like, abattoir,” I said.

“Ooh,” said mom, “what’s that?”

“slaughterhouse.”

So we go back and forth butchering French words we’ve heard from the Pink Panther movies, with Aubergine (I have no clever nickname for our sweet Belgian girl, so I’m going with this French word that Mr. Fleegan and I love to say.) looking at us as though we are insane, which, debatable.

Ma says a few words. I say a few words.

So Aubergine would say something and ma would have this look on her face like, “What did she just say?” and so I’d pronounce whatever it was in an overly American fashion, you know, for the comedy. We were eating corn and I asked her what corn was in French and she said maiz, and I was like, of COURSE it is, everywhere in the world calls it some form of maize and we call it CORN.

Then Ma starts asking Aubergine about her hometown and the Belgian government.

“We have a king.”

“A KING? WHAT’S THE KING’S NAME?”

“Laurent.” Which sounds like Laurahn.

“WHAT?”

“Laurent.”

“Ma, she’s saying Laurent. LOR-ent.”

“Oh. Does your town have a mayor?”

“Yes, but it’s bourgmestre.”

“It’s wha?”

“Ma, it’s like, burgermeister.”

Then dad, who hasn’t spoken at all says, “We have a hamburglar too.”

“Dad!”

“Rabble, rabble, rabble.”

That’s just a typical dinner at the Pickle House.

 

 

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Tags: Aubergine, exchange student, popsicle

just a moc on a rock

  

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Tags: moccasin, nature, snakes

We are still on the first week of being a host home to a really great Belgian student. But I still have several moments of panic each day.

On the first morning we had to get her to school there was some anxiety on my part because, well, you can’t spell Jaimie without a-n-x-i-e-t-y. Mr. Fleegan got her to school on time and everything was great. But as I got to work I was having a giant moment of self-doubt, “What were we thinking? I speak zero French! Can we really do this? Does she understand us? Do I say “OK” too much? Why are we even doing this? I am a failure.” You know, just a regular Tuesday morning.

So I said to God, I said, “Listen, Big Guy. I need some help. Like, how much help you were going to send me, double it, please? ALL THE HELP. I’ll take it. Thank you, Amen.”

Such beautiful prayers I pray.

I get to work and the VERY first patron I have is the very nice Vietnamese lady, who is also very high maintenance. She is very sweet, but she refuses to learn how to use the card catalog and wants us to basically pick out 10 AR books for her children. It’s usually kind of awkward because her accent is heavy and she can be very difficult to understand. Plus, she never brings her kids and it’s difficult to pick out books for kids who aren’t there.

So I’m like, great, right off the bat Tuesday is tryna be Monday. FINE.

I help Mrs. Phan, which was 20 minutes of me trying to explain that we only had three books about wrestling with a level 4 AR score, and that she has, in fact, checked them out before, and that I am very sorry that we don’t have any more wrestling biographies on her daughter’s reading level. And if you think for one second that I am not tickled to death that her tiny 4th grade daughter is obsessed with American wrestling, then you just don’t know me at all.

So eventually I find her 10 level 4 books on various other sports. She starts to leave, then turns back and says, “Thank you. I was glad to see you were here because I like when you help me because you always understand what I say, I don’t have to always repeat, and you are so nice.”

Well, I mean, how nice was that to hear? And it was such a nice reminder that yes, I do have a great knack for understanding heavy accents and broken English. And isn’t the Lord clever and loving?

So I am settling down a little bit, at least with my anxiety over the language gap with our Belgian Fleegan. Who, by the way, speaks really good English considering she’s never been here before.

My new worry is, “Oh my gosh, what if she gets hurt?”

I was talking to some pals at work (read: having a mini-meltdown) and I said, “This is crazy. They gave us a Belgian girl. I have no paperwork on her. I never had to sign anything. I don’t even know how to get in touch with her parents. Like, what the damn hell, this makes no kind of sense. What if something happens?! What if she gets kidnapped?! Who do I call?”

“Liam Neeson.”

“I hate you.”

“I know.”

 

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Tags: Aubergine, exchange student, The Lord

Get a foreign exchange student, they said.
It’ll be fun, they said.

In a total fit of over-confidence, an abundance of American pride, that touch of southern hospitality that we seem to naturally embrace (where did it even come from?), and possibly that 2nd tumbler of red wine, we filled out an application to be a host family for a foreign exchange student program.

