"She threw up her hands and..."

I have always hated the phrase, "to throw up one's hands". In the course of the massive amounts of reading that I do, I run across said expression on occasion, and in my humble opinion, "on occasion" is far too frequently.

Am I the only one who envisions "throwing up" as in vomiting, instead of "raising in the air"? Here's what runs through my brain when I see, "And in desperation, she threw up her hands and screamed."

First, the character abruptly stops doing whatever she was doing before, with a look of confusion on her face. She begins to retch. At first it's just dry heaves, but you see her hands begin to jerk at the ends of her arms in time with the heaving. Eventually the poor woman's hands disappear into her body, only to re-appear in the form of vomit a few seconds later.

There the poor character is, looking with shock at her own hands, in a sad puddle of...you know. Makes you hope the character in question is a horrible antagonist. Maybe a home-wrecker or a terrorist mastermind. Oooo, or someone who kicks puppies. In that case I might not mind the hand-vomit as much.

Gross, right? So why does the literary world insist on continuing to use this horrid phrase? Might I suggest an alternative? Perhaps your character could "raise her hands in the air" or even just "throw her hands in the air" instead of throwing them up.

(are these lyrics going through your mind now, too? "Throw your hands in the air, shake your derrière. These three words when you're gettin' busy: Whoomp! They it its! Sing it!")

Ok. I guess that's all I have to say about that. Bye.

Autumn

I love fall. I'm pretty sure I've written about that before. I enjoy all the seasons, and particularly the fact that they pass so I don't get too tired of any season before it is replaced by the next one in line. But fall's my favorite. Which means that it's the one I miss most here in eternal-springtime-Quito.

When people back home start posting pictures of the leaves turning and taking their kids or youth groups to a pumpkin patch or on a hay ride, I can't help but feel a little sad that I'm missing out.

Fall is meant to be enjoyed with all of your senses. Seeing the vibrant red and yellow leaves and the jack-o-lanterns glowing on the porches. Smelling that crispy scent of dying things outside and the warm scents of spicy, pumpkin-y things inside. Feeling the snap of the first hard frost. Tasting fresh apple cider and even those horrible little candy corns. Hearing the crunch of the leaves and the crackle of the bonfires.

Here in Quito, the weather's been about the same since I got back. If it's a cloudy day it's cool. If it's a rainy day it's cold. And if it's a sunny day, it's warm. But regardless of what type of day it is, the temperature rarely deviates more than about 20 degrees. We look at the calendar here to determine what season it is. My brain has lost the ability to just KNOW where we are in the year. I have to think about the month, then about what season that month falls in at home. It's a weird process to go through after spending the first 27 years of my life just KNOWING. But I guess for now I'll just have to settle for knowing that it's fall...somewhere. If you're "somewhere", please enjoy some fall for me, ok?

Enlightenment at Burger King

This weekend I needed to go to the grocery store. We may all be equally weary at this point of my extreme detestation of grocery shopping in Ecuador. So in order to motivate (aka: bribe) myself to go (and partially because I was basically out of food) I decided to go to Burger King first for lunch, and then get groceries and head home.

I ordered my standard: a Whopper Jr. meal; yes cheese; no pickles (which, comically, in Spanish is "sin pikles" [seen peek-lays]; Coke Zero. My total was $4.99. I gave the teenage girl behind the counter a ten. She gave me back a ten, a five, and a penny.

I looked at the cash in my hand for a second. Here's what went through my head, all in about .25 seconds:

-She gave me the wrong change
-$10!
-I can really use that money- in a few minutes at the grocery store!
-That's not ok. We call that STEALING. STEALING=BAD.
-Give it back

I looked at the girl and said, "I gave you a ten." I held out the ten dollar bill. She looked at me blankly. [this blank look is all-too-common in my Spanish-speaking world] I repeated it, and again handed back the ten.

Understanding flashed across her face, and the cashier made the Ecuadorian "whew!" hand signal [pressing the thumb and middle finger of the right hand together and shaking the hand back and forth on the wrist; weird, right?] She proceeded to thank me profusely.

I smiled my most gracious, gringa-missionary smile that said, "Of COURSE I'm returning the extra money! I would NEVER consider keeping what isn't mine!"

Then for the next few minutes, as I waited for my order to come up, I basked in the warm glow of what a great person I am. It took a few minutes. Both for my food to arrive, and for me to realize my NEXT problem.

Was I, by chance, feel smug and self-satisfied because I DIDN'T STEAL from Burger King? Seriously? I felt proud of not stealing. Such an accomplishment after 20 years of walking with and learning from my Creator. Go. Me.

This verse popped into my mind as I munched on my french fries and pondered in a back corner of my mind how ice always seems to go so terribly wrong outside of North America:

"The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure.
Who can understand it?" -Jeremiah 17:9

Ain't that the truth?

But then this verse brings some hope for such as myself:

"But you, O Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God,
slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness." -Psalm 86:15

Thanks, God.

A Collection of Passing Thoughts...in the absence of something significant to write about.

