Rugby and the Child-Whisperers

On Saturday night, Emily and I had another new and exciting experience in Taiwan. The Rugby World Cup Final was played here on cable tv at 3a.m. between England (the then current champoins) and South Africa. We invited some of our friends over for a pre-game party and then waited until 3a.m. to go to a pub to watch the rugby final (the most exciting thing about the party was that we finally got our ping pong table out and played for a long time on our roof--we have a great roof, and a great ping pong table and I love it with all of my heart). The majority of foreigners here are South African, which is interesting, and also cool. Two of our good friends at work are from S.A. and so they were really excited that we were joining them so late/early to watch the game. We went to a pub called "Alamo" which actually has a huge mural of the Alamo in one of the walls, and we watched the game along with hundreds of excited fans. Emily and I were two of four who were cheering enthusiastically for England, and truly believed that they would win. Alas, they did not. It was nice to see how excited they were, because judging by how crazy they were about winning, I would not want to be nearby if they lost. Yikes. It was lots of fun, we all had a merry time, and enjoyed ourselves... until we walked outside and greeted the coming dawn. Man was I tired.

Funny, but this made me miss Aggie football a lot. This one friend of ours, Mona, was telling us about the incredible rugby matches back home where 60,000 people show up sometimes and I was like, yeah big deal. I haven't been keeping up with how the Ags are doing, but from experience, maybe it's better not to check and just believe that they are playing well and winning all of their games. Whoop!

More news, Thanksgiving is coming up, and I am excited about cooking my first ever pumpkin pie... in a toaster oven. I already bought a teenie pie plate and can't wait for the magical day to arrive. We do have to work on Thanksgiving though so it will be a late meal. I am open to any suggestions for toaster-oven-friendly recipes that anyone might want to share with me:)

My brilliant co-teacher, Glenn, has come up with the best-ever term for our job description: Child-Whisperers. That's what we are. We can't understand them, they can't understand us, and yet we communicate, and they grow in size and they learn and we grow in pride of them and it's a beautiful part of the circle of life.

I posted some new pictures the other day so take a look.

meow mix

Here they are; Jet li (aka Jet, Jetson, Jumbo Jet) and Ziggy (aka Ziggster, Ziggs). They are cute, and no, Jet Li doesn't have a lazy eye... usually. Okay, sometimes he does. But only when he's really tired. Aren't they cute? Aren't they??? I am starting to like them. More pictures are to come soon, I am about to download 233 from the past couple of weeks, so that will take a while to get up and organized. But there are lots of the cats, which are cute. The other day I accidentally closed them into one of our spare bedrooms and then we couldn't find them. It reminded me of the time I closed my hamster in the pantry years ago and couldn't find her when she was in her ball (which Leah enjoyed rolling her down the hall in, in some sort of sadistic quasi-bowling game). Anyway, we were looking all over the place for them, and usually close the doors before we let them have the run of the place. It was funny. I asked them why they didn't answer when we were calling them, but they didn't really say much to that either. I have to admit, I am not really a pet person. I will continue to update the whole cat situation as the year goes on, and if anyone is interested in owning one or two cats in about a years time, I can probably sort that out for you. They are a very rare and expensive breed of cat native to Taiwan. Worth a lot of money. Lots. And you can have them for FREE. Poop scoop included. Let me know;)

we have cats now

It's true, I am not only a pet owner, but a cat owner. I did not see this day coming at all, in fact, it took me by complete surprise when I offered to take not one but two into my own home. I have never even liked cats even a little bit and here I am taking care of two little kittens. Feeding them, playing with them, and picking up their tiny little poops out of their litter box everyday. It's so weird! I like it though, and that is the really weird part. They are really funny little creatures, they are two brothers and just wrestle constantly with each other. We have a black one and a tabby one. They are both really cute and furry. Tonight we finally named them after a week of wondering what they should be called (this was a really stressful process for me because I feel completely inadequate in giving a name to something--it's kind of a big deal I think. Also because when I named my last pet, my hamster I had when I was 12, I never actually called it its name and just called it Hammy. So I'm still a little worried that I will just call them "Cat" or "Idiot"). ANYWAY, the black one is Ziggy because he's just really chilled out, and would probably just laze around all of the time if it wasn't for his brother who stalks and attacks him constantly. Ziggy does a good job fighting back though because he is a bit bigger than the other one. But usually if I get him alone he will fall asleep on my lap stretched out on his back and will stay that way for hours if I don't move. The tabby one we named Jet Li for his tendency to attack everything that moves and for being very extreme at fighting. I think he'd be an excellent Kung Fu fighter--but he'd probably be great at martial arts in general. Everything about Jet is intense. He never stops moving and attacking and scratching things with his razor sharp claws. I have scratched all over my hands from dealing with him. He's really sweet though, but he's got small cat sydrome sort of like my small girl syndrome. I like them both equally, and it's sort of fun to have little creatures to come home to that will just play around and entertain me. I am realizing that cats are very low maintenance and are ideal pets or substitues for actual children. My favorite thing to do with them is to put one of them under the blanket on my bed, and watch the other one attack the little lump as it moves around all over the place. They can do this for ages at a time, and yet they never figure it out.

Well I know some of you (i.e. Ashley and my Father) will be very disappointed in me for giving in and welcoming these little animals into a place where I live, and believe me, I am still struggling with self respect issues about it myself, but it hasn't been so bad yet. Wish me luck!

Yippie!

Emily and I just bought tickets to Thailand for January 25!