The application was intense. I mean, it was not as intense as say, filing for adoption or anything, but it wasn’t fun, answering complicated questions. Halfway through the app I turned to Mr. Fleegan and said, “No. Stop. No more questions tonight. My brain is done.” and then a couple of days later we’d pick it up again. It melted my face off. Mr. Fleegan is way better at this kind of thing, he has, ¿como se dice? Patience.

So we filled out the application and submitted it, online, at 11:00 pm on a Tuesday night. That Wednesday morning they were already calling our references. Our references, I might add, that did not KNOW they were references because we had submitted it so late at night and I figured, you know, I’d have 24 hours to warn people that they’d need to say nice things about us. Things like, “As far as I know, the Fleegans are actual human beings with no criminal records. Outstanding pillars of the community, those two.” Things like that.

I got a text at 10am, “Hey. I just got a call from a youth organization? They asked a lot of questions about you.”

So that went well.

Then, we did not hear anything. For like, 2 months. So we figured, meh, we must not have passed the test. Maybe they found enough host homes and did not need ours. Fine. Good, even. Now I won’t have to DO anything. Everything can stay cool. My routine won’t change and all will be right in Fleeganland, and it was enough that we TRIED, I mean, we got Adult Points for that. What were we even thinking, anyway?

So after two months I actually forgot about the whole thing until I received an e-mail that said something like, “Hey. S’up? Your Belgian student will arrive on Monday. Totes apreesh you keeping her alive for a year. Good luck, suckers!”

I’m OBVIOUSLY paraphrasing.

I may have freaked out about it? I honestly cannot remember. I’ve blocked it all out. When I woke up after have dreams of me yelling, “WHAT HAVE WE DONE? CAN WE DO THIS? WHO ON PLANET EARTH WOULD SEND US THEIR CHILD FOR SAFEKEEPING? HOW DID WE PASS THIS TEST? WHAT WERE THE QUALIFICATIONS? FOUR WALLS AND A ROOF? DID SOMEONE TURN OUT THE LIGHTS? I CANT BREATHE.” we had a sweet Belgian girl in our living room.

This was three days ago.

Um, do we, uh, do we feed her something?

 

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Tags: Aubergine, exchange student

   
 
Are they cute, or what? 

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Here they are, going for the gusto. If there were Olympics for pudding my money’d be on Smalls.

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This is a short story prequel to Gwenda Bond’s new YA book Lois Lane: Fallout. It introduces us to teen Lois Lane as a new student in a high school chemistry class. Now, here is the thing, I actually read the novel Lois Lane: Fallout first, and I’m glad I did, because Cloudy With a Chance of Destruction is so, so short and it has so little meat to it that if I had read the short story first I don’t think I would have picked up Fallout because I would have reckoned the novel to be just as weak as the short story.

I LOVED Lois Lane:Fallout. So I’m glad I read it first.

So if you read Cloudy first, and like me, you thought it was weaksauce, I suggest you still give Fallout a try because it is a really fun reimagining of Lois Lane.

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So I started reading this art book because I enjoy having both a fiction and nonfiction book going at the same time. I didn’t look into the book, just chose it purely by the cover (Surely not, book nerd! Oh, yeah. I’m a sucker for good artwork.)

As I started reading it I thought, “Damn, this guy talks fancy.” and as it when on I thought, “Like, real fancy. This guy sounds like he’s from 100 years ago.”
Then I ran across a racial slur and I was all, “No way! Am I reading a time machine?!” and I went back to the small print at the beginning and saw that, indeed, it was written nearly 100 years ago, and that the publisher regrets some of the more ignorant of language but that they decided to keep it like it was, for I dunno, reasons historical or whatnot.

This book is not an instructional book. I would never recommend this book for how-to-draw purposes. It is more of a philosophical book about lines and art and what makes something beautiful. It was a delight to read! Mostly. There were several racial slurs in it and every time I read one it threw me completely out of the book, and honestly, I think the publisher or whoever could’ve taken them out or AT LEAST replaced it with the word negro and added an asterisk or something.

So I did enjoy the chapters where the author got real deep into “What’s a point?” and “What’s a line?” and reading about the different pens at the time was a trip! But my favorite chapter was the one on beauty. It was really thought-provoking and had me thinking if we still have the same perception of beauty today and how universal beauty is. This chapter alone is worth the price of the book.

If you want a philosophical look at drawing, or enjoy deep thoughts about lines and beauty, or are just an Art Nerd like me, I think you’ll get a kick out of this book, IF you can overlook a few ignorant words.

