Communication breakdown

OK, so I lifted the title of this entry from a song (can you hear the tune in your head?), but it fits in this case.

When husbands and wives don’t communicate clearly, the results can vary greatly. Sometimes they can be aggravating, sometimes disastrous, and sometimes a little funny, with perhaps an element of providence thrown in too.

Yesterday I phoned my wife asking if she was ok with having 20 people over for dinner. That was my way of asking if the group of visitors I had been spending the day with could come over and join us for pizza at our house. She quickly agreed. The problem is, I was not clear on which 20 people that meant. You see, we currently have a number of groups of visitors, and she thought I meant the group of international volunteers we spent last week doing orientation with. I meant a different group. We clearly missed each other in this process.

She agreed to have the people over, and then proceeded to invite some of the people from the group she thought I meant. I proceeded to invite the group I actually meant, and transport to/from our house was arranged. By the time we spoke again, and realized our mistake, we now had 35 people coming to our house for dinner.

Oooops! Good thing we have a decent sized apartment to fit them all into.

So, 8 or 9 large pizzas later and an equal number of portions of garlic breadsticks along with several liters of Coke, Pepsi, and other soft-drinks later, we had successfully fed all of our guests. One of the big hits were the chocolate chip cookies that my wife quickly made using the chips one of these groups had brought us. Not a scrap of food was left, but everyone seemed satisfied.

The evening was a success by most accounts. People got to meet new friends, hang out and play games, rest, check email and so on, and all of this in spite of our blunder on who it was that was being invited. So in the end, this time the result of our communication breakdown was good, and likely included that measure of providence I mentioned earlier.

When did you experience a communication breakdown, and what was the result?

How do you show you are angry or upset?

The other day we were driving in the car and it was raining a little bit and traffic was, as usual, all cafluffled as a result. At one point in the drive a bus and a scooter had a near-miss and a brief exchange of ‘pleasantries’, which my son saw out his side window.

In his enthusiastic, somewhat incredulous type of voice, he relayed what happened for the rest of us to hear. “Mommy, daddy, just now there was a scooter a bus that almost hit each other. The man on the scooter was really mad at the bus driver for almost hitting him.”

We asked him how he knew the man on the scooter was really mad. Before he could reply, my daughter asked a follow up question, sounding more like she was trying to answer for him than anything else – “Did he show his teeth to him?”

Apparently our older dog Maggie has left an impression on the kids. When she gets mad or scared she will show her teeth to let you know to back off. The kids, or at least my daughter, now associates showing anger with showing your teeth to someone.

So how do you show someone you are angry or upset? Do you show your teeth?

The newest Oakridge boy

We went today for the orientation program at my son’s new school, called Oakridge International School. He is very excited that the day is finally here to wear his new uniform and meet his classmates and new teacher. He is finally . . . . an Oakridge boy. As he says that memories of 8 track cassettes in my childhood come back. Ahhh . . . the Oakridge Boys. But he is a different kind of Oakridge boy, one with a small ‘b’.

As we got ready and headed to the school, several sayings or phrases came out of the boy that gave me a giggle or a laugh. Among them are the following:

“Daddy, now, when Maggie (one of our two dogs) bites me I won’t cry because Oakridge boys don’t cry for that stuff.” (I love that he said when, not if. He does have one experience with this, so I hope he is not prophetic.)

(said while walking down the steps while looking straight ahead, not at his feet as usual) “Look daddy , I can walk down the stairs without looking down. Oakridge boys can do that.”

(also while walking down the stairs) “And, I also don’t have to hold the handrail while going down. Oakridge boys don’t need to hold on.”

(said to sister while walking up to the front of the school on orientation day) “Slow down!! Only Oakridge boys can walk fast like this.”

He made it sound as if simply by being enrolled in the school, he had somehow become smarter, more able to take care of himself, and more physically gifted than he was last night when he went to bed. If only it were that easy. My gym membership does not work that way for sure.

And all the while, his little sister, who I call ‘Monkey’ for exactly this kind of thing, was mimicking his every move, and trying to do it better than he had done it.

Moments like that make it fun to be a parent.

Back to School

It’s back to school time here. My daughter began her new year today. She was excited to go back and get the year going. She claims to be really looking forward to having homework this year, like her big brother did last year. Always knew there was something wrong with that one. Liking homework? She did not get that from me, since in four years of high school I brought homework home only one night – out of the whole four years!! I fully expect she will do school this year like she does most everything else in life – full throttle! You go girl!

My son is also excited, but for different reasons. He gets to ride the bus to and from school this year. We went this morning to see the bus stop, and figure out exactly where he has to wait, and so on. He does not start until next week, but the older kids go this week, so we took advantage of the ‘dry run’ for the morning bus routine. I even flagged the bus down to speak to the driver and watchman (they have dedicated security on these buses in addition to the driver, thankfully), which the boy thought was pretty neat that his dad can stop buses whenever he wants to.

We have begun talking through how he should behave on the bus, etc. He told me if other children do things they should not do, or if they start picking on him, he is just going to ‘sit nicely and look out the window and pretend they are not even there.” His words, not mine. Part of me fears how he will change this year with exposure to all kinds of things (people, behaviors, language, etc.) that are largely out of our control. He is a great kid that usually shows real tenderness when given a chance. His sister can be the exception to that rule.

My how time flies. It was not so long ago they were just little ones, and now they are off to school and becoming little people in the process. Soon, they will be at the point of being sure they are smarter than their parents. I keep warning the boy at least that I will always be bigger, faster, smarter, and stronger. In my heart, though, I know that may very well not be true.

