Kazu came to visit

Kazuko has been working at Moselito's home away from home for 12 years now.  She is one of it's strong pillars.  Her parents still ask when she will be coming back to Japan. They don't know that she has no such intention. 

Whenever she comes to visit with me she arrives after closing the day at the Maison E. community which is 9 in the evening.  Most of the times it's a spontaneous surprise visit. She is used to find me pyjama-clad and each time she sends me an e-mail the next day thanking me for my hospitality and apologizing for having kept me up till 2 in the morning. This time she even went so far as to reserve March 2 for a visit. On that occasion we will open the TV - she wants to watch the Oscars. I love her dearly.

Here she is showing me how to take a video with my camera.

Unfortunately she was not around when I needed to be shown how to transfer the video into the blog.  It looks as if I managed. Hm, took me long enough!

They came, they played, they laughed, they argued and Oma is exhausted.

Yes, woof woof, this is the path that leads to the corral where Major is kept. 

He did not 'woof' us that the horse was in the barn.

Where are skateboard sharing rules to be found?
Sneak-a-Snack and Hungry Man were not happy with the ones I made up for them.  They prefer to wrestle over who gets to put his foot on what.

The fishing license was on hand but the boys had forgotten the rods at home.

                    





                    So, what's next?  Let's climb the pole!

           Let's remember this tree so that we can catch the bird on the way back down the mountain.

The boys are back to school.  Not to be seen again till Christmas.


  

Farmer's Market

was on my 'to do' list yesterday.  My first stop was to buy 2 heavy loaves of sesame seed coated spelt bread kneaded by strong hands at a biological co-op farm nearby.  The tall, clean looking farmer with kind words passing his beard-framed lips answered my "how many families run this co-op"  etc. questions with pleasure.  I don't know how our conversation reached the point where I said "I will if I remember".  That's when he started praising the effects of coconut oil.  It being very good for avoiding short memory lapses and even keeping Alzheimer's away.  As he asked "will you remember?" he slipped me this note

We both had a good laugh as I slipped it into the bag containing the breads.

Then, Mr. K. and I bumped into each other as we were looking at a display of mushrooms.
"Oh, the chef is checking out the mushrooms" I exclaimed. He does not know me but everybody knows him.  I remember him parading though the banquet room to a roaring applause of  us diners after a 7-course meal.                                                                    You know what I said to him? No? You'll never guess.   I cleared  my throat and said "when I left the house I told myself that if I meet a chef at the market I will ask him...and you know what, I forgot the question".  Mr. K. laughed and consoled me with "I am to be found here each Saturday".
We parted and a few tables away I stopped here

and remembered my question.  "Do you buy your garlic here at the market? Who has the best? I have a problem with garlic. I don't buy the one from Ch... but the other does not taste like garlic either.  Maybe I have a problem with my taste buds. What do you say?"
I looked for him everywhere, going back to where I came from but no Mr. K-chef was to be found.

Very disappointed I walked back to my car parked in the parking lot of a big surface food store.  I saw him from far and started waving my arms in the air as I was walking towards him.  I told him how I came to remember and put my question to him.  I think he is my age, retired now.  We 'Golden Agers'  are so nice to each other.  He thinks that all garlic sold at the market is good and suggested I never cut it into small pieces but always squeeze it open before adding it to any dish and added with a smile "if that does not work it could be your taste buds".  

The Boys

I have been kind of 'goofing off' lately doing easy on my brain things. 

When Noah, aka Sneak-a-Snack welcomed the arrival of little brother Hayden, aka Hungry Man, I went out and bought these two little journals.  The very first page asks "what is Noah/Hayden up to"  and the following pages give the answer. 
The question is always asked by me, Oma, and the answers can be from either the boys themselves or their parents or other family members or their friends.

I wish I had a drawing talent.  It would have been so easy to just draw a few lines to go with the text.  Something like a comic book but.....  

The way I planed it, I need to be around till age 90 to see their faces when these little journals are given them.