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Tags: art, nonfiction

Sometimes a pal will text me something serious (it happens) so I commiserate and also send a little prayer. It’s usually a no big deal, short prayer. I’m not bragging about this, okay? I’m just giving you some background info here. Anyway, this keeps happening, and the response from my pals has been really sweet. So I recommend this because how many times do you get a text that’s like, “Working with the public is the bane of my existence!” and you can be all, “Dude, I KNOW.” and then add something like, “Jesus, please, you gotta help us love people like you love people cos man, I cannot love people without you. Thank you. Amen.” See? See how easy?

So like I say, this has had a positive effect, on ME. I don’t even KNOW what it’s doing to my friends, that’s their business. But now, I keep noticing that when I get a petty (or maybe not so petty) event in my life I totally lose it for a moment and then like a flash I’m all, “F it. Let’s pray.”

I realize that by saying the F word I’m completely showing the world that I’m a lousy Christian. I’m okay with that, for now.

So I’ve got this pal, we’ll call her Jen. And she had some family drama involving her brother and sis-in-law. the SIL was jealous and weird about the brother’s family being so close and so blah blah blah troublecakes. This lady (and husband and kid) came in to my workplace the other day, and I don’t know her from Adam, but I see her last name is familiar and I’m like, “Oh snap. I know who this is. That’s Jen’s bro, and that is Troublecakes. I’m gonna make her eat it.”

But like, AM I going to make her eat it? And how? What should I do?

So what I did was all, “Hey, your last name here, you have to be related to Jen, right?”

“Yes! I’m her sister-in-law, and that’s her brother.”

“Well, let me tell you. We LOVE Jen here. She is THE BEST. In fact, her whole family is great!”

She agreed. She was actually a really nice person. But it’s not like I’m not going to stop feeding her how great Jen is.

“Oh, and Jen’s kids are so sweet. It’s ridiculous how great her kids are.”

She agreed. She was all smiles. And inside I was happy cos all I did was say true things.

So I text Jen and say, “Hey I just met your SIL and I totally sang your praises, so I hope that did some good cos you really are a great human.”

Jen was tickled about it. She then told me that the SIL had, a couple of months ago, apologized for being troublecakes. And things were getting better. So that’s cool, right? Right. But she then said that she and her brother were still not as close as they used to be and that she missed that and prays for it a lot.

Well. That got me right in the feels. Like, my heart hurt. All I could think was oh man, what if my brother and I weren’t pals anymore? I wouldn’t want to live in a world like that. So I’m like, whoa. We gotta pray about this. Perfect. I’ll do up a quick text prayer! NBD.

But I was at work, and for some reason, it all of a sudden got very busy at work. I was like, “Jesus! Come on! We gotta pray.” and I’d take my phone out and swipe the screen and the circ desk phone would ring. “NOOO. I’m tryna-” Someone would need computer lab help. Then things would quiet down and I’d get my phone out and swipe the screen and someone would come up to the desk with 20 books to check out. “LORD. We GOTTA– Jen’s BROTHER.” These are the prayers I’m saying: “Nooo. I’m tryna- Jen’s brother! But. LORD. COME ON.” I couldn’t even send her a text that said, “Fix it, Jesus.” And I don’t know why I wanted to pray right then, you know? Like, it was just inside my bones that it needed praying immediately.

For 40 WHOLE, COMPLETE MINUTES… I try to get a prayer out, and am thwarted EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

Then I get a text from Jen: “Jaimie, I don’t know what you just did, but my brother called me out of the blue!”

Wha? I didn’t DO anything! I never got a chance to. So with tears on my face I say, “Jesus! You total show-off! THANK YOU. Thank you. Thank you!” and THEN I get a moment of time to text Jen back that I’m crying and that God is awesome. And she said that she was crying and that yes, God is amazing.

So here I am at the end of the story and I’m like, why am I sharing this? I don’t know. I thought it was a really cool thing that Jesus heard/honored a prayer that I couldn’t verbalize, that I could just feel real hard in my bones. Show-off!

 

 

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Tags: fixitjesus, Jesus

  
There’s the Pickle fam on the steps of the courthouse after signing the last of the adoption papers. Sweets and Smalls are now officially Pickle kids! It’ll probably take at LEAST a week before my smile fades. 😉

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Tags: leetle brahther, sweets and smalls

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