One down, about eight to go

Got one of our recently deceased appliances working again this weekend. The fridge is now back to its cooling ways.

The repair man came on Friday to look at it, on hour 49 of the promised 48 hour window of time for his arrival. He made quick work of the situation and assessed the problem, removed the faulty part, and headed out to go get a replacement, telling me he would be back the next day to finish the job.

Saturday, while my wife and I were out at a movie (Ocean’s Thirteen, worth seeing once at least) he arrived back at the house. Our house helper let him in, and within 10 minutes the new part was installed and the fridge back in working order. Quick (at least by time standards here), and painless too.

The best part was the cost – absolutely nothing. We were within a month of the end of our one year warranty period, so they fixed it for free. Unfortunately the other items will not be repaired for free since none of them are under warranty any more. Oh well, at least that one was quick and easy.

A yucky cold story

WARNING – some of you might think the following is TMI (too much information). Read on at your own risk!


I am just getting over a cold. Had it for about a week now, and can’t wait to be rid of it. I am not a good sick person.

The other night I had quite a restless night of sleep. I keep a fan next to my side of the bed that blows across my upper body and head to help keep me cooler. At one point I woke up to what seemed like something wet splashing across my face. My first thought was that the monsoon rains had begun, and we now had a new leak in our roof, right on to my head. Great grief!

But no, that was not it. After waking up a bit more, I realized it was snot, dripping steadily from my nose, and as it was falling the air from the fan was blowing it – right back into my face and splashing on to my cheek before falling on to my pillow – which was by now soaked with my ‘nose nectar’. Pretty gross – even by my own usually low standards.

So there you have it. TMI. I warned you.

Burn, baby, burn

First the fire, then the flood, and now things burning up – sort of.

We have had some power issues the last couple of days in our building. At first I thought one of our ACs had gone bad, so after some lugging and heavy lifting, and help from my wife in this process, we moved the office AC into the bedroom and vice versa. That was not the problem apparently.

Throughout that long and restless night of sleep with no AC, the power seemed to be going up and down, based on the random speed of the ceiling fan throughout the night.

We got up the next morning to find that the power was still not stable. After about an hour, the lights suddenly became much brighter very quickly. The Fridge door being opened nearly required sunglasses due to the glare of the light inside.

By then, the damage was done. There were no noticeable blasts, or pops, or puffs of smoke. Nothing to hint of the damage done. However, a surge of voltage well above our normal range had coursed through our building (we found out later apparently it was only in our building, and only in half the building since there are two main power panels).

Over the next several hours we began to notice several things not working the way they should. The fridge was the first casualty we noticed. The light was still on inside, but the compressor was no longer working, and things were beginning to get warmer in there. Not good.

Then we noticed the microwave, then the stereo, then the cable tv box, then the vcr, and the cordless phones, and so on. Ironically in two parts of the house, there were two power strips with multiple items plugged into them, where half the items blew and half were just fine. Odd to me that not everything blew that was in that same line.

So, we now begin the process of trying to repair what can be, and consider replacements for what is needed. By God’s grace our office and all of its computers was totally fine, including our own computers. We hope the fridge might be covered under warranty, but the other items we will have to pay for. Some might need to wait for a few months.

Thankfully we have a guest house just one floor down that is not housing anyone right now, so I carried that fridge up to our place last night to allow us to save most of the cold stuff. That will get us through until the fridge can be fixed. The microwave is the biggest loss right now.

More on this saga in the days to come.

The birthday girl

“Hey daddy . . . . . . . I am four now.” These were the words whispered into my ear yesterday morning by my daughter to wake me up.

The day had finally arrived. We had talked about it for weeks, planned lots of funs things for the day and she was geared up for it. I can only imagine her glee when her eyes opened and she realized the day was finally here.

Chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast, off to church in a new dress, and presents throughout the day. A good afternoon nap and lots of friends over for a party in the evening, with tons of great food, games, more presents and three birthday cakes. Yes, three birthday cakes. A purple flower shaped cake, a pink flower shaped cake, and a purple and pink castle design cake – all her choices.

By the time the party wound down, she was exhausted and yet so eager to not let go of the day. Once she was finally in bed it only took a few minutes until she was off to a deep sleep, hopefully filled with happy thoughts and memories of her special day.

Happy Birthday sweet girl!!

Family fun time

This last week was really great. My wife had been invited to participate and help teach at a women’s conference in another part of the country. We decided to make it a family affair and drive over to the city the conference was being held in. The kids and I would play and relax while my wife spoke at the conference a few of the days, which is something she loves, so it was ‘relaxing’ for her too.

Our host for the week arranged a great place a little outside the city for us to stay. We had requested somewhere with a pool for the kids, and she got us a great rate on a great place. At times we had the place to ourselves it seemed. Very odd for such a nice place to be so empty.

We had a nice view of the valley and the city within it. We had the pool just outside our balcony. We had lots of helpful staff around to do almost anything. We had a playground less than a hundred yards away. We had beautiful weather all week, including the brief rain one afternoon and a lightning storm one night. What more could we ask for? We were truly spoiled this last week.

A few stats from the trip for those who care:
Total distance driven – 1140 kms (just over 700 miles) roundtrip
Total driving time – just under 17 hours roundtrip
Average driving speed – roughly 70 kms/hr (under 45 mph)*
Fuel burned – 114 liters (roughly 30 gallons)
Average fuel economy – 10 kms/liter (roughly 24 mpg)

* - we got several comments from people that they could not understand how we were able to drive so fast. So fast?!? And average speed of 45 mph over 700 miles does NOT feel fast to us, but under these conditions, we made good time.

And for those who really care:

Total Driveway Shovels – still 0!!!