-I usually do one load of laundry a week. Saturday morning. Today I learned that skipping a week is not advisable. I am typing in my pj's because all my clothes are in the laundry. I hope no one comes to the door before about noon.

-In my classroom, I have four rules. The one I like the best is "No Whining". In my defense, I come by my severe aversion to whining honestly. I can still see my mom in my mind's eye, saying to us as kids, "When you whine I can't understand you. If you want to tell me something, say it in a normal voice."

Yesterday afternoon I was about ten minutes from the end of my Study Skills class; 2:30 on a Friday afternoon. Trying to teach at 2:30 on a Friday afternoon is generally an exercise in futility, but yesterday I really felt like we were getting somewhere. The class was working on techniques for taking good notes. We had just finished working really intently on a particular article, and I was passing out a second article, which was to be homework. There was a bit of whining. I can't say that I could really blame them. But, in the interest of consistency I said, "Do I hear whining?" There was a low mumble of defeated apology across the room. I proceeded to pass out papers and when I returned to the front of the room, I saw that Ana Julia had put her head down on her arms on the desk. Concerned that she wasn't feeling well, I put my hand on her shoulder and said, "Ana Julia, are you feeling ok?"

Ana Julia looked up at me with sad brown eyes and said, quite seriously, "I'm whining silently."

I couldn't help but laugh with the rest of the class. I love my job.

-Last spring I bought an apron. This is my first apron since the little pink calico one Grandma Nell made for me when I was maybe 6. Brittony got a matching one. I still have mine in a box somewhere.

But anyway, given my propensity to be a messy cook, and even a messy dish-washer, I decided it was time to invest. So last spring I spent $10 to buy another hand-made apron. This one was black with a pocket and trim made of a pattern of red and green chili peppers, and was made by the Women's Prison Ministry ladies. In Ecuador, you have to provide for your own food and clothing if you're in prison. A group from my church helps to train prisoners in making things like aprons and greeting cards, to sell for food money. I like to support this ministry when I can.

I do not like chili peppers. But I DO like this apron. This morning, as I set about washing some dishes...in my pajamas...I put on my apron and thought for the umpteenth time what a good purchase it was. I love it when I buy something that makes me feel satisfied each time I use it.

-Don't you think it's weird how bananas make those little black lines in your banana bread? What are those little black lines? They weren't there when I smashed up the bananas and mixed them into the batter. Weird, right?

-I've been back from my summer trip to Ohio for almost seven weeks. When I got home, of course, I immediately unpacked my suitcases. But then when I finished there was the flotsam and jetsam- a random collection of things that apparently seemed important when I was packing, but that don't really have a place to go when it's time to unpack. And so, for seven weeks, these items lived on my spare bed. Then last night I had friends over to my apartment. And suddenly, that which I never got around to for almost two months, was taken care of in about 90 seconds. Sometimes my abilities to procrastinate astound even me.

-Fin.

Barley Soup and Pretzel Rolls

I have decided. I'm going to try really hard to post once a week. Even if there's not much to say, except, say, that I just accidentally made some AWESOME barley soup.

I had some broth and chicken leftover in the freezer from a couple weeks back that I wanted to use. And then I finally decided to clean out my veggie drawer in the fridge. It wasn't pretty. Basically all that was salvageable were some carrots. They were a little rubbery, but I figured that's just a bit of dehydration, and soaking in some chicken broth should fix it. I was right. So in went the broth, chicken, carrots, and some frozen peas that the girl who stayed at my house this summer left in the freezer.

I knew Jilly left them, cause I really don't like the peas here. They are either hard or mush. I prefer my peas to be somewhere smack in the happy medium between hard and mush. So I figured the soup would be a good solution to the pea problem. I mean, I couldn't just throw them away! My mother was raised by the world's example of "waste not want not". I'm serious. Look up that phrase in the dictionary and you'll see a picture of my grandma, Mrs. Nellie House. If word got out that I threw out perfectly good frozen peas just because I didn't like them, Grandma Nell would be disappointed (which is, of course, far worse than "angry") and my poor mother might roll over in her grave, out of residual familial guilt. And that would be particularly amazing since she was cremated and doesn't have a grave.

So I put the peas in the soup. But the best part of the soup? Barley. I recently discovered barley in my personal quest to introduce more whole grains into my diet. You long-term-readers may remember my disastrous first experience with the expansion powers of barley. Happily, I've come a long way since then. I now know, for example, that a cup of dry barley is enough for a pot of soup; adding the entire bag of barley is not advisable.

Right now I'm eating this soup while I write to you. The carrots (which have recovered nicely from their extended visit to my vegetable drawer) add just a hint of sweetness. The peas are the ideal texture. The barely adds depth but has not taken the soup hostage. Yay! And in case the yummy accidental soup wasn't enough, I have a fresh, delicious pretzel roll, bought mere minutes ago at the swanky bakery, CorFu, instead of my standard bakery, Arenas.

I love it when a non-plan comes together.